wait— like a trip to the bathroom.”
“I'll find you a chamber pot.”
“No thanks. No offense, Amish, but I'll walk on my lips before I stoop to using a chamber pot—no pun intended.”
Sarah lifted her chin to a sanctimonious angle and intoned her father's favorite words. “Pride goeth before a fall.”
“Yeah, well,” Matt said, unchastened. “I goeth to the bathroom. Are you going to help me get there, Nurse Troyer, or do I get Blossom the Wonder Dog to drag me?”
Blossom gave an outraged booming bark and darted away, hind feet chasing her front like a child's pull-toy as she disappeared into the dark hallway.
Sarah heaved a much-put-upon sigh and planted her hands on her hips. “All right. Ill help you. But youll come back to bed and stay there after?”
“Scout's honor.”
“I don't know anything about no Scouts. It's your honor that worries me.”
“And well it should,' Matt said, doing the best Groucho Marx imitation he could considering he could only waggle one eyebrow.
Sarah just blinked at him, looking mildly bemused.
Matt was crestfallen. His Groucho always won him smiles and giggles. “You don't know the Marx Brothers?”
“I don't think so,” Sarah said, handing him his cane. “Do they farm around here or are they from the Twin Cities?”
“Never mind,” Matt shook his head and chuckled, utterly charmed by her naivete and the effect it had on his own slightly tarnished soul.
She was a gem, this Amish girl, a natural pearl. In spite of the dents she put in his ego, she was exactly the bright spot he needed in his life right now, when everything in his day-to-day world seemed bleak and hopeless, when he'd almost given up hope of ever finding any goodness in the world again.
Maybe he'd have to thank Ingrid after all.
“Ingrid was right. You are a terrible patient.”
Matt froze as he lifted the razor to his cheek. His eyes met Sarah's in the mirror above the sink. She stood in the bathroom doorway, arms crossed over her chest, shoulder braced against the jamb, Blossom sitting on her feet. She wore a dark blue dress identical to what she had on yesterday, a black apron, and a stern look that would have done any head nurse proud.
“Shaving doesn't seem like too strenuous an activity,” he said.
Straightening, Sarah lifted one brow and planted her fists on her hips. “No? Well, dangerous is maybe a better word at that. The way your hand is shaking, you'll likely cut your own throat.”
She was right. His hand was trembling with the effort of lifting the razor toward his cheek. It amazed him how weak he felt. The trip to the bathroom and back the night before had done him in. The instant he had crawled back in bed and let his head touch the pillow he'd been unconscious, and he'd remained that way until the buttery light of morning had peeked in around the edges of his window shade.
He had expected to feel stronger with the dawn of a new day, and he had managed the walk to the bathroom himself with the aid of his cane. But now he stood leaning heavily against the oak vanity, his heart beating a little too fast, his breathing a little too labored, his hand shaking in a way that made his razor look as safe as a chain saw.
He managed a smile as he met Sarahs eyes in the minror again. “If I did myself in with this thing, would you be sad?”
“You bet,” she said, teasing lights brightening her eyes, her Mona Lisa smile curling up one corner of her mouth. “Think of the mess I'd have to clean up.”
“You're the soul of sympathy.”
“You don't deserve sympathy if you're not going to follow your doctor's orders.”
He shook his razor at her, narrowing his eyes. “You could go far in the nursing profession. Or as a marine. The requirements are similar.”
Sarah sniffed at him, working at looking annoyed. He was teasing her, of course, but she had, in fact, once fantasized about becoming a nurse … or a teacher … or an astronaut. When she was twelve, she had fantasized about becoming a spy because she had been pretty sure spies got to go all over the world. But at twenty-five she knew it was not likely she would become any of those things no matter how one foolish corner of her heart still wished for it. Because of her ties to her family she would always be just an Amish girl. Overseeing the recuperation of the dashing Dr. Thorne was probably, as exciting as her life was ever going to get.
Matt watched her carefully in the mirror. She did an admirable job of maintaining her stern expression, but she couldn't stop her eyes from looking wide and vulnerable and a little bit sad. He had only been teasing her, as he had teased every female he'd ever known, but he'd struck some hidden chord inside her, and she didn't want him to know it.
“I guess I'm not used to being on the other side of the stethoscope,” he admitted, setting his razor down and bracing himself against the sink with both hands as a little more of his strength seeped away. He wasn't used to having anything wrong with him. He had always been athletic and fit, and took his good health for granted. Now his body seemed like a hostile stranger to him, refusing to cooperate with his will. It was frustrating. It was also giving him a new sympathy for his own patients. “As a rule, doctors don't make very good patients,” he said.
Sarah's brows knitted in confusion at the paradox of a doctor who wouldn't take care of his own health. “What good is all that learning if a person won't make use of it on themself?”
He mustered a wry smile. “Good question. Unfortunately, we doctors tend to think we're immune to pain and suffering. We're too wrapped up in taking care of everyone else. It makes us think we're superhuman.”
“You don't look so super now,” she said dryly.
“Thank you,” Matt said, scowling. “All this encouraging flirtation is doing wonders for my morale.”
Sarah stepped into the bathroom and picked up the razor and a thick terry towel. “Back to bed with you, Matt Thorne. I will do the shav-mg.
She smiled blandly at Matt s skeptical look and handed him his cane. He was ridiculously appealing with his dark eyes scowling at her, and shaving cream lathered over the lower half of his face like a frothy white beard. He wore a rumpled gray T-shirt that clung to his wide shoulders, and navy blue shorts that bared strong-looking hairy legs. High up on his left thigh was a bandage that matched the one around his ribs. Her gaze lingered there a moment before she jerked it back up to his face.
“Like what you see, Blue Eyes?” he asked in a voice so soft and seductive, it was like a caress on Sarah's senses.
She swallowed hard and gave him what she hoped was a steely glare. “Ill like it better when I see it in bed.”
Matt put a hand to his chest and feigned shock. “Miss Troyer! Such frankness leaves me lightheaded!”
Sarah blushed as she realized just how he had deliberately taken her remark. He was no doubt a master at word games and all the subtleties of flirtation. Ingrid had remarked more than once that her brother was a notorious ladies' man. Sarah could hold her own when teasing, but she knew she was in over her head with Matt Thorne in more ways than one.
“If you took that as an invitation, then you must be delirious,” she said dryly.
“Hopeful,” Matt corrected her, delighted in the way she rose to the challenge of sparring with him. He wouldn't have expected so much spunk from an Amish girl. His mental image of the Amish was one of somber austerity. It had never occurred to him that they might have a sense of humor.
“Hope
“Give a poor invalid the comfort of believing beautiful women still want him,' Matt said over his shoulder as
