In Shining Whatever (Three Magic Words Trilogy #2)(22)

"Not going to happen, Jethro Hart"

He almost winced, but caught himself before he actually frowned. That hurt like the devil, but he was learning.

He yawned. "Let's take just a thirty-minute nap. I've got an alarm on my watch in the drawer there."

She shook her head. "You are going to stay awake."

"Did he say I have to stay in this bed all night?"

She pushed the nurse's call button. "I'll ask Steve"

In less than a minute, Steve pushed his machinery back into the room. "I saw your button and I'm going off duty in about fifteen minutes, so I'll get your vitals one more time. What did you need?"

"He wants to know if he can take a stroll in the hospital to stay awake. He's getting sleepy," Kate said.

Steve wrapped a cuff around Hart's arm, pushed a button, and then registered his pressure on a pad. "I don't see what it would hurt. You're not attached to an IV. I'll get you another hospital gown to use for a robe. You're going to have to call someone for clothing to wear home tomorrow morning if the doc releases you"

"Didn't think about that," Hart said gruffly, remembering the price of that vest and chaps as well as the freshly laundered, starched jeans.

Kate stood up and stretched. She reminded Hart of a sleek panther, flexing her muscles like that. No wonder that band fellow was attracted to her. Jealousy flared up at even the thought of another man dancing with his Kate.

Now where did that come from? My Kate indeed. She won't even go out with me.

"I'll go with you and bring back the robe," she said as Steve left.

In a few minutes they were prowling through the halls. There weren't many patients in the hospital. The county needed it desperately for acute care, but most patients were treated and sent on to outlying larger hospitals if they needed further help.

"Let's go outside," he said.

"It's pretty cool, and you're dressed scantily," she said.

"Then let's sit in the emergency waiting room where I can at least see out. I hate this cooped-up feeling," he said. "Let's sit in your truck."

"Little cold wind might wake you up," she mused.

"Just an hour in your truck, where we can listen to some music. What you got out there?"

"Not much. Little bit of country music on a mix tape. Some Kenny Rogers and Dolly on it. Got the new Zac Brown Band. Bought it yesterday after we heard the music at Theron and Fancy's place. Oh, and that one of Trent Tomlinson that's got `One Wing in the Fire' on it. It reminds me of Daddy. He liked his Saturday night cochons de lait."

"So your daddy didn't have a halo?"

"Momma says he was the bad boy of her dreams. He says that when he crawled off that bus in Albany, Texas, back when she was seventeen, she knew that minute she wasn't letting him go another mile."

He gasped when the cold March wind shot up under his gown, but kept walking beside her until they got to the truck.

"Oops, the keys are-in-my purse," she said.

"Hurry. I'll wait right here," he said.

She took off in a trot.

He shivered until she got back.

She started the engine and warmed the cab of the truck.

"Warm enough, cher?" she asked, a wicked gleam in her brown eyes.

"You calling me a sissy?"

"Take it any way you want" She pulled a CD case from under the seat and flipped through the discs until she found "Country Is My Rock" by Trent Tomlinson. She put it in the player and turned the volume up high enough that she wouldn't have to talk to Hart for half an hour. She poked the Next button until "One Wing in the Fire" started and sang along with it, remembering her father and mother dancing on the green grass at one of the cochons de fait at Maw Maw Miller's place.

Tears gathered behind her thick lashes as she listened to the singer talking about his father going to church on Sunday morning, with Saturday night on his breath. Her father did love a good time but mostly, looking back, it was showing off Mary and dancing with her that he liked the most.

He'd been there for Kate from the time she was born until the day he died, giving her unconditional love. That's the kind of husband she wanted to father her own children. How on earth did Mary Miller ever survive without him? Her memories must be the stuff that romance books were written about.

The tears brimmed and fell when the singer talked about trading a thousand prayers if just one prayer would come true: that God would believe in his father. Kate knew her father had gotten a free pass through the pearly gates, because no one could make it if he couldn't.

When the song ended, Hart pressed the pause button and cupped her chin in his hand. "What is it, Kate?"

"It was written to Trent's daddy but it's about mine. I miss him, Hart. Sometimes I wish I hadn't been so anxious to leave home and get my own place."

"Hindsight is twenty/twenty. But think of it this way. They had all those years with just the two of them, like a honeymoon. What was it, about ten or eleven?"

She nodded.

He wiped her tears with the back of his hand and gently kissed her cheek.

"I like that idea. They deserved a few years without a kid underfoot. I was an accident. No question about it. My youngest brother was already in high school. Thank you for that thought," she whispered.