Summer on the Mountain (10 page)

She heard him grumbling behind her as she walked into the kitchen.  There, she passed him three ibuprofen tablets with a cup of water.  She checked his forehead as he swallowed the tablets.  “You have a fever.”

“I feel pretty bad,” he admitted seriously, and she suspected it wasn’t like him to admit to any kind of weakness.

“Do you have a thermometer?”

He waved the question aside.  “I’ll be fine once the pills kick in.”

She shook her head uncertainly and to his chagrin, glanced around and then headed for a room she thought was the bathroom.  It turned out to be his expansive bedroom and her eyes widened.  “Nice,” she murmured, and then stepped into the master bath.  She searched the medicine cabinet and found a thermometer. 

She returned and slipped it between his lips when he opened his mouth to protest.  “Stop being a baby,” she muttered.

When she removed the thermometer moments later, she gasped.  His temperature was horribly elevated.  “Jarrod, you’re burning up!”

She glanced around the room, and to his surprise, grasped his hand.  “What are you doing?” he asked, narrowing his eyes and frowning.

“I’m taking you to see a doctor.”

“It’s the weekend.  My doctor is probably out on the lake fishing at this very moment.”

“I saw an urgent care clinic in that … that little town I passed on my way here.”  She couldn’t recall the name of the tiny village.

“Morgan.  The village is called Morgan, but I don’t need to see a doctor.”

“Yes, you do.” 

She studied him with a critical eye, noting his neck appeared swollen and that he repeatedly reached up to touch his right ear.  “You may have an ear infection.”

“And how would you know that?” he asked with unconcealed irritation.  “Are you a psychic?”

“No, actually, you’re the psychic around here,” she muttered, remembering how he seemed to read her mind on several occasions.  “And I suspect you have an ear infection because you have both a high fever and like infants with ear infections, you keep reaching up to touch your ear.  And you’re as cranky as any infant with an ear infection,” she added.

His eyes narrowed.  “Are you calling me an infant?”

She shot him a weary look.  “If the name fits…”

“Hey!”  He winced suddenly.  “My … ear hurts.”

“You may need antibiotics,” she said, tugging at his arm to force him out of the chair. 

“I don’t want to go,” he moaned.

“Too bad.  Come on.”

“Can’t you just call for an ambulance,” he said melodramatically.  “I don’t feel like driving.”

“I’m driving!  As if you’re fit to be behind a wheel, or at a stakeout,” she grumbled for good measure.

“No need to get testy,” he griped and followed her to her economy car. 

He dropped into the passenger seat and glanced at her as she belted in behind the wheel.  “I’m sorry to be such a bother,” he said contritely, and she shot him a withering glance.

“I’m sure you’d do the same for me,” she said doubtfully.

“I’d help you out in a heart beat,” he assured her, shifting in the seat to get comfortable and in order to see her face without twisting his neck awkwardly. 

Within the small space, Summer realized getting comfortable couldn’t be easy for him.  His legs were bent at an impossible angle, and he seemed to fill the space, his shoulders practically touching her when he turned back to face forward as she drove.

They rode in silence and she realized why when she glanced his way.  He had fallen asleep, his head tipped against the window glass.  She studied him briefly.  Even burning up with fever, he was dangerously masculine.  She noted how his thick lashes fanned out over his chiseled cheekbones and how his full, well-formed lips practically begged to be kissed.  The errant thought caused her to white-knuckle the steering wheel.  She raked a hand through her still damp hair, and forced her eyes forward, to the roadway ahead.

“So you know, I just saw you give me the once over,” he said lazily. 

She shot him a caustic glance.  “I was, uh, merely … trying to … discern if you still had a fever.”

“Uh huh.”  He chuckled.  “No worries.  I was admiring you too.”

She ignored him, and with relief, steered into the clinic parking lot.  Once inside, they checked in, and then found themselves sitting amongst several sick children.  Summer noted Jarrod was in a dour mood while the little ones managed to play happily despite their illnesses.

“What’re they so happy about?” he groused, gesturing toward the tiny tots.

“Unlike you, they’re brave little soldiers … er, rangers,” she said sweetly.

He shot her an angry stare and then sighed with relief when a nurse finally called his name.  He rose from his seat and Summer settled in with a magazine to wait for him.  To her surprise, he turned, shook his head vehemently, and declared, “I’m not going in there by myself!”

“I’m not going with you,” she whispered, shocked that he’d want her to accompany him.

He planted himself like a petulant little boy. “No, I mean, I’m
not
going in there by myself.  Doctors make me nervous,” he added with a shudder. 

“Well, you and me both,” she muttered.

“Ah, another thing we have in common,” he said sweetly.  “Come on. 
Please.
”

The waiting nurse watched the exchange with a curious smile, and then led them back to the exam room after Summer relented and followed them.  Inside the room, the nurse told Jarrod to climb onto the exam table, and then she stepped out briefly, only to return and tell him to take his shirt off.

He shook his head.  “My ear hurts, so why do I have to take off my shirt?”

“The doctor will need to examine you and it’s far easier if your shirt is off,” she told him, before stepping out of the room.

“This shirt business is a little suspicious,” he snapped as soon as the door closed behind her.  “I think she has ulterior motives.”

“Oh, right.  I’m sure that’s it,” Summer said, noting the sparkle of humor in his eyes and laughing to herself.  But then she sobered as he shed the shirt, exposing a broad, well-developed chest.  The man boasted a six-pack that rivaled those of the male models she’d painted during a college art class.  His arms were well-muscled, like bands of steel, and she gulped loudly.

He noticed her discomfiture and smiled broadly, flexing an arm for her benefit.

“Stop that,” she told him, biting back a chuckle.

He flexed the other arm.  She burst out laughing then, relieved when the doctor stepped into the room.  Jarrod promptly filled the man in on his symptoms, and Summer mentioned his high fever.

The doctor grimaced when he looked into Jarrod’s ears, and then again when he listened for congestion in his lungs.  The elderly physician stepped back, folding his arms across his chest.  “Son, you have ear infections in both ears, and I hear some rattling in your chest.  You definitely need to start a course of antibiotics.”

“Doctor,” Summer spoke up, “Jarrod plans on going to work later.  Is that a good idea?” she asked, knowing very well it was not.

He shot her a look of daggers and she smiled sweetly in return.

The doctor pointed a stern finger at him.  “I want you in bed for several days and I’d like to see you back here Wednesday.”

“But…”

“No buts,” Summer said, turning to the doctor and nodding obligingly.  “He’ll be here.”

The doctor nodded and left briefly to write out a prescription.  When he returned, he passed the prescription to Summer.  “See that it’s filled immediately.  We want to get him started on antibiotics ASAP—three each day for ten days.  We’ll assess how to proceed at the end of the ten days.  Hopefully, the infections will be gone and those lungs clear.” 

“Uh, over here,” Jarrod called.  “They’re my ears and my lungs,” he pointed out in a surly voice.

The doctor shot Summer a conspiratorial glance before leaving the room.  Jarrod stared at the closed door.  “I can’t miss work…” 

“Get dressed,” Summer cut in.  “I want you home and in bed.”

He quirked a brow.  “You do, huh?”

She rolled her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath.  “I’m not even going to respond to that, Jarrod.  I understand you’re surly and combative because you don’t feel well.”  She grinned.  “Of course, that doesn’t account for all the other times you’ve been surly since I met you.”

“Hey, in my own defense, I was only surly when I met you that first morning because I was under extreme pressure.  I’d just gotten a call about a dead brown bear at Janson Ridge.  I really needed to get up there, but I had to deal with you first.”  He raised a clarifying finger.  “And you were breaking the law,
and
you were holding my fishing pole.  What was I supposed to think?”

“You could have listened to me,” she pointed out.

He watched her thoughtfully.  “You’re right,” he admitted with a resigned shrug, and then sighed.  “If I hadn’t startled you, you wouldn’t have fallen into the lake...”

“And subsequently gotten sick,” she interjected.

“Which caused me to get sick,” he said.

She smiled.  “Payback’s a bear.”

“You ain’t kidding,” he told her, cocking his head to the side and thinking.  “I haven’t been sick for as long as I can remember.”

“Let’s hope it’s a good long while before it happens again,” she said ruefully.

Back in the car, he turned to her.  “Thanks for taking me to the clinic.  I really do hate going to the doctor.”

“Really?” she asked, smiling into his eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said.  “I’m liable to lean over and kiss you.”

“Don’t even think about it.  I don’t want
those
germs,” she said with a dramatic shudder.  “You’re lucky I’m letting you in my car.  Crack that window, by the way.”

He laughed now.  “Is that any way to treat a sick person?”  He was silent for a moment, chuckling, but turned to her again and sobered suddenly, his brows furrowing in contemplation.  “It feels as if I’ve known you forever, Summer.  Does it feel that way to you?”

“Like an eternity,” she said flippantly.

“I was being serious,” he told her, reaching for her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze.

She shook her hand clear of him and abruptly searched her purse.  He watched her curiously as she pulled out a small container of hand sanitizer and doused her hands. 

“Hey, that hurts!” he cried.  “I was just trying to convey my heartfelt emotion and you’re treating me as if I’m a walking germ.”

“You are.  Put your hands out,” she instructed, and then doused his hands too.  “God only knows what else you might have caught in that clinic, considering your weakened state,” she observed.

“You care,” he said, smiling sweetly.  “You really care.”

Summer checked on Jarrod many times during the next several days.  He’d gotten much sicker before he’d begun to improve, but she knew it typically took a few days for the antibiotics to kick in.  Even Jarrod was surprised at how ill he’d been.

Wednesday morning, she arrived at his cabin to find him dressed and ready to go to his doctor’s appointment.  “I appreciate your coming with me,” he told her.  “I really hate going into medical offices.  They smell so sterile and icky.”

“Icky?”

“Yeah,” he said, flashing a grin.  “You look nice.”

“So do you—well, better anyway.”

He still looked tired.  Half-circles framed his eyes, and he looked pale and drawn out.  The illness had really knocked him for a loop, she realized.

“Thanks, I think,” he muttered, casting her a curious glance.

In her car, he turned to her.  “I want to thank you for all the nursing over the past few days.  I’m sure I would have died without your tender ministrations.”

“You would not have died,” she said with a rueful smile, starting the car and driving out and to the main roadway.

“Well, it felt like I was dying.  I don’t know how little kids do it.”

“What?”

“Persevere despite painful ear infections.”

She nodded, keeping her eyes fixed on the roadway in front of her.  Jarrod, beside her and sitting so close their arms touched, was a decidedly disconcerting distraction.  She realized she was attracted to the man, and her eyes widened at the realization.  How had that happened? she wondered.

Admittedly, he was a good-looking and verile man, but certainly not her type.  Or was he?  He was ruggedly handsome, more at home in the wilderness than in town.  She had never spent time in the out of doors, but oddly, now, as she explored the mountain- top and the lake, she felt as if she had come home. 

She shook her head, warding off the ridiculous thought.  This wasn’t home.  It was a borrowed fantasy—one that would end when she completed the painting and returned to her real life.

When Jarrod laid a gentle hand on her knee to get her attention, she practically leapt out of her skin.  “I’m sorry,” he said softly, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”