style="font-size:15px;"> “Does your stomach hurt?” she asked, concerned. “I’m sorry.” She soaked the cloth again and rubbed it against his shoulders, his arms, his face.
His black eyes opened. He was breathing roughly, and his face was taut. The fever, she imagined. She brushed back her long hair, and wished she’d tied it up. It kept flowing down onto his damp chest.
“Damn you,” he growled.
“Damn you, too, Mr. Sutton.” She smiled sweetly. She finished bathing his face and put the cloth and basin aside. “Do you have a long-sleeved shirt?”
“Get out!”
Elliot came back with the medicine and a small glass of wine. “Harry’s making hot chocolate,” he said with a smile. “He’ll bring it up. Here’s the other stuff.”
“Good,” she said. “Does your father have a pajama jacket or something long-sleeved?”
“Sure!”
“Traitor,” Quinn groaned at his son.
“Here you go.” Elliot handed her a flannel top, which she proceeded to put on the protesting and very angry Mr. Sutton.
“I hate you,” Quinn snapped at her with his last ounce of venom.
“I hate you, too,” she agreed. She had to reach around him to get the jacket on, and it brought her into much too close proximity to him. She could feel the hair on his chest rubbing against her soft cheek, she could feel her own hair smoothing over his bare shoulder and chest. Odd, that shivery feeling she got from contact with him. She ignored it forcibly and got his other arm into the pajama jacket. She fastened it, trying to keep her fingers from touching his chest any more than necessary because the feel of that pelt of hair disturbed her. He shivered violently at the touch of her hands and her long, silky hair, and she assumed it was because of his fever.
“Are you finished?” Quinn asked harshly.
“Almost.” She pulled the covers over him, found the electric-blanket control and turned it on. Then she ladled cough syrup into him, gave him aspirin and had him take a sip of wine, hoping that she wasn’t overdosing him in the process. But the caffeine in the hot chocolate would probably counteract the wine and keep it from doing any damage in combination with the medicine. A sip of wine wasn’t likely to be that dangerous anyway, and it might help the sore throat she was sure he had.
“Here’s the cocoa,” Harry said, joining them with a tray of mugs filled with hot chocolate and topped with whipped cream.
“That looks delicious. Thank you so much,” Amanda said, and smiled shyly at the old man.
He grinned back. “Nice to be appreciated.” He glared at Quinn. “Nobody else ever says so much as a thank-you!”
“It’s hard to thank a man for food poisoning,” Quinn rejoined weakly.
“He ain’t going to die,” Harry said as he left. “He’s too damned mean.”
“That’s a fact,” Quinn said and closed his eyes.
He was asleep almost instantly. Amanda drew up a chair and sat down beside him. He’d still need looking after, and presumably the boy went to school. It was past the Christmas holidays.
“You go to school, don’t you?” she asked Elliot.
He nodded. “I ride the horse out to catch the bus and then turn him loose. He comes to the barn by himself. You’re staying?”
“I’d better, I guess,” she said. “I’ll sit with him. He may get worse in the night. He’s got to see a doctor tomorrow. Is there one around here?”
“There’s Dr. James in town, in Holman that is,” he said. “He’ll come out if Dad’s bad enough. He has a cancer patient down the road and he comes to check on her every few days. He could stop by then.”
“We’ll see how your father is feeling. You’d better get to bed,” she said and smiled at him.
“Thank you for coming, Miss…Amanda,” Elliot said. He sighed. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I didn’t mind. Good night, Elliot.”
He smiled at her. “Good night.”
He went out and closed the door. Amanda sat back in her chair and looked at the sleeping face of the wild man. He seemed vulnerable like this, with his black eyes closed. He had the thickest lashes she’d ever seen, and his eyebrows were thick and well shaped above his deep-set eyes. His mouth was rather thin, but it was perfectly shaped, and the full lower lip was sensuous. She liked that jutting chin, with its hint of stubbornness. His nose was formidable and straight, and he wasn’t that bad looking…asleep. Perhaps it was the coldness of his eyes that made him seem so much rougher when he was awake. Not that he looked that unintimidating even now. He had so many coarse edges….
She waited a few minutes and touched his forehead. It was a little cooler, thank God, so maybe he was going to be better by morning. She went into the bathroom and washed her face and went back to sit by him. Somewhere in the night, she fell asleep with her blond head pillowed on the big arm of the chair. Voices woke her.
“Has she been there all night, Harry?” Quinn was asking.
“Looks like. Poor little critter, she’s worn out.”
“I’ll shoot Elliot!”
“Now, boss, that’s no way to treat the kid. He got scared, and I didn’t know what to do. Women know things about illness. Why, my mama could doctor people and she never had no medical training. She used herbs and things.”
Amanda blinked, feeling eyes on her. She found Quinn Sutton gazing steadily at her from a sitting position on the bed.
“How do you feel?” she asked without lifting her sleepy head.
“Like hell,” he replied. “But I’m a bit better.”
“Would you like some breakfast, ma’am?” Harry asked with a smile. “And some coffee?”
“Coffee. Heavenly. But no breakfast, thanks, I won’t impose,” she said drowsily, yawning and stretching uninhibitedly as she sat up, her full breasts beautifully outlined against the cotton blouse in the process.
Quinn felt his body tautening again, as it had the night before so unexpectedly and painfully when her hands had touched him. He could still feel them, and the brush of her long, silky soft hair against his skin. She smelled of gardenias and the whole outdoors, and he hated her more than ever because he’d been briefly vulnerable.
“Why did you come with Elliot?” Quinn asked her when Harry had gone.
She pushed back her disheveled hair and tried not to think how bad she must look without makeup and with her hair uncombed. She usually kept it in a tight braid on top of her head when she wasn’t performing. It made her feel vulnerable to have its unusual length on display for a man like Quinn Sutton.
“Your son
