A Match Made in Texas (4 page)

“Wonderful,” he said, using his thumb to tidy the corners of his lips. “This is the best cup of coffee I’ve had in weeks. Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” she said, smiling down at him, and oddly enough, he thought that it just might be. She actually seemed pleased that he enjoyed the coffee. Something about that struck him as…Well, it just struck him.

He had little time to puzzle over the matter as Aaron carried his breakfast tray into the room just then. Despite being rumpled and unshaven, Aaron whistled cheerily as he crossed the floor.

“It’s a good thing I’m a married man again,” he said at his jocular best, “or else I’d have to take that Hilda away from poor old Chester. That woman can cook! Mmm-mmm.”

At the word
again,
Stephen saw Kaylie’s eyebrows rise ever so slightly. Silently amused, he glanced innocently at Aaron as Kaylie moved aside so he could deposit the tray on the pillow across Stephen’s lap.

Belgian waffles, still steaming from the iron, sliced strawberries, maple syrup, ham and—Stephen couldn’t believe his eyes—
gele room.
Kaylie touched the rim of the fluted cup of thick, sweet, golden cream with the tip of one finger.

“Clotted cream, a bit of England right here in the very heart of Texas.” Her dark eyes twinkled merrily. “My aunts are devoted to all things English.”

Stephen had no idea why that might be, but he didn’t care. Setting aside the coffee, he picked up his fork with his left fingers and his knife with his right. It was awkward, and he got cream on the edge of his jacket sling, but he managed to cut up the waffle. Nurse Kaylie watched intently, but she did not offer to cut up his breakfast for him. He liked her for that.

Aaron took his suit jacket and tie from the desk chair and began putting them on, chatting happily. “Our darling nurse has given me a shopping list, Steve-o. I’ll just make a quick run into the picturesque town of Buffalo Creek, and then it’s home to the little bride.” He clapped a hand on Stephen’s shoulder. “I leave you in capable, if dainty, hands.” He bowed over one of those dainty hands like some sort of old gallant, saying grandly, “I’d kiss your pretty little pink toes, darlin’, if I wasn’t married.”

“Again,” Kaylie chirped, looking a bit startled with herself, as well as amused.

“Hey,” Aaron quipped good-naturedly, “third time’s the charm, right?”

He waved and strode happily from the room. Kaylie pressed a hand to her chest and looked at Stephen.

“Has he really been married three times?”

Stephen nodded, going to work on his ham. “Never knew the first one, but anyone could have told him that was a nogo. She was, er, an exotic dancer. The, um, second wife,” he went on, “used him as a stepping stone to the bigger things.”

“Bigger things?”

Putting down his knife, Stephen took up his fork with his right hand, though he still had some difficulty eating that way. “Aaron’s second wife left him for a hockey player,” he
told Kaylie bluntly, “after Aaron negotiated a six-million-dollar contract for the guy.” He gave her the name, but since it obviously meant nothing to her, he added, “The creep’s a starting center on the East Coast now.”

“Ah.”

“I think Aaron maybe got it right this time,” Stephen went on. “I think Dora loves him. She sure acts like it. Behaves as if he’s the cleverest, wittiest thing she’s ever met.” He shook his head.

Nurse Chatam slid her small hands into her big pockets. “He is kind of funny.”

Stephen chuckled and forked up another bite. “He is, really, especially when you get to know him. Fact is, Aaron’s a good guy.”

“But you give him a hard time anyway,” the little nurse remarked softly.

Stephen stilled. He did. He really did give Aaron a hard time. He wondered why. But then he knew. He gave Aaron a hard time because Aaron did not give him one when he clearly deserved it. Suddenly chilled, tired and irritated, Stephen dropped his fork and tugged at the neck of his T-shirt, the armhole of which had been slit to accommodate the cast on his left arm before the jacket sling went on. The back of the sofa had tugged it askew, and the stupid thing was choking him.

Seeing the problem, the little nurse leaned close and reached behind him to pull up the fabric of his shirt, loosening the pressure on his throat. She smelled clean and sweet, like the air after a spring rain, and Stephen felt a sudden longing. In some ways, that longing made him think of his boyhood and his mother, but the feeling was in no way childlike. He suddenly wondered just what the next several weeks might hold. Who was this petite, Bible-quoting lovely, anyway, and why did she make him feel clumsy and ignorant?

Waiting until she straightened, he turned a bland face up
at her and asked, “What should I call you? Nurse seems a bit impersonal.”

“Kaylie will do.”

“All right, Kaylie. And I’m Stephen. Or Steve, if you prefer.”

“But not Stevie,” she said, a quirk at one corner of her lips.

“Not Stevie,” he confirmed. Stevie had been a boy whose parents had tugged him this way and that between them, an innocent who had ceased to exist decades ago, mourned by no one, not even him, though he had been that boy. “So, Kaylie,” he said, changing the subject, “tell me something about yourself.”

“Not much to tell. What do you want to know?”

He really wanted to know if she was married or involved with anyone, but he had more game than to ask outright. “Well,” he said, pondering his options, “so, um, where do you live exactly? I know you don’t live here.”

She shook her head. “No. No, I don’t live here. I live with my father, about three miles across town.”

With her father? Interesting. Odd, but interesting. What woman her age lived with her father? That brought up another question.

“And, uh, how old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

That was about what he’d figured, despite the air of inexperience about her.

She leaned forward, her hands clasped behind her back, to ask, “And you?”

“Twenty-eight.” Felt more like eighty-two of late. He put on a smile and said, “I take it you’re not married. I mean, since you live with your father.”

“Uh, no, not married.”

“Engaged?”

“No.”

“Dating?”

She blinked at him, tilting her head. “Forgive me, but I don’t see how that is relevant.”

Feeling thwarted and a tad irritated, he waved a hand. “Sorry. Just making conversation. I can’t help being a little curious, though, since you live with your father still.”

“Not
still,
” she said pointedly. “Again.” He waited for her to go on, and after a slight pause, she did. “My father is seventy-six years old and suffered a heart attack a few months ago. I moved in to take care of him.”

“What about your mother?” Stephen asked.

“Deceased.” The way she said it told him that the death had been fairly recent.

“Sorry to hear that.”

Lifting her head, she beamed a soft smile and said, “Thank you.”

That smile took his breath away, rocked him right down to the marrow of his bones. The sincerity, not to mention the beauty, of it was downright shocking. No one in his world was that open and genuine.

After a moment of awkward silence, she glanced around the room, before blurting, “My brothers expected it of me.”

Knocked back into the conversation, Stephen cleared his throat and marshaled his mental processes. “They, ah, expected you to take care of your father, you mean?”

She nodded. “They’re all older, and I’m the only girl, and a nurse, too.”

“I see. What if you hadn’t wanted to take care of him, though?”

“I did!” she exclaimed quickly.

“Did?”

“Do!” she corrected. “I do want to take care of him.”

“But?” he pressed, certain that some caveat existed.

She bit her lip then fluttered her hands. “You have to understand that he’s been widowed twice over the years, and since he left the church, he’s been at loose ends.”

“Left the church?”

“Retired, I should have said. Retired from the church.”

Carefully, to prevent any misunderstanding, Stephen asked, “He worked for the church?”

“He’s a minister,” she said, confirming Stephen’s worst fears. “Or was a minister.
Is
a minister,” she finally decided with a sigh. “He just isn’t active in ministry right now.”

Stephen’s mind reeled. So she was not just a Christian, she was the daughter of a Christian minister! “With three brothers, no less.” He hadn’t realized that he’d muttered that last aloud until she addressed the comment.

“Yes, well, two are half brothers, to be precise, and a good deal older. Bayard’s fifty-five, and Morgan’s forty-two.”

“Fifty-five!” Stephen echoed, shocked. “My mother’s only fifty-three.”

“My mom would be fifty-eight. She died two years ago.”

“So your dad was nearly twenty years older than her.”

“Yes. It just didn’t seem that way until she got sick. He aged a dozen years during the weeks of her illness, and he hasn’t been the same since.”

“My father hasn’t been the same since my parents’ divorce,” Stephen said, to his own surprise. Realizing how personal the conversation had become, he quickly changed directions. “What was it you sent Aaron after?”

She ticked off a list of items. “Hand sanitizer, antibacterial soap, lip balm, sterile gloves, syringes…The doctor called in a new prescription, by the way, injections that should help you control your pain better.”

Stephen let that go without comment, but he was desperately tired of all these drugs. He felt as if he was sleeping—

and dreaming—his life away. The dreams, unfortunately, were not pleasant ones. Kaylie, he noticed, tapped her chin, staring at him as if trying to read his mind.

“I wonder if I should have asked for leverage straps?”

“Leverage straps?” Stephen parroted. “Whatever for?”

“To get you up and down more easily,” she explained. “I’m not very big, you know, and you’re—”

“Six foot four,” he supplied, “and over two hundred pounds.”

“Exactly.”

“Still,” Stephen pointed out, “we’ve managed pretty well so far, and I’m only going to get better, you know.”

“Hmm, I suppose.” She continued tapping her chin, the tip of her finger fitting nicely into the tiny cleft there. More a dimple, really, Stephen had begun to think it a charming feature. “Maybe I should’ve asked for a lap tray, too,” she murmured, staring down at the remnants of his breakfast.

“Now that I’ll go with,” Stephen said. “Why don’t I call Aaron and add that to the list? No, wait. I don’t have a cell phone any longer.” His had been destroyed in the accident, along with his car and half his house.

“You can use mine,” she said, producing a small flip phone from those seemingly bottomless pockets.

“Better yet,” Stephen said, “let’s text him. Then he has it in writing.”

“Oh,” she replied casually, “my phone doesn’t text.”

Stephen’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.” Stunned, he stared up at her. “You’re not kidding!” Who, in this day and age, didn’t have text?

Kaylie, of the dark, bottomless eyes and heavy, light red hair, tilted her head. “Is that a problem?”

“Yeah, it could be. Like, what if I need you in the middle of the night or something?” He ignored for now the fact that he didn’t have a cell phone himself. “Do you want me waking
up the entire the household by shouting or even by ringing you? Or would you rather I sent you a nice quiet text message?”

“Oh, I won’t be staying the night here,” Kaylie told him calmly.

“Won’t be staying—” Stephen broke off, momentarily dumbstruck. “But I thought you were taking the job!”

“I am. I just won’t be here at night—or whenever you’re sleeping.”

“B-but what if something happens?”

“Such as?”

Such as nightmares,
he thought, dreams that tormented him until he woke writhing and screaming, memories about which he could not bring himself to speak. He hated the weakness and guilt that allowed the horrific dreams to flourish, and the second accident seemed to have brought back the memories of the first one in all its horrific detail, details he’d give almost anything to forget.

“I don’t know!” he snapped in answer to her question. “You tell me. You’re the nurse.”

She patted his shoulder consolingly. “Now don’t worry. The aunts will look in on you, and there’s always the staff. Hilda, Chester and Carol have been taking care of Chatam House and its occupants for over twenty years, you know. They do, however, have Sundays and Wednesdays off.”

“You mean the cook, and that old bald guy I met when I first got here?” Stephen protested.

“Chester’s not old,” Kaylie argued with a smile. “Why, he’s just barely sixty!”

“But what if I fall out of bed or trip on my way to the bathroom?”

Kaylie Chatam folded her arms, looking down at him with the patience and authority that a particularly wise adult might reserve for an unreasonable child. “You’ll be fine as long as
you don’t try to get up and about on your own too soon. I’ll make sure you’re properly settled in before I leave, and I will, after all, be just a phone call away.”

A phone call and three miles,
he wanted to snarl. Well, if that’s the way she wanted to play it, he would make doubly sure of her availability. He held out his hand, instructing, “Give me the cell phone.”

Frowning, she produced the phone and dropped it into his palm. Stephen flipped it open and punched in the numbers with his thumb before hitting the send button and lifting the tiny phone to his ear. After several rings, Aaron answered. Stephen interrupted his effusive greeting and got right down to business.

“You’re going to have to make another stop or two. Seems Kaylie would like to add a lap tray to her shopping list, so I don’t have to eat off the bed pillows. Then I need you to do something for me. I want two cell phones with texting, Internet access, global positioning and anything else you can think of. One for me, one for our Nurse Chatam, who will not, as it turns out, be working full-time.”

“Even full-time is not around-the-clock,” she pointed out, parking her hands at her slender waist.

“For the money we’re paying you, it ought to be!” Stephen snapped. Then he barked into the phone, “Just do it, Aaron,” and hung up.