“All right.”
He smiled slightly. “We are going to pursue this friendship thing. Right?”
“I d-don’t part with my clothes for just anybody, so I think it’s safe to say I consider you to be a very good friend.”
That elicited a chuckle from him. “So I can rest my case?”
“Please, don’t. The longer you talk, the longer I can put this off.”
“There, you see? The situation we have right now is awful. You need a hot bath, and getting you in the tub is a major production, with you all nervous and upset. I’d like to be set up so it’s as comfortable for you here as at home. That way, when you need a bath, you can get in the tub by yourself.”
“Are you a clean freak?”
“A what?”
“If you’re given to sniffing armpits, I may have to reconsider this friendship thing.”
He sighed and shook his head. “A smart ass when you’re nervous. I should have known.”
Guilty as charged. She did tend to crack jokes when she felt uneasy, and right now she felt extremely uneasy.
“Out here, being able to grab a quick bath is a necessity. You’ve been around animals. Get slapped by a muddy horse tail, and you’ll be glad I planned ahead for the eventuality.”
Bethany rubbed her arms. “I just wish you were set up for it now.”
“I know.”
His voice dipped to a husky tenor, and by that she knew he understood how unpleasant this was for her. Somehow, that helped.
She took a bracing breath that shuddered in and out because she was shaking so hard. “Okay,” she said, trying to inject some confidence into her voice. “I’m ready. Let’s do it and get it over with.”
“Will it make you feel any better to know that I called our foreman, Sly, and he’s already at work in the welding shop, whipping together some makeshift bathroom bars?”
“He is?”
“When we’re finished here, I’ll go over to help him. What we come up with won’t be fancy, but you’ll be halfway comfortable here until morning, anyway.”
Bathroom bars? Bethany almost hugged him. She resisted the urge to glance at the commode. Makeshift was fine. Makeshift was wonderful. She didn’t care if the bars they fashioned were pretty as long as they enabled her to manage that necessity without help.
Still hugging her waist and shivering, she said, “I hate to put you to so much bother, Ryan.”
“It’s not a bother, honey. We do a lot of welding here on the ranch, and I’ve got tons of pipe lying around. We’ll have something thrown together in just a few minutes.” He pushed back to his feet and leaned down. “Hug my neck, sweetheart. Let’s get you in that tub. I’m starting to feel cold, just watching you.”
Oh, how she dreaded this. There was no way around it, though. “Maybe you could just wrap me in an electric blanket. That’d chase the chill away.”
“I don’t have one. I’m sorry. I have down quilts on all the beds.”
“I could just sit close to the fire.”
Much as he had last night, he grasped her wrists and put her arms around his neck himself. “Feel how badly you’re shaking? You’re going in the tub. You’re not catching pneumonia on my watch. Jake would never forgive me.”
Jake. Oh, how she wished Jake were there.
“Have a little faith in me,” Ryan whispered.
She envisioned him trying to hold her erect with one arm and tugging clumsily at her clothes with his other hand, her body smashed against his the entire while. Oh, God … oh, God. Her face went hot with shame.
“This will be over before you can yell, ‘Hallelujah.’”
She fully expected the usual ordeal she experienced with her mother on swim nights, with him grunting and straining, and her legs flopping every which way like limp noodles. She should have known better. After catching her around the waist with one arm, Ryan straightened as if she weighed scarcely anything. The next thing she knew, she was clasped to his chest, her lower body dangling.
“Oh, God!”
“It’s all right, honey. I won’t drop you.”
He groped under the T-shirt to unfasten her skirt. That accomplished, he divested her of the garment, her tights, and her panties in one fell swoop. She felt his fingertips graze bare skin at the small of her back, but otherwise he executed the maneuver without touching her intimately. The next thing she knew, he was tugging down the hem of the T-shirt and putting her back in the chair.
“There, you see?” He crouched in front of her again to tug the elasticized stockings down her calves. “No fuss, no muss. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
It hadn’t been bad at all, and the very fact that it hadn’t been made her feel trembly.
He grasped her by each ankle to remove her black doeskin slippers and then swept her clothing aside. “Damn, honey, your feet are like ice.” He skimmed a hand up her calf. “No wonder you’re shaking.”
Bethany tugged at the hem of the T-shirt, trying to keep her knees covered. “I can’t believe it was so easy. It’s always a struggle when Mama helps me.”
He slanted her an amused look. “I saw your mom at the grange last night. She’s not much bigger than a minute, so that comes as no surprise.” After setting her slippers aside, he stood. “Now I’ll just pick you up and put you in the tub. If you’ll make a fist on the hem of the shirt, it won’t float up as I put you in. I brought a clothespin to do anchor duty once I get you situated.”
A clothespin? He truly had thought of everything.
As he bent over her, Bethany braced herself, visually aware as he caught her behind the knees with one arm, sensually aware when his left arm slipped between the chair and her back. A big warm hand curled over her side, strong fingers splaying on her ribs just beneath her breast.
“Easy, sweetheart,” he said as he lifted her. “I’ve got you.”
He had her, all right. She felt surrounded by vibrant, male strength. Heat radiated through the T-shirt from his bare chest, and coarse, springy black hair rubbed against one of her elbows. He felt so marvelous, she almost took a taste of his sturdy neck. It was the color of caramel, which was right behind chocolate as one of her favorite flavors on earth.
He went down on one knee beside the tub, lifting her over the edge and then gently lowering her into the water he’d already drawn. He kept one arm hooked under her knees to carefully position her legs.
As he had suggested, she grabbed a handful of T-shirt hem so the cotton wouldn’t float up. “You’re very good at this.”
“It seems to come naturally.” He flicked her another smiling glance as he drew a clothespin from his breast pocket. Brushing her hand aside and grasping the hem of the T-shirt, he gave it a twist to draw the cotton snug around her thighs, then secured it with the pin.
Bethany watched as he turned on the hot and cold water, then shoved a broad wrist under the stream to check the temperature. As he adjusted the valves, he said, “We’ll have you warmed up in no time flat,”
She sighed in appreciation and sank a little lower in the water. “Oh, this is lovely.” The warm water he was running from the tap curled around her hips. “Thank you so much. I’m sorry to be so much work.”
“You’re no work. I’m glad to have you here.”
The heat was helping her to stop shivering, and her jerking muscles began to relax. Ryan started massaging her legs, his sun-burnished hands striking a sharp contrast to her pale skin. As she watched, she found herself wishing she could feel his touch. She imagined his palms would be slightly rough, the grip of his long, thick fingers wonderfully warm. Don’t go there, Bethany. Friendship. No more, no less. She couldn’t allow her silly female heart to start spinning fantasies and risk ruining what promised to be a good friendship.
He caught her staring at his hands and said, “I thought I might get the blood moving. I’m not hurting you, am I?”
“No. If only you could.”
He gave her a bewildered look. Then he winced. “Right. I’m so
rry. Stupid question. I just thought—hell, I don’t know what I was thinking.” He worked his way up to just above her knee, “You can’t feel anything at all? Not anywhere? That’s so hard for me to fathom. Intellectually, I know it, but on a more instinctive level, I automatically think in terms of having sensation.”
Bethany managed a strained smile. “Don’t apologize. I’m the abnormal one, not you. And as it happens, I do have a couple of live spots.” She touched a fingertip to the inside of her left thigh. “One right there.”
He stared at the spot she indicated as if he were committing the location to memory. “Just there?”
“A couple of other places, too. Nerve damage is a weird thing, especially in my case, where the worst damage occurred on one side of the spine. I have sensation in places I shouldn’t, and none in places I ought to. Right after I got hurt, our family doctor and a local specialist stood over me, frowning and scratching their heads a lot. I didn’t conform to the textbooks and journals.”
He frowned thoughtfully. “So you’re not completely numb in your legs?”
“Not completely. The numbness is spotty from the point of injury down to the tops of my thighs and grows worse from there until I’m completely numb.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I have very good feeling in my derriere, for instance, and can detect wiggling thumbs.”
She expected him to laugh. Instead, his gaze darted to the juncture of her thighs. “Don’t grab me by the hair and shove my head under water for asking. Okay? One friend to another. Are you numb there?”
Bethany wasn’t sure how her face could turn so hot when she was still so cold otherwise, but somehow it did.
He immediately backtracked. “I’m sorry. Inappropriate question.” He returned his attention to the water faucets, then checked the bath to see how hot it was. “Just curious, is all. You seem convinced you may not be able to have a normal physical relationship. If you’ve got any sensation at all there, I was just wondering why.”
“For starters, I’ve been told flat-out by my doctor that I probably can’t.”
“Doctors can be wrong.”
“I know, but given his reputation as a spinal specialist, his opinion carries a lot of weight. He’s one of the best on the West Coast.” Bethany trailed her fingertips over the surface of the water, keeping her gaze carefully averted. “Nerve damage is a strange thing. One nerve may work fine, but another nearby that’s vital to the operation may be a dud. A bell with no ding, in other words?”
He chuckled. “Now, there’s a way to put it.”
“However one puts it, who can say what I’ll be able to feel or experience? I can only go by what Doctor Reicherton told me, which wasn’t encouraging.”
He arched a dark eyebrow. “So you’ve never—you know—tried a solo flight to check things out yourself?”
Her gaze flicked back to his. “No. I, um—” She shrugged, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. How could she explain that she’d chosen to keep a lid on her sexuality? It made little sense to kindle physical needs and yearnings she might never be able to satisfy. “I haven’t dated since my accident, and I guess I never saw much point in checking out the possibilities.” She flashed him an impish smile. “Besides, one of my brothers nearly went blind from doing stuff like that.”
He huffed with laughter. Then a ruddy flush crawled up his neck. It was his turn to avert his gaze. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” He tested the water again. “I think that’s about hot enough for now. What do you think?”
She thought he felt as uncomfortable with the conversation as she did, which had the odd effect of making her feel more relaxed. “It feels wonderful.”
He shut off the faucets, then turned to sit on the floor beside the tub, his broad back braced against the creamy tile that went halfway up the wall. Lifting one knee to support a loosely bent arm, he settled a twinkling gaze on her.
She walked her fingertips down her thigh, stopping at her knee and then backtracking. When she glanced back up, he was tugging on his earlobe, a gesture she was fast coming to recognize as a nervous habit. “I honestly am sorry,” he said huskily. “I don’t know what possessed me to ask you such a thing. It’s not really any of my business, and it was rude to pry.”
She mulled that over for a moment. “I don’t really mind your asking. I’m just not sure how to answer. It’s sort of like living in town and owning a high-powered rifle. If you know you’ll never have occasion to use it, you just lock it away somewhere safe and forget you’ve got it.”
He smiled and nodded. “I can associate with that.” He tugged on his ear again. “So … tell me about your family. You and Jake seem very close. Do you have the same kind of relationship with your other brothers?”
Happy to change the subject, Bethany launched into a brief description of her siblings. “In a large family like ours, it’s never easy being the youngest, and I think it was especially difficult being the only girl. Too many protectors. Someone was always watching after me. It took a lot of maneuvering on my part to get away with anything.”
“I’m sure your folks appreciated your brothers’ efforts.”
“Oh, yes. They never had to worry about me much. When Jake went away to college, there was Zeke to take up the slack, and after he left, the twins were always breathing down my neck.”
“The veterinarians in progress.”
She nodded. “Next oldest was Hank, twenty-eight to my twenty-six. He was just close enough to me in age to be more of a friend than a pain in the neck. Occasionally he even aided and abetted.”
“And your folks? I’ve met your dad down at the store. He seems like a nice man. What’s your mom like? I saw her from a distance last night. She looks like a sweetheart.”
She is that.” Bethany flattened a hand over her waist. “You have to know her to get the whole picture. She’s—what are the words?—a plump nun in street clothes who just happens to be married and have six kids, all of whom she’ll swear were magically dropped into Daddy’s boot during the night while they were sleeping. Sometimes I almost think she believes it herself.”
He laughed at the description. “I can tell by your expression that you love her a lot.”
Bethany nodded. “She’s a neat lady. Just a little naive. Daddy is from the old school, and he’s always shielded her. Me, too, for that matter. He just wasn’t quite as successful at the endeavor. If it had been left up to him, I would have been given information about the birds and the bees on a strictly need-to-know basis.”
“That birds tweet and bees buzz?”
“Exactly. When we still had the ranch, he went to incredible pains to make sure I never saw the horses breeding.” She flashed him a smile. “It caused me no end of difficulty.”
“You sneaked to watch,” he said with a knowing smile.
“Of course.”
He shook his head. “Your poor dad. Raising you must have been a trial.”
“For him or me? It can be incredibly stifling when you’re daddy’s little angel. If I had it to do over again, I would have been sexually active at twelve.”
“Twelve? That terrifies me. Heidi’s twelve.”
“Who’s Heidi?”
His eyes shimmered with fondness as he described Maggie’s little sister. “She keeps asking me to wait until she’s grown so she can marry me. She keeps me on my toes. I love her to death, and I don’t want to wound her. At the same time, I don’t want to encourage her, either. It’s a fine line.”
“She sounds darling.”
“Yeah.” The slash in his cheek deepened as he grinned. “Won’t be long before the boys line up at the door. I’ll have to go over to help Rafe kick butt.”
“I was so crazy about horses as a teenager that I wasn’t much interested in boys until I met Paul. Maybe Heidi will be like that.”
“Maybe. She wants to barrel race.”
“Really?” Bethany’s interest was piqued, and she was about to pursue the topic when he broke in with, ?
??Speaking of Paul. How did it happen that you tied up with a kid that age who didn’t know squat about kissing?”
“We were young, for one, and Paul was a minister’s son and very devout. We mostly just—” She felt suddenly embarrassed and wondered how they’d ever gotten off on such a subject. “We were waiting until we got married.”
His mouth hardened. “Too bad he didn’t keep his fly zipped with your little friend. What was her name?”
“Nan. How’d you know about her?”
Something dark flickered in his eyes again, and he suddenly become unaccountably interested in the ceiling. “Their marriage was announced in the newspaper as I recall. Not exactly a state secret. Right?”
Bethany’s nape prickled. “Why do guys always stare at the ceiling when they lie?”
His gaze dropped back to hers. “You have too many brothers.”
“Jake?” she whispered. It wasn’t really a question.
Ryan sighed. “You’re very lucky, you know. Having an older brother who loves you so much. He’d fight a mountain lion for you, bare-handed.”
“He called to talk to you.”
He sighed again and said, “Damn. Me and my big mouth. I never meant to rat on him.” He shook his head. “And, no, he didn’t call. He showed up here Saturday night. We had a nice, long chat.”
“Nice? You and Jake?”
“Well, it wasn’t nice initially. But he settled down once we talked, and I convinced him my intentions toward you are honorable.”
“That we just want to be friends?”
He smiled slightly. “Yeah. The best of friends. He’s okay with that. He meant no harm by coming out here, you know. He’s just watching out for you. I admire him for that.”
“Stick around. Soon your admiration for him will know no bounds.”
“I plan to,” he assured her.
“Plan to, what?”
“Stick around.”
Lying before the fire with his wife clasped in his arms, Keefe felt the tension in her body. After the intense love-making they’d just shared, he felt confident her mood wasn’t due to lack of sexual gratification.