Just A Woman (Marina: Part Two: Naughty Nookie Series) Read Online Free

me?
    After two days in
ICU, listening to the endless, reassuring beeps that told me Nate was clinging
on to life, as soon as he awoke, if he’d have asked me to jump, I’d have asked
how high.  I scurried about, doing what I could for him.  Topping up
the water in his glass, feeding him when he was too out of it on pain meds to
do it himself.  I’ve shaved and bed-bathed him, brushed his hair.  He
wasn’t an invalid at the start, but he was so high on the cocktail of drugs
they’d been feeding him, he couldn’t really do much for himself.  I cared
for him the best I could, because the Nate I know would detest having a stranger
clean him.  He’s way too proud for that.  And I tried to spare him.
    I’ve done what I
could and will continue to do my best, but budging the stubborn bastard out of
his funk is not only getting me down, but it’s looking like a full-time
occupation!
    That it’s one I’m
willing to sign up for tells me that what I feel for Nate is as real as I
thought it to be on the night of the shooting.
    I’m halfway to
loving Nate.  Maybe more than half.  The idea of a world without the
miserable son of a bitch is like torture to me. 
    Betsy shakes her
head at Nate’s disinterest in even her own proclamation of good news.  She
sighs, shoots a sympathetic look my way and murmurs, “Your file is as thick as
my arm, and the doctors have a schedule they want you to keep with your own
clinic, but Nate, you’re due for discharge today.  Just like we
predicted.”
    The swift whoosh
of air escaping my lungs is one of relief.  I’d asked Uncle Sam to make
flight plans for this evening to take us back to Montana and it’s nice to know
I didn’t ask him to waste his time.  I can fly us back on the ranch’s
small aircraft ̶ the one Nate used to fly to O’Hare.  Probably
another indignity he’s going to lie at my door. 
    He might once have
been a twenty-first century kind of guy, but after four years of being exposed
to Sam, my uncle, he has turned chauvinist.  Not in a derogatory way,
because that would piss me right off.  But Sam was born in an age where a
gentleman did the heavy work and the women stayed at home.  Genius, he might
be but he’s a child of his generation.  And Nate, after years of working
close with Sam, has taken on the same traits.  Opening doors for me,
helping me out of cars, ordering my meal... if I didn’t find it charming, I’d
have decked him.
    So my flying him
to the ranch isn’t likely to go down well.
    It’s also a reason
as to why this continued silence is a shock.  His rudeness is totally
unlike him and it’s a punishment in itself.
    “That’s great
news!  Isn’t it, Nate?”  I turn to look at the man who has changed my
life and see no visual reply.  Just a bland stare at a quiz show. 
The sounds of the buzzers and the whine of the contestants’ voices whirl in my
head, scratching my eardrums like the sound of nails scraping down a
blackboard.
    Before I can
explode and let his complete lack of answer urge me into the first explosion of
anger at his childish sulking, Betsy beckons me with a hand and urges me into
the hallway.
    “It isn’t too late
for him to see a counselor.  Patients with gunshot wounds aren’t as rare
as I’d like, but in your circle...” She clears her throat.
    Yeah, I guess the
average patient with a gunshot wound comes in off the streets and heads to a
charity hospital.  Not one that’s costing the ranch a small fortune. 
This place has a better interior decorator than the hotel Nate and I were
staying in!
    “He won’t. 
You know I tried to persuade him.”  My tired sigh is met by a gentle pat
on the shoulder by Betsy.  It’s strange, but she keeps on trying to mother
me.  I guess it’s sweet rather than strange. 
    If she’s on shift,
she sneaks in an extra plate of breakfast or lunch or dinner for me.  When
Nate’s blood pressure suddenly bottomed out, Betsy tucked me in a hug after we
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