Page 32 of Clara Knows Best

She winced in sympathy. “You know, you don’t really owe her anything. She put you through school because she wanted to. It’s not like you signed your soul away.”

“I know,” he said on a yawn.

“She wouldn’t want to cost you your promotion.”

“Mm.”

She later thought it was around that point that he fell asleep. She spent the next several minutes hyping the hunting cabin and rubbing oil into his fingertips, but he didn’t say anything else, even when she wiped off the remnants of the hydrating mask,dotted his forehead, cheekbones and chin with wrinkle serum and spread it over his face in gentle circles.

Her father knocked lightly at the open door as she was applying a thick moisturizing cream. “’Night.”

“Good night, Dad,” she said, giving her most angelic smile.

The Colonel looked at the sleeping doctor in her chair, shook his head in wry amusement, and left her to it.

If Jesse had been awake he might have objected to the frankincense that came next, but he was not awake, so she got the jade roller out of her little cosmetic refrigerator and used it to spread the oil over his face in firm, outward strokes.

She was not sure why she was including so many extra steps and being so generous with her precious products. She supposed the downside of being a brilliant and perfectly calm doctor was an inordinate amount of responsibility and concern and stress, and the number-one remedy for that (assuming hugs were completely out of the question) was a quality spa experience. She hoped that even if he was no longer fully aware of the treatment he was receiving, his sleeping brain would find it a little bit comforting.

The last thing she did was moisturize his hands, which were really very dry from frequent washing, hand sanitizer and cold winds. Every good manicure ended with a massage, so as she applied the lotion she focused on the muscles and joints.

“All right, time to wake up and get out of my room,” she announced at last, gathering washcloths and towels and trash.

Jesse got up immediately—part of his doctor training, perhaps. “All done?”

“Yes. Don’t touch your face. Just wash it tomorrow morning like normal and put a little moisturizer on before you shave.”

“Uh—”

Wordlessly, she handed him a bottle of daily moisturizer.

“Thanks.”

He did not sound excited about adding another step to his morning hygiene regimen, but Clara thought that he would probably do it.

“How much do I owe you?”

“Buy the hunting cabin,” she said at once. “We’ll call it even.”

“I like you,” he said again. “But you’re nuts, lady.”

“Just think about it,” she suggested reasonably.

“I’ll sleep on it,” he promised, and shut the door behind himself.

9

He was startled by his appearance in the mirror the next morning, and as he shaved he kept marveling at the soft smoothness of his skin and thinking about all the crazy things Clara had said.

There was no chance of him buying the Del Amos’ cabin, of course. Even if he were in the market for a second home, which he wasn’t, and even if he liked to hunt, which he didn’t, he would not saddle himself with an ugly 1970s shack in the Davis Mountains that was full of some other family’s dusty junk. The fact that it was a big enough shack to sleep twenty people only made it worse, because the whole thing probably needed renovating down to the studs.

The land around it was phenomenal, sure. But the property taxes alone must be crippling.

Still, he had a bad feeling—almost a gut-wrenching fear, really—that if he spent the weekend there Clara would somehow manage to talk him into making an offer on it.

His hosts were having coffee on the porch when he left for work.

“Little cold, isn’t it?”

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