She heard her late husband snort in laughter, a memory, but one that brought her back to earth. He"d found her wild imagination both endearing and exasperating, and that gentle snort had always helped her rea.s.sert her practical side.
As it did now. Even if her patient were of that ilk, tonight he couldn"twalk, much less chop her to pieces. She knew from her days as a surgical nurse that it wasn"t as easy as it looked to wield a knife. It took quite a lot of strength, actually.
And besides all that, her bedroom door locked.
Chuckling to herself, she went in and checked on the man. One hand was flung out, and the covers had tangled around him, as if he"d been restless, but he still lay flat on his back, that black-licorice hair scattered over the pillowcase.
At his feet, curled in a big ball of fluffy black and white fur, was Leonardo, who had evidently decided the stranger was safe enough. Molly chuckled again, scrubbing his head lightly. "Taking good care of him?"
The cat purred, then yawned and jumped down, off to find food. Molly turned her attention to her patient, reaching down to tug the blanket over a long brown leg that had come uncovered. It was lean and dark and muscular, lightly adorned with black hair that looked silky, and to her amazement, Molly found the sight positively electrifying.
A leg, Moll, a wry voice said.Just a leg . With a sigh of exasperation atherself , she poured a gla.s.s of water, then squatted beside the bed to wake him. Only then did she realize she didn"t know his name. How odd.
"Senor,"she said quietly, touching his forearm.
He didn"t stir in the slightest. She shook his shoulder lightly."Senor," she said again, more loudly this time. Still nothing.
Suddenly worried, Molly put her hand on his face and swore at the fever burning in him.
"d.a.m.n." Not good. Not good at all.
Putting the water down on the table, she raced to the kitchen for a clean washcloth and pot of water into which she cracked a tray of ice cubes. Carrying those supplies, she dashed into the bathroom for a bottle of rubbing alcohol and back into the bedroom.
Her heart was racing with fear, and pouring liberal amounts of sharp-smelling isopropyl alcohol onto the cloth, she tried again to rouse him. "Senor, wake up!" She tossed the
covers off his body and washed his face, his neck,his arms. "Senor!Can you hear me?"
He stirred a little, and Molly redoubled her efforts. The scissors she"d used earlier on his jeans now lay on the table and she grabbed them, quickly slicing away the thin tank top he wore. She spilled fresh alcohol on the cloth and washed his chest methodically."Senor!" she cried, then more quietly, "Come on, guy. If you die on me, I"m in really big trouble."
The voice came from far, far away. Soft, like music, like morning. Alejandro reached for it, but it slid away, and he wasback home, on his uncle"s farm. Confused but pleased, he greeted his cousins and explained that he didn"t know how he"d got here, but he was glad. Then one asked about Josefina.
Josefina!
A sharp splat hit his forehead, and he bolted upward, fighting. A strong arm caught himmidchest and pushed him back down, and roaring pain jolted through his ribs and from his leg, simultaneously, and he groaned, falling back, dizzy and nauseated.
"Take it easy," a woman"s voice said. "I"m just trying to bring down your fever, okay?
Easy."
The cold cloth fell on his neck, and he protested, or thought he did. It came again, across his chest, his shoulders. Finally, the sharp odor penetrated and he found himself beginning to shiver. Protesting, he opened his eyes.
His saint bent over him, worry on her face now as she patiently washed his flesh down, rubbing his chest, his neck, his face, then his shoulders and arms, then each leg, and back to his chest. Lost just beyond the ability to speak, he only watched her. The braid, glossy and long, fell over her shoulder as she worked, and he noticed that her nose was very straight and a little too big for her face. And he saw that her eyes were strange tilted down a little at the inner corners. It made her seem otherworldly.
At last she seemed to feel his gaze and jerked her head up. There was deep worry in the gray eyes before relief claimed it. She sighed. "Thank G.o.d," she whispered. "Senor,"
she said, "I must give you a pill. Can you take it with my help?"
He could not quite recall how to speak, but he made some motion she must have taken for yes, because one strong arm came behind his shoulders, bracing him. A breast, giving and warm, pushed into his shoulder. A pill landed in his mouth. It was slippery on his tongue. She put a gla.s.s to his mouth and he drank. Then another pill. More water.
Water. He closed his eyes. In his disoriented state, he thought of it as cool silver, thought of it rushing over the orange fire in his throat. Then the gla.s.s was gone. He drifted away. Josefina came to his thoughts again. He had to get well. To find her.
Molly was afraid to leave him. Washing him with alcohol brought the fever downsome, and in time the ibuprofen and antibiotics would begin to work their magic. In the meantime, he was obviously delirious and restless, his fingers sometimes fluttering up as if to capture something just out of reach, his head turning side to side in blind seeking.
Her belly went hollow as she examined him, finding the wound red andinflamed, his skin dry and hot, even after the rubdown. She would have to remain vigilant until his fever broke. In a few hours, she would awaken him again, give him some more ibuprofen and antibiotics and water, and pray he could keep them down. It had been at least a full day since he"d eaten, probably closer to twenty-four hours, and the meds might not sit well.
He moaned and threw back the covers. Patiently, Molly replaced them and then went to the kitchen to boil water for tea. She made a huge mug of sweetened black tea with milk,then found the novel she was reading and settled in the small back room.
In the silence of the desert night, in the quiet of her own house, Molly told herself she ought to be worried. If her patient died, she"d have an awful lot of explaining to do. The people she"d lied to this evening would know she"d lied, and they would not trust her again so quickly.
But he would not die. She wouldn"t let him. He might be pretty miserable by morning. He might curse her before she was through with him. But he wasn"t going to die.
As she sat in the cozy "mama" chair she"d purchased in hopes of having a baby that had never come, it wasn"t worry in her mind. Now that the crisis was pa.s.sed, she felt ...
antic.i.p.ation.
Antic.i.p.ation for what?
Did it matter? No. She granted herself permission to admire the blackness of his hair and realized she would very much like to put her hands into it. She eyed the length of a shin sticking out of the covers and liked the silky-looking hair glazing his coppery- colored skin, liked the strength in that calf. She liked his foot, graceful and clean, and the oval silver saint"s medal glinting on his chest and the long swoop of collarbone.
But over and over, she came back to his face. It was not traditionally or even cla.s.sically handsome; the shape was long and narrow, wider at the top than the bottom.
Taken one by one, the angles were too sharp a blade of a nose jutting aggressively from between high, piercingly slanted cheekbones. An authoritative jaw leading to a narrow chin.
She sipped her tea and inclined her head. Painting was her hobby, and line had become something of a fascination for her. Why did all those sharp angles work? His face was drawn like a coyote"s, almost too severe and lean. And yet, the effect was undeniably riveting. Why?
The lines balanced, slant to slant, in perfect harmony. His skin was clear and dark, blunting the shadows. And there was balance to the severity, in the softness of lashes and eyebrows, in the wide mouth graced with lips that were drawn extravagantly, almost lushly.
And around that sharply etched facefell hair as black as a silk scarf, loose and curling in places, a tendril breaking that bold cheekbone, another curling along his neck.
She closed her eyes, aware of a vague heat along her inner thighs.Stop .
But why? How long since she"d felt this quivering thrill at even looking at a man?
Forever. And ever. There had not been a man in her life in four years, and for six before that, her husband had occupied and satisfied all of her fantasies.
That was all she indulged tonight: the simple pleasure of finally feeling a stir in those places she"d thought dead with her husband.
A fantasy, that was all.
She had no illusions about the reality of the world. He was an illegal immigrant which meant poor and even more poorly educated. He would know nothing of the things that she loved her books and poetry and music and art. She would not deny the native intelligence she had glimpsed in his eyes, but she didn"t confuse education with
knowledge. She didn"t confuse beauty with goodness, either.
But the fantasy, now ... the fantasy was quite different. It did not involve anything but direct physicality. Alone in her chair, with no one to see her, she could admit to herself that it would be very pleasant, veryvery pleasant to lie naked against that long, lean body, lie with him and touch him and feel his hands and mouth on her. She would like it very much.
But they would never have a thing in common. In a few days, he would be well enough to walk, and he would take his Josefina and wander to the next town, to the next harvest, the next dodge of the law.
In the meantime, he quieted, and Molly let herself simply look at him, resting her eyes on his beauty in much the way she would gaze at a sunrise. Peacefully, without demand.
At last, she opened her book. Propping her feet on the end of the bed, and covering her shoulders with the blue and green crocheted afghan she"d made the first year in the house, she read. Leonardo wandered in, jumped up on her lap for a nice rubdown, and having achieved it, leaped from her lap to the bed, curling at the stranger"s side and settling in to lick a paw.
Molly thought about shooing him away, but it somehow made her feel better that the skittish Leo had decided the stranger was okay. She went back to reading, and after a little while, she dozed,then fell into a much deeper sleep, her head comfortable against the back of the chair.
Something startled herawake, and she dropped her book, blinking in disorientation when she found herself in the chair. In a rush she remembered her patient, and saw that it was he who had awakened her.
He was struggling to sit up, and had reached out a hand to touch her leg. "Senora," he said in a rough voice, "I am sorry but..."