Chapter 5
FIVE
Aspen
I’m swept up into Bishop’s arms with what feels like very little effort on his part. I’m floating my way up the steps, my cheek pressed to his shoulder and my feet dangling over the railing as he carries me back inside the ranch house.
I’m having a dream. Or a nightmare. Some combination of the two.
Everything hurts. I’m hot. Feverish even.
My head is pounding, and my body feels like I’ve been hit by a truck.
Aches inside and out are making me wish I could go back into the black void I’ve just emerged from.
I must have fainted from the effort of trying to climb the stairs.
I felt worse and worse the whole drive home from teaching an archaeology class at Highland State University.
Getting out of the car and the exertion of climbing the steps must have tipped me over the edge.
“I’m gonna get you into the house, and then I gotta check you out.
I want to make sure you didn’t hit your head or anything,” Bishop explains to me as he manages to finagle open the door with me still in his arms. I suppose if he can carry my brother up a mountain, this is a smaller feat in comparison, but I still try to wiggle free from his grasp.
I’m hurting and miserable, but I still have my dignity to think about.
Having Bishop take care of me when I’m sick is a nonstarter.
“I’m fine. You can put me down. It was just an accident.” I will myself to sound stronger than I am.
“You’re not fine. You’re burning up, and you passed out walking up the steps. I’m not letting you go.”
“I just got a little dizzy. I’m better now.
” I try to take a deep breath, doing my best not to wince and wheeze when my lungs burn from the effort.
“See, wide awake.” I cough before I can put my hand over my mouth.
I apologize, trying to wipe the spray of spittle I’ve managed to get on his pressed shirt. So much for dignity.
It’s then I’m finally conscious enough that I realize that he’s dressed nicely. Like he’s been somewhere other than the ranch. Or has somewhere else to be. A dinner. A date. My mind races off track, and I have to struggle to refocus.
I’m a mess.
“Do you want some ice? Some water?” he asks as he places me on the couch, his concerned eyes searching my face.
“I’m all right. Truly. You can go back to what you were doing.”
“Let’s get you out of this jacket.” He ignores me and starts to unzip the jacket I put on first thing.
It warmed up over the day from the frigid morning air, but I’d gotten cold on the way home.
The chill had snuck into the car with me despite the bright Colorado sun.
I’d bundled back up when I stopped to get some cold medicine on the way home.
I must have caught something going around from being on campus so much this week.
Or maybe at the game this past weekend, where we were all crammed in like sardines on the bleachers. Who knows.
Bishop tries to help me sit up, and I shake free from his grasp, embarrassed that I’m a grown woman who needs help getting out of her jacket.
“I’ve got it,” I snipe, my voice weaker than I’d like as I try to convince him I can handle it. “You can go. I’m inside the house. I’ve got it from here.”
Except it’s obvious almost immediately that I don’t got it.
My purse is on the ground or in the car somewhere, along with the cold medicine.
Just the thought of trying to walk back out to get it makes me dizzy again.
My head feels swollen and fuzzy. Like I’ve been stuffed inside a giant feather down quilt, and someone turned on the heat.
As soon as I slip my jacket off, I see the rip and the blood on the elbow of my cardigan and through my favorite blouse. There’s a nice deep gash beneath it, one decorated with gravel and dirt from the walkway up to the house.
“Shit,” I curse, my lip curling of its own will before I can suck it back in.
“Yeah, I’m not leaving.” Bishop shoots me a pointed look. “We’re getting all of this cleaned up, and then we’re getting you to bed.”
“There’s no we in this.”
“There is today. You’re gonna hurt yourself worse if you push yourself too far.”
“Then I’ll ask…” The words fade on my lips.
Everyone else I’d call is out of town for the big game this week.
I’m supposed to leave tomorrow, and in the shape I’m in today, it doesn’t seem likely I’ll make it.
My anxiety sets in fast and hard. This is Ramsey’s moment.
A chance at taking home a ring and winning everything with his football team.
They’d beat impossible odds in the playoffs to get there.
It’s his first chance at this, and it might be his last. We’re all so excited for it.
Fallon as much as anyone. I can’t miss it.
“You’ll ask who exactly? Everyone’s gone already, Jones. Remember?”
I burst into tears. As much as from how awful I feel as the guilt of missing something so important to my family.
I see the look of panic in Bishop’s eyes.
I don’t cry. Not often, and definitely not in front of strangers.
And after all these years, he’s as good as one.
I can practically feel the awkwardness in the air, and it makes my chest tighten, a blubbering sound escaping before I can stop it.
My cheeks flush even brighter with the effort, and I need out of this room and away from him.
I push up off the couch, determined to get to my room and lock the door behind me.
“Wait!” he shouts as I try to dodge away from him, but I stumble and start to fall again.
I let out a pathetic little screech of a sound as I tumble forward, terrified that I’m about to hit the sharp corner of the coffee table.
But strong arms wrap around my waist and pull me back up.
“I’ve got you. You’re all right,” he whispers softly as my chest shakes with the effort of trying not to cry. “Look at me.”
“This is humiliating.” I refuse to look at him as I state the obvious. There’s no use in trying to pretend otherwise.
“Hey, there’s nothing humiliating about being sick. You’ve got no control over that. You had no control over falling out there either.”
“I’m going to miss the game.”
“Ramsey will understand.”
“Fallon’s there too. Everyone is. I’m supposed to meet her tomorrow. I moved out here so I could stop missing things, and it’s all I do now,” I blurt out, oversharing with a man bewildered at what to do with me crying and blubbering on.
“Listen, honey, when I get overwhelmed like this, I just try to take it one step at a time. Fix what I can right in front of me and go from there. I think we gotta do the same here. Right now, you’re all banged up, and you’ve got what I’m guessing is one hell of a fever.
“Let’s get you cleaned up and in bed. We can get you some meds, and then we’ll worry about what to do about tomorrow, okay?” Bishop talks to me in a tone that’s as sweet as the nickname he uses for me. One that worked on me back in the day and is threatening to work on me right now.
The last thing I want is for him to be standing here watching me fall apart over something like this. Because it’s not just this; it’s a million things all at once, and this fever is about to be my last straw.
“Please let me help you,” he adds, his eyes meeting mine as his hand splays on my lower back to help support me as I sink back to the couch. He sits with me but stays quiet while he waits for me to make up my own mind.
I want to say no. I want someone—anyone else. I’d take my ex-husband right now if it meant not having to look pathetic in front of Bishop. I’m too vulnerable to accept this man’s help.
But I don’t have a choice. He’s the best option I’ve got, and I can’t afford to pass out again and hit my head. That’s all my family needs to come home to after I’ve ruined Fallon’s uncle’s big weekend. So what choice do I really have?
“Okay,” I agree reluctantly.