The doctors released Ellen from the hospital on Tuesday with the caveat that she needed bed rest for a few more weeks.
Cayce and I helped Marcus get her home. We didn’t say anything to one another or to the teen, but it was clear that Ellen wouldn’t be coming back to work. Even after she recovered with bed rest, therapy would be needed to work on restoring her speech and the use of her left arm and fine motor skills in both hands.
It was also obvious that Marcus was going to have to cut down his hours. Ellen’s husband had died a decade ago, her only child Rachel was divorced and on disability. When it came to looking after a bedridden Ellen, most of the work would land on Marcus’s young shoulders.
For the clinic, that meant Cayce was down two employees. He was also paying sick leave for Ellen and Marcus and overtime for the employees who had room in their personal schedule to put in extra hours on the clinic.
Mostly, though, it was Cayce at the clinic working from at least six in the morning until at least ten at night, with Jess putting in a few hours after the practice was closed to clean up and prep for the next day.
I knew I was going straight to hell for thinking it, but the extra hours my new husband was away were a relief. I didn’t have to worry over our “first night” because we split it between sitting in the emergency room and then the ICU with Marcus, then following him home to make sure he made it back okay. I didn’t have to worry about Saturday because, despite the late opening and early close, Cayce had to work the same crazy hours he did Monday through Friday because both Marcus and Ellen had been scheduled.
On the following Saturday, I came downstairs to find Cayce sitting upright in one of the winged side chairs, still dressed in the clothes he wore at the clinic, with one foot in his boot and the other foot bare. I wasn’t sure whether he had fallen asleep getting ready to go back in or if he’d sat down upon arriving home the night before and never made it to bed.
Terrible fake wife that I was, I had been hiding upstairs each night from about eight on.
I called his name a little above a whisper, not wanting to startle him. When there was no response, I moved within arm’s reach and patted his shoulder as I repeated myself.
“Cayce, shouldn’t you be getting ready for work?”
He responded with a full-bodied jerk, his eyes flying open to reveal the gray irises surrounded by bloodshot whites. He wiped at his face, muscles straining against a yawn. His head sort of fell to one side as he looked at the window near the front door and saw all the sunlight.
“Hell,” he said, then looked at his watch, his face going through all sorts of contortions as he tried to get his bleary eyes to work.
“It’s about seven,” I told him, guilt washing over me at how worn out he was from a week short-staffed while I’d been home by six every day. “Do you have to be in at nine or can you take a few hours?”
“Eight-thirty,” he mumbled. “First appointment is at nine.”
I patted his shoulder again. “I’ll make you some breakfast while you get a shower. I’ll get the coffee on, too.”
He nodded, but I could see his eyes were sliding shut.
“Cayce,” I gave his shoulder a light shake. “Stand up for me.”
He offered a sweet, sleepy smile that would have melted my heart if I hadn’t locked it behind a wall after our one night together.
“For you, love, anything.”
I managed not to snort or huff as I got him onto his feet. It hurt the most when he called me “love” at times like these, when there was no way he was planning what he said, so no way he was delivering a line. Except it was a line. My brain knew that. He was such a player that these were default reactions for him even when he was half asleep or doing chest compressions on a sixty-plus-year-old woman.
Making it to his feet, he started walking.
In the wrong direction.
“This way,” I said, steering him toward the downstairs bathroom, my guilt growing each time his booted foot hit the floor, the other foot as quiet as angels tiptoeing on clouds.
Getting Cayce into the bathroom, I leaned him against the edge of the sink and bent down to remove the boot and sock. His fingers played in my hair, interfering with my work. I glanced up to scold him.
He looked so damn tired.
“Maybe you should have the food and coffee first,” I said. “I’m not sure it’s safe for you to go in the shower on your own.”
He shook his head, a fresh but still dead-ass tired smile on his face, the curl on one side giving it a naughty twist.
“Not safe,” he agreed as I stood up. His hands wound around my waist. “You should come in with me.”
Ignoring the effect on my body, I let him hold me, even pushed against him while I reached around his big frame and turned the cold water on. I grabbed a washcloth and ran it under the icy stream, my fingers immediately feeling the bite of the water temperature.
I gave the cloth a squeeze, then grabbed it with my other hand. The icy hand slid under the back of his shirt to press at his lower back, immediately straightening his spine and knocking a squeaky protest from deep inside his chest. The other hand dropped the freezing washcloth against the back of his neck.
A shiver ran down him, his hands wholly occupied with trying to tear the cloth off his neck instead of teasing my flesh.
“Baby, that’s cruel,” he grumbled as I stepped away and turned the hot water on in the shower.
“Cruel to be kind,” I said, slipping past him and pulling the door shut. “Eggs, sausage, and some kick-ass strong coffee are on their way.”
As fast as I moved getting out of the bathroom, I had to go slow making it to the kitchen. Until I had shocked him with the freezing water, his body had responded to the two of us being pressed together. His breathing had gotten faster. So had mine. That was exactly why I had to keep hiding out no matter how guilty it made me feel. I couldn’t be alone with Cayce, not so soon after we had slept together. I certainly couldn’t do it in a domestic setting.
Sighing, I filled the coffee pot with water and hit the power button then pulled out my mama’s cast iron skillet. Ten minutes later, Cayce slid onto a chair with nothing but a towel around his waist, drops of water still clinging to his torso front and back.
Pretending like I didn’t care and hadn’t even noticed, I put a plate full of eggs and sausage in front of him then poured a cup of coffee and placed that in front of him, too. Then I poured two glasses of orange juice and fixed a plate for me before returning to the table.
Half his food was already gone, including all of the sausage patties. I slid one of mine over to his plate, earning a smile I knew he gave away all too easily.
“Ash,” he started then paused for a sip of the coffee, then a second sip.
“Go on,” I prodded, knowing I would spend all day wondering what he had wanted to say if he stayed silent.
“I know it’s not part of the deal,” he said then interrupted himself with a mouthful of eggs.
Waiting, I cut one of my sausages into small pieces.
“But you have flex time, right? At work, I mean.”
“It has to be approved in advance, a plan written up and everything,” I answered while I searched at the back of my brain for the inevitable point to his question. “Basically they make people jump through so many hoops that no one ever asks for it.”
I paused for a second and then his point hit me. “They’ll fire me if they find out I’m working at the clinic during my flex hours.”
Resting my forehead against my palm, I tried to keep any despair from settling in while avoiding any more thoughts that would earn me an express ticket to hell. Ellen’s heart attack wasn’t bad just for her family. It had the power to destroy the fragile plan Cayce and I had put together.
“I’ll go in with you today, and I can go in tomorrow while everything is closed and work on the billing and payroll records you send to the accountant.”
Lifting my head, I chewed at a nail for a few seconds, thinking through other options. “I can see how much leave I can take. When I turned in the insurance paperwork, Claire, my direct supervisor, started harassing me about not taking any time for a honeymoon.”
Cayce cleared his throat but didn’t say anything. I looked up at the sound to see a line wiggle from one side of his forehead to the other as his mouth flatlined.
I rushed to fill the silence. “If I can’t get any leave or not enough, I can come in straight from work. Either way, as long as I’m not on payroll at the clinic, they can’t fire me.”
His head bobbed. “I appreciate that, Ash. Thank you.”
I waved his appreciation away. “Don’t thank me. I’m hyper aware of how one-sided this agreement has been.”
He lifted thick, dark brows at me. I hurried to explain before he could interpret what I had said as a complaint that I was the one doing all the giving.
“You didn’t have to give up your apartment to share a space with me, all to protect my interest in the farm.”
“It’s a lot closer,” he offered. “More convenient. Way better neighbors.”
“In the accounting biz, we call those intangibles,” I laughed. “Their valuation is almost entirely subjective. Then there’s all the work you put in last week with Jess getting the stables ready.”
“That was as much for Jess as it was for you, baby girl.”
I rolled my eyes, more at him using a pet name than for deflecting my words.
“And don’t think I’m coming into the clinic without a shred of self-interest,” I added, popping my last sausage patty onto his plate. “It’s an integral part of our plan.”
“That it is,” he smiled.
“So take it back,” I said before shoveling some cold scrambled eggs into my mouth.
The dark brows shot up again and then he laughed. “You mean my thanking you? You want me to take that back?”
I answered with a nod. He countered with a slow shake of his obstinate head.
“Nope. In fact, I plan on thanking you all day.”
“No, you’re not.” Glaring at him, I got up and rinsed my plate. “If you do that, or don’t take it back, I’m going to walk around all day with a ball of anacondas in my stomach.”
That earned me a fresh snort. He reached out as I walked past him, grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me close. Looking up at me with the devil in his gray gaze, he winked.
“You know those anaconda balls are what happens when they’re mating, right?”