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Cal chuckled. “Spoken like a true operator. Can’t sit still more than ten minutes in any given place.” He looked over at Sierra. “Let Sky and I know if you need any help?”
Sierra hugged Cal. “I will. Thanks so much for helping us.”
“Any time.” Cal left the room and saw his way out.
Hearing the front door close, Sierra stood at the foot of the bed, sensing Mace’s mood. “Feel good being out of that hospital?” she asked.
“Better believe it.” He rested his back against the headboard and dutifully placed his foot up on the pillows.
“Any pain in the foot?”
“There’s always pain.” And then scowled. “I’m okay, Sierra. I don’t want any pain pills.”
“Your foot is looking a little red,” she noted. “Probably because of all the movement.”
“Well, it had better get used to it,” Mace growled. “I’m through being bedbound. I’d give anything to be able to walk into a hot shower.”
Her heart went out to him. All Mace could have was a nurse washing him down every day. She wanted to do it for him, finding her secret pleasure in touching him. Mace looked incredibly fit, the dark blue t-shirt almost looking too small for him, its fabric gripping his contours.
“Oh,” she murmured, “Alex brought your duffle bag in,” and she pointed to it in the corner of the room near the wheelchair. “It finally arrived yesterday.”
Mace perked up. “Good.” He sat up, looking at it intently. “I was wondering when the Army was going to get its act together and send it to me.”
“Does the bed feel okay to you?” she wondered. It was a very firm mattress.
“Yeah, feels good, thank you.”
Already, she could see Mace was in a better space and mood, no longer tied to that hospital bed. “What would you like? Are you hungry?”
“A real, homemade cup of coffee sounds damn good.” He looked at the walker. “And I’d like to be able to check out your home. After you described your two-story cabin to me, I was looking forward to being out here.”
“Well,” she said wryly, pointing at the curtainless windows, “as you can see, I’m still not done with decorating this room.”
He stared at the windows for a moment. “You never found that old-timey lace for them yet?”
Shaking her head, she said, “No, just didn’t get the time to research it. Every time Lauren and I tried to get our schedules to agree, one of us wasn’t available.” She shrugged a little, holding his clear gray gaze. A sharply defined shadow accented his jawline. This morning, Mace had not allowed the nurse to shave him. He’d wanted to do it himself once he got to her cabin.
Sierra said, “I wasn’t really in a hurry until all this happened to you. I’ll try and find some curtains in the next week. I hate that the windows look naked without something around them.”
“Well,” he said, “don’t worry about it.”
“Coffee coming up. Do you want to try out your walker? Meet me out at the kitchen table?” Sierra knew how important it was to Mace to have some control over his life once again. When he looked up at her and she saw his eyes grow a little stormy, Sierra knew he was feeling a lot of unspoken emotions. Mace rarely, hardly ever, showed any of them. Except his irritability and frustration at being trussed up like a goose ready for a baking dish in that hospital bed. Even then, he had never lashed out at her. It spoke to his character.
“Yeah,” he said, placing his large hand over one handle of the walker and pulling it closer. “No reason to feel like I’m stuck anymore.”
She smiled and left the room, heading for the kitchen.
Mace hated the walker. But at least he was walking, hopping along on his good foot, keeping most of the weight off the other one. He liked the warmth of the large kitchen and the U-shaped counters surrounding it. The kitchen table was a small square affair at one end. Something twisted in his chest as he saw Sierra, her hair in a ponytail, making coffee. It was a common enough sight, but it still sent a powerful emotional wave through him. He had a plastic bag in one hand, and it kept slapping against his walker as he slowly made his way past her. Once at the table, he pulled out a chair. Placing the bag on the table, he sat down, hungrily sponging her in. She’d already positioned another chair for him with a pillow on it within strategic leg-length. He quickly lifted his bad foot with a grunt which turned quickly to a sigh as he lowered it gratefully onto the pillow.
“You have a nice place,” he said. Mace saw her tip her gaze in his direction. Sierra wore no makeup. His gaze settled momentarily on her softly curved mouth, and it sent a sheet of unexpected heat down through his body. For the last seven days, climbing out of that venom haze, he hadn’t felt sexual at all. Today, it was different; seeing her lean, proud torso encased in that red muscle shirt, showcasing her breasts, and those jeans outlining her flared hips and long legs, Mace felt his lower body awakening.
“Thanks,” she murmured. “What’s in the bag?” She poured them both coffee into two bright yellow ceramic mugs.
“Something I picked up for you in Peru,” he said, taking the cup. It meant so much to Mace to have his strength returning. Now, he could even sip coffee, his hand solid and steady once more. Every day, he saw small but hopeful signs of his tough, hardened body coming back online. He watched her sit down at his elbow, bringing over the sugar bowl and spooning a couple of teaspoons into her own coffee. There was a small silver pitcher of cream and she poured some in.
He, however, liked his coffee strong, hot and black. As he sipped it, he gave her a satisfied growl. “Now, this is coffee,” he muttered. “That shit they had in the hospital was anemic. They don’t know how to make good coffee there.”
Sierra smiled and stirred the sugar and cream into swirls in her black brew. “You like military coffee, Mace. It’s so strong a spoon like this would stand at attention in the center of it.”
