she’d been examining Naomi, Bridget had felt his presence, felt his gaze watching her every movement. To make sure she treated his grandmother gently? Or because he still ached for her, the way she’d ached for him all these years? Oh, God, don’t let her think about that now, she prayed.
“She appears to have the flu. Have you or your grandfather been ill? Or been around anyone coughing or sick?”
“No. But Grandmother worked at the farmers’ market last weekend—helping her friend sell squash and pumpkin. Someone there might have been sick.”
Bridget nodded while deciding there was no use in asking if any of them had taken a flu shot. The Chinos lived basically as they had years ago. Preventative medicine was not something they practiced.
After giving Naomi the injection of antibiotics in her hip, she tucked the covers warmly around her, then glanced at Johnny. “Does the glass of water on the nightstand belong to your grandmother? She needs to swallow a few pills.”
“I’ll get fresh water,” he told her.
He was gone from the room less than a minute before he returned with a small glass filled with chilled water.
After thanking him, Bridget took the drink and, lifting Naomi’s head, helped her tilt the glass to her lips. If they did their job, the pills would help to reduce her fever and loosen the phlegm in her chest.
“That should help you feel a bit better, Naomi.”
She lowered the woman’s white head back to the pillow and Naomi nodded drowsily. Bridget moved away from the bed and signaled for Johnny to join her outside the room.
In the hallway, he glanced solemnly back to the door of his grandparents’ bedroom, then to her. At that moment, Bridget wanted to wrap her hands around his, to comfort and assure him that he wasn’t going to lose the only mother he’d ever known. At least, not if she could help it.
“She needs to be in the hospital, Johnny. Will she not go to the Indian medical facility in Mescalero?”
“She’d rather die in her bed,” he said grimly. “She’s particular about who she lets near her.”
Bridget released a long sigh. The Apaches provided excellent health care for their people. It didn’t make sense that Naomi would refuse the services of her own tribe. But she had to remember that Naomi had never wanted to accept the more modern ways. Still, why would the old woman insist that Bridget be the one to doctor her?
“Well, I’m thankful she trusts me enough to allow me to treat her.”
His dark gaze roamed her face and upswept hair and though she did her best to stem the memory of his embrace, she was suddenly reliving the sensation of his hands tangled in her copper-red curls, his lips ravishing hers. No man had ever touched her the way that he had. And she doubted any man ever would.
He asked, “Will she get well?”
She blinked as Johnny’s voice shattered the erotic image in her head. “I think so. But at her age it’s easy for things to go wrong.” Even though the interior of the house was cool, Bridget’s cheeks felt flush and her upper body on the verge of sweating. Rubber seemed to have replaced the bones in her legs and she realized with a bit of shock that if she didn’t sit and pull herself together she was going to faint. “Can—we go to the kitchen to finish this discussion? I could use a cup of coffee.”
Wordlessly, he gestured for her to precede him down the short hallway. Pulling back her shoulders, Bridget moved past him, then on to the small kitchen where a bare lightbulb over the sink illuminated most of the room.
A small pine table with matching chairs worn smooth from years of use was situated along the outside wall. As she moved toward it, she unbuttoned her coat. She was shrugging one shoulder free of the cream-colored cashmere garment when he came up behind her and with both hands lifted it away for her.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
While she took a seat, he carried the coat over to a hall tree standing by a door that exited the house. After hanging it next to a jean jacket with a sheepskin collar, he moved to a white gas range and switched on a burner beneath a granite coffeepot.
“The coffee was made for supper. It’s strong.”
“That’s fine,” she assured him. “I need for it to be strong.”
With the burner blazing beneath the simple pot, he turned away from the stove and as his dark eyes focused on her, Bridget felt exposed and all too aware of how she must look to him. She’d not taken the time to change from the formal clothes she’d been wearing for Conall’s wedding reception. Now she desperately wished she’d taken a moment to race upstairs and change out of the strapless dress fashioned of emerald-green faille. To make matters worse, diamonds glittered at her throat, her ears and hair, while high, high heels of the same emerald color adorned her feet. No doubt he was viewing her as someone who lived far away from his world and she hated that this unexpected reunion was displaying her in a way that didn’t depict her normal day-to-day life.
When he failed to make any sort of comment, she felt compelled to explain. “I—was—when you called—it was at the wedding reception for my brother, Conall. I didn’t want to waste time changing clothes. That’s why—I’m dressed this way.”
“I’m sorry I interrupted your evening. I didn’t want to.”
He was still brutally honest, she decided. She figured eating a sandwich of nails and sandpaper would have probably been easier than calling upon her for help. Not that he disliked her or even held ill feelings for her. No, the end of their relationship had been far more complex. There had been no hateful, judgmental words or spiteful arguing. They’d parted just as they had met, with love.
“I wasn’t complaining,” she told him. “Just explaining.”
“I don’t need that.”
He turned back to the coffeepot while Bridget closed her eyes and tried to get her breathing back on an even keel. Of course he didn’t need explanations from her, she thought. What she was wearing or what she’d been doing didn’t concern him.
Behind him, Johnny heard the coffee strike a boil and he turned his back to her in order to switch off the burner and gather cups from the cupboard. After he filled both of them with the dark, pungent liquid, he carried them over to the table where she sat, then went to the refrigerator to collect a can of evaporated milk.
When he placed the milk can in front of her, a faint smile crossed her face. “Thank you for remembering,” she said.
Johnny could have told her that taking milk in her coffee was not the only thing he remembered about her. And seeing her again tonight was bringing those recollections back in a violent rush. Oh, God, he’d rather have taken a knife blade to his chest than call her tonight. But she was the only doctor his grandmother would agree to allow in the house. And with Naomi’s health rapidly deteriorating, he’d had no choice but to ask Bridget for help. Now as he looked at her, he felt sick with wants and regrets.
Somehow these past years he’d managed to avoid running into her. It had meant declining invitations from her brother and his good buddy, Brady Donovan, to visit the Diamond D, and making sure he didn’t go near anywhere he suspected she might be. But that hadn’t
