“Prairie chicken. I got three.”
“Prairie chicken?”
He threw some salt into the soup. “I’ve also heard them called grouse, but the name never stuck with me.”
“I’ve never eaten a decoction ofTympanuchus cupido pinnatusfor breakfast.”
He gave her a sideways glance. “Is that scientificaneeze for prairie chicken soup?”
“Scientificaneeze?”
“That’s the name of the language you speak when you’re off on one of your genius runs.”
She ignored his barb. “A decoction ofTympanuchus cupido pinnatusis indeed prairie chicken soup.”
The bump to her head obviously hadn’t done anything to her brain, he mused. “How’s it possible for you to think of anything intellectual about three buck-naked, simmering prairie chickens?”
“I—”
“Never mind. Here.” He dished out a bowl of the broth and handed it to her. For himself, he made a plate of the meat.
“I thought I’d done well,” Theodosia said after finishing the soup. “After I left Singing Creek, I tried to do everything I thought you would do.”
He tossed a prairie chicken leg into the fire. “Yeah? Well, I never would have laid myself out like a damned banquet and invited wolves to come eat me.”
Gingerly, she lay back down on the leaves. “I would not have placed myself in such a predicament had you not infuriated me with your temulency yesterday. You—”
“I might have gotten drunk yesterday, but I did not temulent you!” He wasn’t exactly sure whattemulencymeant, but it sounded like something sexual.
“Temulencymeans drunkenness, Roman. After Miss Fowler left the room, I told you I was leaving Singing Creek. But due to your state of inebriation, you possessed neither the will nor the ability to accompany me. Did you really expect to find me in the room when you awakened?”
“I sure as hell didn’t expect to find you out here in wolf kingdom! Where did you think you were going, anyway?”
She picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle through her fingers. “To a town.”
“Whattown?”
“The first one I came to.”
He stood. “You were heading southwest, Theodosia. In four or five days time you would have been in the damned desert, with nothing but cacti, mesquite, and rattlesnakes for company.” He crossed to the wagon and began scrounging through Theodosia’s bags.
When he brought her the nightgown, she frowned. “What—”
“Put it on. You’re not going anywhere today, tomorrow, or the day after that. In fact, you’re staying put until I think you’re fit to travel, and you might as well be comfortable while you’re at it.”
She drew the gown over her head, pulled it down, then removed her clothes from beneath it. “You are wrong about my not having company while I journey,” she said, slipping her arms into the sleeves of her nightgown. “I have John the Baptist, who is superb company.Hedoes not belittle me, nor does he shout at me. Would you bring him to me, please?”
Shoving his fingers through his hair, Roman swiped her clothes off the ground, threw them into the wagon bed, then bent to get the cage out from beneath the vehicle. As he straightened, the cage door swung open.
John the Baptist was not inside.
“Roman? Will you bring him to me, please?” Theodosia asked again, wondering why he was standing so still.
His back to her, Roman held the cage to his chest and frantically tried to decide what to do. If he told her the bird was gone, she’d make him go look for it. She’d want to go with him, of course. She’d have to go, since there was no way in hell he’d leave her here unprotected.
But what about her head injury? She couldn’t travel.
He wouldn’t tell her that her bird was gone.
