After Hours

Angie’s cheeks went pink. The blush was rather charming, but Rhys tried hard to ignore it as she spoke quickly. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. It’s just—”

“And stop calling me ‘sir’ with every breath!” he interrupted curtly, annoyance growing.

Biting her lip, Angie glanced down at her lap.

Resisting an inexplicable impulse to apologize, Rhys scowled and turned his attention to his soup. “It’s good,” he said after a few unenthusiastic bites.

Taking the compliment as an apology, of sorts—which, of course, Rhys had meant for it to be—she spoke lightly. “Thanks, but it doesn’t take a lot of cooking talent to open a can. Hardly the kind of soup your mother probably made when you were sick as a child.”

Rhys’s mouth quirked at that. “The only thing my mother ever made for me, as far as I remember, was a note she pinned to my shirt, giving my first name and my date of birth.” And then he almost bit his tongue. What in hell had made him tell her that? It wasn’t exactly something he went around telling people.

Angie’s expression was a mixture of horror and sympathy, neither of which he found particularly gratifying. “You were abandoned?”

Concentrating on his soup, he nodded. “Yeah. Left in the lobby of a hospital in Texas.”

“How old were you?”

“Three.”

“How terrible. Did you—were you adopted?” Angie asked carefully.

“No. People wanted babies. And I never was a cute, cuddly child, even then.”

He could feel her eyes on him as he finished the soup, knew she was trying not to ask more questions, sensed the exact moment her curiosity got the better of her. “Were you raised in an orphanage?”

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug of sorts. “Sometimes. Sometimes foster homes. I hung in until I graduate

d from high school, then ended up drafted before summer was over.”

“You were in the war?”

“Mmm.” He swallowed the last of the soup as he mumbled an affirmative.

“You said only your first name was given?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know my real last name. Wakefield was a social worker’s idea.”

“The spelling of your first name is unusual,” she commented, still very carefully.

“Welsh,” he agreed. “Could’ve been a traditional name in my mother’s family. Who knows?”

“You’ve never tried to find out more about her?”

“No.” He shoved the tray to the foot of the bed, tired of that subject. He couldn’t read the expression in Angie’s deep violet eyes, nor did he want to try at the moment. “Want to get back to work now or would you rather swap life stories?”

He was well aware of her reaction to the rather sarcastic suggestion. It was as if she’d made a physical retreat, drawing back into herself before he caught a glimpse of something she didn’t want him to see. He couldn’t help but wonder what she was trying to hide. Not that it mattered. She was a good assistant. As far as he was concerned, her past had nothing to do with her job for him. As for his personal curiosity—well, that was something he’d have to ignore.

Setting the tray aside, he sank down onto the pillows, silently cursing his aching head and overall weakness, and began to spout instructions in a terse, rapid tone. He told himself he wanted to hurry her on her way to get everything done that required her attention, that he needed to sleep and didn’t want her hovering over him as he did so. And yet he was aware of an odd reluctance for her to leave, a feeling of emptiness at the thought of being alone and feeling so rotten.

Must be the fever making him light-headed, he decided, grimly turning his thoughts to work.

HALF AN HOUR LATER, Angie closed the steno pad and stood, reaching for her purse. She had to get back to the office if she was going to finish everything he wanted done before the end of the working day. Rhys lay wearily against the pillows, eyelids drooping, face pale except for the two spots of color on his cheeks indicating his fever hadn’t completely receded. The medicine had helped some, but the racking cough still escaped him occasionally, making his chest contract so sharply her own ached in empathy. She took the tray to the kitchen, rinsed the soup dish, then filled another glass with orange juice.

“You’d better take a couple more aspirin,” she suggested when she carried the juice into the bedroom. “You need to try to keep that fever down.”

He took the aspirin without protest, his uncharacteristic docility making her worry even more. “Isn’t there someone I can call to stay with you awhile?” she asked. “I hate leaving you alone.” She knew now that there was no family, but surely a friend? A—it was hard to even form the word in her mind, for some reason—a lover?

His eyes closed, Rhys shook his head against the pillows, his silver hair ruffling appealingly. “I’ll be okay. You’d better go on. Don’t forget to call Ron Anderson.”