Page 96 of The Honorable Texan
When they got to the office, Dr.Lou Coltrain’s nurse, Betty, came right out to meet them and guide them back into a cubicle.
Lou walked in, took a professional look at the cut, and grinned.“Stitches,” she said.“How about a tetanus jab?”
Leo grimaced.“Well…”
She patted him on the shoulder that wasn’t injured.“We’ll have you fixed up and out of here in no time.”
He sighed, glancing at his brother.“I hate shots.”
Rey shrugged.“You’d hate tetanus more,” he told Leo.“Besides,” he added, “I hear she gives sugarless gum to the good patients.”
Leo made a face at him.
* * *
When Leo wasstitched up and given his tetanus shot, Rey drove him back to the house, where Meredith made him a cup of coffee and cut him a slice of cherry pie, making sure he had a cushion for his back in the straight chair at the table.
Rey glared at the special treatment his brother was getting.“Maybe I should get gored,” he commented drolly.
Meredith stared at him, and she didn’t smile.“You’d get a vinegar dressing and a cup of cold coffee,” she said.
He glared at her, too.He felt as if he’d been put in the corner without supper.It wasn’t a feeling he liked.He gave them both a hard look and went back out the door, smoldering with bad temper.
CHAPTER SIX
“I shouldn’t havesaid that,” Meredith said wryly when Rey was gone.“I set him off again.”
“It won’t hurt him to have one woman who doesn’t fall all over herself when he’s around,” Leo told her flatly.“Sometimes too much success can ruin a good man.”
She toyed with her coffee cup.“Women like him, I guess,” she said.
He gave her a quick glance that she didn’t see before he started on his pie.“He’s had girlfriends since he was in grammar school.But there was only one serious one.She turned out to be a real loser,” he added quietly.“She soured him on women.”
She sipped coffee.“You can’t judge an entire sex by one woman,” she pointed out.
“Well, we had our mother as an example, too,” he continued.“She left Dad with five young boys and never looked back.We haven’t been overawed with sterling examples of womanhood, although Simon and Corrigan and Cag have made good marriages in spite of that.”
She smiled absently as she looked at him.“I had a brother of my own,” she said without thinking.
“Yes, I know,” Leo replied, surprising her into silence.“His name was Michael Johns.He worked for Houston PD.”
Her gasp was audible.“How…do you know about him?”
“Remember Colter Banks?”
“Yes.Colter was Mike’s best friend.”
“Well, Colter’s our second cousin,” he told her.“I knew Mike, too.I’m sorry.”
She clenched one fist in her lap and tried not to give way to tears.“Do the others…know?”
“No, they don’t,” he replied.“They weren’t that close to Colter, and they never met Mike.I haven’t told them, and I’m not planning to.”
She searched his dark eyes.“What else do you know about me, Leo?”she asked, because of the way he was watching her.
He shrugged.“Everything.”
She let out a long breath.“And you haven’t shared it with Rey.”
