by Mollie Molay
Now that he was awake, she was through trying to be Florence Nightingale. She turned back into the room. T.J. hadn’t moved off the bed, but his calculating gaze was on her.
“Are you trying to tell me you don’t remember showing up at my hotel room last night too sick to walk and ready to pass out?”
“No,” he answered, rubbing the back of his neck and eyeing the rumpled bed. “If you don’t mind. I’d still like to know how we got in bed together.”
“I had the choice of letting you lie in the hotel corridor or getting you into bed. You should be thankful I chose the latter.” When she saw the growing awareness in T.J.’s eyes, she became more embarrassed than ever. Just what did he think had happened last night?
“So you were the one who put me in here with you?” His eyes roamed over her with a calculating glint.
Emily would have felt more annoyed at the glint if a warmth hadn’t started at her middle and begun making its way south. Men! Give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile. “I was trying to help you get in bed before you collapsed. I repeat, I didn’t plan on getting in there with you.”
Weak as he was, T.J. had to smother a grin. He took in the soft curves of her body, which were only partially hidden under her robe, and wondered how he could have forgotten spending the night in bed with her. Her explanation might account for him winding up in her bed, but what really blew his mind was his waking up to find her in his arms. “And then what happened?”
“You grabbed me and pulled me into bed with you. And before you make something out of that, let me assure you that was all!”
T.J. smiled when her complexion turned a delicious pink. She obviously was no more immune to him than he was to her.
What had actually taken place between them during the night was the question. Judging from the wary look in Emily’s eyes, it was a question that, as a gentleman, he couldn’t bring himself to ask. Not if he didn’t want her to throw the hairbrush at him.
He felt embarrassed and, strangely, embarrassed at being embarrassed. He tried to focus, to remember details. Had they made love or hadn’t they?
In spite of the throbbing in his head, the thought seemed to please him. Under her wary gaze, the possibility became pure fantasy. If he’d put the fantasy into action with a woman like Emily, how could he not remember?
He cleared his throat. “I think I should tell you the last thing I remember is feeling lousy enough to knock off work early. I even remember thinking of going home to take a shower, but after that, not a blip.”
He checked out Emily’s robe as he spoke. The possibility dawned on him that she had nothing on under it. “Is there something about last night I ought to remember?” he asked cautiously. “If so, I’ll take the blame. I apologize.”
“Apologize?” Emily echoed. To his amusement, she looked offended. Because he’d made love to her, or because he hadn’t? “Apologize for what? I told you, you were out like a light. From what I could tell, you were in no shape to do much more than breathe.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he answered, his manhood threatened. “I’ve never had any complaints.”
He reconsidered his attempt to lighten up the situation when Emily stared back at him with a fierce expression. Whatever she was thinking, it wasn’t about his performance. More likely, she thought he was out of his mind and wondering which cheek of his to slap.
Maybe it wasn’t fair to push her. After all, from what she’d said, she’d practically saved his life. He’d wanted to help her, hadn’t he? Maybe he ought to stay on good terms with her. At least, until he could get his act together. “Would it help if I plead temporary insanity?”
“If that’s all you have to say, let me tell you I’ve had enough of this nonsense,” Emily replied grimly. “Now that you’re awake, just tell me whom to call to come and get you.”
T.J. decided he wasn’t ready to leave and that he’d better keep the rest of his questions to himself or he’d be out on his throbbing head. His apology obviously hadn’t been accepted, and he wasn’t home free. She was a very desirable woman, and she had her pride.
Sane or sick as a dog, there was no denying he was powerfully attracted to Emily. But a relationship? No way. Falling in love, let alone considering marriage, would only get in the way of the responsibilities he had to his family. And to the vow he’d made to himself. Emily represented the trouble he’d sworn to avoid: a woman with a mission and itchy feet to boot.
As for himself, he’d found his own mission the day he’d been adopted. His feet were firmly planted on the ground that surrounded the T.J. Kirkpatrick family and family business. At least, they had been before he met Emily.
He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. To his dismay, it was almost dawn and had to be the morning after the night before. A night he appeared to have spent in Emily’s bed.
It wasn’t like him.
“I’ve got to get up,” he muttered. He sat up, threw his legs over the side of the bed and tried to get on his feet. Sharp shards of pain shot through his head, the room tilted and his stomach rebelled.
Emily rushed to hold him down. “Don’t move,” she ordered, and tried to push him back to bed. “As long as you’re here you might as well stay in bed. The doctor said you needed bed rest for a few days.”
T.J. cast a bleary eye at Emily. If he weren’t already at death’s door, he would have appreciated her tousled auburn hair, her flushed cheeks and her concerned hazel eyes. Eyes that told him that, while she might act annoyed, their attraction was mutual.
Instead of lingering and debating the issue, he shook off her hand and headed unsteadily for the bathroom. A long, cold shower was in order.
Thankfully alone, T.J. tried to remember deciding to find Emily and came up empty. The last thing he clearly remembered was having a devil of a headache, discussing Emily’s situation with his father and then heading for home. How he’d managed to wind up at Emily’s hotel and in her bed with her in his arms was anyone’s guess.
He threw cold water over his face and stared at the wan apparition in the mirror. He looked like hell and didn’t feel much better, mentally or physically.
In the mirror, the reflection of Emily’s panty hose and underwear hanging on a thin plastic clothesline over the tub behind him made him uneasy. For a man who’d sworn off lasting relationships, the scene was as domestic as they came.
He glanced down at his chest and, for the first time, realized it was bare. The cold tiles on the bathroom floor reminded him of his bare feet. Thank goodness he still had his jeans on.
He held on to the sink, too dizzy to even consider a cold shower. Considering the shape he was in, how had he found the strength to spend the night romancing a beautiful woman like Emily?
Maybe he ought to go back and apologize again.
He toweled off his face and, after a lingering look in the mirror, gingerly made his way back into the bedroom.
“Emily, I’d like to…” No sooner had he started his apology than he was interrupted by a knock on the door. He glanced down at his bare feet and chest, at Emily’s sheer robe and tousled hair and grimaced. The signs of a romantic interlude were obvious. “Who’s that?”
“Wait!” Emily whispered frantically. “Don’t answer the door until I have a chance to change. It’s probably the doctor. He told me he’d drop by this morning to check on you.” She rushed to the closet for her clothes.
“Or the hotel detective,” T.J. muttered to himself. He glanced around a room he didn’t remember entering and at the tangled sheets on the bed. “Where’s my shirt and the rest of my clothes?”
“On the floor,” she answered. “I didn’t have time to pick them up. Not after you…”
T.J. snapped to attention. “After I what?”
“Never mind,” she said over her shoulder as she headed for the bathroom. “Just answer the door.”
By the time T.J. shrugged into his shirt, their caller was pounding on the door. When he opened it, a portly man carrying a doct
or’s bag stood there with his hand raised to knock again. He looked worried.
“I’m Dr. Sanchez,” he huffed. “I was about to call hotel security and have them open the door to see if you and the missus were okay.”
“The missus? What missus are you talking about?”
“Your wife, of course. She called about you, but she didn’t sound so good over the telephone, either. Is she sick, too?” The doctor eyed T.J.’s open, wrinkled shirt, bare feet and rumpled bed. “Sleep in your clothes?”
Shakier than ever, T.J. rocked back on his feet and looked longingly at the bed. “No. I usually sleep in the raw.”
“Kind of risky, considering you’ve had an overdose of sun and the air-conditioning in here,” Dr. Sanchez said with a measuring look at T.J. “You might as well sit down while I take your temperature and check your blood pressure.”
“I’m fine,” T.J. protested. The sooner he could get rid of the doctor, the sooner he could talk to Emily and get back to safer territory.
“Good,” the doctor answered. “In that case, I guess you won’t mind if I make sure.” He motioned to the chair, opened his bag, took out a thermometer and popped it into T.J.’s mouth. “By the way, where’s the little lady?”
T.J. motioned to the bathroom door just as Emily rushed out of the bathroom. She was dressed in her memorable sundress, her hair tied back with a ribbon. Nice, T.J. thought through a haze, but she’d looked a hell of a lot more interesting in her silk robe.
“Dr. Sanchez?”
“Dr. Fred Sanchez,” he answered amiably. He took the thermometer out of T.J.’s mouth, checked it and nodded. To T.J.’s relief, the blood pressure cuff came next. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here any earlier, Mrs. Holmes. When you didn’t call back last night, I figured you and the mister were doing okay with the instructions I gave you over the phone.”
Emily sent a warning look at T.J. when he opened his mouth to answer. “Thank you, Doctor. I think my husband is feeling a little better,” she said with an adoring smile at T.J.
“Seems to be,” the doctor answered. “His temperature is normal, although his blood pressure is a little high. A few days in bed should do the trick. Keep drinking water. Get some rest and you’ll do fine, young man. You too, Mrs. Holmes. By the way,” he added, his hand on the doorknob, “if you had told hotel reservations you were newlyweds, I’m sure they would have given you a larger room.” He winked at Emily. “Maybe, even the honeymoon suite. Unless the honeymoon is over, give ’em a call. Maybe it’s not too late.”
T.J. spoke up the minute the door closed behind the doctor. “Husband? Mr. Holmes? Honeymoon? Who told him I’m your husband?”
“I did. I couldn’t let the doctor think you were just spending the night, could I?” Emily answered adamantly, pulling at the neckline of her dress. “Letting him think we were honeymooning was embarrassing enough.”
T.J. struggled to get himself together. Pretend husband or not, for a man determined to put marriage on the back burner, he wasn’t doing too well at staying single. “Why not? People do it all the time.”
“And what makes you think that I do?” she countered. Round one was over, he thought, but she looked ready for round two. “In case you’ve forgotten, you arrived here on your own. I certainly didn’t issue an invitation.”
T.J. bit back a retort. She had him fair and square. But, right or wrong, his reasons for appearing at her hotel room didn’t change the fact that he hadn’t had a peaceful moment from the time Emily had shown up in his life.
It was all his fault. In a moment of weakness, he’d decided to play Sir Lancelot to Emily’s Queen Guinevere and gone with her to her lawyer. He even remembered his final goodbye the other day. Now he found himself in her hotel room and too sick to leave.
He should have taken his father up on his offer of a working vacation in Hawaii. At least, there would have been three thousand miles between him and Emily.
Under different circumstances, he might have gone for a woman like Emily. But not at this stage in his life. Something about this whole caper made him feel like a gigolo.
As if things weren’t bad enough, Emily was broadcasting news of their “marriage” to anyone who’d listen.
He eyed his nemesis. Even with a headache that gave no evidence of clearing up anytime soon, he was able to reduce his problem to one simple sentence. He and Emily were becoming too close for comfort. He had to return to his orderly life.
Summoning the last of his strength, he decided it was time to get his act together. He looked around for his shoes and jacket. After one step, the room spun around him. He reached for the armchair. It was hold on or fall down.
Emily rushed to throw her arms around him. “Where do you think you’re going? You heard the doctor. You belong in bed.”
“Em,” he said wearily as he shook off her hand and dropped into the armchair, “we have to talk.”
“You can talk after you’re in bed,” she answered. She sized him up and debated the wisdom of trying to get him back in bed by herself. The chair won out. “You’re going to have a relapse if you keep this up!”
T.J. wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. The take-charge part of him hated to admit it, but he was too weak to argue. On the other hand, the idea of getting back in bed with Emily funneling water down his throat was unthinkable.
“No way,” he answered. “I’m sure my dad will come here to pick me up if I call him. I can go to bed when I get home.” He looked at the telephone on the nightstand. The telephone looked to be a mile away. Now that he was beginning to remember he was here to help Emily, maybe he’d call later. “We have to talk about the lawyer.”
Emily looked suspicious. He didn’t blame her. He didn’t blame her for not trusting him. Certainly not after all he’d put her through last night. To make matters worse, he wasn’t sure he could trust himself to make sense in his present condition.
“About this marriage bit,” he said weakly. “You have to stop telling people we’re married. It’s not getting you anywhere.” At her silence he tried to remember why she’d picked him for a bridegroom. “How did you come up with the fool idea to hire a husband in the first place?”
“I told you the other day, at the charity bachelor auction.” Emily poured him a glass of water and handed it to him. “You must be weaker than I thought. As for my idea, there was nothing foolish about it. I needed a man to pretend to be my husband. From the moment you walked on the stage something told me you were the man for me. You looked dangerous.”
T.J. felt his manhood redeemed. He straightened up. “How dangerous?” he asked with a lopsided grin.
“Dangerous enough,” she replied, eyeing him as if he were a teenager on the make. “You cost me three hundred and fifty dollars, and nothing has come of it. So, drink up, just like the doctor ordered.”
“Ah yes, the charity auction,” T.J. echoed as a dim memory of the charity auction and his brother’s role in it surfaced. Thank goodness he remembered that much. It was last night’s bedroom scenario and the part he’d played in it that he was having a difficult time remembering. “A big mistake. I never thought it would work.” He emptied the glass in one long swallow and shuddered. Too bad Emily hadn’t realized life was one big joke to Tim.
Emily regarded him silently. “Unfortunately, you turned out to be right,” she agreed, and poured him another glass. “I came up with the idea because I thought it was the quickest way to settle my aunt’s will.” She didn’t tell him she’d been influenced by the need to get far away from the man who’d jilted her, as soon as possible.
“Too bad it didn’t turn out that way,” T.J. muttered, eyeing the second glass of water apprehensively. No way was he going to reach for it. If he drank it, she’d only pour him another. He felt bad enough without becoming waterlogged.
“But you still came back.” She eyed him with an expression that hit him where it hurt—right between the eyes.
Now that his reasons for showing up at Emily’s ho
tel room were coming back to him, T.J.’s conscience told him he owed her an honest, direct answer.
He couldn’t tell Emily he’d come back yesterday because he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. That he still remembered how she’d felt in his arms for a few brief, memorable moments that had ended in a kiss he would remember. Or to tell her that her wounded eyes had continued to haunt him each time he’d said goodbye.
He couldn’t bring himself to share those thoughts; not without opening a door to possibilities he intended to keep closed.
The marriage scenario was definitely out.
On the other hand, there was no harm in trying to help her. Maybe he’d be able to live with his conscience.
“I remember I came back because I suspected your aunt Emily’s lawyer was taking you for a ride. I came back to tell you so, to see if we could put our heads together and straighten him out.”
When Emily’s eyes lit up, so did T.J.’s spirits.
“I’m glad I’m not the only one to think so,” she answered. “I sensed he wasn’t honest from the first time I met him.”
T.J. was too weak to point out Emily had been as dishonest in her own way as the lawyer had been in his. Or to remind her calling Daniels dishonest was a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
“I’m afraid Daniels didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to suspect something wasn’t right when you showed up with a photograph of your husband. You clinched his suspicions when you came back with me. But don’t worry, Em. After I get through with him, you’ll be on your way in no time.”
The sound of someone vacuuming outside the door covered Emily’s answer. Just as well, T.J. thought wearily. All this talk had left him too tired to think, let alone share any more of his thoughts or plans. He’d have to take care of them later. With a sigh, he gave up, leaned his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes.
