Диана Палмер – Wyoming Rugged (страница 6)
“Yes. We always do,” Niki said, smiling. “I love live trees. It’s in a ball, so that we can plant it after...”
“A live tree,” Blair persisted. “Some people are allergic to them.”
Niki and her father looked at each other in confusion.
“We had artificial trees until about three years ago,” Todd said. “You wanted a live tree like your girlfriend had at her home.”
Niki grimaced. “I started getting sick at Christmas three years ago. I never connected it.”
“I’ll have Tex come and take the live tree out,” Todd said. “We’ll get a pretty artificial one from the hardware store in town, and you can decorate it again.”
Niki laughed. “I guess I’ll have to.” She glanced at Blair. “Leave it to you to see the obvious, when both of us miss it.”
“Good for me,” he mused.
“I’ll go talk to Edna about that soup,” Niki said. She put the bottle of cough syrup on the bedside table and picked up the spoon. “Want some more juice?” she added.
He shook his head. “I’m fine. Thanks, Niki.”
She grinned and left the men to talk.
“I couldn’t stop her,” Blair said quietly. “She’s formidable when she makes up her mind. I didn’t encourage her to come in here.”
“I know that.” Todd dropped into the chair beside the bed. “Her mother, Martha, was just like that,” he told the younger man. “She’d go out of her way to help sick people. Niki worries.”
“Yes.”
Todd’s eyes narrowed. “I called Elise.”
Blair’s face closed up. “She can’t bear illness.”
Todd didn’t say a word. But his expression was eloquent.
Blair just shrugged.
“She reminded you of Bernice, didn’t she?” Todd asked, because he and Blair had been friends for a long time. He’d been the one they’d called when Blair was going out of his mind after the accident that left his mother first paralyzed, and soon after, dead.
Blair’s face grew hard. “Yes.”
Todd didn’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I. But I’ll make the best of it,” he added. “No woman is going to be perfect.”
* * *
THE NEXT DAY, Blair was feeling better. He sat up in bed to eat the food on the tray Edna brought him, and he was smiling when Niki peered in to check on him.
“I’m not going to die anytime soon,” he assured her with a grin.
She grinned back. “Okay. Nice to see that you’re better. I won’t have to worry Doctor Fred again.”
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded. “I don’t think I’m going to catch whatever you’ve got. I don’t even have a sore throat.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” he said. “I don’t want to be responsible for putting you back in bed again.”
“Thanks. But I’m good. Want some more orange juice?”
“Please.”
“I’ll be right back.”
* * *
SHE SAT WITH Blair from time to time while he recovered. Once, she brought in her iPad and presented him with a graphic novel from the
“This is cool,” he chuckled. “You can carry graphic novels around without having to lug a suitcase full of them.”
“I thought so, too. I’ve got a Calvin and Hobbes collection on there, as well. It’s one of my favorites.”
He nodded. “Mine, too. Thanks, Niki.”
“No problem.” She got up. “I have to help Edna and the two temporary cooks with the breads. We have a huge spread for Christmas dinner.”
“That’s on Thursday,” he pointed out.
“Yes, and today is Tuesday. We start baking breads today for the dressing, and cooking giblets for the gravy and making pies and cakes. It takes a while. We set the big fancy table in the dining room, and we have the cowboys and their wives come by, in shifts, to share it with us. That’s a tradition that dates back to my grandfather’s time here.”
“It seems like a nice one,” he commented.
She smiled. “They work very hard for us all year. It’s little enough to do. We have presents for them, and their children, under the tree. It’s usually a madhouse here on Christmas Day. I hope you’ll be up to it,” she added with a grin.
“I’ve never been involved in Christmas celebrations,” he commented.
“Not even when you were a child?” she asked, surprised.
“My...father was an agnostic,” he said, hating the memory of his stepfather. “We didn’t celebrate Christmas.”
She hesitated. “Was your mother like that, too?”
His face was hard. “She did what he told her to do. It was a different generation, honey. He was old-school. God bless her, she put up with a lot from him. But she missed him when he died.”
“I’m sure you did, too.”
“In my way.”
Eager to lighten the atmosphere, because his face was painfully somber, she said, “We have eggnog on Christmas Eve. I make it from scratch.”
He made a face.
She grimaced. “I see. You don’t like eggs, so you won’t like eggnog, right?”
“Right. I’ll just have my whiskey neat instead of polluting it with eggs,” he said, tongue in cheek.
She sighed. “Are you always such a demanding dinner guest?” she despaired.
He chuckled. His black eyes twinkled at her. “I like pretty much anything except things with egg in them. Just don’t forget the whiskey.”
She sighed. He was very handsome. She loved the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled. She loved the strong, chiseled lines of his wide mouth, the high cheekbones, the thick black wavy hair around his leonine face. His chest was a work of art in itself. She had to force herself not to look at it too much. It was broad and muscular, under a thick mat of curling black hair that ran down to the waistband of his silk pajamas. Apparently, he didn’t like jackets, because he never wore one with the bottoms. His arms were muscular, without being overly so. He would have delighted an artist.
“What are you thinking so hard about?” he wondered aloud.
“That an artist would love painting you,” she blurted out, and then flushed then cleared her throat. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
He lifted both eyebrows. “Miss Ashton,” he scoffed, “you aren’t by any chance flirting with me, are you?”
“Mr. Coleman, the thought never crossed my mind!”
“Don’t obsess over me,” he said firmly, but his eyes were still twinkling. “I’m a married man.”
She sighed. “Yes, thank goodness.”
His eyebrows lifted in a silent question.
“Well, if you weren’t married, I’d probably disgrace myself. Imagine, trying to ravish a sick man in bed because I’m obsessing over the way he looks without a shirt!”
He burst out laughing. “Go away, you bad girl.”