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“Oh my god! Are you hurt?” she asked, her hand finally finding a light switch on the wall.
“Please don’t.” He waved her off with his free hand. “My head is pounding. The light will only make it worse. I just need a few more minutes of dark and quiet and…and then I can show you around.”
Okay, what happened to the extremely capable and upright pancake-chef-slash-wound-tender who left the guesthouse barely thirty minutes before? The man was not going to be up for an office tour after only a few more minutes of dark and quiet.
“Were you, like, partying hard for the last twenty minutes and you forgot to invite me?”
This earned her another laugh. “Not even close,” he told her.
“But…” she continued, “I might be going out on a limb here. Were you sick? You know, the kind of sick where you—”
“Yes,” he interrupted through gritted teeth. “I just upchucked on the floor of the barn. Is that what you want to hear?” He groaned. “I’m sorry. This is not exactly my finest moment.”
Beth sighed. “Okaaay… Well, did something happen to bring the headache on?” Because he was fine less than a half hour ago.
She moved to a sink where she found a paper towel dispenser mounted to the wall and an opened tube of toothpaste next to a visibly wet toothbrush on the counter.
“No,” he replied coolly.
You lie, Dr. Murphy.
Something made him toss his cookies, and whatever that something was, he wasn’t about to share it with her.
“You need water,” Beth told him, wetting paper towels under the faucet.
“How do you know that?” he challenged.
She sighed, her back still toward him. “You’re a doctor, Eli.” She turned off the faucet. A beat of silence filled the room.
“Right,” he finally said. “Dehydration.”
Well, he was far from an oversharer, but at least he confirmed she was on the right track as far as helping him get back on his feet.
“Do you have a cup or something in here?”
She spun to face him.
He hadn’t moved, and his eyes were closed, so she laid one of the two damp towels over his eyelids and the bridge of his nose.
He flinched slightly, but then his whole body relaxed, and he let out a long breath.
She slid her hand beneath his head. The hair at the nape of his neck was damp with sweat. “And another one right here…” She tilted his head forward and then slid the second towel across his neck, patting it in place so that it stuck to his skin.
His breaths evened out, and the muscles in his face softened.
“How’d you know to do that?” he asked, his voice less strained.
Beth smiled to herself, satisfied with her handiwork. “I’m a Vegas showgirl, Dr. Murphy. Sometimes a girl likes to let off a little steam after work.” She laughed softly at her own lie. “And sometimes she lets off a little too much steam.” Beth glanced back at the sink to see if she missed a glass next to the toothbrush and toothpaste, but the counter was otherwise bare. “Now about that drinkware so I can properly tend to my patient?”
Eli huffed out a laugh. “You might find a stainless-steel pet bowl in the cabinet. Many of my canine patients’ veterinary anxieties are soothed with a fresh bowl of water.”
“And these bowls are clean?” she asked.
The water was already running again when she heard him shift on the table.
“I am not drinking out of a—”
She shut the faucet and spun to face him, bowl in hand and what she hoped was a don’t eff with me look in her eye. It must have worked, because he stopped short of finishing his protest.
