As for not being strong…
She was the strongest person he’d ever known, Johnny thought.
And, except for Alden, the absolute best.
CHAPTER FOUR
HE SAID HE’D stay for the night.
“I have a guest room,” she said, “not that anybody ever uses it.”
“Thank you, but the sofa is fine.”
Miss Cleary took off her rain-dampened jacket and helped him off with his.
“I’ll make some tea. Or hot chocolate. Which would you like?”
“Thank you, but—”
“Tea,” she said briskly, as she hung their jackets away. And something to eat. Soup? How about a cheese sandwich?”
“Miss Cleary. Ma’am. Thank you, but I’m not hungry.”
She gave him a long, assessing look. Then she sighed, went to a closet, took out a pillow and a comforter.
“Bathroom’s over there,” she said. “Kitchen’s down that hall, if you change your mind. I’ll be in my room upstairs. Call if you need me.”
He thanked her again and promised he’d call her if necessary, but he figured she knew, just as he did, that he wasn’t about to call her for anything.
He wasn’t about to spend the night, either. He’d just said that to keep her from any more kind offers. He didn’t deserve kindness, not hers, not anyone’s.
Johnny leaned his crutches against a chair, hobbled to the sofa and sank down on it. He’d just rest for a while. Then he’d…
He’d what?
His car was totaled. He had no money. Well, he had some savings from summers of working at odd jobs, but the money was in the bank and it was four in the afternoon, meaning that the bank was closed.
Four in the afternoon.
Johnny yawned.
It felt more like midnight.
He was exhausted. Completely drained. His head was pounding, his ankle ached, and even though he could feel cold air seeping through the old windows behind the sofa, he felt hot as hell, almost as if his skin was burning.
He yawned again, started to put his feet up on the floral slipcover, thought better of it and worked off his one shoe. Then he lay back against the pillow the old lady—the pillow Miss Cleary had brought him.
A tremor went through him.
Jesus, he felt awful. On fire one minute, freezing cold the next. His gut felt weird, too. Queasy, which was nuts considering that he’d turned away the hospital’s idea of breakfast hours ago.
He reached for the comforter and drew it to his chin. Maybe a nap would help, although how he was going to fall asleep with one foot—the one in the cast—resting on the floor and the other hanging off the too-short sofa was anybody’s guess…
Crap!
He bolted up from the sofa, but not in time. The little he had in his belly spewed from his lips. He gagged, gagged again, and then Miss Cleary was there, soothing him, holding a thick towel beneath his chin while he dry-heaved, then placing a cool hand on his forehead.
“John! You’re burning up!”
Spent, he fell back against the pillow, horrified and humiliated.
“Sorry,” he gasped. “So sorry…”
She hurried away, returned with a basin of warm water, a washcloth and a robe covered with flowers that she draped over him after she cleaned him up. He wanted to stop her, but he was too weak, too dizzy to do more than offer verbal protests.
Somewhere along the way, she popped a thermometer into his mouth, took it out, read it and shook her head. When he tried to sit up, she put her hand on his shoulder and wouldn’t let him. That her liver-spotted hand could exert enough pressure to hold him down was as frightening as what had just happened to him.
“Stay where you are,” she said sternly. “Do you hear me, young man? Do. Not. Move!”
The truth was, he couldn’t have moved if the house had suddenly gone up in flames.
* * * *
The doctor came, poked at him, asked a bunch of questions, said he had apparently picked up some kind of bug in the hospital.
“Most dangerous places on the planet,” he muttered.
Then he wrote prescriptions, warned John to do nothing more strenuous than walk around the house for the next few days and, at Miss Cleary’s request, helped get John into the small, meticulously neat guest room.
She saw the doctor to the door. By the time she returned, Johnny was sitting up, still wearing the flowered robe and reaching for his clothes.
“What,” she demanded, hands on her ample hips, “do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m getting dressed.”
“No, you are not.”
“Miss Cleary. You’ve been very kind, but—”
“I’m not being kind at all. I’m doing my Christian duty.”
“Miss Cleary. Ma’am—”
“Are you going to go through life feeling sorry for yourself?”
John blinked. “I don’t feel sorry for myself.”
“Of course you do.”
“Don’t you get it?” His voice roughened. “My brother—”
“Your brother is dead, God rest his soul. You are not.”
He gave a sharp, bitter laugh.
“That’s exactly right.”
“I see. It would have been better if you had died. Is that what you think?”
It was precisely what he thought.
“Alden’s dead because of me.”
“That is not true.”
“I was driving, or didn’t you know that?”
“Were you drunk, John?”
“No! Dammit, no.”
“Were you driving too fast?”
“I was ten miles under the speed limit.”
“Had you been smoking weeds?”
As upset as he was, her misuse of the term almost made him laugh.
“No. But none of that matters. I had control of my vehicle.”
“Yes. You did. It was the other driver who didn’t have control of his.”
“That sounds good, but—”
Miss Cleary plopped down in a chintz-covered chair beside the bed.
“What if you and Alden had been crossing the street and a truck missed you and hit him?”
Her tone was gentle; the words were blunt and called up a flurry of half-buried images.
“That isn’t what happened.”
‘But if it had. If the results were the same as these. Would you blame yourself?”
John scrubbed his hands over his face.
“It isn’t the same thing.”
“It is very much the same thing.” She reached for Johnny’s hand. “He loved you, John, and you loved him. Let that guide you. Let the memory of him be a part of your life.”
“How?” John’s voice broke. “How do I do that when he’s gone?”
“You could begin by living your life as he would have lived his.”
“My father would laugh to hear you say that.”
Her hand tightened on his.
“I’m going to give you some advice I never thought I’d give a young person.” She leaned closer. “Defy your father. Defy his expectations of you. Show him who you really are, who Alden always knew you were.” Her voice softened. “John. It’s time to become a man.”
* * * *
The fever passed, as did the nausea
A week went by and each day found him feeling a little stronger.
He knew it was time to stand on his own feet.
The previous summer, he’d been a leasehand at one of the drilling operations two towns over. It was a fancy term for someone who did scut work. There were oil wells right on El Sueño, but the foreman worked for his old man and he’d shaken his head, looked down at his boots and said no, sorry, he wasn’t hiring. He’d broken horses, too, but not at El Sueño, and the wrangler in charge of the operation had done that same looking-down-at-his-boots thing before offering the same no, sorry, he wasn’t hiring excuse.
Not true and the three of them had known it—the foreman, the wrangler
, and Johnny—but he wasn’t about to beg.
His father didn’t want him working on the ranch? The hell with him.