Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) by Nella Tyler

been sneezing since
the night before, my head was killing me, and I had a nasty-sounding cough that
was making my throat hurt. I wasn’t sure if I had a fever, but I was feeling
pretty low all the same.
    I
hated to have to call in sick, but I knew that if I didn’t nip my flu in the bud,
I’d be useless out in the fields anyway; and I didn’t want to expose the
Nelsons to my bug when there was a baby who would probably get much sicker, who
could be in danger from the flu.
    But
curiosity won out; I had no idea who could be at my door in the middle of the
week, in the afternoon. I half-decided that it was probably either a salesman
or a Jehovah’s Witness—those were the only two options I could really think
of—when I got up off of the couch and started to walk towards the door.
    Instead
of either one of them, though, I saw Autumn, standing there on my doorstep with
an insulated bag. I almost started to walk away from the door—I was in my
pajamas, and I especially wanted to avoid getting Adelyn sick—but then I
decided it would just be plain rude to leave her out there on my front patio. I
opened the door and pulled my shirt up to cover my mouth and nose. “I don’t
want to get you sick,” I told her right off the bat. “Or Adelyn.”
    “It’s
okay,” Autumn said with a smile. “Addie and I have both gotten our flu shots,
so I should be safe. Can I come in?”
    I
thought about that. Bob Nelson’s order that I not fall in love with his
daughter was one that I took pretty seriously, and inviting her into my house
probably wouldn’t be a good step on the road to obeying him. But I was sick; it
wasn’t as though I was going to make out with her in my current state. I was
also too tired to stand around talking.
    “Come
in,” I told her, opening the door wider and letting the front of my shirt fall
away from my face.
    Autumn
stepped through the door and hefted the insulated bag on her shoulder. “I
brought you a big jar of chicken soup—I made it this afternoon,” she told me as
I closed the door behind her.
    “That’s
kind of you,” I said, surprised at the gesture. “I’m sorry the house is such a
wreck—I was going to clean last night, but started feeling under the weather
and well…” I shrugged.
    “Don’t
worry about it,” she said, shaking her head. “Go get on the couch and let me
find a bowl to put some of this soup in.”
    She
went into the kitchen and I smiled in spite of how miserable I felt, before
walking heavily back to the couch I’d been sitting on when she knocked and
sinking down onto it. I heard her moving around, checking cabinets, and I
almost told her where to look—but then she emerged, with one of my trays in her
hands. There was a big bowl with steam still rising off the top of it, a glass
with some Gatorade in it, and a bottle of Nyquil. “Have you taken anything
recently?”
    “No,”
I said, shaking my head. “I was trying to get up the energy to heat something
up to eat first, but then you knocked at the door.”
    “Well,
you’re going to take something after you eat this fine soup,” Autumn told me.
“You have to keep your fluids up if you’ve got the flu.”
    “I’m
sure I’ve heard that,” I said as she set the tray down on the coffee table. She
looked around the living room for a moment, and I gestured to the chair next to
the couch. “Have a seat—that is, if you’re interested in visiting for a little
bit.”
    “I
can sit for a spell,” she said. She perched in the chair and pointed at the
tray. “Eat!”
    It
wasn’t hard to eat the whole bowl of rich, delicious soup; even with my nose
stopped up and my taste buds off, after the first bite I knew it was exactly
what I needed. “Are these homemade noodles?” Autumn nodded.
    “It’s
nothing really,” she said, blushing slightly. “It’s easier to make up egg
noodles when we need them then to buy them and have them take up cupboard space
forever.”
    “They’re
delicious,” I told