Love on the Range (Brothers in Arms #3)(3)

So he just stayed where he was and watched Molly sleep. He’d done some wiggling when he’d tried to sit up, and she’d slept through it, so she must be exhausted. Poor thing.

He realized that her name could be Hunt, too, if he married up with her. And shouldn’t a man marry a woman he shared a bed with?

Especially when he was so uncommonly pleased to wake up next to her.

There were dark shadows under her eyes. His head was clear enough to remember being in and out of consciousness, fighting a blazing fever. A lot of it was blurred, but he knew whatever else was going on, whoever else was around, Molly had always been there.

Marrying a woman he really didn’t know at all just because he liked waking up next to her struck him as a lunatic notion. But his life was one lunatic moment after another lately.

Anyway, she didn’t like him much. So he set the idea aside.

Garner. Molly Garner.

There, somehow knowing her name released him from any plans to change her name to Hunt by marrying up with her. He could remain single.

Relief swept through him, and that relief told him he’d made the right decision.

Still, she was a pretty little thing.

Her eyes fluttered open. Lashes long and dark around eyes blue as the Wyoming sky. Her fine, flyaway blond hair was a real mess. He wanted to smooth it down, but one arm was tied up, and the other was busy holding her.

She had on a dress in the same pale blue as her eyes. The dress was sprinkled with little white flowers. The whole thing was a mass of wrinkles. That’s what came of sleeping in your clothes, and in fairness, it also came from working day and night, probably not taking the time to change, and for certain not taking the time to iron her dress.

His last clear memory was of morning, and now, judging by how the sun came in his window, it was near suppertime.

“How long have we been sleeping . . . together?” Some impish impulse made him add that last word.

She gasped, sitting up like she’d been bounced by a spring. Her fair skin flushed until he was afraid her head would light up like a torch and set her hair afire.

He smiled, couldn’t stop himself. Then he laughed.

He hadn’t laughed much for a long time.

“I-I—that is—we—”

Since words seemed to be beyond her, and he remembered how she’d cared for him, he figured asking for some kind of help would bump her off her stuttering.

“Can I have a drink of water?”

She grabbed that request like it was a lifeline thrown to her in a rampaging river.

Picking up the tin cup, still with water in it, she slid an arm behind his shoulders. Getting close to him just like she’d been, but now it was work.

He took a sip. “That tastes like a bit of heaven.” He drained the whole cup. Then saw a slice of bread on the bedside table. “Can I have that bread, too? I think my stomach is waking up along with me.”

The flush was fading as she found work to do. She picked up the bread, then frowned and tapped it, dry as the Mojave, against the plate it lay on.

“You just stay still.” She had a pert little voice. Bossy, but in a way so cute, he didn’t mind taking orders, much.

“I’ll be right back with fresh bread and warm broth.”

“I would greatly appreciate that.”

She patted him on his good shoulder and ran out of the room. Whether to escape the embarrassing situation of waking up in his arms or because she was hustling to give him whatever he needed, it didn’t matter. Both left him oddly cheerful, and there wasn’t much cheerful that’d gone on around here lately.

And he had no intention of staying still.

Wyatt sat up slowly. He found he wasn’t really tied down, just bound tightly to his own body. He was careful not to move his strapped-down arm. He found his thoughts turning . . . buzzy. Like a swarm of bees filled his head. His vision did something weird, something that was darker and darker. Using his good arm, he leaned back a bit and braced himself. If he passed out, he wanted to fall backward onto the bed, not forward onto the floor. That couldn’t be good for what ailed him.

His vision went so far down that road to darkness he thought he was going to fall over, then it stopped getting worse and began to clear. The room came slowly back to its normal sunlit self. The buzzing eased, then faded.

All he wanted was a good, hearty drink of water, and he wanted to slip into the closet, where they kept a chamber pot.

Gripping the head of his bed tightly, he stood, testing his strength with every move. He wasn’t being careless or reckless. But a few things a man needed to tend to for himself if at all possible.

When he was sure his legs would hold him, he walked, leaning when he could, into the closet. He was out quick, not wanting Molly to catch him.

He stopped by the water pitcher. His hand trembled as he poured a full cup of water and gulped it down. It stuffed his belly full to bursting. He tottered back to the bed and sat down, then lay down, feeling smug that he’d gotten away with something before his eagle-eyed doctor got back.

He heard Molly on the stairs, and she appeared, still a bit pink cheeked, with a tray holding a bowl and some bread. He smelled the soup before he saw it.

“I have a chicken soup for you. Mostly broth but a bit of chicken and vegetables so you can, I hope, regain your strength.” She pulled a chair close and laid a napkin on his chest, then held out the bowl and handed him the spoon. He felt an odd twinge of pride that she was going to let him feed himself instead of trying to spoon the soup in herself, like a mother would a child.