He was one mess of a man, but he had that stray-dog look that drew her to him. His eyes held a sorrow far deeper than his wounds. A strong man lost in a tempest of his own making, she thought.
“I need to get you to a hospital. I didn’t know you were hurt so bad.” The trip down the stairs would probably kill them both, but he needed a doctor.
Shaking his head, he slung blood along with water. “How do you think you’ll get me there? I left my truck at the library earlier. I was planning to be too drunk to drive home.” He took a step closer to her. “And I completed my mission. I was too drunk to even walk home. Thank you for helping me out, but I’ll be fine.” He staggered forward, making his words void.
He forced his body to move toward the door as if he had the energy to see her out. She looped her arm in his and changed directions toward the bed beneath the long windows. “You need to lie down. I’ll get some towels and clean you up.”
He didn’t argue. When he fell across the tangled covers, he was out cold and still dripping.
Tuesday found the bathroom and the first-aid kit under the sink. She also found a stack of clean towels and went to work. This wasn’t the first wounded drunk she’d taped up and it probably wouldn’t be the last.
First his forehead. Cleaning, closing wounds with strips of tape, then wrapping gauze around his sandy hair that held not a wave or curl. When she’d first gotten out of high school, she’d wanted to study to be a nurse. She’d even worked at the little hospital near campus and taken a few classes.
This guy reminded her of a practice dummy in the nursing lab. Only he was twice as big, four times heavier, and smelled of beer and blood.
When she checked his elbow, his flesh was almost scraped raw. She put cream on it and wrapped it up. It wasn’t a professional job, but it would keep one wound from getting infected. No bones felt broken, but if he moved his arm he might start bleeding again.
Last, she had to pull off his boots and jeans to get to his knee. This one part of his body was not hurt as badly as she’d thought it might be. Not one wound but a series of scrapes running up his hairy leg.
As she worked, she noticed his socks didn’t match. Tuesday smiled. If she’d known him better, she would tease him about that. Here was a man who keeps an organized house and yet couldn’t match his socks.
He moaned now and then but never opened his eyes as she used a handful of Band-Aids.
Tuesday wondered what she was doing here with a stranger. She didn’t owe him all this. She could have just left him once he was inside. If he was too drunk to take care of himself that wasn’t her problem.
But Ketch seemed more like a lost knight without his armor than a drunk.
He’d tried to help her in the parking lot, he’d been polite in a bar where most just leered at her, and he seemed totally unaware of how hot he was. All three of the blondes at Wynn’s table had studied him like he was a class assignment.
Maybe all he needed for once was a guardian angel. He’d lost his North Star.
It took her half an hour to clean up all the scrapes and bumps. When she covered him with a sheet, she decided he’d live to drink another day.
As she stood to leave, she wished he’d open his eyes just once. When she’d first seen him, she sensed a loss and sorrow in his light blue eyes so deep it might never wash away. For just a moment she thought she’d met a kindred soul.
But the more he drank, the more he turned into just another drunk at the bar on a Friday night.
“Good night,” she whispered as she gave him back the kiss he’d placed on her cheek.
“Don’t go.” His words were soft as a prayer as she moved away. “I don’t want to be alone.”
She looked back. His eyes were closed and she doubted she was the one he was talking to.
“Don’t leave yet,” he mumbled as if the pain in his dream was far deeper than the scrapes on his body. “Stay with me for a little longer. Let me sleep thinking you’re near.”
Tuesday fought back a sob as she remembered so many times she’d had the same wish. Not for the lover who left her bed, but for the one she wished had been there instead of the stranger. No man who ever made promises at midnight remembered them come morning.
Silently she tugged off her shoes and climbed into his bed. She sat with her back against the headboard and cradled his bandaged head in her lap. Slowly, softly, she combed her fingers through his hair.
He rolled closer, warming her with his body. Tuesday looked out the tall windows. The back of the warehouse faced a black river and a shadowy valley beyond. She couldn’t see Honey Creek thirty miles away, but she could see tiny lights blinking through the trees along the hillsides. Farms and small ranches were no more than a firefly’s light in the distance.
His breathing slowed. His arm rested around her almost like a kid holding his stuffed animal.
Tuesday drifted into sleep.
Saturday
Chapter 4
Benjamin
Dr. Benjamin Monroe preferred to spend his Saturdays working on his father’s farm. It was spring after all, and the farmer blood that ran through him told him it was time to put his hands in dirt.
But Miss Clark insisted they start on their project. “The Chemistry of Mating” was about the dumbest title for a research paper that he’d ever heard. He was sure she’d never be easy to work with. Since the day they’d been introduced, he’d had a vague feeling he’d seen her before. They’d both gone to the University of Texas years ago. Maybe that was it. Maybe they’d had a class together or met at a party, though except for a few crazy weeks before his second semester at grad school, Benjamin had spent his days studying.
When he’d graduated with a 4.0 GPA, he could have gone anywhere to teach, but he wanted to come back home. His roots were here and they grew deep.
Yet the feeling that he’d met Virginia Clark somewhere before haunted him. Maybe she simply reminded him of someone.
Today, as summoned, he was in his office at nine, the pot of coffee made, the door leading from his office to her office stood open and, no surprise, she was late.
This definitely wasn’t a good idea. He’d spent the fall semester avoiding her. She was chatty, she laughed too loud, and she was popular with the students. Which was good, he guessed, but it hurt a bit when a student walked down the hallway and yelled hello to her while they passed him with little more than a nod.
Benjamin closed his eyes when he heard her coming. The sound of her practical shoes tapping on the wooden floor echoed in the empty hallway.
When he opened his eyes, she was in his doorway, huffing slightly.
“Morning, Benjamin. I brought donuts.” She charged into his space waving a white bakery bag like it was a white flag.
“Dr. Monroe,” he corrected her softly.
“Oh, good grief. We’re on the third floor of an empty campus on a Saturday. Surely we can be on a first-name standing.”
He wasn’t sure where to start. Addressing the fact that she was late, or reminding her that they were professionals, or announcing he didn’t eat sweets. When he glanced down below her double chins at her clothes, he saw she was wearing a crop top. Two inches of her very bare midriff pushed out above her jeans.
It might be Saturday, but they were on campus and she was a professor. Wearing jeans was bad enough, but showing off skin at her waist was even worse.