in. Jake and Jenna Remington looked as if they had been awakened from a sound sleep and dressed hastily. Their hair was still tousled. Jake needed a shave. Jenna’s face was pale with worry. They rushed to Lexie’s side and hugged her, being careful not to dislodge the IV taped to her left arm. “Thank you for calling us,” Jenna told Lewis.
“Although what you were doing out with my daughter that time of night is still a question that needs to be answered,” Jake said grimly.
“Don’t blame Lewis, Dad,” Lexie interrupted. “I asked him to take me riding.”
Jake’s gray-brown eyebrows climbed even higher. “In the middle of the night?”
“It’s not as if you were going to let me go if you knew about it,” Lexie challenged.
Riley looked at Lexie sternly. “Your father told me you just got out of the hospital in London, Lexie.”
Lewis did a double take. “Is this true?” he asked her.
Lexie flushed and waved off the concern of all those around her. “It was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing,” Jake Remington said gruffly. “You passed out over there, too.”
“So I’m a little run-down.” Lexie shrugged.
“You were having chest pains tonight,” Lewis said, repeating what he had already told the staff upon her admission. “Before you passed out. At least I think you were, the way you were pressing your hand to your chest.”
“Acid reflux,” Riley explained.
“You can give her medication for that, right?” Jenna queried, the picture of motherly concern.
Riley nodded. “But you’re still going to have to lay off the spicy food, caffeine and highly acidic things like tomatoes and citrus until you heal, Lexie. And we still have to deal with your exhaustion. You need lots of rest, no stress. And you need to start eating right.”
Lexie rubbed the back of her neck, looking as if all that sounded impossible to her.
“How long before she’s back on her feet?” Lexie’s father asked.
“Two weeks of R and R ought to do it,” Riley said.
“I want to go riding,” Lexie grumbled.
“Not for at least another week,” Riley cautioned. “We don’t want you passing out in the saddle.”
“So when do I get out of here?” Lexie asked, impatiently.
“As soon as the IV is finished,” Riley said. He wrote out a prescription for her and handed it over. “Provided you promise me you really will take it easy.”
She nodded. “I promise.”
“Okay, I want to see you in my office in one week, for a recheck. Call and make an appointment with my receptionist tomorrow. In the meantime, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to call.” Riley accepted thanks from everyone, then exited the room.
Jake Remington turned back to his only daughter. “Okay, young lady, you heard the doctor. No more reckless inattention to your health. You’re going home with us, and this time, you’re staying on the ranch.”
“No, I’m not.” Lexie reached out and took Lewis’s hand firmly in hers. “I am going home with Lewis!”
THE SILENCE IN THE examining room was deafening.
All eyes turned to Lewis.
He was used to seeing his brothers in this kind of trouble. Not him. Never him.
“Lexie, you already had one disastrous relationship,” Jake said. “If you think I am going to stand by and watch you rush headlong into another, just to get back at me for never approving of Constantine Romeo—”
“I knew you were going to bring that up!” Lexie interrupted.
“Stop!” Jenna stepped between warring father and daughter. “This is the kind of stress Riley just suggested that Lexie avoid.”
“Well, I’m not letting her go home with someone she barely knows,” Jake protested.
“Well, I’m not going back to the ranch, either. I can’t breathe there!” Lexie glared at her father.
“Then how about staying in the apartment above my shop?” Jenna suggested gently. “It’s small, but private. And right down the street from the hospital, should you feel ill again.”
“Fine,” Lexie said. “Provided Lewis drives me there and you two go on home and get some sleep.”
Jake Remington looked as if he wanted to punch him, Lewis noted uncomfortably. But her father finally agreed and the Remingtons left after bidding Lexie a tense good-night.
Lewis went out in the hall to wait while the nurse helped Lexie get ready to leave the hospital. Riley handed the chart he had been writing on to the medical records clerk and strode over to Lewis. He clapped a brotherly hand on Lewis’s shoulder. “I meant what I said about Lexie needing to limit her stress right now. Especially given the way Jake Remington feels about his daughter seeing anyone.”
“Shutting her up like a princess in an ivory tower is the wrong approach to take with Lexie,” Lewis declared.
His brother frowned. “You’re an authority on her? After what—one-fifth of one clandestine date?”
“She asked me to help her out. I’m going to do that,” Lewis insisted stubbornly.
Riley’s gaze narrowed. “And I’m telling you this—make an enemy of her father, and you’ll regret it.”
LEXIE SAUNTERED OUT to the waiting room. “Thanks for waiting.”
“No problem.” Lewis fell into step beside her.
“But it wasn’t necessary,” she said, leading the way out of the ER. “I could just as easily get a cab.”
“In Laramie? At this time of night?” Lewis teased, as they walked through the automatic glass doors. “You have been away a long time.”
Lexie came to a halt on the sidewalk beneath the portico. “There are still only two cabs in town?”
Lewis put his hand beneath her elbow. “And neither of them run past midnight without prior appointment, unless it is an absolute emergency. And when there’s a medical emergency, an ambulance is summoned.”
Lexie sighed, her frustration evident. “This isn’t an emergency.”
“Maybe not to you.” He guided her toward the parking lot. “You managed to get everyone around you pretty upset.”
Lexie drew away from him as they approached his Yukon. “Including you?”
“I admit you had me worried.”
Lewis
