“It’s four Fig Newtons more than I’ve had, so to me it qualifies.”
“That’s beside the point. Feeding me is now your duty.”
His lips twitched. “Duty? How do you figure that?”
“You commandeered me, didn’t you?”
“Some people might think it was more along the lines of saving your life.”
“Details. Mom would have fed me extremely well. You took me away from her, so now you have to step up to the plate.”
“Interesting woman, your mother. You came by the attitude honestly, didn’t you?”
“What attitude?” I asked in bewilderment.
He reached across and patted my knee. “It doesn’t matter. Your dad told me his secret to handling you.”
“He didn’t!” I was appalled. Dad wouldn’t have sided with the enemy, would he? Of course, he didn’t know Wyatt was the enemy. For all I knew, Wyatt had told him we were engaged or something and that was why Dad hadn’t batted an eye about Wyatt taking me home with him.
“Of course he did. We men have to stick together, you know.”
“He wouldn’t
“Did not.”
I fished out my cell phone and furiously punched in Mom and Dad’s number. Wyatt reached over and neatly confiscated the phone, punching the
“Give me that!” I was seriously hampered by my wounded arm, since he was sitting to my left. I tried to turn in the seat, but I couldn’t move my arm much at all and it sort of got in the way, and I bumped my shoulder against the back of the seat. For a moment I saw stars.
“Easy, honey, easy.” Wyatt’s crooning voice reached me through the waves of pain, but it was coming from the right, which was very disorienting.
I took a few deep breaths and opened my eyes, and found that his voice was coming from the right because he was leaning into the car from the open passenger door. The car was stopped in a driveway, the motor still running, and a dark house loomed in front of us.
“Are you going to pass out on me?” he asked as he gently straightened me in the seat.
“No, but I might throw up on you,” I answered honestly, and let my head drop back while I closed my eyes again. The nausea and pain receded at the same rate.
“Try not to.”
“It was probably an empty threat. I haven’t eaten, remember?”
“Except for four Fig Newtons.”
“They’re long gone. You’re safe.”
He brushed his hand over my forehead. “Good deal.” He closed the car door, then came back around and got behind the wheel.
“Isn’t this your house?” I asked in confusion. Had he pulled into the first driveway he came to?
“Sure is, but I’ll park in the garage.” He hit a button on the garage-door opener clipped to the sun visor, and simultaneously an exterior light came on and a double garage door in the side of the house began sliding upward. He put the car in gear and pulled forward, then turned to the right and smoothly slotted the car into its place. He punched the button again, and the door began sliding down behind us.
His garage was neat, which impressed me. Garages tend to be catchalls, getting choked with everything except the cars they were meant to house. Not Wyatt’s. To my right was a tool bench, with one of those big, red, multidrawered tool chests like mechanics have parked off to one side. An array of hammers, saws, and other guy stuff hung neatly on the pegboard wall. I stared at them, wondering if he knew what to do with all of them. Men and their toys. Huh.
“I have a hammer, too,” I told him.
“I bet you do.”
I hate being condescended to. You could tell he thought my hammer was nowhere in the ballpark with his collection. “It’s pink.”
He froze in the act of getting out of the car, staring at me with an appalled expression. “That’s perverted. That’s just not right.”
“Oh, please. There’s no law that says a tool has to be ugly.”
“Tools aren’t ugly. They’re strong and functional. They look like they mean business. They aren’t
“Mine is, and it’s just as good as yours. It isn’t as big, but it does the job. I bet you’re against women joining the police force, too, aren’t you?”
“Of course not. What does that have to do with a friggin’ pink hammer?”
“Women are mostly prettier than men and mostly not as big, but that doesn’t mean they can’t get the job done, does it?”
“We’re talking
I opened the door and raised my voice so he could hear me. “I think your aversion to a tool that’s attractive as well as functional-mmmph.” I glared at him over the hand he’d clapped over my mouth.
“Give it a rest. We’ll argue about hammers when you don’t look like you’re about to fall over.” He raised his eyebrows in question, waiting for me to agree, and he kept his hand over my mouth while he waited.
Disgruntled, I nodded, and he removed his hand, then released my seat belt and gently lifted me out of the car. He hadn’t thought this through, because if he had, he would have unlocked the door leading into the house before he picked me up, but he handled it with only a little juggling. I couldn’t help him because my right arm was trapped between my body and his, and my left arm was useless. Tomorrow I would be able to use it a little, but I knew from experience that right after a trauma the damaged muscle just refuses to work.
He got me inside, turning on light switches with his elbow, and deposited me in a chair in a breakfast nook. “Don’t try to get up for any reason. I’ll get the bags out of the car, then carry you wherever you want to go.”
He disappeared down the short hallway that led into the garage, and I wondered if the doctor had told him something about my condition that hadn’t been passed along to me, because I was perfectly capable of walking. Yes, I had gone all woozy in the car, but that was because I’d hit my arm. Other than feeling a little shaky-and my arm hurting like blue blazes-I was okay. The shaky feeling would be gone tomorrow, because this was how I always felt when I gave blood. It wasn’t even bad shaky, just a little shaky. So what was up with the “Don’t try to get up for any reason?”
Hah! The phone.
I looked around and saw an actual corded phone hanging on the wall, with a really long cord that would reach anywhere in the kitchen. Please. Why not just get a cordless? The units are so much more attractive.
I already had the number dialed and it was ringing by the time Wyatt, carrying both bags, reappeared at the other end of the little hallway. I gave him a “you didn’t fool me” smirk, and he rolled his eyes.
“Daddy,” I said when Dad answered the phone. I call him Daddy when I mean business, sort of like using someone’s full name. “Just what did you say to Wyatt that he thinks is the secret to handling me? How
Dad burst out laughing. “It’s okay, baby.” He calls all of us baby because, well, we did used to be his babies. He never calls Mom that, though. Uh-uh. He knows better. “It’s nothing that’ll undermine you; it was just something he needed to know right now.”
“Like what?”
“He’ll tell you.”