Here With Me (14 page)

Retire for the evening
?

Grandmother smiled at both her and George. “I
imagine you’re both tired. You had a long drive this morning and
it’s certainly been an eventful day.”

Well, that was clear enough. Her grandmother
expected her to
retire with
her husband. Given that her
other option was chatting it up with super-thin Rebecca in the
other room, it was no doubt the thing to do.

Melody walked over and kissed both her
grandmother and her aunt on the cheek. “I’ll see you both in the
morning,” she said. She glanced in Louis’s direction. “Good
night.”

As they walked upstairs, Melody repeated one
thought.
I can do this. I can do this.

She had done this.

In college, the summer between her junior and
senior year, she’d shared an apartment with Gavin Blake. They’d met
through a mutual friend. He’d cooked, she’d cleaned, he’d showered
at night, she in the morning. It had been perfect. Each had slept
in his or her own bedroom.

She knew how to do the roommate thing.

And this was sort of the same. Her room at
her grandmother’s house was about the same size as the two bedrooms
at that tiny college apartment. So, really, all she was missing was
a wall.

Some drywall and a coat of paint. Nothing
much.

She stopped in front of the big linen closet.
“I’m just going to grab that extra blanket,” she said. It was on
the top shelf. She reached for it and he put his fingers on her
forearm and gently pressed her arm down.

Heat.

Big dip, big sway. Tango in progress.

“I’ll get it,” he said. He pulled out the
blue and gray quilt and tucked it under his arm.

“Drywall and a little paint,” she
mumbled.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

When they got inside her room, he closed the
door with a quiet
thud
. When she turned to look at him, he
was staring at the picture on the wall. He seemed so far away.

“I figure Colorado, ’cause of the mountains,”
she said.

He continued to stare at it. “I saw some
mountains like that once in Wyoming,” he said.

“I’ve never been to Wyoming.”

He didn’t answer.

“Sounds like you have, though.” She pushed,
unwilling to let him close her off.

He nodded absently. “Spent a few weeks
there.”

“When?”

His head jerked toward her. “A few years
ago.” His tone suddenly seemed guarded.

Who knew how long he’d been out of work?
Maybe he’d drifted around for a while and the memories weren’t all
that pleasant. She walked over to the dresser and grabbed the
pajamas that she’d put in the top drawer earlier. There was no
sense putting this off indefinitely. He was tired. So was she.

“I’m going to change into my pajamas in the
bathroom.” She said it so nonchalantly that she was sure a casual
observer would have assumed that she had men in her bedroom every
night.

It struck her that George might think she had
men in her bedroom every night. After all, she’d obviously had at
least one, at least once. “Um, George.”

“Yes.” He put the quilt down on the seat of
the chair that sat next to the dresser.

“I’m not. . .”

“Yes,” he repeated.

“I don’t sleep around,” she said. Well, that
was probably blunt enough. “I mean, I know I’m pregnant and all and
there’s no husband, no boyfriend, no nothing.”

He sat there. Waiting. Finally, he spoke.
“Yes.”

Oh, good grief. “That’s three times. If you
say that word again, I’m going to smother you with a pillow
tonight.”

He opened his mouth, but then shut it
quickly.

Great. It wasn’t like the man had talked all
that much to begin with. “Never mind,” she said.

She had the bathroom door open before he
stopped her.

“Melody.”

She didn’t turn around.

“What I think,” he said, “isn’t all that
important but if it matters to you, I guess I’d just want you to
know that I think you’re a fine woman.”

She could barely walk up a flight of stairs,
her ankles were swollen, and her bra was way too tight. But
suddenly, she felt sort of like delicate porcelain china.

Or like a new rose in the garden in early
June.

She was a champagne bubble.

She was
fine.

***

When she finally got out of the bathroom,
after changing into her pajamas, and running cold water across her
wrists for about three minutes, he was already on the floor,
covered up by the quilt. He lay on his back, his dark hair brushed
back from his face, a stark contract to the yellow pillowcase.

She looked at her watch and then back at him.
He had an eight o’clock shadow. She knew he’d shaved that morning
at Target so he must be the kind of guy who could go about twelve
hours before he started taking on the very sexy, I-need-a-woman-to
remind-me-to-shave look.

“I can’t believe we’re going to bed and it’s
only eight o’clock,” she said.

“I’ll try to be quiet when I get up in the
morning.”

“I’ll set the alarm.”

He looked confused.

“Don’t tell me,” she said. “You’re one of
those people who just know what time it is. You don’t even need an
alarm clock to wake you up?”

He shook his head. “Not usually,” he said,
sounding wary again.

She walked over and lowered both shades. The
room darkened, lit only by the bathroom light, which she'd left on.
She climbed into bed. “Even before I got pregnant, I hated to get
up in the morning. Now, it takes something just shy of dynamite to
get me up.”

He didn’t answer. She lay on her back and
stared upward, looking somewhere past the darkness.

She hadn’t bought him any pajamas.

So, he was either sleeping in his clothes or
something less. And it was the something else that was causing her
to feel sort of hot and bothered, even though the air-conditioning
appeared to be working just fine.

She matched her breathing to his. It was
crazy, she knew, but she didn’t want him to hear her breathing. It
was too intimate. She’d never heard Gavin Blake breathe.

Because there’d been a wall.

“Melody.”

His voice was quiet, like he wasn’t sure she
was awake.

“Yes.”

“I like your grandmother.”

She smiled in the darkness. “That’s cool. I
think she likes you, too.”

***

George woke up when he heard Melody cry out.
He threw back the quilt, stumbled over to the bed, just in time to
see her grabbing at her bare lower leg. She’d thrown back her
covers and her normally smooth face was twisted in pain.

“Jesus. What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Leg. Cramp,” she said, between clenched
teeth. She massaged her leg with the heel of her hand.

“Let me,” he said. He moved quickly, sitting
cross-legged on the bed with her leg across his lap. With both
hands, he rubbed the back of her leg, from the hollow behind her
knee, all the way to her delicate ankle.

He could feel the tension in her whole body.
He’d had a leg cramp or two in his lifetime. He knew she had to be
in terrible pain and that knowledge pinched at his heart.

It took all of three minutes before her body
relaxed and she lay back in the bed, clearly exhausted. He
continued to rub her leg, although with less force, knowing that
even though the cramp had passed, it would have left her muscles
sore. He skimmed the bottom of her foot with his knuckles.

She laughed and he realized that he’d tickled
her. He did it again, grateful to hear her joy rather than her
pain.

She opened her eyes. “Stop that,” she said.
“I’m ticklish.” She pulled her leg back, resting her foot on his
thigh.

Oh Lord. Another three inches higher and her
toes would be tickling his balls. He didn’t need them to start
laughing right now. He gently shifted her foot toward his knee.

There was enough light in the room that he
could see that the wisps of hair around her face were dampened with
her own sweat. She was smiling but the leg cramp had taken its
toll. “This happen often, Melody?”

She shook her head. “Not often. Usually just
when I’ve worked an extra-long shift at the restaurant. Also, I
read that leg cramps sometimes happen to pregnant women if they
haven’t had enough water to drink during the day.”

He hated to think that she’d been alone
dealing with this kind of pain. “You need to be more careful. Make
sure you’re not on your feet too much.”

“I know.”

“And that you drink enough water.”

“Yes, Mother.” She smiled at him and using
her hands, scooted herself up to a sitting position.

His lap felt suddenly empty. And when her
eyes settled on his bare chest and then drifted lower still, to
linger on his unsnapped jeans, he could feel his body react in a
most expected way.

He got hard—for the second time that day,
proof positive that the first time hadn’t been a fluke. He felt
warm and wondered if it was lust flowing through his body or simply
relief that he could want again for a woman.

“I’ll get you some water,” he said, shifting
and moving, making sure that his need wasn’t staring her in the
face. He stood next to the bed, his body half-turned away from her,
while he pretended to be busy straightening up the quilt.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said.

What? Get water or act like a man who’d taken
leave of his senses? He wasn’t about to ask for clarification. He
picked his shirt up from the chair where he’d hung it the night
before and put it on. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said,
never looking at her.

He took the steps quickly but quietly. The
house was dark but several of the blinds had been left partly open
and bright moonlight slipped in. He passed the piano room and
looked longingly at the newspaper that Melody’s grandmother had
left next to her chair. He badly wanted to read it, to try to
figure out this world he’d been thrown into, but he didn’t stop.
Melody needed water first.

When he got to the kitchen, he got the
biggest glass out of the cupboard and filled it completely. Then he
set it aside and splashed cold water on his face and ran his hands
and wrists under the steady stream.

He needed to cool off, to get control. He
sure as hell couldn’t be reacting like some randy bull in a pasture
full of heifers every time he touched her or she happened to touch
him.

He was thirty-four years old and his cock was
acting like he was fourteen again—jumping up and down like a damn
puppet on a string. At fourteen, he’d gone behind the barn and
handled it the way he figured most fourteen-year-old boys did. At
seventeen, he’d had his first woman and that had been the last
time, so to speak, that he’d taken matters into his own hands.

Hannah had wanted to wait until they were
married. He’d taken her to bed that first night and almost exploded
in her hand.

But as much as he’d wanted her, he’d never,
ever, hardened so fast as he had when Melody had touched him. There
was probably only one thing he could do. He picked up the glass and
started walking back upstairs.

He had to make sure that the two of them
didn’t touch again.

When he got back to the room, she had the
light on and was sitting up in bed, a notepad of sorts on her lap.
She was scribbling furiously on it. He paid her activity scarce
attention, he was more interested that she’d pulled the sheet up,
covering her almost to her neck. Had she seen his cock about to
burst out of his pants? He thought about apologizing but decided it
might be better if they both just ignored it.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

She looked up, clearly startled at his sudden
appearance, and flipped the pad over. “Nothing. Just. . .making a
list of things the baby needs.”

“Drink it all,” he said, as he handed her the
glass.

She looked at the glass, then at him. “I’ll
wet the bed if I do that.”

He knew he was in trouble when even that made
his cock twitch.

“Drink what you can,” he said. He stood there
and she obediently tipped the glass up. She drank about half of it
and then handed him the glass.

“If you leave it on the nightstand, I promise
I’ll finish it by morning,” she said.

Not wanting the glass to leave a mark on the
fine wood, he reached for the notebook that Melody had tossed
aside. He heard a squeak from the bed.

“What?” he asked.

She shook her head.

He flipped the notepad over, set the glass on
it, and was about to walk away when the words caught his eye.
Nails. Boards. Screws. Trim. Drywall. Paint.
Wallpaper.
Then she written the word
wall
about ten
times. He glanced at her. Her face was pink but she didn’t look
like she was in pain. If he’d had to guess, she was
embarrassed.

“These are things for your baby?”

“Yes. Yes, that’s what I said, isn’t it?”

She sounded a bit flustered. He looked at the
list again.

“I’m really tired,” she said. “Can we just
turn off the light?”

It had been a long day. They could both use
the sleep. He turned off the lamp and lay on the floor, his back to
the bed. Even though it was too warm for the quilt, he got under
it.

“Melody,” he said, his voice soft. “If your
baby needs a wall, I’ll help you build it.”

She didn’t respond for a moment. Finally, she
said, “That would be great, George. Goodnight.”

He lay perfectly still. It was maybe ten
minutes later when he was certain by the steadiness of her
breathing that she was back asleep. He waited another five. Then he
eased out from under the quilt and stood up, as silent as if he was
stalking a deer.

He knew what he should do. But he couldn’t
walk out the door. Not without looking at her one more time. She
was on her back, with the sheet still pulled up all the way to her
neck.