The frayed cuffs of his shirt looked wet, an indication that he had at least scrubbed his hands. But, even so, he still looked none too clean. She could only pray Jaimie wouldn’t come in contact with some awful germ and get sick.
Rafe scooped the baby into his arm and offered him the bottle. Jaimie gummed the nipple, then pulled an awful face. Rafe chuckled and began walking, nudging the baby’s mouth with the latex tip and jiggling him gently.
“I know it’s not quite like what your mama has,” she heard him say huskily, “but I don’t come with the same equipment. Ah, there. See? It doesn’t taste so bad.” He gave another low laugh. “Whoa, son. Not that fast, or you’ll get a bellyache.” The nipple drew air when Rafe tugged it from Jaimie’s mouth, the formula inside the bottle bubbling. He glanced at Maggie. “He’s draining it like a little siphon hose.”
Maggie yearned to get up and feed the baby herself, but the leaden heaviness of her body dictated otherwise. She watched longingly as Rafe held Jaimie over his shoulder and gently thumped his back to burp him.
“You’re good at this,” she observed hoarsely. “Have you been around lots of babies?”
A blank expression crossed his dark face as he resettled Jaimie in the bend of his arm and began feeding him again. “Yeah, I’ve been around a couple,” he replied, his voice sounding oddly hollow. “Caring for them is kind of like riding a horse. You never forget how.”
Maggie lowered her gaze, feeling as if she’d trespassed on forbidden ground. Glancing back up, she said, “I didn’t mean to pry. I just—”
“No problem.” His larynx bobbed as though he were swallowing a golf ball. When he spoke again, the sadness in his tone lay heavily on the air. “I had two kids, a boy and a girl.”
Maggie couldn’t help but note that he had referred to both children in the past tense. “Are you divorced?”
He kept his gaze fixed on the baby, his silence stretching out for so long she thought he meant to let the question go unanswered. But he finally said, “No,” his voice gruff with emotion. “I, um—lost them in a car wreck.”
Maggie’s stomach clenched, and she wished with all her heart she had never asked. She started to say she was sorry, but the words seemed so trite that she chose to say nothing at all. Her gaze flew to Jaimie. She didn’t think she could bear it if something happened to him.
“It’s been over two years,” he told her. “For a long time, I knew exactly how long ago, right down to the hour and minute. But then I hocked my watch.” He laughed, softly and bitterly. “A good thing, I guess. Counting the minutes I’d been without them was kind of morbid. And it didn’t do any good.”
Maggie’s mouth felt as dry as powder. She still didn’t know what to say.
“But hey, life goes on,” he said more brightly, his gaze still fixed on the baby. His mouth curved in a slight smile. “Right, little fella?”
He plucked the nipple from the baby’s mouth and held up the nearly empty bottle. “You finished that off in nothing flat. Next time, I better fix you more.”
He set the bottle on the nightstand and shifted the baby back to his shoulder. When Jaimie emitted a loud burp, Rafe grimaced. “Christ! Right down my collar!” He smiled and winked at Maggie. “I guess I don’t remember everything about babies. Rule number one when you burp a kid: always wear protective gear.”
He laid the baby on the bed and disappeared into the bathroom again. A moment later, he came back with a disposable diaper and wet washcloth.
“I’ll change him,” Maggie said, struggling to rise.
He glanced up. “I can handle this just fine. You see to yourself. You can get that coat off, for starters, before you melt. It’s getting warm in here.”
She pushed weakly to her feet and wrestled with the sheepskin, which felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds. Once she managed to shrug one shoulder free, the garment plopped heavily around her feet. Perspiration filming her body, she stared down at it, too exhausted to pick it up.
“I’ll get the coat later,” he assured her. “Jaimie’s already nodding off to sleep, so it’s not as if he needs you for anything. You just concentrate on shucking your clothes, all right?”
Her clothes? Maggie glanced from the coat to the dingy T-shirt she wore. Of course he expected her to undress. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She imagined stripping off and standing before him naked. The very thought was so humiliating that she wanted to die. Oh, God. What was she doing here?
Don’t think, she told herself firmly. Just shut it all out. Concentrate on Jaimie. He’s got food in his tummy, and he’s warm and dry. No matter what it costs you, his needs are being met, and that’s all that matters.
She fixed her gaze on the opposite end of the room where the bathroom was located. One foot in front of the other one. You can do it. The walls seemed to lean inward as she circled the end of the bed. She glimpsed her reflection in the filmy mirror and thought she saw two of herself.
“Easy, honey. I’ve got you,” a deep voice murmured next to her ear.
Not two of herself. Rafe was beside her. She felt his big hands clasping her elbows, and though she longed to pull away, she let him support her weight instead. Oh, God. This was so embarrassing.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a voice that didn’t sound like her own. Pathetic was how it sounded.
“No worries.”
Once in the bathroom, he guided her to the toilet, then reached around her and quickly unsnapped her jeans. The sound of her zipper made alarm bells go off in her mind. “No. I can—by myself. Please.”
“I know,” he assured her. “I’m just getting you lined out here. Then I’ll leave. Can you hold onto the vanity so you don’t fall?”
Maggie grabbed the Formica edge of the countertop with both hands. “Yes,” she said weakly. “Got it. Fine, now. I’m fine.”
She heard him swear under his breath, and for a terrible moment, she feared he might insist on staying in there to help her. “Please, Mr. Kendrick. Go now, please.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
Maggie couldn’t answer, so she just nodded. To her immeasurable relief, he left and closed the bathroom door. The small enclosure seemed to spin around her, but somehow she managed to maneuver. When she was finished, she got her jeans button fastened, but the zipper defied her rubbery fingertips.
“Maggie? Honey, are you done?”
She gave up on the zipper and let her arms dangle at her sides. What was wrong with her? Never had she felt so awful. She’d used the rest room, but she still had that burning ache. Did she have a bladder infection? She’d never had one, so she wasn’t sure how they felt. Her boss Terry got them sometimes, and she said drinking lots of cranberry juice always helped.
The bathroom door cracked open. The next instant, her boxcar cowboy had a strong arm around her waist. “Jesus, honey. There’s a time and place for modesty, and this ain’t it.” He helped her to the sink and washed her hands as if she were a child. It struck Maggie as odd that a tramp would bother. He grabbed a small towel from the rack and blotted her fingers dry. “There you go.”
The next instant, the room turned upside down. Maggie gave a thin cry and clutched his neck, dimly realizing he had picked her up. “What’re you—oh, God, don’t drop me!”
She thought she detected laughter in his voice when he replied, “I doubt you’d tip the scales at a hundred and ten, fully clothed and soaking wet. I think I can manage. You need feeding up. How long since you ate?”
“Yesterday.”
“What did you have?”
“Toast.”
“Well, hell. No wonder you’re thin.”
He carried her back to the bed, depositing her gently on her feet beside it. Maggie tried to sink down onto the mattress next to Jaimie, but Rafe caught her by the elbows and drew her back up. His slate-blue eyes locked with hers for a long moment, and then he grasped the hem of the T-shirt. “Let me help you shuck your clothes. All right?”
She could tel
l by his tone of voice that he wasn’t really requesting permission. It was more a warning of what was to come. When he started to tug the shirt up, she curled her fingers over his broad wrists, wanting to push his hands away. But she didn’t have the strength. Instead, she simply rested her palms on his tattered cuffs, unable to tighten her grip. Tears filled her eyes again. Angry with herself, she tried to blink them away, but they kept coming.
He made fast work of peeling the shirt off over her head. Then, tossing it aside, he caught her under the chin with the crook of his finger. Lifting her tear-streaked face, he said, “What’s this?”
“I’m—I’m sorry. I’m not very good at casual encounters.”
“Casual encounters, huh? Is that what this is?”
She recalled all the public-awareness commercials she’d seen on television, and a new, extremely worrisome concern zigzagged through her head. “Mr. Kendrick? I do hope you thought to get a—” She gulped and blinked at a wave of dizziness. “A you-know-what.”
He chuckled. “We don’t need one.”
“Yes.” Her head cleared a bit, and she got his face into focus. Tangled hair, scruffy whiskers, and a shirt that looked as if it had been used to scour a pot…He was a walking, talking risk factor. “Please. Would you go get one? I’m not in the habit, and I’m afraid I’m not prepared.”
“Yeah, well…I figured as much. “Sandpapery fingertips brushed the tears from her cheeks. “You’re also a rotten judge of character. Do you really think I brought you here for a tumble in the hay?”
Maggie gazed up at him through a swimming blur. “That was our bargain. I owe you for the stuff you bought.”
He rubbed at her cheeks again. “Hell’s bells, girl.” He gave a throaty laugh. “Would you stop looking at me like that? I’m not expecting paybacks. All right? If you insist on keeping it even, you’ll have to give me a rain check. Red and purple not being my favorite colors, I can’t get excited about collecting on the debt until those bruises are gone.”
“I can’t stay here until then. I told you, I have to get where I’m going and find a job. My little sister is waiting for me to send for her, and I—”
He cut her off by pushing her down to sit on the edge of the bed. “And you’re not interested in a big, drawn-out thing,” he finished for her. “I read you, loud and clear. So I guess you’ll just have to owe me.”
“But I won’t be able to pay you back. I told you, remember?”
Hunkering before her, he lifted one of her feet onto his knee and began untying her sneaker. “I remember.” He drew off the shoe and sock, the grip of his warm fingers sending jolts up her calf. After lowering her bare foot to the rug, he lifted her other leg. “I kind of like the idea of a pretty lady being forever in my debt. On Judgment Day, maybe it’ll count as a point in my favor. You reckon?”
Maggie stared down at the top of his dark head, just now registering that he had shed his hat. “You mean you really don’t want to—well, you know—like we talked about?”
“Like you talked about,” he corrected. He tossed aside the second shoe and sock, then rose, grasping her carefully by the shoulders to draw her erect. “You know what your problem is? You assume every man you meet is a low-down skunk who’ll take advantage of you if he gets half a chance.”
Too late, Maggie realized that he had unfastened the button of her jeans as he spoke. She gave a startled gasp when he bent to tug the denim over her hips. Her panties were full-cut, but the white nylon was semitransparent.
He swore under his breath when he saw the bruises on her thighs. “That son of a bitch. If I ever run into him, he’s a dead man.”
Maggie’s attempt to cover the apex of her legs with the splay of her hands was abruptly aborted when he pressed her back down to sit on the mattress. He gently drew her jeans down to her ankles, taking care not to graze her shins.
“Damn,” he whispered. “You’re just one big bruise, sweetheart.” He tugged the denim over her feet and dropped the pants on the floor. “I’m amazed you can even walk.”
He reached behind her to turn back the covers, then stood to gaze down at her. A flush of embarrassment warmed Maggie’s skin.
“Mr. Kendrick, if you have no intention of—why are you taking all my clothes off?” she asked, her distrust lending a shrill sharpness to the question.
“So I can disinfect those cuts. Someone has to do it. Even if you were strong enough to take care of it yourself, you can’t reach two-thirds of them. You don’t want infection to set in, do you?”
Maggie had dreaded living up to her side of their bargain, but this latest development seemed even worse. She had cuts everywhere, some in places she would die of humiliation if he touched. She imagined lying naked while he examined every bare inch of her, and the prospect was so alarming, she found it difficult to breathe.
“But I’m nearly naked,” she observed, her voice quaking.
“I’ll do my best to make this easy for you. Haul out my manners. Be a complete gentleman. I promise not to uncover all of you at once. How’s that sound?”
Maggie could only think of the parts he would uncover.
“You’d be more exposed in a bikini,” he pointed out, as though that should make her feel better. “I can’t really see much.”
She was clinging to that thought and trying to convince herself she wasn’t really indecently clad when he slipped his hands around to her back and tried to unfasten her bra. After tugging at it several times, he said, “Shit,” and leaned around so he could see. “A woman invented these damned things. I’d bet money on it. I’ve never pulled off a sneaky bra maneuver in my life.” He finally conquered the clasp with a clumsy tug and jerk. “When I was seventeen, I even swiped one of my mom’s bras to practice my technique.”
She gave him a startled look that he met with a wink and lazy grin. She had a feeling he was making this story up, trying to keep her mind occupied so she wouldn’t feel self-conscious.
“It’s a guy thing. If you don’t pass Bra Clasps 101, you’re flat out of luck with the girls. I practiced every night, no lie, and I still never got the hang of it. One day Mom found the bra under my mattress and told my dad. He confessed to me later he was worried sick for over a year that I was a cross-dresser.”
“A cross what?”
He chuckled. “Never mind.”
To her immense relief, he didn’t draw the bra cups from her breasts, which at least gave her some covering. Instead, he gave her a gentle push, and she found herself flat on her back. Before she had time to protest or feel alarmed, he drew the bedcovers over her and tucked them around her shoulders.
“There. Completely hidden again. Now that wasn’t so bad. Was it?”
His tone reminded her of the one he’d used to cajole Jaimie into nursing from the bottle—his voice pitched low, the vibrant timber seeming to surround her with warmth. Only she wasn’t quite as trusting as her son. Her bra was undone, which had to mean he planned to relieve her of it soon.
He left her to chew on that worry while he returned to the bathroom. She heard him rustling the paper bag and clanking around, and she closed her eyes in dread. A moment later, the muted tread of his boots on the carpet reached her, the sounds moving closer. She didn’t need to lift her lashes to know when he came to stand over her. She felt his nearness in every pore of her skin. A glass bottle made a chink on the nightstand. Then the mattress sank sharply at the outer edge as he sat down.
She could only guess what might come next, the one certainty being that it wouldn’t be pleasant. Panic welled. She knotted her hands into fists at her sides and forced herself to be calm. Pride. Maybe to some people it was only a word, but aside from her son, it was all she had left. After everything she had endured to come this far, she’d be damned if she would let a small dose of humiliation get the best of her. So far, at least, Rafe Kendrick didn’t strike her as being a cruel man. Not that you could tell much about a man’s nature on such short acquaintance.
Oh, yes, she?
??d learned the hard way just how treacherous men could be, being kind one moment and acting like barbarians the next. Recalling those experiences now, her instincts warned her not to trust him.
Only if he meant her harm, what was he waiting for? They were alone in a seedy motel room behind a locked door. There was no one to intervene. In short, there was nothing to stop him from being a jerk.
“I can stack the pillows behind you so you don’t have to actually sit up by yourself,” he offered. “You think that might help?”
Maggie merely nodded. Speaking was beyond her. Afraid that her bra straps might slip off her shoulders, she clutched the covers to her chest when he slipped an arm behind her. She needn’t have bothered. Once she gained a sitting posture and he released her to plump the pillows, she saw that he had been holding the bedspread over her front.
He caught her look of surprise and gave a dry laugh. “This isn’t exactly what you were expecting, I take it.” He shrugged. “Think about it. Is there a spot on you that I could touch without hurting you?”
Some men wouldn’t care. Maggie knew that. Oh, God, she was going to bawl and make a total fool of herself. He was bound to think she was crazy, and she wouldn’t blame him.
It was just—so unexpected. A dirty drunkard in tattered cowboy garb, turning out to be the kindest man she had encountered since her father died? It made no sense. Everyone knew that practically all railroad bums were lowlifes who’d steal from a blind man if the opportunity arose. How had she been so lucky as to meet one of the few nice ones? Maybe God actually had heard her prayers, after all, and He’d answered by sending her this man.
He handed her the bottle of medication and a cotton ball. A strong antiseptic smell seared her nostrils.. “I’ll hold the spread up close, so don’t worry about me looking over the top. You just get the bra off and concentrate on doctoring your chest.”
With shaking hands, Maggie drew the straps down her arms, laid the bra aside, and tipped the bottle to moisten the cotton. As she began dabbing at the cuts, the alcohol in the antiseptic smarted so badly she gasped and blew to ease the sting.