“Marvelous. And how do I do that?”
“Cold water. As cold as you can get it. Throw in a few ice cubes if you have any. And call me back if it doesn’t work.”
She went to the kitchen and grabbed an armful of dish towels, filled her biggest Tupperware bowl with cold water, and dumped in a tray of ice cubes. She’d probably never earn any humanitarian awards for her nursing skills, but at this point, she was so desperate that she would have scattered the entrails of small animals around the bed if the doctor had told her to.
She set the bowl on the night stand, dipped a towel into the frigid water and wrung it out, then hesitated, belatedly aware of the intimacy of what she was about to do. She stood momentarily paralyzed, looking at the man in the bed.
Don’t be ridiculous, Fiore. You’re thirty-three years old. It’s not like you’ve never seen a naked man before. This is no time for modesty.
But I can’t—
Of course you can. You have to. There isn’t anybody else.
“Oh, for the love of God,” she said aloud. She flung back the covers, wrung out the towel a last time, and resolutely applied it to his heated flesh.
He let out a string of curses and fought her like an enraged grizzly. She fought back with all her strength, dodging his flailing arms and ignoring his disjointed words of rage as she soaked towel after towel in ice water and pressed them to his fevered flesh, dipping, wringing, pressing, clenching her teeth and rolling with him when he tried to avoid her, murmuring gentle words to soothe his agony.
Outside the window, the sun rose, but she was too intent on her struggle to be aware of the passage of time. He outweighed her by a good sixty pounds, and if the pneumonia hadn’t weakened him, she could never have held him down. Her shoulder muscles felt as though they were being ripped from her body, and just when she knew she couldn’t possibly fight him any longer, the fever broke, sweat beading up on his damp skin and pouring off him in tiny rivers. She pulled the covers back up over his shoulders and collapsed in exhaustion next to the pile of discarded towels on the floor. Drenched to the skin, sore and bruised and shivering, she buried her head in her arms and rocked, too drained to cry.
After a while, she pulled herself to her feet and staggered to the bathroom to stand beneath a hot shower until her shuddering stopped. She put on a flannel nightgown and Danny’s faded terrycloth robe and went back to check on Rob. He was lying on his stomach, his breathing raspy, but he seemed to be sleeping comfortably. She adjusted the covers, touched the back of her hand to his forehead. To her relief, his temperature felt normal.
For three days and three nights, she stayed with him, reading in the rocking chair by day, catnapping on the bed beside him at night. Attuned to his every breath, she woke him every eight hours for his medication, force-fed him liquids, monitored his temperature fanatically. He was passive, agreeing to whatever she said.
Sometime during the fourth night, she awoke to find his side of the bed empty. She bolted upright in panic, and then he padded barefoot into the room, wearing wrinkled jeans and a towel around his shoulders. His hair was wet, and he’d shaved. Scowling, he said, “You look like hell, Fiore.”
“Where were you? You scared me half to death.”
“I took a shower. I was so ripe I could smell myself.” He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her with eyes that were still glassy. “I mean it, Casey. You’re ready to drop. You need some sleep.”
“I’ve been sleeping,” she protested.
“Yeah, right. Two or three hours a night.”
“Do you have any idea how sick you’ve been?”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I know.” He buried his face in his hands, rubbed his temples. “What day is it?” he said.
“Tuesday.”
“How long have I been here?”
“Since Friday.”
“Jesus,” he said.
“Park your carcass in the chair,” she said, “and I’ll change the bedding while you’re up.”
“You’re wiped out. I’ll do it.”
“Shut up,” she told him. “I’m in charge here, and you don’t get a vote.”
She stripped the bed and remade it with fresh linens, then carried the dirty bedding to the bathroom and stuffed it all in the hamper. When she returned, he was back in bed, jeans tossed carelessly on the floor, one hand rubbing his forehead. “I think I overdid it,” he said. “My head’s spinning.”
She bent over and picked up his jeans, folded them. “Will you please stay in bed? I’m too weak to pick you up if you fall flat on your face.”
“At least I remember my own name now.” He drew back the covers and patted the mattress, and she didn’t even consider turning down his invitation. After all they’d been through together, propriety was no longer even a consideration. She crawled in between crisp, cool sheets and he turned out the bedside lamp and drew her into his arms, and tangled together like lovers, they slept.
She woke up alone, disoriented because the sunlight was slanting into the room at the wrong angle. She stretched and glanced at the clock on the bureau and was astonished to discover that it was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon and she’d been sleeping deeply and dreamlessly for twelve hours.
She found Rob slouched on the porch swing, a cup of tea in his hand, his bare feet propped on the wooden railing beneath her pink hanging geranium. “Hey,” he said, his face lighting up, “she lives. My very own sleeping beauty.”
His color was vastly improved, and the glassy look had left his eyes. “You look almost human,” she said, sitting beside him and resting her bare feet on the railing next to his. “How long have you been up?”
“Since about nine-thirty.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I figured if you didn’t get some sleep, I’d the be one taking care of you.”
“And just what have we been up to all day?” She took the teacup from his hand and helped herself to a sip of Earl Grey.
“Absolutely nothing. I forgot how great it feels.” With one foot, he set the rocker into languid motion. “You shouldn’t be drinking after me,” he said. “I might still be contagious.”
“We’ve been sleeping in the same bed for four days,” she reminded him. “I’ve already been exposed to any germ you might be carrying.”
“True,” he said. “You’re the first woman I ever slept with that I never slept with.”
She wiggled her toes in the warm afternoon sunshine. “Clever,” she said.
“I thought so. Of course, we could remedy the situation pretty quickly if we wanted to.” He rubbed his foot suggestively against hers.
“You’ll live,” she pronounced. “If you’re feeling randy, you must be better.”
He left his foot where it was, resting lightly atop hers. “This place is so peaceful,” he said, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. “I could get real used to being here.”
“I could get real used to having you here,” she said. “You have no idea how scared I’ve been. I thought I was going to lose you.”
He threaded his fingers in the hair at the back of her neck and began aimlessly stroking the skin beneath. Gruffly, he said, “Don’t you know I’m too ornery to die?”
Thinking of Danny, she said, “Nobody’s too ornery to die.”
He hesitated just long enough to tell her he’d followed her train of thought. “Well, I’m better,” he said. “Tired and weak, but better.”
“Thank God. What would I do without you?”
His fingers continued to play restlessly in her hair. “It probably wouldn’t be a pretty picture,” he said.
“It would be a very ugly picture,” she said, turning to look at him. His eyes were still closed, and his fingers were working their magic on her, and something warm and tenacious worked itself into the crevices around her heart and squeezed tightly. She cleared her throat. “Did you find something to eat?” she said.
“Tuna fish sandwich. There’s more in the fridge
if you want one.”
“I think I’ll take a shower first. I’m beginning to understand what you meant by ripe.”
She took a long, hot shower and dressed in real clothes for the first time since Friday, and then she made a much-needed trip to the grocery store. Rob insisted on coming along, even though she thought he needed more time to recuperate before he ventured too far from home. “I hope,” she told him as they strolled the snack food aisle, “you’re going to give yourself some real down time before you get back to work. You need it desperately.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, selecting a package of fig bars and tossing it into the shopping cart. “I might just hide out here for the next six months.”
“You hide out here,” she said, “for as long as you need to.”
“I have to reschedule the tour sooner or later, or they’ll sue me.”
“After the tongue lashing I gave them,” she said, debating whether to buy onion or cheese crackers, “your cash flow could be a little funky for a while.”
“What’d you do to me, woman?”
“I saved your scrawny ass, that’s what.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess you did.” He tossed another package of cookies into the cart. “Hey, Fiore? Thanks.”
He bounced back quickly. Each day, he grew stronger and more robust, and the house seemed so much less empty than it had before. They puttered around the house and the yard, comfortable with each other’s presence but neither of them craving constant companionship. He lounged on the porch swing with his guitar while she dug up tulip bulbs to be stored in the cellar until spring. He washed windows while she made applesauce, the scent of cinnamon mingling with that of ammonia. He went through her dusty album collection and played records she hadn’t listened to in years.
Just past six on Saturday morning, she crawled out of bed and into her running clothes, and tiptoed down the creaky stairs so she wouldn’t wake him. But he was already up, dressed in his gray sweats, one foot propped on a kitchen chair as he tied the lace to his sneaker. “What do you think you’re doing?” she said.
“What’s it look like, Fiore? I’m running with you.”
“You’re just getting over pneumonia. You’re not up to running.”
With a flourish, he finished tying the knot. “Shut up and put on a sweatshirt. It’s cold this morning.”
She purposely kept her pace slower than usual. He was too obstinate to admit it, but she could tell he was having trouble keeping up with her after the first couple of miles. When they reached the bridge over the inlet between the river and Spencer’s Pond, he veered off the road. “I need a break,” he gasped, and sank onto the guardrail, elbows braced on his knees, hands tangled in his hair, chest heaving as though he’d just finished the Boston Marathon in record time.
Casey knelt in the gravel between his knees and checked his forehead for fever. “Did I not tell you,” she said, “that you weren’t up to this?”
“When I want your opinion,” he wheezed, “I’ll ask for it.”
Green eyes gazed boldly into green eyes. A car passed, so close its sweep blew dust around her ankles and tore at her hair. “Get out of the road,” he growled, yanking her in close until she was wedged between his thighs. He was warm and damp, and he smelled of Ivory soap and clean sweat. Deep inside the pit of her stomach, something awakened, something hot and yearning that had lain too long dormant. He had pale freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose, and his eyes were a deep green, warm and vibrant, and she was trembling like a willow in a high wind.
His hands took a leisurely stroll beneath her sweatshirt and his fingers played up and down her bare back. She closed her eyes as he rubbed his cheek against hers, morning whiskers stiff against her skin. He nibbled at her neck, his teeth just touching her skin as he took gentle love bites that turned her insides to molten lava. She slid her hands beneath his sweatshirt and buried her fingers in the triangle of silky hair that covered his chest. Breast to breast and pelvis to pelvis, they touched each other, his hands exploring the soft hollow of her belly, hers skimming hard ribs and sleek muscled biceps. He ran his fingers up her ribcage to just beneath her breasts and back down, teasing her, until she was half crazy with desire. Then he stilled against her. “Babe,” he murmured. “We have company.”
She came back from a great distance to realize she’d been hearing the soft metallic tinkling for some time. She sprang to her feet, mortified, as Greg Weisman, her new neighbor from down the road, jogged past with his beagle on a leash. “Morning,” he said.
Rob saluted. “Morning.”
She glared at him, furious with him, more furious with herself. What on earth had she been thinking of, necking with him by the side of the road like a pair of hormone-driven teenagers? She called herself a few choice names, maddened by the realization that, had they not been interrupted, in another minute she would have been rolling with him on the grass, right there by the side of the road. In broad daylight, less than a mile from her father’s front door. That would certainly have given Greg Weisman and the rest of Jackson Falls something to talk about.
The thought should have shamed her. The fact that it excited her increased her fury. “I think we’d better go home now,” she said.
He leaned back on the guardrail, lanky legs sprawled out before him, wearing that ingenuous, lost puppy dog look that had stolen the hearts of women from Tijuana to Tokyo. “I was hoping,” he said, “that we might take up where we left off.”
He was the most infuriating man she’d ever known. He had bony shoulders and knobby knees, and when she touched him, she’d been able to count every one of his ribs. He ran around most of the time looking like a sheep dog in need of a trim, he had trouble picking out socks and a shirt that matched, and he was addicted to junk food. He always left his wet towel on the floor after a shower, and he’d been a charter member of the girl-of-the-month club for years. No woman in her right mind would want him. No woman in her right mind would fall in love with a man like that.
The truth struck her like a blow to the stomach, and all the air left her lungs. Stunned, she opened her mouth. Snapped it abruptly shut. And in sheer terror, she wheeled around blindly to flee.
His voice followed her. “Go ahead, Fiore! Run away! But it won’t go away with you!”
She turned to look at him. The puppy dog was gone, replaced by six feet of quivering, furious testosterone. His legs were braced apart, his jaw set at that familiar angle that meant trouble was brewing. His blond curls were in their usual glorious disarray, his clothes wrinkled. And in those green eyes was something she’d never seen there before. “What?” she said. “What won’t go away with me?”
He took a single step toward her. “The way we feel,” he said, “when we’re together.”
This couldn’t be happening. She was thirty-three years old. Too old to feel like a giddy teenager in the throes of adolescent passion. Too old to feel as though she would burst if he didn’t touch her soon. Too old for the erotic fantasies that played in her head like home movies. She’d already been in love once, the kind of love that addled her brain and tore out her heart and turned the world upside-down. It wasn’t supposed to happen again. Not like this. Not at thirty-three. Not with Rob.
“Ever since Nassau,” he said, “we’ve been dancing around each other in circles. We could keep it up for another ten years, but to tell you the truth, I’m not getting any younger and neither are you. Don’t you think it’s time we stopped running away from this and did something about it instead?”
“What if we’re wrong?” she demanded. “What if we’re making some monumental mistake?”
He stepped closer, so close she could feel the heat from his body. When he took her hand, he was trembling as hard as she was. “We’re not making a mistake,” he said.
Green eyes probed green eyes and searched deep, both of them thinking about fifteen years of friendship, both of them pondering the uncharted territory that lay between them. Hoarsely, s
he said, “What the hell are we doing, MacKenzie?”
With his free hand, he tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear. “We’re going home, Fiore, and we’re making breakfast. After that—well, we’ll take it from there.”
In her upstairs bathroom, Casey stripped off her sweat-soaked clothes and threw them down the laundry chute, then stepped beneath a stinging hot spray. She soaped and scrubbed until she was nearly raw, but it didn’t help. The water felt like warm fingers on her skin, deepening the yearning she couldn’t seem to squelch. In desperation, she turned off the hot water and stood there stoically as it turned frigid, so cold it hurt, like hard little cubes slamming into her body.
The result was immediate and effective. The icy water cooled her ardor with a vengeance, briefly rendering her incapable of movement or thought. She emerged from the shower covered in goose bumps, teeth chattering, her limbs stiff from the brutal cold.
And smelled breakfast.
She followed her nose to the coffee pot. Poured a cup and stood there watching him. He was making some kind of omelet that he’d thrown together from the contents of her refrigerator. He was barefoot, wearing jeans and a crisp hunter green shirt, and he smelled of shampoo and bacon. It was a heady combination. “Want to check the toast?” he said, as if nothing remotely extraordinary had transpired between them only minutes earlier.
Casey popped the toast and buttered it. “It’s a beautiful day,” he said, still busy at the stove. “I thought we might go for a ride.”
She turned to look at him. “A ride?”
“Yeah, Fiore, a ride. Bask in the sunshine, gawk at the scenery, travel to distant and exotic places.” He turned off the burner and shot her a glance. “Maybe spend the night somewhere along the coast.”
Her heart began to thud. The significance of his suggestion was clear. If she accepted his offer, tonight they would be sharing a bed. And whatever transpired between them, it would happen in a neutral location, instead of here, in the house where she’d lived with Danny. There would be no old memories to overcome, only new ones to create. Nothing to remind her of anyone else, only the heady, terrifying experience of being with this man for the first time.
Coming Home (Jackson Falls Series) Page 41
