Sanctuary(89)

Maybe he'd underestimated Lexy after all, he mused, and poured two hefty portions of wine. "The Mexico job. I was doing some finetuning on it when she ... dropped in."

Jo carried her equipment over, stacked it neatly at the far edge of the blanket he'd spread over the ground. "You sound a little nervous, Nathan."

"No, just hungry." He handed her the wine, took a deep gulp of his own before sitting down and diving into the basket. "So, what do you have to eat?"

Jo's muscles tensed. "Did something happen with Lexy?"

"Something? Happen?" Nathan pulled out a plastic container of cold fried chicken. "I don't know what you mean."

Her eyes narrowed at the all-too-innocent look on his face. "Oh, don't you?"

"What are you thinking?" When you didn't want to defend, he decided, attack. "You think I ... with your sister?" Insult coated his voice, all the more effective from the desperation that pushed it there.

"she's a beautiful woman." Jo slapped a covered bowl of sliced fruit down on the blanket.

"she certainly is, so of course that means I jumped her at the first opportunity. What the hell kind of man do you take me for?" Temper snapped out, some of it real and, Nathan felt, all of it justified. "I go after one sister in the morning and switch to the other for the afternoon? Maybe I'll give your cousin Kate a roll before nightfall and make my points off the whole family."

"I didn't mean-I was only asking-"

"just what were you asking?"

"I . . ." His eyes were dark and hot, fury streaking out of them. The jitter of alarm came first, which surprised her, then it was smothered quickly by self- disgust. "Nothing. I'm sorry. she was baiting me."

Annoyed with herself, Jo dragged a hand through her hair. "I knew she was baiting me. she knew I was coming up here with you, and that I've been seeing you, more or less, and she wanted to get a rise out of me."

she blew out a breath, cursed herself again for not keeping her mouth shut. "I wasn't going to mention it," she went on when Nathan said nothing. "I don't know why I did. It just slipped out."

He cocked his head. "Jealous?"

she would have been relieved that the heat had died out of his eyes, but the question tightened her up all over again. "No. I was just ... I don't know. I'm sorry." she reached for his hand, closing the distance. "I really am."

"Let's forget it." Since he had her hand, he brought it to his lips. "It never happened."

When she smiled, leaned over and kissed him lightly on the mouth, he rolled his eyes skyward, wondering if he should thank Lexy or throttle her.

Yirby checked Yancy Brodie's temperature while his mother looked on anxiously.

"He was up most of the night, Doc Yirby. I gave him Tylenol, but the fever was night back up this morning. Jerry had to leave before dawn to go out on the shrimp boat, and he was just worried sick."

"I don't feel good," Yancy said fretfully and looked up into Kirby's eyes. "My mama said you were gonna make me feel better."

"We'll see what we can do about that." Kirby ran a hand over fouryear-old Yancy's straw-colored tuft of hair. "Did you go to Betsy Pendleton's birthday parry a couple of weeks ago, Yancy?"

"she had ice cream and cake, and I pinned the tail on the 'ackass.

"Donkey," his mother corrected.

"Daddy calls it a 'ackass." Yancy grinned, then laid his head on Yirby's arm. "I don't feel good."

"I know, sweetie. And you know what else, Betsy doesn't feel good today either, and neither do Brandon and Peggy Lee. What we've got here is an outbreak of chicken pox."

"Chicken pox? But he doesn't have any spots."

"He will." she'd already noted the rash starting under his arms. "And you've got to try really hard not to scratch when it starts to itch, honey. I'm going to give your mom some lotion to put on you that will help. Annie, do you know if you and jerry ever had the chicken pox? "

"We both did." Annie let out a long sigh. "Fact is, Jerry gave it to me when we were kids."

"Then it's likely you won't get it again. Yancy's incubating now, so you want to keep his exposure to other kids and adults who haven't had it to a minimum. You're quarantined, buster," she said, tapping Yancy on the nose. "Tepid baths with a little cornstarch will help once it breaks out, and I'm going to give you both topical and oral medications. I've only got samples here, so you'll have to get Jerry to fill some prescriptions over on the mainland. Tylenol for the fever's fine," she added, laying a cool hand on Yancy's cheek. "I'll drop by your place in a few days to take a look at him."