He’d moved on to coffee by the time Avery came down.
She had bags under her eyes, and her face was flushed in a way that made him think something was off. Avery frowned at him and went past to the kitchen door.
“The sun hasn’t melted the snow yet,” she groused. “That means you can’t leave.”
He went to stand next to her. “Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine,” she snapped, but fine turned into a cough.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
Avery turned her blue eyes up to his. “It doesn’t feel great, Tucker. It really doesn’t.”
“Listen.” He put a hand on her shoulder. Woah—she was burning up. He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead, where he found that the fever was even worse. Avery blinked up at him, hardly seeming to register what he was doing. “Why don’t you get back into bed? I’ll handle the chores.”
“I’ll help you.” Shanna’s voice came from the hallway, where she’d already pulled on her boots and hat. “I’m ready to go. Are you sick, Mom?”
“I’m—” Avery felt her own forehead. A flare of resistance came into her eyes, but left just as quickly. “I think so.” She coughed again, the sound so pathetic it made Tucker’s chest ache. “I’m going back to bed.”
“Good. You need help?” Tucker steadied her with a hand on her elbow.
Avery shook him off. “I’m okay. I’m fine.”
She trailed out of the kitchen, and he and Shanna headed outside to do the chores. Tucker couldn’t stop thinking about Avery. Had she made it upstairs? Tucker cursed himself for being so unbalanced by all that had happened—he should have gone with her, made sure, and that she had water. He’d have to check when they got back in. They made their way to the barn, where Shanna couldn’t resist giving him the rundown.
“My mom has big plans for this place,” she told him while they fed the animals. “She’s going to keep the bigger animals in the barn, but she’s going to do a lot of mobile stuff, too. Like house calls.”
That had been a specialty of Doc’s. They chatted about the old doctor while they fed the animals and cleaned out the stalls. Shanna even helped him shovel the paths. Then the two of them headed back inside.
“You want to see something else?” Shanna’s eyebrows raised, gleam in her eyes. “Come look at this.”
Tucker followed her to the front of the house, where a separate doorway led to another section of the first floor. Shanna pushed open the door. “See? Her new office.”
He stepped inside the old office space that Doc had rarely used.
It was a mess. Equipment and papers covered every available surface, and boxes full of things she clearly hadn’t gotten around to unpacking. The whole place needed work. Ancient wood paneling covered the walls. The space itself was big enough for a veterinarian to use, but not like this.
“It’s going to be great,” Shanna said from behind him. “Mom was hoping it would be in better condition when we moved in, but she’ll get around to it.”
“Has she ever—has she ever had anybody to help with this kind of thing? Was your dad ever in the picture?”
Shanna shrugged, then stepped around him to usher them both out of the office. “My mom doesn’t talk about him much. He’s never been in our lives. I think—” She screwed up her nose. “I think she met someone when she was in college.” Her gaze drifted away from his. “I’ve never met him.”
“Wow, all right.” He felt like he was standing uncomfortably close to a precipice, and losing balance fast.
“I’m going to make a sandwich.” Shanna was halfway down the hall before she thought to say anything else. “Want one?”
“I’m going to go check on your mom. I’ll be back in a minute, okay?”
He fought back his jealousy while he made his way up the stairs. Tucker had no standing to be jealous of the mystery man Avery had been with in college, but the silver lining was that College Man had left her. That gave him a chance to make right whatever had gone wrong between them. Even if they didn’t get back together, he could clear the air. He just had to clear the fog from his own brain first. Another horrifying thought broke through—what if he already had a girlfriend?
Those thoughts were chased from his mind by the sight of Avery in her bed, peeking out at him from under the covers.
“You all right?”
“No,” she croaked, and coughed some more.
Tucker took a chance and went into the bedroom. He crouched down by the bed without touching it. “It sounds like you might have the flu. But you don’t have to worry. I’ll handle things here.”
“No, you won’t.”
Avery tried weakly to get out of the bed, but he put his hand on her shoulder and eased her back down. “Rest. Everything’s going fine. We’ve got the chores done, and I can get dinner on the table.”
Avery was already closing her eyes, which made him worry about her even more. “Fine.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
Tucker thought about her relentlessly through the afternoon and evening. He thought about her as he and Shanna played games and joked about Animorphs. He thought about her while he discovered, to his shock, that he liked the domesticity of being in the house with Avery and Shanna. He thought about her while he read one of the Animorphs books with Shanna before bed, and while he closed the door gently behind him.
Avery was still burning up.
He fetched her some Tylenol from the first-aid kit in the guest bathroom. From the feel of it, Avery’s fever was high enough to be concerning, but not an emergency. She turned over after the Tylenol and fell immediately back to sleep. But someone should stay and make
