Normally, he’d wear lace-up leather boots when the weather turned cold, but since the accident, they were too heavy and too complicated to put on and take off. Hence the slip-on sneakers. They weren’t warm enough for winter, let alone blizzards, but he had no other options.
Nimble, he’d noticed, wore black army boots that were scuffed at the toe, like they’d walked a lot of miles.
Nimble had been places and seen things, wild and free, and yet he’d handled the groceries like someone had domesticated him at some point. And, unlike Bradley, he’d handled Morgan as well as someone who’d been trained to nursemaid a full-grown fool of a man who couldn’t keep track of his own meds.
Nimble also smelled like diesel fuel, a thick, slow scent, as though he’d hung around a garage for a good long while. His jeans, as much hole as denim, had been grease stained; his leather jacket, worn in places, equally stained.
Nimble had been shivering in those wet clothes, not even noticing his own condition, it seemed. Shrugging off the cold and the wet as if content simply to be indoors, like a rescue dog who had never slept on a pillow, let alone a blanket.
Well, the shower would do him good. And Morgan needed to get off the couch and at least attempt to put something together for them to eat. That’s what a decent host would do. What Morgan should do.
With a hard grip on the cane, he pushed himself off the couch, breathed a bit as he shifted from foot to foot to find his balance and get the blood moving, then stumbled out of the dark parlor, across the landing, and into the bright kitchen.
The groceries were all put away, paper bags neatly folded and stuffed between the fridge and the wall. The table was set for dinner. On the counter, next to a loaf of bread and the red toaster and the glass butter dish, were three cans of soup. Progresso brand. One chicken noodle, one tomato, one split pea.
Next to the cans was a very nice, well-seasoned wooden spoon. On the stove was a medium-sized saucepan, its lid tilted to one side.
While Morgan had been passed out, Nimble had done all of this, arranging things so Morgan could heat up the soup without much effort.
Or at least start to, because by the time he was at the stove, leaning one hip against the counter while he attempted to pull open the can of chicken noodle, he heard Nimble coming along the hallway to the kitchen.
“Do you feel better now, all cleaned up?” Morgan asked, focusing on the task at hand, head down, doing his best to be a good host even though, as the question died away, he realized how judgmental it was.
“Much better,” Nimble said. An arm reached into Morgan’s view, bare up to the white T-shirt sleeve. “Here, I’ll do that.”
“What? No.” Morgan turned to see Nimble standing there. And stopped, a waft of fern-scented aftershave swirling around him.
“It’s easy; it’s no problem,” Nimble said with a casual shrug.
Nimble had cleaned up nicely, his hair inky black, sweetly drying into waves. He’d shaved, revealing the strong line of his jaw, which, oddly, made him appear a little older. His green eyes gleamed, and he looked a million times better than Morgan felt.
Nimble had freckles dotted across his nose, now that the dirt was gone, long lashes around his green eyes, and a generous smile. He moved closer to take the can of soup from Morgan.
The T-shirt he’d borrowed, flecked with damp spots, was too big for his slender frame—except in the shoulders, where he filled it out.
The sweatpants were too big as well, though it looked as if Nimble had pulled the waist string as tight as he could. It still wasn’t enough. They just about fell off his hips, and, as was easy to see, he wasn’t wearing any underwear.
He was barefoot, and Morgan had the suspicion that Nimble simply hadn’t wanted to look through Morgan’s things any longer than he had to.
Morgan should do more, be more attentive to his guest, but the fact was, he was just plain tired, and it wasn’t going to get any better. He ripped his gaze away. It was rude to stare.
Nimble took the top off the can of soup, and Morgan stepped back and let him, his grip tight on the handle of the cane. Why on earth he was trusting a stranger with any of this was beyond him. And why he was staring was another problem.
“Sit. I’ll make the soup.” The terse command had a cheery undertone, as if Nimble wanted nothing more than to heat up a can of soup on a snowy evening. A smile played around his mouth, quirks at the corners, as if this act, this very thing, was what he loved most in the world. Had been looking forward to all day.
Puzzled, Morgan sat at the kitchen table, slumping a bit as the ache in his knee faded into the background and the musclesalong the backs of his legs lost some of their tension. He was still woozy, but sitting in the bright kitchen seemed to be helping.
“Okay.”
He watched while Nimble dumped the contents of the can into the pan and stirred with that wooden spoon. He even made toast and buttered it, putting a plate in front of Morgan just before he thumped two green soup bowls onto the table.
Morgan blinked at the pile of toast and then at the bowl, the surface of the soup steaming gently. He’d not even seen Nimble finding the bowls and knew he should be more alert in the presence of this near stranger.
What the hell had he been thinking, letting Nimble stay? But that concern, stray and harsh, was quickly erased as Nimble slid into the seat kitty-corner from Morgan, a huge sigh of pleasure escaping him as he grabbed the spoon in his fist and smiled at his soup.
“Have you been on the road long?” Morgan asked.
It was an invitation to share that he would not have dreamed of extending to anyone in the small town of Hysham. But somehow, in his med-muddled state, with dinner prepared and before him with nary a word on Nimble’s part and no effort on his own, it had slipped out. A good host made conversation, and that was the truth of it.
