Jack looked over his shoulder at Morgan, the movement casting his face in half-darkness, like some sort of chiaroscuro photograph. His expression seemed to say that he expected Morgan to tell him to get moving and jump on that train.
Firelight flickered in his eyes, and his shoulders were stiff. Then he turned his attention back to Bourne, watching Matt Damon’s super-soldier antics as he battled his way out of yet another corner. Bourne was good. It was mindless watching, but not too mindless, on account of Matt Damon being handsome as well as charming.
What Morgan wanted—among so many other things—was the kind of resolution that Bourne movies tended to provide. The good guys won and continued on.
Unlike Morgan, who wasn’t a good guy and had been spinning his wheels for weeks. Months, even. First in Denver, and now here in Hysham. Only to be rescued by someone he’d thought he was rescuing.
But he’d failed in that, just like everything else, because instead of being grateful, he’d abused Jack’s trust. He’d basically agreed that Jack should leave when it was clear that, given half a chance, Jack could be a beloved member of the Hysham community—far more than Morgan himself.
The train whistle sounded again: two long blasts, one short. Then another long as the train’s engine and the tons of steel and iron it was pulling trundled over the crossing.
A bit of wood broke in the small stove, and Jack leaned up on his knees and reached to open the door. He adjusted something, pushing the wood around with the short iron poker, the movement shifting his flannel shirt to one side and making his white T-shirt ride up.
His movements were lithe and easy, and Morgan envied him.
When Morgan had been with Bradley, after the accident, he’d slumped in his chair and expected Bradley to take care of him. He’d considered himself badly treated because Bradley had left him.
He should have rallied himself and hired someone to help him, to remind him to take his pills at the right times and todrive him to PT if he couldn’t be bothered to call a cab. But no, he’d simply sat there and complained and let himself fade away, like a train whistle headed to parts unknown.
He was a grown man, for fuck’s sake, and should be well past the point of feeling sorry for himself. His knee would heal. He’d get the feed and grain sorted out and sell it. Maybe not for a ton of money, but he would sell it and return to Denver, and in the meantime, he was going to take better care of himself.
“Thank you, Jack,” he said, finally remembering his manners long after he should have. “For everything.”
Jack jerked him a nod but didn’t look away from the laptop. Giving Morgan a cold shoulder he most certainly deserved.
When it got late, Morgan got up from the couch and limped to the bedroom. It was the least he could do, giving Jack his privacy.
The room was chilly, especially after the cozy warmth of the parlor. And lonely. The bedsheets would be positively ice cold. But he’d be damned if he kept hogging Jack’s space, grabbing for him in the night. Loading Jack’s shoulders with problems that were not his to solve.
Instead of dwelling on any of that, he worked his way through the PT exercises. They were simple. Leg raises, low stretches, balancing with his hand against the wall. He started small and only did one or two reps of each, and was quite warm when he finished.
He took some Tylenol, had a hot shower, and went to bed, where he lay staring at the shadowy ceiling as if it would have answers for him. Outside, a low wind started, more like a Chinook than a blizzard, or maybe the weather was just taking a breather.
When he woke up and looked out the window, sunlight was sparkling off the white waves of snow. From down thepassage, he could smell bacon frying, and something sweet with cinnamon.
Jack was cooking because he was earning his keep and because he liked to cook and because Morgan had been a stone around his own neck, wallowing in self-pity. Well, that was stopping, had stopped, as of last night.
He got dressed, promised himself that he’d do his exercises later, and thumped down the hall with his cane. His knee was stiff, and his whole body ached as he walked, but in a good way, like the promise of healing. And if he could heal, then things would get better.
Tonight he’d set his alarm for the first time in ages so that tomorrow he could get through exercises and a shower before he smelled anything being cooked on the stove. So that when Jack was hard at work, he, Morgan, would also be hard at work, or at least helping, rather than being a lump that expected to be waited on.
In the sunshine-filled kitchen, Jack was standing at the stove, sock-footed, hip cocked, a fork in his hand as he tended to the bacon in the cast-iron frying pan. It appeared he’d washed at the sink again, his damp dark hair shiny with the reflected sunshine off the snow.
Morgan opened his mouth to ask Jack why he hadn’t used the shower, then shut it again. Then he asked, “Why aren’t you wearing your new clothes? You look like a hobo.”
“I am a hobo,” Jack said, and if his voice was stiff, Morgan knew the only person to blame was himself.
On the counter was a waffle maker, of all things. Jack had presumably found it in one of the cupboards. Beside it was a large bowl, pale batter lacing the rim. And beyond that, a stack of waffles sat on a plate, wafting fragrant steam into the air.
“Who’s going to eat all those?” Morgan asked, coming closer. He didn’t mean to sound so critical. It wasn’t right, given the factthat Jack was doing all the work. So he added, “Unless it’s for that hollow leg of yours.”
Jack’s smile flickered, there and gone again as he turned over several slices of bacon.
“You can freeze ’em,” he said. “Two or three in little baggies, and ta-da.”
While Morgan watched, Jack picked up a piece of bacon from the plate next to the stove and crunched his way through it. Jack loved bacon, and he loved cooking, and he loved coffee.
“Hey,” Morgan said. “I have to go to the bank today, assuming the roads are clear, so maybe after we can stop at the coffee shop? See what they have going on, maybe get some pastries?”
