Page 39 of Caleb's Salvation
Instinctively, I opened my mouth and swallowed.
“I can feed myself,” I told him.
“No, you can’t. You’ll end up dripping it all over you and I just got you into that new clean shirt.”
Another spoonful of soup before I could process that.
I looked up at him, my eyes wide.
“You were breaking sweats every night, Vivienne. I needed to get you out of the wet clothes and into dry ones. Don’t make a big thing about it.”
I looked down at what I was wearing. A long-sleeve, black cotton shirt that reached my knees. It wasn’t mine.
“You were going through all your stuff too fast. I had Jackson bring some of my shirts, the extra sheets.”
“You took off my clothes.” Another spoonful of soup.
“And gave you a couple sponge baths. And sat you on the toilet. So yeah, I’ve seen the goods. You were sick, Vivienne. I did what needed to be done. You want to have a freak-out about it or realize that everything I did was necessary?”
I didn’t know what I wanted. I felt too sluggish to see my way through what he was saying. I only knew I’d been naked with him. Vulnerable. I’d never been naked with any man. Messing around in the back of Dave’s rig had always been about removing the least amount of clothes as possible. He’d only ever pushed my yellow diner uniform up over my hips, moved my panties out of his way.
But Caleb had taken my clothes completely off. Washed every part of me while I’d been unconscious. Clearly, he’d been unmoved by the experience because he was acting as if what he’d done was no different than feeding me the soup.
I had this irrational urge to ask him what he thought about my body, but quickly realized that was silly. He’d been acting as a nurse. He wouldn’t have had any thoughts one way or the other, other than to accomplish his goal of cleaning me.
I reached up to stop him as he tried to feed me another spoonful.
“Caleb, I don’t know how—”
“Forget it, Vivienne. This is what we do up here. We’re a small community, living in a challenging place. When someone goes down, the community does what it can to help. Jackson brought me supplies when I needed them. Gert’s been coming by to pick up and handle the laundry, which included the kid’s dirty diapers. No fun task, that. Hell, even Bud’s been by to check on you.”
“He’s missing three percent of my tips.” I smiled weakly.
“Yeah, it could have been that, too,” he said with a smile.
I reached out to touch that smile.
“What?” he asked, pulling away.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you smile. Not at me.”
That made his smile turn immediately into a scowl. Which he kept in place while he fed me the rest of my soup. By the time I finished the bowl, I was exhausted. Still, this had been the longest I had been able to stay awake in days. Given that, and the fact that I’d eaten, I would say that was progress.
“Take these two aspirin and I’ll let you go to bed.”
I dutifully obeyed and Caleb picked me up and carried me to bed. He settled a heavy blanket over me I didn’t recognize. It was wool and had a Native American design throughout.
“It’s beautiful,” I muttered, as I ran my hands over it, settling in under its warmth.
“It’s mine.”
* * *
Cal
I stood over her until she fell asleep. Then I checked on the kid to make sure he was down for the count as well. A gentle hand on his forehead and I could feel he was clear of any fever.
I couldn’t stop the strange swell of pride I felt. As if his ability to recover from illness was somehow attributed to me, when I had nothing to do with his genes.
