Washed with relief, she said, "Yes, of course. Nate...thank you."
"No problem. And Abigail...if you really want Meg, go ahead and call her. But if not, I'd be happy to stay with Kate. Will they let us visit you tonight, do you think? Kate's going to be scared. She'll want to see you."
"Oh, Nate...." Tears rolled down her cheeks and she felt weak in the aftermath of her worry.
"Did you think I wouldn't be here for you?"
Abigail sniffed. "No, but I don't deserve you."
Nate made a rude sound. "Knock it off or you'll scare me. This doesn't sound like you."
She laughed weakly. "I don't think you'd better come tonight. I don't know when they're going to put a cast on, and...I hurt and I'm dopey, and I'd probably upset Kate even worse if she did see me. I'll probably be able to come home in the morning, though."
"We'll be there to pick you up," he said, in a miraculously strong, warm voice. "Call the baby-sitter, love. Then take a nap."
Abigail did call, then let herself drift. She felt...safe, at least. Love, he had called her. Did he still mean that? Or was he more worried about Kate than her? After all, his willingness to help didn't mean he still wanted to marry her.
What if he didn't? What would she do? But Abigail was suddenly too tired to worry anymore. She would find out soon enough. Right now her eyelids were too heavy.
CHAPTER 12
The rest of the evening and night passed in a dreamlike state. Or perhaps nightmare was closer to the truth, since Abigail's head throbbed as though a brass knocker were pounding her temple. She could almost see it, one of those heavy lion's heads, like the Irving House had.
She felt alive again by morning, if still miserable. The doctor stopped by at an unearthly hour and decided she could go home if she had someone to wait on her. "I'll phone my mother," she said, and he nodded.
"Good. Don't overdo."
Nate called to find out when to come, and then Abigail dozed again. Even so, when Kate and Nate appeared in the doorway, some instinct made Abigail open her eyes. She pulled herself up against the pillow and her head threatened to explode. Gritting her teeth, she smiled at her daughter, whose eyes were wide and anxious.
"Mommy?" Kate whispered.
"I'm okay, honey. Come here and give me a hug. I could use one."
The little girl flung herself across Abigail, jolting the cast and reminding her that her arm hurt, too.
"You're hard," Kate said, lifting her head.
"Look what your mom's got." Abigail tapped the cast. As her daughter inspected it, Abigail lifted her gaze to the tall man standing silently beside the bed. One side of his mouth tilted up in a smile so tender, her heart flipped over. It flipped again when she saw the intensity of fear in his gray eyes.
"Are you okay?" he asked roughly.
"Nothing a couple of days and some aspirin won't cure."
His gaze touched on her bandaged head. "No seat belt?"
She wrinkled her nose. "I'm afraid not."
"Mommy!" Kate said in a shocked voice. "You always make me wear my seat belt!"
"I was in a big hurry," Abigail said ruefully, wishing her head would quit pounding. "Pretty dumb, huh? You can bet I won't forget again."
The four-year-old nodded solemnly, apparently absolving her mother of guilt. "Were you coming to get me? You were late. You were so late Mrs. Fisher tried to call you."
"I was on the way to pick you up," Abigail agreed. And to call Nate.
Satisfied, Kate asked, "Can I write on your cast? You know Kayla from my preschool? When she had a cast, everybody got to write on it."
"You can be the first," Abigail said, and kissed Kate's soft dark hair.
"How about me?" Nate reached out to smooth curls back from Abigail's forehead. For the first time she thought about how she must look in a hospital gown and bandages, but something in his eyes told her Nate didn't care, hadn't even noticed, how pallid she was. "Can I put one of those hearts with an arrow through it?" he said, "I could write 'Nate and Abigail forever.' "
Was he trying to tell her that he still felt the same, or was he joking? She searched his face, but then Kate bounced experimentally on the edge of the bed and Abigail had to close her eyes against the pain that splintered her head.
Suddenly she felt the weight lifted from the mattress. Abigail pried her eyelids open to see that Nate held Kate.
"Kate-who-rhymes," he said softly, "we'd better let your mom get dressed if she's going to come home with us."
Home. With him. It sounded heavenly. "I can hardly wait," Abigail said.
"Good." His smile creased his cheeks and warmed his eyes. "I'll call the nurse to help you. Come on, short stuff, let's see if we can find a pop machine."
All the while she struggled into clothes, fighting her nausea and headache, Abigail remembered that smile. Sensual, but...sweet. What an odd way to think of it. But the word was the closest she could come to defining what the glint in his eyes and the promised tenderness about his mouth had done to her. As lousy as she felt, she hugged the memory to her like Kate did her blanket.
"I guess I'm going to have to give up on this shirt," she admitted finally. "It just won't go over the cast."
"Be grateful it's oversized," the nurse said. "We'll just pretend you only have one arm for the moment.
"My purse," Abigail said suddenly.
The nurse smiled. "Right here. Do you have a brush in it?"
"Yes, thank heavens."
"Let me." The nurse deftly smoothed Abigail's dark curls into a semblance of style, then summoned Nate, who had been waiting with Kate in the hall.
Feeling ridiculously tired, Abigail sat in a wheelchair and let Nate push her down to Admitting, where she signed papers and negotiated her release.
Nate tenderly helped her into a borrowed car and buckled Kate in beside Abigail.
"How's your car?" he asked, after he'd gone around and gotten in behind the wheel.
Abigail wrinkled her nose. "I don't know." She had a hazy memory of seeing the crumpled front as she was lifted into the ambulance. "It was...pretty smashed, I think. I'll bet the insurance company totals it."
"When we get to your place, I'll call around and find out what happened to it. You look like you could use another nap."
"Can I take a nap with you?" Kate asked. "I wasn't sleepy last night 'cuz I missed you."
"I can't think of anything I'd like better," Abigail said, hugging her daughter with her good arm. "Then I'll call Grandma and see if she's home yet from Reno."
Nate gave her a sidelong glance. "Your mother?"
"Um hm."
"Do you want her?"
I want you, she thought, but only said, "The doctor says I need somebody for a day or so. I can't impose...."
"You know I want to stay," he said abruptly. "Unless you'd really prefer your mother."
Abigail studied his unrevealing profile. Did he mean it, or did he feel he had to offer? "Are you sure?" she asked helplessly.
He turned his head and met her eyes, his own so warm she flushed. "Yeah. I'm sure."
"Nate...."
"Now don't get mushy on me again. Moms have got to be tough, right, short stuff?"
"Yeah!" Kate agreed.
Abigail's eyes prickled with tears she didn't understand. "I don't feel tough," she said woefully, then was embarrassed to be so pathetic.
Nate caught her eye and winked over Kate's head. "Well, we'll let it slide for a day or so. You're entitled."
There it was again, that smile—the sweetness, the deviltry, the love. Or was she imagining what she wanted to see? Still, something in his teasing made her feel more like herself.
Abigail placed her right hand somewhere in the vicinity of her heart, though locating it was made difficult by the sling and cast pressed against her ribs. "Oh, kind sir," she murmured. "I'm overcome!"
"Good," he said, his voice a little huskier. "That's the way I like you."
Two days ago she might have bristled at that. No
w the hint of sensuality made warmth curl in her stomach. She liked him overcome, too, and knew she had the power to accomplish just that anytime.
When they pulled into her driveway, Abigail decided her house had never looked better, even if the pocket lawn did need mowing and a neighbor's dog had dug a big hole in a flower bed. Inevitably, though, climbing out of the car made her head begin to pound again, and Abigail shuffled into the house feeling thoroughly abject.
When Nate insisted, she did lie down on her bed cuddled up to a wriggling Kate. Nate draped a cotton afghan over them and smiled down at Abigail. "Sleep tight," he said. "Don't let the bedbugs—"
"Bite!" Kate finished triumphantly, pinching her mother's cheek.
"Better watch out," Abigail warned, "or one giant bedbug'll swallow you up!" She squeezed her daughter, grateful to be able to.
With the blinds pulled and the door shut, the bedroom was comfortably dim. Abigail kissed Kate's soft hair and whispered answers when the four-year-old wanted to talk. Abigail's eyelids got heavier and grainy-feeling as she lay wishing Kate would fall asleep. She needed to talk to Nate, and how could she do that with her daughter as an interested listener? She wanted desperately to know how he felt, to tell him about her own change of heart. Though some of the urgency seemed to be leaving her, maybe just because she was so tired. If Kate didn't fall asleep soon....
The next thing she knew, late-afternoon sunlight filtered between slats of the blinds. Kate was gone. Abigail could hear her voice in the distance, going on and on, interspersed with a deeper rumble. Abigail smiled and let her eyes drift closed again. Nate, of course. He was still here. He wanted to be here.
She should call her mother eventually, Abigail thought. But not now. Now it was so pleasant just to be here and to know that Nate was in the next room. Tonight, she decided. Tonight she would call her mother and talk to Nate.
Her headache crept up on her, one moment a distant recollection, the next a determined knocking. Her arm hurt, too, she discovered when she moved. Knowing she looked just as pathetic as earlier, but not caring, she rolled out of bed and painfully made her way into the kitchen. There the sunshine was so bright she blinked—and found out that even such a tiny movement was as jarring as if she'd jumped up and down.
"Do you know where my purse is?" she asked, wincing.
"I'll get it." Nate moved swiftly, helping her into a chair, finding her purse, pouring her a glass of water, and taking two pills out of the bottle the doctor had given her.
"Why don't you lie down again?" he asked.
Wretchedly she said, "I guess I'd better. I'm sorry, Nate. I didn't mean to dump everything on you like this...."
"Quit apologizing. You'd have done as much for me.”
Remembering how mixed her feelings had been at his request that she quit advertising the Irving House, Abigail was ashamed. Had she ever given him anything meaningful, or just taken?
As lousy as she felt, Abigail gave up on talking to him. Instead, after her head had settled down to a muffled ache, she called Meg.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I hate to stick you with Sunday when you already worked Saturday..."
"Well, gee, how could you be so inconsiderate as to get in a car accident?" Meg said briskly.
"I'm sorry," Abigail repeated miserably.
"It was a joke, Abby! Lord knows, I have disasters from time to time, too. Anyway, I still owe you one for the weekend you covered when I went to that wedding. Did you have any appointments for tomorrow?"
Abigail tried to think. "No, I guess not. But Monday...."
"I'll look at your calendar. Now, you let me know if you get sick of Nate. Frank and I can descend on you instead."
Abigail could just imagine poor middle-aged balding Frank, compelled to wait on her hand and foot. "Thank you," she said.
"But you hope not?" Meg chuckled heartily. "I'll phone tomorrow and see how you are."
Abigail's next call was to her mother, who—predictably—wanted to drop everything and come running. "You're sure you don't need me?" she repeated for the fourth or fifth time. "I'd be delighted..."
"Thank you, Mom," Abigail said—also for the fourth or fifth time. "I may need you later, but we're okay right now. I know you must be tired from your trip."
Eventually she was able to end the conversation. She was glad she didn't need her mother, who did indeed sound tired. She was also grateful for her own peace of mind, because her mother had a tendency to fuss: nice when you were five years old, irritating when you were thirty.
Somehow the rest of the afternoon and evening passed with Nate a quiet, reassuring presence who made dinner for himself and Kate, then tucked the four-year-old into bed. Abigail lay in her own bed across the hall and listened to the stories he read to Kate in that deliriously gritty voice that affected her quite differently than it did her daughter. It had the same effect, however: Abigail fell asleep listening to him.
Sunday passed in a daze. She reassured her mother and Meg, but by evening her headache had worsened, and though she nibbled at dinner, she ended up retreating to her bedroom soon after.
Monday, though, was another story. Abigail's headache had diminished, and she actually got up, showered, and dressed, though she still felt tired. Her body seemed to be enjoying the chance to lie around for three days. And no wonder. She couldn't remember the last time she'd taken a vacation.
She tried not to think about past or future, just to appreciate what she had. Kate spread Barbie things out over ten square feet in the living room while Nate watched a preseason football game after asking Abigail if she minded. The phone rang a couple of times, but the calls were either all for him or he screened them. Abigail didn't care which.
The scene was so comfortable, so...familial. Abigail pretended to read and sometimes dozed off for a few minutes. She observed Nate through her lashes: the shadow beneath his cheekbones, his straight dark-blond hair and darker brows, that sensual mouth and those quiet gray eyes. When he stood to go into the kitchen she took pleasure in his compact, graceful movements, in the brown forearms bared beneath rolled-up shirt sleeves. Every so often he would turn his head and look at her, and though his expression didn't change, the air would become charged and Abigail would have trouble breathing.
He was waiting, she thought, just as she was. He was a patient man, willing to bide his time, but she was pretty sure he didn't give a damn about the football game.
He made stir-fried chicken and cashews for dinner, a meal Kate protested but ended up eating after she discovered she could separate the cashews into one pile, the chicken into another, and the vegetables into still a third.
He wryly studied her plate. "What if I reached over and stirred that all up again?"
"I don't like food mixed up," Kate told him. She was happily perched on one end of the couch behind a TV tray, thrilled at the novelty of eating somewhere besides the round oak table in the dining area.
"No kidding." He quirked an eyebrow at Abigail, sitting cross-legged at the other end of the couch from Kate. "How are you doing?"
"Very nicely, thank you. I'm starved. You're a good cook, Nate."
Her arm hurt in a distant sort of way, but her head was much better and she had a prickly feeling of anticipation. She had trouble looking away from him, and she saw a matching flare of awareness in his eyes before his jaw muscles flexed and he broke the contact.
After dinner Abigail insisted on carrying her own dishes out to the kitchen, though her head swam when she first stood up.
"I'm sure glad it's my left arm," she muttered. "I'd be crippled if it were my right."
"I broke my right arm when I was a kid," Nate said when they reached the kitchen. He piled Kate's dishes in the sink. "Got me out of doing much schoolwork for over a month. I didn't think it was such a bad deal."
"Even though you couldn't do sports, either?"
He shrugged, an easy movement of shoulders. "I could read."
"A bookworm."
"Yep. Something I
was damn careful to hide."
Abigail laughed and stretched. "Well, I should offer to wash the dishes…."
Nate crossed his arms and leaned against the metal-edged counter. A smile creased his cheeks. "But you're not going to."
"Nope." She crinkled her nose. "But I will give Kate a bath and read her some stories. Unless you want to do it too badly."
He grimaced. "Do you know, she wanted that Amelia Bedelia book twice? I can take anything once, but twice…?" He shook his head.
"That's why we visit the library often. Mommy likes variety, even if she doesn't."
"Yeah, well, you be my guest. Unless you want to lie down yourself."
"No." Abigail hugged her heavy cast to her ribs, gathering courage. "I, uh, was hoping Kate would fall asleep and we could talk."
Heat flared in his eyes, burning her, but wariness was there, too. "The doctor said to take it easy."
"I wasn't planning a knock-down, drag-out fight."
He looked at her from hooded eyes. "That sounds promising."
She bit her Up. "Nate, I….”
Kate clutched her leg. "Mommy, can I have a bath now? Can I take all my toys in?"
With an effort Abigail wrenched her gaze from Nate's. Her voice was too high when she said, "Well, maybe not all..."
Without ever quite meeting his eyes again, she let herself be swept away by Kate. By the time Abigail helped pick up the Barbie clothes and furniture and supervised a bath, she was getting tired.
Or chickening out, she wasn't sure which.
Properly tucked in, cheeks pink, Kate leaned back against her pillow while Abigail read stories, ending with a favorite.
‘After all, a horse who bites a giant ogre on the tail and lives to trot another day is just about as brave as anyone can be.’
By the time she reached the last sentence, she was whispering, for Kate's eyes had closed and her thumb was in her mouth.
"'Night, Katie Rose," Abigail said softly. She laid Cowardly Clyde on the bookshelf and kissed her daughter’s forehead.
Then, flipping off the light, she stepped out into the hall and eased the bedroom door shut behind her. Her heart leaped when she saw Nate waiting there, one broad shoulder propped against the wall. He must have been listening to her voice, just as she had listened to his the last two nights. He was large and solid and sexy, and she realized suddenly that she couldn't live without him.
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