All Through The House (23 page)

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. Now 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.