Page 24 of Keeping His Brat

Sam was sitting up on the edge of the bed, hunched over with his elbows on his knees and as she entered the room, he stopped her. “Don’t come in. I broke a damn glass.” He sounded frustrated.

She stopped just inside the doorway and looked down to see the shards scattered across a puddle of juice. “Don’t worry I have shoes on. I just got back.” She cursed herself for not leaving the juice in a plastic cup. Knowing how groggy he was, she should have expected he might drop it.

As she cleaned up the pieces of glass, she told him about the visit up to the house, including the timeline until completion. “Really can’t believe how great it looks. You should go over when you’re feeling better and take a look.”

He shook himself and straightened. One big hand smoothed over his face as if it could wipe the exhaustion away. “Everything coming out like you wanted?”

“Better. It’s like a whole new house.” She dropped the last chunk of sticky glass into the wastepaper basket on top of the wads of juice-soaked paper towels and stood up. “I’ll have to vacuum to make sure there’s no tiny pieces. If you’re getting up, I’ll grab your shoes.”

“Yeah, need to head to the bathroom. I’m about to burst. Think you could rustle me up some soup while I’m in there, darlin’?” There was such a hopeful note in his voice.

She laughed. “I can do better than that. What if I build up the fire and settle you on the couch with a mugful? And then I was going to throw together some chicken noodle soup for later. What do you think?”

He gave her a pleased grin. “Sounds like heaven. You trying to rack up some ‘get out of spanking free’ cards? Seems like I’m going to owe you a few.”

Charlie rolled her eyes and snorted. “I’m taking care of you because I love you. And why would I ever want to get out of a spanking? I have a feeling if I tried to use them on a real punishment, you’d just give me something worse.”

“Maybe.” The comically devious look on his face had her lips pulling up at the corner as she fought a grin.

“Uh-huh. I’ll be right back.”

She went to their shallow, borderline-useless closet and found a pair of old sneakers for him to wear. Normally in one kind of boot or another, he rarely wore anything else, but she wanted him to be comfortable. As she knelt at his feet to put them on, he laughed.

“I could get used to this. Kneeling at my feet and putting my shoes on for me, like a good girl,” he teased.

She looked up and squinted at him in faux anger. “Keep it up and I’ll remind you how hard I can bite. Don’t think I won’t.” She laced the shoes loosely and stood to move back out of the way. Her first urge was to help him stand but she refrained. It wasn’t just to save his pride, but also because she wanted to see how weak he was.

It was a relief that he stood up well enough on his own and crossed the floor with a minimum of shakiness. She followed just in case, until he reached the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

She hesitated, wondering if she should wait for him—just in case. It warred with the part of her that thought she was overreacting. Finally, she left for just long enough to stick a bowl of soup into the microwave to heat and then came right back.

She stayed there, leaning against the wall as she waited. It didn’t take long. The door opened abruptly, and she tried to look as though she’d just been walking by.

Sam sighed. “Charlie. Can you stop acting like I have one foot in the grave? It’s just a cold.”

“What makes you think I was waiting for you? Maybe I was waiting for the bathroom,” she said. Her eyes slipped to the side avoiding his skeptical expression.

“Okay. Were you waiting for me? And—” He held up a hand as her mouth opened. “—before you answer that consider whether you really want to be in trouble for lying.”

She scowled. “Yes.” She paused and then clarified her answer. “I mean yes I was waiting for you, and no I don’t want to be in trouble.”

He shook his head and then a second later he was pulling her into his arms and dropping a kiss on her crown. “I’m just a little sick, darlin’. It happens.”

“Not to you,” she mumbled against his chest. It was normally comforting but this time, as she turned her head to the side, she could hear a low rumbling from the congestion.

“I’ve been sick before, Charlie girl. I get a cold almost every winter.”

Pointing that out didn’t help really, because this was different. She wasn’t even sure why she knew it was worse. Even before the symptoms had knocked him on his ass she’d known. She didn’t answer because how could she even put that into words that would make sense?

“Come on, let’s set you up on the couch. The soup should be hot,” she said instead, changing the subject.

Sam wasn’t fooled by the distraction; his long sigh made that clear. But standing for so long was obviously starting to drain his energy. She could see he was getting shaky when he dropped his arms and let her go. If the fact he didn’t argue with her wasn’t proof enough that he was exhausted, then the way he let her pull him to the couch certainly was.

Soon she had him under a blanket with his legs up and that seemed to help. He watched her with a lazy smile on his face as she stirred up the fire and added more wood to get the flames going. Most likely Sam knew that the fire was more for her than for him, and it probably amused him that she was giving him the same comfort that he often gave her when she was sick or upset.

“There. Is that better?” She dusted her hands off on her jeans and turned to look at him. He had his eyes closed but she could tell he was still awake.

“Perfect. Maybe letting you fuss over me isn’t so bad. I could get used to letting you do everything.”

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