Texas Proud and Circle of Gold (Long, Tall Texans #52) - Diana Palmer Page 0,36
and pulled on her white chenille robe. She was going to have to go and get a bottle of water out of the fridge. Mrs. Brown, bless her heart, kept it for her tenants, who were always welcome to anything to drink or any bedtime snacks they could find in her spotless kitchen.
Bernie walked very slowly into the kitchen and almost collided with Mikey, in burgundy silk pajama bottoms with a matching robe. His broad, hair-roughened chest was bare, with the robe open. He looked handsome and sensuous. Bernie’s heart jumped wildly at just the sight of him.
Mikey smiled. He could see all that in her face. She was totally without artifice, he thought. An honest woman, who never hid what she felt.
“You look pretty with your hair down, honey,” he said gently.
She did. Her long platinum hair waved around her shoulders and down almost to her waist in back. With her cheeks faintly flushed and her pale green eyes twinkling despite the pain, she was a dish.
She laughed self-consciously. “I was just thinking how gorgeous you look,” she confided with a bigger flush.
“What do you need?” he asked. He was holding a paper plate with crackers and sliced cheese on it, along with some slices of fresh pear.
“Just a bottle of water from the fridge and something to eat. I have to take one of the big pills. Pain’s pretty bad,” she said reluctantly.
“Here. Sit down. I’ll get you some cheese and crackers.”
“I can do that...”
“Don’t fuss, honey,” he said gently. He pulled out a chair and waited until she sat down. Then he fetched the water and sliced a little more cheese and put some more crackers on his paper plate. He sat down, too.
“The pears are nice,” he said.
“I like fresh fruit,” she said shyly.
They munched cheese in a pleasant silence. She washed it all down with her bottle of water, wincing every time she shifted in the chair.
“I’m sorry you had to have a disease that makes you hurt all the time,” he told her quietly.
“Life happens,” she said. “I learned to live with it a long time ago.”
He frowned. “You aren’t that old.”
“I’m twenty-four,” she reminded him. “But I’ve had it since I was about nine.”
“Nine years old!” he exclaimed.
“Some children are born with it,” she replied. “Arthritis isn’t just a disease of old people. There’s a little boy, five, who goes to the same rheumatologist I do. He’s got osteoarthritis and he has to take doses of ibuprofen just like I do.”
Mikey winced. “What a hell of a life.”
She nodded. “At least I’ve had it long enough to know how to cope with bad days and flares. It’s much harder for a child.”
“I can only imagine.”
“Why are you up so late?” she wondered.
He moved crackers around on the plate, next to his opened soft drink. “You mentioned that I was worried about putting people in danger by living here,” he said, recalling her uncanny perception.
She nodded. “You’re in some kind of trouble, aren’t you, and your cousin’s trying to help.”
“That’s about the size of it.” He leaned back with his soft drink in his hand. He looked gorgeous with his black, wavy hair tousled and his robe open.
He chuckled at her expression. “Your eyes tell me everything you’re thinking, Bernie,” he said softly. “You can’t imagine how flattered I am by it.”
“Really?” she asked, surprised.
He stared at her quietly. “I’m a bad man,” he said after a minute, and he scowled. “Getting mixed up with me is unwise.”
She just looked at him and sighed. “I never had much sense.”
It took a minute for that to register. He burst out laughing. “Oh. Is that it?”
She grinned. “That’s it.”
“Then, what the hell. I’ve got all sorts of people looking out for me. That means they’ll be looking out for you and everybody in the boardinghouse, too.”
“Okay,” she said, smiling.
He cocked his head. “Do you like chocolate cake?” he asked suddenly.
Her eyebrows arched. “Well, yes. It’s my favorite.”
“Mandy made me one and I couldn’t eat it,” he said with a grimace. “I get migraine headaches, real bad ones. Chocolate’s a trigger.”
“My dad used to get them,” she replied. She frowned. “Isn’t anything aged a trigger? I mean, like cheese?”
He looked at her and then at the plate of cheese and let out a breath. “Well, damn. I never thought about it. Every time I eat cheese I get a headache, and I never connected it!”
“Dad’s neurologist said everybody’s got more than one trigger, but sometimes they don’t