“Hey,” he said. “I brought lunch, because the girl at the clinic said you were sick.” He took a couple of steps and stopped on the other side of the peninsula from her. “Why didn’t you text me and tell me you were sick?”
“I don’t know,” she said, and she did sound a little bit stuffed up. “It just started yesterday, and I didn’t think it would be too bad.” She moved over to the plastic bags containing their food. “You went to Wok This Way.”
She looked at him, and a smile tugged up the corners of her mouth. “Thank you.” She glanced over to the kitchen sink, and then along the counters. “You’ve cleaned my house.” Her eyes came back to his. “How long have you been here?”
“Maybe twenty minutes,” he said. “The front door was unlocked, and no cops have arrived, so I don’t think your neighbor called nine-one-one.”
Winnie giggled, which quickly turned into a cough. “I don’t feel good,” she said miserably, and she was so stinking cute Ty couldn’t help his smile.
“Let’s get you back to bed,” he said. “I’ll bring you something to drink and some medicine. I fed the cats, so they’re happy.”
Winnie looked down at her feet and along the seam where the kitchen met the living room. “Oh, where are they?”
“They’re snoozing in the beanbag,” he said.
“That’s where I want to be,” she said.
“All right.” He moved around the end of the counter and took her hand. “Come lay in the beanbag then, sweetheart.”
She looked pretty pathetic as she went with him, and she collapsed next to the cats, both of whom meowed their displeasure about being displaced to the couch while Ty tucked her in with a fluffy blue blanket. Then they returned to her lap, and he returned to the kitchen to get her lunch.
He poured the teriyaki rice bowl into a big bowl he found in the cupboard, opened a couple of drawers to find a fork, and then took everything out to her.
“I had some Gatorade delivered last night,” she said. “There should be a green one in the fridge.”
“Green Gatorade,” he said. “And where’s your apothecary?”
She blinked at him. “My what?”
He grinned at her. “My momma used to have a cupboard full of pills,” he said. “Band-Aids, medical wraps, vitamins, you know. Stuff like that. She called it the apothecary.”
Winnie blinked at him. “I have a couple boxes of cold medicine next to the toaster.”
He grinned at her and returned to the kitchen to get her meds and a drink.
Her hair flowed loose and wild around her face, and Ty realizedfor maybe the first time just how much of it she had. He took a moment to admire her as he crossed the living room, and he recognized the fondness he felt for this woman as it flowed through him.
He handed her the box of cold medication and the bottle of Gatorade, then sat on the end of the couch beside the beanbag.
“Thank you so much, Ty,” she said, and she looked and sounded truly grateful.
“What else do you need from me?” He turned more toward her, since she was sitting on his left. She reached over, and Ty fumbled for a moment but managed to slide his fingers between hers.
She squeezed, and smiled, and said, “Just you, cowboy.”
The words echoed in his head.Just you, cowboy.
“What do you have going on today?”
“Nothing until tonight,” he said, trying to get her words to not sound so sweet inside his head. “It’s your first class…or did you call out sick?”
Just you, cowboyrang through his ears and filled his head and slithered straight into his heart. While he wished it didn’t mean so much to him, it did. Yeah, it really did.
“No, I’m going to go,” she said. “If I take some meds now, I can take some more right before class and make it through.”
Ty nodded. “I can drive you.”
“So you’ll stay with me this afternoon?” She wore an expression of pure hope on her face, and Ty nodded.
