“Brooksy arranged it.”
Brooksy? “You mean Brooks Leland? Doctor Brooks Leland?”
Doolin’s gray head bobbed. “Yeah, yeah. Me and Brooksy, we went to college together. We were fraternity brothers, and hey, once a frat bro, always a frat bro. Right?”
Frat bro. A smile wiggled across Kaylie’s lips. She’d remember that and give her older brother’s best friend—that was, Brooksy—a hard time about it later. Obviously, Doolin had called Brooks about his patient’s need to keep a low profile while recovering from his accident and Brooks had contacted the aunts, apparently Aunt Odelia specifically. Finally, this situation was beginning to make some sort of sense.
“So what do you think?” Aaron Doolin asked. “Can you do it? He just mainly needs someone to help him get around and manage his pain, meds and meals.” He eyed her warily. “You think you can make him take his medicine?”
Make him? Kaylie lifted a slender eyebrow at that. She thought of her father again. At seventy-six, Hub Chatam was twice widowed and a retired minister. As the youngest of his four children and the only daughter, she’d taken a leave of absence from her job after his heart attack in order to move into his house, take care of him and help him adjust to the new lifestyle necessitated by his health realities. Six months later, he still wouldn’t take a pill that didn’t come from her hand. He claimed that he couldn’t keep them straight, but let ten minutes pass the appointed time for one of his meds and he was demanding to know when she was going to dispense it.
Before she could answer the agent’s question, Gallow’s eyes popped open. Startled by their paleness—they were like marbles of gray ice—Kaylie registered the panic in them. She instinctively started forward just a heartbeat before he bolted up into a sitting position. Roaring in pain, he dropped back onto the pillow. A blue streak of profanity rent the air, then he gasped and began to writhe.
Though taken aback, Kaylie instantly realized that he was doing himself damage. Stepping up to his bedside, she bent over him and calmly advised, “Be still. Take slow breaths. Slow, shallow breaths.” For the first time he looked at her. Confusion, anger and pain poured out of those eerily pale eyes, but as he stopped moving and gradually controlled his breathing, lucidity took hold of him. Impulsively, Kaylie brushed a pale gold lock from his brow, smiling encouragingly. “Slow…slow…That’s it.”
His pale gaze skimmed over her with acute curiosity even as he followed her instructions. After a moment, he swallowed and rasped, “Who are you?”
“Kaylie Chatam. Hypatia, Odelia and Magnolia Chatam are my aunts.”
“Kaylie’s a nurse,” Aaron Doolin put in helpfully. “How about that? The old biddies, er, our hostesses had one in the family. Go figure.”
Gallow’s gaze abruptly shifted to his agent. Kaylie shivered. Had she been the recipient of that suddenly furious, frigid, accusatory glare, she’d have ducked. Doolin just ratcheted up his grin and spread his hands.
“Hey, Stevie! That’s my boy. How you feeling there, huh?”
“How do you think I feel?” Gallow gritted out. “And don’t call me Stevie.”
“Sure. Sure. Doc says you reinjured those ribs last night. Must be killing you.”
Literally baring his teeth, Gallow revealed a pair of spaces on the right side where his upper and lower second molars should be. Something about those empty spaces pricked Kaylie’s heart. He was no longer the impossibly handsome sports figure or the angry brute but a mere man at the mercy of his own injuries. Until he snarled.
“Reinjured my ribs? You think? That ba—” He slid a gaze over Kaylie. “That bozo ball of lard you hired to take care of me threw himself on top of me! That’s what reinjured my ribs.”
Doolin lifted his hands as if to ward off a blow. “Hey, calm down, will you? How was I to know the guy would do that? I mean, he’s a nurse, right? He said you were all over the place and that he was trying to pin you down so you wouldn’t fall off the bed.”
“He was trying to pin me down, all right, and enjoyed every second of it, until I kicked him in the—” Gallow broke off there and gave Kaylie an irritated look.
Doolin chuckled. “You gave him an anatomy lesson he didn’t get in nursing school, that’s for sure.”
Kaylie stepped back and folded her arms, appalled. This man was a powerhouse of lithe physical strength and jagged emotion that ranged far beyond her personal experience. Stephen Gallow sent her a cool, challenging look. She felt frozen and singed at the same time. A sense of foreboding shivered through her as she watched him take his agent to task with little more than a glare and growl.
“Where’s the bozo now?”
“Fired him last night.”
“And you think he’s going to keep his mouth shut after this?”
“He signed a nondisclosure, and I sent the attorney to remind him of that in person this morning, along with a check for his trouble.”
In other words, Kaylie thought, shocked, they’d paid off the man! Whether to keep him quiet or forestall a lawsuit, she didn’t know. Most likely both. Obviously she had stumbled into a situation that was well beyond her depth.
Gallow dropped his eyelids, his right hand sliding lightly over his left side. Kaylie could tell that he was still in great pain, and the nurse in her could not stand by and watch it, no matter how rough and tough a character he might be. She looked to Doolin.
“Where is his pain medication?”
The agent reached into his coat pocket and drew out a prescription bottle. “Brooks says anything stronger has to be given by injection, and that requires a professional,” Doolin said pointedly. “Until we hire another nurse, this is the best we can do.”
She took the bottle and read the prescription before going to the bedside table, where a crystal pitcher of water and matching glass stood. She poured water into the glass, uncapped the pill bottle and shook two huge tablets into her palm.
“These should give you some relief, but you’ll have to sit up to take them. Will you let me help you?”
Gallow ignored her, demanding of Doolin, “What have you told her?”
Aaron shrugged. “Just what she needs to know.”
“Will you let me help you?” Kaylie repeated.
Gallow slid her a dismissive glance. “I don’t like being knocked out all the time.”
“Taking the meds regularly is the best way to prevent that. Regular doses will keep your pain under control while allowing you to gradually build up a resistance to the narcotic effect. Take them irregularly and they’ll knock you out every time.”
He glared at her for a moment, but then he held his breath and slowly pushed up onto his right elbow. Kaylie quickly pressed the first tablet between his lips and lifted the glass. He gulped, tilted his head back and swallowed. They repeated the process with the second tablet before he collapsed once more upon the pillow, panting slightly.
Kaylie heard his stomach rumble. Setting aside the glass, she began to reposition the pillow and smooth the
