pass.”
“Me, too. How about a brandy or anything else?”
She needed something that would let her relax a bit, but she was worried about drinking anything with alcohol. “I don’t know, maybe hot cider,” she said.
“Have you had dinner?”
She hadn’t thought of food and wasn’t at all sure she could eat anything until she got the matter of her father’s property settled, but sitting across the table from him would make it easier for her to bring up her request. “No, I haven’t.”
He picked up the phone again. “Make it dinner for two and add mulled cider and some brandy to the list,” he said, then hung up.
Ethan settled again, his injured leg pushed under the coffee table. She frowned at it. “You should have that elevated.” Before he could argue, she stood and grabbed a pillow from the couch. “You paid me two hundred dollars, and that should get you more than what I gave you last night,” she said, gently lifting his injured leg to rest the heel of the cast on the pillow, which she’d placed on the coffee table. She went back to her seat, then looked over at him, the table a buffer between them. “How’s that?”
“Better.”
“Good.”
Great conversation, she told herself, and tried to find the words to get started. She glanced at the cast, then figured small talk could lead to big talk, especially if it was about this man. “So, how did that happen?” she asked.
He told her about his accident, and through it all, she sensed his annoyance. She wasn’t sure if his frustration was with the driver of the other car for not setting his brake, or with his own driver, who hadn’t been available, or with himself for letting it happen. She didn’t have to know him well to understand that men like Ethan Grace thought they controlled their lives and everything around them. When they lost control, they hated it.
“Is it a simple fracture?” she asked when he was finished.
“There’s nothing simple about it, but that’s what the doctor called it.”
“Who’s your doctor?”
“Maury Perry.”
She’d actually heard of the top doctor, but she’d never met him and probably never would. Morgan’s patients were regular people with everyday lives and jobs, while Dr. Perry’s were well-heeled members of society; their medical worlds weren’t apt to collide on any level. “What did he say when he checked you after your fall?”
“‘Come to my office and let me charge you an arm and a leg—your good leg, of course—so I can tell you that you fell and are going to survive.’”
She kept a grin to herself. She’d made fun of the “high and mighty” doctors like Perry more than once, joking about how they charged to say “God bless you” when you sneezed. “And?”
“And I’m here.” He waved a hand around the room. “Stuck here.”
That annoyance was there again. “If you don’t like it here, why come?”
“I’m a good patient,” he said with a smile that was more like a grimace. “I’m doing what the doctor suggested—take it easy, stay off my foot and definitely not do what I usually do.”
“Which is?”
“Work, in a thirty-floor building, take meetings all day, travel on a moment’s notice and generally keep things at the office going.”
Sensing the road for the conversation was heading right where she wanted it to, she helped it along. “So, is the business collapsing right now because you’re here and you aren’t wherever it is you prefer to be?”
He threw up his hands in surrender. “I know, I know, I’m not indispensable. Dr. Perry has told me that more than once, and James never lets me forget it.”
Before she could ask who James was, the front door opened and the man who, based on Sharon’s description, dropped off the check last night, strode into the room with a huge covered tray. “Here you go,” he said, and came to put the tray on the table halfway between the two of them.
He didn’t look over at her until he removed the cover and was straightening. Then he smiled. “You’re the doctor?”
“Yes, Morgan Kelly,” she said.
“Dr. Morgan Kelly,” he repeated. “I’m James Evans.” He lifted an eyebrow and said, “I heard you tucked him into bed last night.”
“I helped him get to the bed,” she said.
“Well, I’m grateful, and if there’s anything you need, just call on me.”
“James,” Ethan said, and the man took his time turning from Morgan to his boss. “Where’s dinner?”
“Coming. You just ordered it.”
Morgan thought that the relationship between the two men had to be more than boss and employee. James didn’t seem the least bit fazed by Ethan’s commanding tone, not even when he spoke again. “Make sure there’s fresh shrimp with it.”
“Oh, sure, boss. Fresh shrimp. I’ll make a note,” he murmured, giving Morgan another grin. “Nice to see you, Doctor.”
With that, he left and shut the door behind him. She looked over at Ethan, who was reaching for one of two decanters on the tray. He picked up the one that was steaming and full of rich amber liquid, the mulled cider. The other held brandy. He poured cider into a mug on the tray, and offered it to her. “Your cider,” he said. “How about a cinnamon stick?”
Leaning over the table, she plucked a cinnamon stick off the tray and took the cider from Ethan. “Thanks,” she replied and resumed her seat.
He ignored the cider for himself and poured a splash of brandy in a snifter before he sat back and looked at her. “Cider ceased being appealing when I was a kid,” he said, then smiled. “But brandy? That’s different.”
“Before dinner?”
“Anytime at all,” he murmured.
She cradled the warm mug between both hands, but didn’t drink any. Ethan, on the other hand, sipped his brandy, closed his eyes with a sigh and rested the snifter on his thigh. “I needed that,” he said. She wasn’t aware she’d been frowning at him until he spoke again. “Why are you looking at me as if you’re waiting for me to walk off a cliff or, to be more appropriate, to walk the plank?”
“I was wondering if you’d taken any medication today.”
He lifted the snifter toward the fireplace and stared at the rich liquid that reflected the flames in the hearth. “Why?”
“Mixing alcohol with those pills could be pretty risky.”
He held the glass a moment longer, then put it back down on his thigh. “I took aspirin today. Does that put me at risk?”
She knew her cheeks colored
