“Good.” Her smile lingered so long, she was probably imagining me using the damn thing. “Nurse June approves.”
“Do you always worry this much?”
She stiffened slightly and rolled her bottom lip against her teeth. “I guess I do, after everything we went through with my mom.”
I groaned over my thoughtlessness. Her tone wasn’t scolding, but it should have been.
“That cough stuck around for weeks, but we all thought it was just a cold. It would pass, you know? By the time she finally had it checked out, it was too late to do anything about the cancer.”
A long pause stretched between us, June seemingly lost in memories of her mother, me wondering how I could have been so cruel. I kept close enough with Clint and Carol Evans to know cancer had hit her fast and hard. Sometimes, cancer came and lingered for years, chipping away at a person little by little. Other times, it sprang up and grabbed them before they even knew what was wrong. It didn’t make sense.
“I’m sorry. It must be tough, losing your mother.” My own mother found fault in most of my life choices, but I still couldn’t picture being without her. “She was a real good woman.”
June’s expression softened, her eyes all sweetness. Pleasure swelled inside me, the joy of saying the right thing to a woman entirely by accident.
“It’s been so hard,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. “At first, I was…” She shook her head as if pushing away those thoughts. “I’m doing better now, but it’s always there. I’ll think I’m doing fine and then something reminds me of her, or I wear one of her necklaces, orsomethinghits me...and it’s like it starts all over again.”
Anything I might say would be empty, so I did the only thing I could think to do. I reached over and took her hand in mine. A small gesture of comfort for a woman whose heart so clearly still hurt. Watching June’s emotions play across her face, my heart ached right along with hers. I let her hand go again in a moment, but her smile returned.
“Thanks. Pop says I’m paranoid now. He thinks I fuss over him too much.”
“You don’t say.”
“I guess I do worry over little things. Little things can turn out to be big.” She flashed me that stern look again. “Not that three broken ribs are a little thing.”
“Only one’s broken.” The two cracked ones were just collateral damage.
“The semantics aren’t the point.” She wagged a finger at me again. “This is serious, and if you’re not careful, it could get a lot worse.”
Even through her teasing, the genuine concern that shone in her eyes made me ache. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m doing my breathing, and I’ll even do my physical therapy.”
“Physical therapy?”
I could have kicked my own ass. I’d just handed her one more thing to harass me about.
“They’re just shoulder exercises so I don’t hunch over. But I’ll do them.” Anything so she wouldn’t fear for me. I sort of liked her fussing over me, but I didn’t want her thinking I was about to be hospitalized, either.
A smile curved across her lips. “See that you do.”
After polishing off the pizza, we cleared the table. Or rather, June cleared the table, and I hovered around in the kitchen, somehow feeling even more out of place than I had when she cleaned up my house.
I leaned against one counter while she stacked the dirty dishes in the sink and washed down the table. She was determined to do entirely too much for me, and I’d had no choice but to surrender. Just leaning over to pull fresh clothes out of the dryer seemed to tear my chest apart, and walking up the stairs proved more trouble than it was worth. Still, I couldn’t think of a worse scenario than June finding my clothes tossed around on the floor and dirty dishes piled everywhere. She seemed destined to catch me at my lowest.
Not that I’d helped anything. Bossing her around in the barn, shutting her out, pushing her away as hard and fast as I could. I couldn’t figure out why she kept coming back.
I cleared my throat, feeling like an ass. “You’ve done an awful lot of work around here.”
She draped the wet rag over the kitchen faucet and mirrored my pose, leaning against the counter next to me. “There’s nothing wrong with needing a little help sometimes, you know.”
“I shouldn’t have let it get so bad. After finishing the few chores I’m able to do around the barn, by the time I come in, I’m beat.”
She shifted to fully face me, her expression once again lit with stern defiance. “You shouldn’t be doinganythingaround the barn. Nothing at all, do you hear me? Can’t you hire someone else to help out, just until you’re healed?”
“I tried. I haven’t been able to find anybody last-minute, and Aaron’s already doing more than his usual around here. I can handle it.”
“I could—”
I raised a hand between us, cutting her off. “You’ve done plenty.”
