Detouring by way of the kitchen to grab more oven mitts, she doubled up on them, as she promised, before opening the grill lid.
Smoke poured out, but it was thin and wispy smoke, not the billowing kind. Two blackened steaks sat on the grate, looking prune-like, having shrunk to about that size. It was going to take a lot of steak sauce to make them edible.
*
Chance looked at the withered slab of meat that had been set before him and wondered if she’d be insulted if he asked for corn flakes. Probably.
Besides, looking at those big blue eyes of hers, brimming as they were with hope, he couldn’t do it to her. At least there was a baked potato slathered in butter, a decent salad on his tray, and a few slices of bread. He wouldn’t starve. Not that he had much of an appetite with the pain pulsing in his ribs and throbbing in his foot. Good thing, because that meat was a whole other matter.
He reached for the bottle of steak sauce and tipped it so the brown liquid flowed over the beef, smothering it.
“I am sorry,” she said from her perch at the foot of his bed. “I guess I put the flame too high.”
“What did you put on the steak, lighter fluid?” He took a tentative bite…and chewed.
“Just some onion salt and olive oil.”
“Oil on steak with the flame up is a recipe for flare-ups.” He chewed some more. His ribs felt like they’d just been tenderized by a mallet, and his foot felt like it had been pummeled by a hammer. Hell.
“I’ll remember for next time.”
Next time. His house might not survive a next time. He kept chewing. The vinegar-enhanced sauce valiantly fought the dry charred taste. Too early to tell which would win.
Her cell phone rang, sending the first few notes of “Beat This Summer” through the air.
Chance leaned back to take a rest from wrestling with the steak and hoped the pulsing pain would diminish.
“Yes. I’ll be there. Monday at 10:00 a.m. Yes ma’am. I will,” Libby said haltingly into the phone. “Thank you. Good-bye.” With a tap, she closed the phone.
“Western Stock Show?” he asked. The pulses were calming down, thank God.
“Yes. It would be a dream job.”
“You know you’re talking about a rodeo, Libby.” Who would have thought Libby Brennan’s dream job was a rodeo gig.
She looked down at the bedcover and pulled at some imaginary thread. “I never hated rodeo. I hated the thought of you…getting hurt.” She raised her head and stared right at him with those blue eyes, moist now, and suddenly it was a different kind of pain he was feeling.
“I know a few people there. I can help you prep for it,” he offered, keeping the focus on the subject at hand.
“That would be great,” she said and took a sip of wine.
Maybe he should get shit faced so he wouldn’t feel any kind of pain.
“Do you want some wine? Can you have some?”
“I can have anything I want, Libby.” Except you. “I have a broken foot and banged-up ribs. They don’t put you on special diets for that. But, no thanks. I think I’m going to have to take some of those painkillers after all, so no wine tonight. Though we have any more situations like this last one, and I may just have to take up drinking.” He’d hoped to avoid the pills, but the pain was just too much.
She smiled. When she smiled like that, her eyes sparkled like sunlight was pouring out of them. “You’ve always drank.”
“I’ve always been careful with it.” He had to be. “So not tonight.”
Not when I have a beautiful woman named Libby in my house and on my bed. Inches from me. Not when I can’t stop thinking about the body hiding under those clothes. Not when you smile at me like that and I’m in so much goddamn pain, I can’t even enjoy the fantasy.
But maybe that was a good thing, the only good thing of all the pain. It was keeping his nether regions soft and his head hard.
“I’ll do better tomorrow, Chance,” she promised.
“You don’t have to take care of me, Libby, especially if you’re doing it just to ease your conscience or something.”
“I’m here because I care.”
“It’s a little late for caring, don’t you think?”
She sucked in a deep breath, and her eyes held sadness.
Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. Maybe he should give it a rest, not that he was the type of man to give a rest to someone who had hurt him as much as she had. But looking at her, all vulnerable, feeling bad, he figured he should try harder to put a lid on the feelings bombarding him. She was here. And while he wasn’t sure how he should feel about it, he couldn’t deny he was glad.
As if cued, there was a commotion at the French doors. The curtains fluttered and in walked Chance’s young neighbor, carrying a Corning Ware dish. The cavalry had arrived.
“Billy, you’re just in time,” Chance said, not venturing to look at Libby. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but dinner had been far from satisfying.
“Hi, Chance.” Billy’s voice was still somewhere in the upper range of adolescence.
“Everything okay with the horses?”