Page 33 of Not Our First Rodeo
I shake my head, and he manages a tired, barely coherent smile.
“Liar.”
“Maybe,” I say, walking farther into the room, drawn to him like a moth to a flame. When I get close enough to touch him, I reach out slow enough for him to pull away. When he doesn’t, his eyes that look almost black in this light never leaving me, I press the back of my hand to his forehead. It’s hot, clammy, making me suck in a breath between my teeth.
My eyes lock on his. They’re hazy, unfocused. “You’ve got a fever.”
He nods, his movement slow, sluggish, but his gaze remains heavy on me. It makes my skin tingle, sends goose bumps rushing down my spine. “I started feeling sick at dinner.”
Swallowing against the feeling, I push down on his shoulder, trying to ignore the firmness of it beneath my palm, the way the muscles bunch and flex, hard as granite. “Lie down. I’m going to get medicine.”
“Lying down makes the cough worse,” he drawls sleepily, voice rough as sandpaper.
“Mmm,” I say, and apply pressure to his shoulder again.
He must really not be feeling well, because he bends beneath it, sliding down onto his pillow. His eyelids flutter, sleep pulling him under. I can’t help but run my hand through the thick mass of his dark hair, pushing it off his clammy forehead. Even like this, flushed from fever, he looks beautiful.
Bending down so he can hear me, I say, “I’ll be right back.”
I swear I feel a phantom touch on my back as I turn, fingertips pressing into the dimples above my waistband, but I don’t look back, don’t linger. Instead, I slip out of the room, forcing myself to focus on the task at hand. I head into my bathroom and dig through the cabinets, looking for medicine. Back in Utah, I always kept the medicine cabinet fully stocked. A simple cold could ruin a whole week of rehearsals and classes if I didn’t tackle it quickly.
I haven’t been as good about stocking it since moving, but luckily, I find a box of cold and flu medication that isn’t expired. It should get us through the night and into tomorrow. By then, the roads should be clear enough for a trip to the drugstore.
After snatching the box, I pad into the kitchen to make tea. Beau is strictly a coffee man. The habit starts early for ranchers, I guess, due to the early hours. Even back in high school, he drank at least two cups of black coffee every morning before school. I, however, have never been much for coffee. It always makes me jittery, something that isn’t especially helpful for a dancer. So instead, I usually have tea or matcha in the mornings, and even when I was at my worst mentally, I was never without tea.
It makes it easy to find some now. I find a bag of peppermint and brew it, then make sure to load it up with honey before heading back into the guest room. Beau is still asleep, his breathing heavy, a wheezing sound pulling from his chest. I almost hate to wake him, but the way his breathing sounds, I know it’s only a matter of time before he starts coughing again, and once it starts, it’s harder to stop.
I stand at the foot of the bed for a long moment, considering what I should do, hot tea steaming in the cold air around me, the heat of the cup seeping into my chilled skin. Beau and I handle sickness very differently. He’s a natural caretaker, and I am…not. But I’ve never had a problem taking care of him. It comes easily. And it has always frustrated him to no end that I don’t let him do much for me when I’m sick. But I don’t really enjoy being taken care of. I don’t come from a family like Beau’s. My needs were always met, sure, but my parents don’t show their love the way the Jenningses do.
Still, I don’t know if Beau will want me to take care of him now. Not after our fight earlier, not after everything that’s happened the last few months. I don’t know where we stand, what I’m allowed to do for my husband, and I hate that.
Taking a deep, shaking breath, I decide I’ll give him the medicine and make sure he drinks the tea and lots of water before he passes out again. And then I’ll head back to my room across the hall. But I won’t close the doors behind me, just in case he needs me again.
Slowly, I make my way over to the side of the bed and set the tea and medicine on the bedside table. I let my hand fall to his shoulder, palm smoothing over the slope of it. He’s always been muscular. His is not the kind of body honed from hours in the gym, but the kind that speaks to months and years of physical labor. But now, he’s bigger, like he’s been working more than usual the last few months. I can imagine it easily. While Isecluded myself in this house and tried to heal so no one would see how broken I was, Beau drowned his sorrows in hard work. I used to do the same with dance. We’re so different in so many ways, but that’s something we’ve always had in common.
A little pang goes through me at the loss of it now. One more way we’ve changed into people we barely recognize.
Shoving the thought away, I gently nudge his shoulder. “Beau, wake up,” I whisper softly. “I’m going to take care of you.”
He blinks blearily at me, confusion etched into the lines of his face. “Elsie baby, I can’t right now. I don’t feel too great.”
My lips roll together to keep from laughing. “Your medicine, Beau. I have your cough medicine.”
He blinks again, as if he’s trying to clear his vision and mind at the same time. “Medicine?”
“You have a fever,” I say. “And a cough. You need to take this medicine and drink some tea.”
He rolls his face into the pillow, his words muffled. “Don’t make me drink the hot dirt water.”
This time I do laugh, and at the sound of it, he turns to face me once more, a sloppy smile on his face. “I love your laugh, Elsie. I wish you hadn’t stopped laughing.”
This sobers me, and sadness settles deep in my stomach. “Me too.”
“But you’re laughing again. That’s good.” He pushes himself up onto an elbow, and then half sits, half reclines against the headboard. “You’re coming back to me.”
I swallow against the lump forming in my throat, wanting to press a hand to the tightness in my chest. “Yeah, Beau, I’m going to come back to you.”
He smiles again. “Good.”
