Page 53 of Wyoming True

She forced a smile, because she was hurting. “That would be nice, if you don’t mind. And could you get out my ibuprofen and ask your housekeeper for something to take it with?”

“Sure thing.”

He fished out the prescription meds and went to the kitchen to see Mrs. Barton.

“Can you make coffee and take a cup to Ida?” he asked.

Maude glared at him. “Why can’t she come in here and get it?” she asked waspishly.

His pale eyes took on a steely shine. “If you don’t like working here, Maude, you know where the door is.”

She caught her breath. It was a very high-paying job. She’d never manage another like it. She gritted her teeth. “I’ll take it right in, Mr. McGuire.”

“I thought you probably would,” he shot back. “And if you aren’t polite when you deliver it, I’ll know.”

It was a veiled threat. She swallowed. Hard. “Of course, Mr. McGuire.”

He nodded, a curt jerk of his head, and walked out the front door to have a word with his limo driver before he got to work.

MRS. BARTONCARRIEDa tray into the bedroom where Ida was lying on the cover, propped on some pillows, her lovely face taut and pale with pain.

She grimaced at the sight of the tray. “Oh, please, Mrs....Barton, wasn’t it? I didn’t need that. Just some water, to take my medicine with.”

Maude cocked her head. “Medicine?” she asked curiously.

Ida nodded. She sat up on the edge of the bed, swung her legs out, painfully, and opened the medicine bottle. It jumped out of her hand, scattering pills all over the spotless duvet. “Oh, damn!” she ground out, fighting tears. “First my horses, then my cat, now this...!”

Maude put the tray on the vanity and retrieved the medicine bottle, glancing at it with raised eyebrows as she put the pills back in it. “How many of these do you take?” she asked, in a much less hostile tone than Ida had expected.

Ida sighed. “Three a day.”

“It’s 800 milligram tablets,” she noted.

“Yes. It takes a lot when the weather changes. I have a partial hip replacement and a metal rod with screws in my right leg, holding a broken femur bone in place. The whole works throbs when we have pressure systems moving in.”

Maude handed the pill bottle to Ida, who shook out one pill and waited while Maude put the tray on the bed beside her.

“Do you take cream and sugar?” she asked politely.

“No. I drink it black. Thank you,” Ida added when she picked it up with an unsteady hand and took the ibuprofen with two sips of blazing-hot coffee.

“My cousin takes those for a bad back,” Maude told her. “He says he can only take them for five days, then he has to wait for ten to take them again. He’s also supposed to take them with food.”

Ida sighed. “I don’t feel like food. Somebody almost killed my cat. He’s at the vet’s...”

“Good Lord! Who would hurt a cat?” Maude exclaimed.

“The same sort of man who laughs when he tosses you over the side of a parking garage,” Ida said with a sad smile. “At least I landed on the grass verge below or I’d probably be dead.”

Maude scowled, wincing inwardly at the pain the injury must have caused the younger woman. “Well, you have to eat something or you’ll do damage to your stomach,” she muttered. “I’ll scramble some eggs.”

“Please don’t go to any extra trouble...”

“It’s no trouble,” the older woman said curtly. “None at all.” She put the little coffeepot and the napkin on the side table. “I’ll take these back to the kitchen,” she added, indicating the condiments on the tray.

“Thanks very much, Mrs. Barton,” Ida replied.

“It’s no bother.” Maude didn’t smile as she went out. But Ida didn’t expect her to. The bad reputation she’d worked so hard to build was having sad consequences. It protected her from men but made her an instant enemy of most women she met.

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