Especially when he was so uncommonly pleased to wake up next to her.

There were dark shadows under her eyes. His head was clear enough to remember being in and out of consciousness, fighting a blazing fever. A lot of it was blurred, but he knew whatever else was going on, whoever else was around, Molly had always been there.

Marrying a woman he really didn’t know at all just because he liked waking up next to her struck him as a lunatic notion. But his life was one lunatic moment after another lately.

Anyway, she didn’t like him much. So he set the idea aside.

Garner. Molly Garner.

There, somehow knowing her name released him from any plans to change her name to Hunt by marrying up with her. He could remain single.

Relief swept through him, and that relief told him he’d made the right decision.

Still, she was a pretty little thing.

Her eyes fluttered open. Lashes long and dark around eyes blue as the Wyoming sky. Her fine, flyaway blond hair was a real mess. He wanted to smooth it down, but one arm was tied up, and the other was busy holding her.

She had on a dress in the same pale blue as her eyes. The dress was sprinkled with little white flowers. The whole thing was a mass of wrinkles. That’s what came of sleeping in your clothes, and in fairness, it also came from working day and night, probably not taking the time to change, and for certain not taking the time to iron her dress.

His last clear memory was of morning, and now, judging by how the sun came in his window, it was near suppertime.

“How long have we been sleeping . . . together?” Some impish impulse made him add that last word.

She gasped, sitting up like she’d been bounced by a spring. Her fair skin flushed until he was afraid her head would light up like a torch and set her hair afire.

He smiled, couldn’t stop himself. Then he laughed.

He hadn’t laughed much for a long time.

“I-I—that is—we—”

Since words seemed to be beyond her, and he remembered how she’d cared for him, he figured asking for some kind of help would bump her off her stuttering.

“Can I have a drink of water?”

She grabbed that request like it was a lifeline thrown to her in a rampaging river.

Picking up the tin cup, still with water in it, she slid an arm behind his shoulders. Getting close to him just like she’d been, but now it was work.

He took a sip. “That tastes like a bit of heaven.” He drained the whole cup. Then saw a slice of bread on the bedside table. “Can I have that bread, too? I think my stomach is waking up along with me.”