"Honey? Hi, it's me, Trixie." She identified herself as if Honey Wheeler hadn't been her best friend since forever and would recognize her voice anywhere.

Well, there was that and Caller ID.

"Hey, Trix. What's up?" It was unusual for Trixie to be calling her so early.

"I won't be in the office today, Jim is sick."

"Jim? My brother? Sick? Now see what married life doing to him? He was never sick when he was a bachelor," she teased.

"No, he saved it all up for me," she sighed, as her husband's hoarse voice was weakly calling out for her. Again. "I think you and Dan can hold down the fort at Frayne, Belden, and Mangan."

"Yup. Good luck, Trix. You're gonna need it."

"Hey! I've got an idea! Why don't you come over and take care of Mr. I-am-dying-of-this-simple-cold and I'll go into the office." It was worth a shot.

"Gotta go!" Honey was off the phone in a flash, giggling madly to herself. It wasn't often she got one over on her favorite sister-in-law.

"Trixieeee…" the hoarse voice of her beloved husband broke into her daydream of getting away with murder. If she had any women at all on the jury, they'd acquit her after she took the stand and explained her late husband had a slight cold.

She trudged up the stairs again. God, she was sick of them already, and she had only been up and down them oh, around six zillion times today, and it was only eight a.m.

"Baby, I don't feel so good." He woke her from a sound sleep. In the time-honored tradition of women everywhere, she placed a slender hand on his warm forehead.

"I think you have a slight fever, Jim." His nose was red, and he sounded awful. "Home for you today, pal."

Wrong move. Since he wasn't puking, she should have sent him off to school…er, work.

"Baby, I think my temperature has gone up. Can you take it?"

"Trix, can you bring me a glass of orange juice?"

"More tissues?"

"A glass of water?"

"Do we have any cough medicine?"

"Can you fluff my pillows?"

"The sheets are all wet because I am sweaty. Can you change them?"

"Is it starve a cold and feed a fever, or starve a fever and feed a cold?"

She stood in the doorway to their bedroom, surveying her poor, ill husband with a decidedly unfriendly eye. He did look pathetic, though; hair all askew, a nose to match said hair, glazed over eyes. Against her best judgment, sympathy welled within her.

Her poor little pumpkin.

"What's the matter, James?"

He raised emerald, puppy-dog eyes to her. "I don't feel good," he whined, setting off another round of coughing.

She entered the room, sat down on the bed next to him, and ran her fingers through his hair. "Poor little Jimmy," she crooned, "Mama Trixie is going to take good care of you." If I don't kill you first.

She leaned over and kissed his forehead. Cool. The fever was going down. "Did you take the cough medicine, Jim?"

"No, can you give it to me, please? I don't want to take the wrong amount. And if I cough it'll spill on the bed."

Rolling her eyes, she poured the liquid into the little cup. "Open the hangar wide, here comes the airplane!"

He sipped daintily at the stuff, complaining about the taste, could she fluff his pillows again? Read to him? Wipe his ass when he went to the bathroom?

Well, maybe not the last one, but it sure felt like it.

An exhausting 12 hours later, after two more bed changes, three bowls of soup, two boxes of tissues, several doses of medicine, and countless bottles of water, Trixie hauled her protesting body into bed.

She closed her eyes, praying that he would just get the hell to sleep so she could too.

"I feel a lot better, Trix," he grinned at her back. "Thanks for all your TLC."

"Umm hmmm." She was practically in dreamland when a large, familiar hand insinuated itself on her right breast and began stroking softly.

"Seriously, Jim? You were just on your deathbed." She just could not believe he wanted…he wanted to get frisky.

"I feel energized! You had the day off today, too. C'mon, baby."

Oh, she had the day off, did she? She turned over on her back, her stormy blue eyes pinioning his emerald ones. "If you do not take that hand off me right now, James Winthrop Frayne the Second, you will be singing soprano in the Vienna Boys' Choir."

"But baby! What did I do?"