Page 29 of Say the Words
I didn’t think it was possible, but his mouth flattened even more. “Gee, thanks.”
“I mean you look miserable. How’s the pain?”
His eyes cut away. “I’ve been better.”
“Isn’t the Percocet taking the edge off?”
“It did,” he admitted. “Did a few other things, too. I didn’t like it, so I didn’t take any more after that first night.”
That just figured. Mr. I’m Too Big and Strong to Take Pain Medicine topped the list as the most stubborn man I’d ever met. “So you’re just going to grit your teeth and bear the pain?”
“Along with a steady stream of Ibuprofen.”
My eye twitched at his sheer audacity. “If Ibuprofen was all you needed, that’s all the doctor would have prescribed.”
“So you’re a ranch handanda doctor now?”
“Does it matter? You wouldn’t listen to me even if I were. If you go on taking shallow breaths like you’re doing, you’ll wind up with pneumonia. That’s why you’re supposed to take your pain pills, to help you breathe easier.”
His eyebrows quirked. “Where’d you hear that?”
“I looked it up.”
He cocked his head to the side, examining me like I sat on a shelf in a museum of curiosities. “You looked it up?”
“I know how to Google. Pneumonia’s the number one complication after broken ribs, usually because stubborn men refuse to do what they’re told.”
“That’s why we’re called stubborn.”
“It’s not funny. If you get pneumonia, you’ll be out of commission even longer than you’re going to be already.”
That at least seemed to get through to him. He worked his jaw as if readying his next retort, so I cut him off. “I can pick manure out of the pens by myself. You go inside, do about a hundred jumping jacks, and definitely don’t do the breathing exercises you were told about at the Medical Center.”
His eyebrows pulled down, deepening his scowl. “I regret how much you know about my medical history.”
I laughed. “I’m sure you do. Now go be a stubborn man and don’t do a thing I just told you to.”
Praying he’d listen for a change, I went back to the barn to fetch the wheelbarrow, giving him a chance to return to the house without a witness. While I gathered up the tools, his footsteps crunched through the gravel and faded toward the farmhouse.
Good. He needed to get off his feet and rest a little, whether he wanted to admit it or not. Everything I’d overheard in the Medical Center and looked up in the days since said that if he kept with his current activities, he could wind up in Intensive Care. I could just imagine how that would go.
Ty Hardy, lying in a hospital bed, cursing out the IV tube in his arm and demanding to see arealdoctor who would release him. I laughed to myself over the idea.
A big, tough guy, he wasn’t used to being looked after, that much was plain. When I turned up yesterday, I’d half expected to find he’d put a lock on the front gate to keep me off his property. Or thatNo Trespassingsign he’d threatened to find. He wanted to prove his point that ranch work was too hard for me, but not at the expense of actually letting me do the work. Now, I suspected he was starting to enjoy bossing me around, having me muck out stalls, and watch me cart horse manure around.
It wasn’t awful work. Certainly a different world from picking out color schemes and furniture styles for other people’s houses, but not as miserable as I’d thought I’d be when I agreed to it. I was hot and sticky and smelled a delight, but I liked seeing the immediate results of every completed task, even if just a pen clean of manure. Not exactly an accomplishment to share on my interior design website, but an accomplishment just the same.
Ugh, my website. I needed to stop licking my wounds over Kim’s sudden departure and sort out my future. The online work wasn’t bad, but it didn’t have my heart. I wanted real clients again, wanted to have a hand in every stage of a house remodel or a room refresh. The question was, could I handle striking out on my own? The idea of doing all my own marketing and promotional work made me shudder, but the freedoms my current job afforded me wouldn’t be matched by a corporate position. That left me at the same crossroads I’d been stuck in for the last few months. Which way to turn?
An hour or so later, I’d picked through both pens and had a nice little mountain of manure in the wheelbarrow to show for it. I dumped it on the heap and put the tools away, careful to return everything exactly where I’d found it. Clean work boots, every tool in its place, meticulous notes on each horse’s stall—for being a rough and tumble rancher, Ty sure could be a fussy one.
Mr. Fussy found me hosing off my boots outside the barn.
“You get it all?” he asked, gruff as ever.
Whatever rest he’d got hadn’t done much for his cheery attitude.
“Every last bit.” I adjusted the hose spray to get a clump of dirt between the boot's treads. I would pretend it was dirt, anyway.
