please,” she said wryly. “I’ve sworn off men.”
“And you’re sharing that only because of that bump on your head?”
“That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.” She pointed to the nasty-looking contusion. “However bad you think it looks on the outside, it’s way worse on the inside.”
She meant her body, but he’d been talking about her spirit. Must be something about being back in Walnut River, in the hospital his father had nurtured into the fine facility it was today. Something was turning his thoughts to a dark, introspective place and he didn’t much like going there. It was pointless to spend any energy on things he couldn’t change. Practical considerations were much less complicated. Like what his sister, Ella, had decided about Courtney.
“I’ll ask Ella to give you something for the pain,” he suggested.
“No. I’m fine. Over-the-counter pain meds are taking the edge off. Anything stronger will make me sleepy and I need to keep as clear a head as I can. For Janie.”
“She’s being well cared for. Maybe you should take the doctor’s advice and be admitted to the hospital.”
“Not even on a bet.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t need to take up a bed.”
“Why are you fighting it? You have insurance—”
“There’s a deductible,” she interrupted. “And I’m okay. Besides, I can’t take care of Janie from a hospital bed.”
“You can’t take care of Janie at all if you don’t take care of yourself first. If you won’t take the doctor’s advice, at least go home and get some rest.”
“I don’t have a car. It’s a little banged up, too. And even if I did, Ella said I probably shouldn’t drive for a couple of days.”
David folded his arms over his chest as he stared down at her. “So you embrace the orders you like and scrap everything else.”
“Pretty much.”
“I’ll take you home,” he said, then cursed himself for knuckling to the appeal of a needy woman.
“Thanks, but I can’t leave. Janie and I appreciate everything you did, David. Thank you for coming.”
That was a dismissal if he’d ever heard one. She was telling him to go, that his work here was done. That she could take it from here. He should go, and he planned to…until he made the mistake of looking at her, sitting in a chair and holding her sleeping child’s hand. By sheer strength of will she was going to sit here. Probably all night. He stared for several moments at her delicate profile, the strain, the bruises, the pride, the guts and he couldn’t just walk out.
One more time. “Courtney, your body has been through a trauma, too. Rest is the best thing—” He stopped when she shot him a look—fiercely female and protective.
“How can I rest when my baby is in the hospital? What if she wakes up and gets scared? What if she needs me? It’s my fault she’s here in the first place. I have to live with that, but I could never live with myself if I left her here all alone.” She shook her head with a vehemence that had to hurt. “I’m not going anywhere. Again, thanks for everything. Good night, David.”
He sat down in the chair beside hers and noticed her staring. “What?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.” Courtney frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Probably the reason Ella wanted you admitted was for observation. To make sure you’re okay. Consider yourself observed on an outpatient basis.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake. That’s silly. You should go. I’m fine. And if I’m not, the nurses are in and out. Help is right here.”
“You can’t stay here all night. Sooner or later they’re going to throw you out.”
“I’m willing to risk it.”
“Okay.” He stretched out his legs and rested his hands on his abdomen. He didn’t need to be at Peter’s cocktail party for a while. “I’ll keep you company.”
Courtney looked puzzled. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
That made two of them. “Does it matter?”
“It kind of does in my world.” She stared at him. “I haven’t known many people who gave to others without having a personal agenda. Your father was one.”
“What did he give you?”
“My job in the gift shop for one thing. I needed it badly and somehow he knew that. He sort of took Janie and me under his wing and watched out for us. Never once did he ask for anything in return.”
But he’d been on the receiving end of his father’s dark side. Everybody had one, even James Wilder.
“Hell of a guy,” David said.
“That he was. You look a lot like him,” Courtney observed.
“Is that a compliment?”
“Maybe. Mostly just stating a fact. But you’re very different from him.”
“Another fact?”
“Just an observation.”
“Based on what?” he asked.
“Based on the fact that your father went out of his way to befriend a stranger.”
“And?”
“What makes you think there’s an ‘and’?”
“Don’t ever try to bluff in a poker game, Court. Your feelings are all over your face,” he said. He should know. Faces were his bread and butter.
“Okay. Remember you asked. I can’t imagine your father going long periods of time without visiting his family.”
“Unless they screwed with his moral code,” David snapped. She was right. He shouldn’t have asked.
“So your father disapproved of something you did?” she guessed.
His father had disapproved of almost everything he did. “Didn’t he tell you I was Walnut River’s resident bad boy?”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Every time I rode my motorcycle through town people said there goes that Wilder boy, living up to his name again.” When he looked over at her she was smiling, which somehow took the sting out of the memories.
“You had a motorcycle?”
“I paid for it myself.”
“So you and your father had issues?” she asked.
“My
