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“Friends.”
She stared up at him, and he experienced fresh regret at having made the dumb comment about her throat. This woman was incredibly gracious to him, far more than he deserved. He’d have to make things up to her.Lord, help her to forgive me. Help me make things up to her.
“Did you … do you still want to leave?” He wished Ellie wasn’t still on sentry duty.
“Are you asking her to stay?” his annoying sister asked, hands on hips.
“Yes.” He studied Lexi. “Please stay. Mom likes you. She told me so. And I’d hate you to think I don’t want you around. Because I do.” He really did. Maybe a little too much.
Lexi’s lips tugged north half an inch, and her chin lifted a fraction. “You can trust me,” she finally said. “I know, better than anyone, that I’m not perfect, but I’d never compromise my patient’s safety. You’ve got to believe me.”
“I do.” Again that word sounded like a promise of something more. He gently squeezed her hand, and she glanced at their clasp as if finally noticing their hands were still joined. “I want you to stay. Please.”
She peeked across at Ellie, who gave an encouraging nod, as if she too was feeling this was one of those pivotal moments, when futures balanced precariously and could flip either way. Heads, he’d win. Tails, he’d lose. And not just in terms of their friendship or his mother’s health and care. There was something about this woman that seeded hope within, that helped him feel like life, the ranch, his future actually had possibilities. How he hoped she might say yes.Please, God.
She bit her lip, and he knew he’d have to guard himself. The attraction he felt for her would never work, not if they were staying in the same house and sharing meals and sharing space and …
“Lexi?”
Ellie’s voice snapped his thoughts back to the present, and he nodded. “Please? For my mom’s sake?”
CHAPTERELEVEN
Lexi checked on Mrs. Reilly, the dim light from the hall falling over her sleeping features. The past three days had seen the lows of that first day lift to something more stable. Lexi would drive to the ranch each morning, then back to the college again to sleep, then repeat the trip again the next day. Ellie had noted Lexi’s tiredness and insisted she could stay, that Mitchell’s room was spare, and it would make a lot more sense for her to stay each night than drive home in the dark.
So she’d agreed and was staying overnight for the first time, allaying her mother’s fears by promising she wasn’t there for any reason than simply to care for Mrs. Reilly. At least things there were getting easier. Mrs. Reilly let Lexi take her to the bathroom and help her shower now. And if extra time here meant a little tidying up along the way, she hoped nobody would be so petty-minded as to hold that against her. Even if that person had made it very clear she was of no interest to him save in how she treated his mother.
Lexi breathed a prayer, then gently closed the door, and returned to the kitchen. Ellie was watching an archeology lecture on a laptop in the attached dining room, and Jackson was nowhere to be seen. If Lexi had any thought he might have interest, as some of his long looks and hand-holding seemed to have suggested, then the fact he’d barely spoken to her in the past few days had made it very clear. He wasn’t interested. She’d obviously been imagining things to have thought otherwise. Which was fine. She was here for his mother, not for him.
“… going well.” Jackson’s voice trickled to her, probably from the room she’d discovered was his office. A bomb site, more like. She didn’t understand how anyone who apparently liked checklists could live in such a pigsty. The one time she’d accidentally visited—looking for something Ellie said she needed—had almost given her hives, the mess and chaos stressing every molecule inside. What she’d give for a good few days to clean the room.
“Nope. That’s worked out too. She’s much calmer now.”
She glanced at Ellie, but she had her headphones on, watching intently. Really, someone should pay for the girl to go to university.
“Yeah, we got a nurse. She’s really good.”
Well, that was something. After practically begging her to stay, she’d been kind of surprised when he’d said nothing more. The fact he found her efforts worth commending drew a warm glow in her heart.
“No,” Jackson said, to whomever it was he was talking to. Probably one or more of his brothers, if Ellie’s comment earlier at dinner was true. “She must be mid-twenties.”
Who? Oh. She inched closer to the open door.
“If you must know, her name is Lexi, and no, she’s not my type.”
A slash across her chest revealed something she hadn’t wanted to explore.
“I mean it. She’s—”
“Lexi?”
She rushed back to the kitchen, wiping her hair back in a pose she hoped conveyed nonchalance, as Ellie appeared, yawning. “Hey, is your lecture done?”
“Yeah.” She nodded to the office. “Is Jackson in there?”
“Yep.”
“I suppose I should go talk to my brothers, although I’d rather watch a chick flick with you.” She sighed. “You’ve got no idea how glad I am to have another woman around. I mean, there’s Mom, of course, but she’s not exactly around, if you know what I mean.”
