Читать книгу His Heir, Her Secret - Джанис Мейнард, Janice Maynard - Страница 13

Five

Brody leaped to his feet in horror, but he was too late to catch Cate. She crumpled like a graceful swan. Unfortunately, she was close enough to the sideboard to clip her head as she went down. A gash marred her high, pale forehead. “Bloody hell.” He crouched beside her, his heart racing in panic. “Get some ice, Duncan.”

Isobel sat awkwardly on the floor at Cate’s hip. The old woman suffered from advanced arthritis in every joint, but she took one of Cate’s hands and patted it over and over again. Her eyes glistened with tears. “Cate. Cate, dear. Open your eyes.”

Cate was milk-pale and completely limp and unresponsive. Brody tasted real fear. “Damn it, Duncan! Where’s the ice?”

Duncan appeared on the run, out of breath and agitated. “What’s wrong with her?” The zip-top plastic bag of ice he carried was wrapped in a thin cotton dish towel.

“Hell if I know. I can’t leave her on the floor, though. Hold the ice to her head while I move her.” Carefully, Brody scooped Cate up in his arms. She was slender, but tall, so he grunted as he lifted her dead weight. Her gorgeous, sunlit hair cascaded over his arm. The scent of her shampoo and the feel of her feminine body in his arms excoriated him.

Ever since his visit to Cate’s bookstore four nights ago, he had second-guessed himself a million times. His decision not to continue their physical relationship seemed like the mature, reasonable choice. It wasn’t fair to Cate to pick up where they left off, and what he had told her was true. He needed time with his grandmother. More important, he wasn’t a man who had any intention of settling down to family life.

Cate was not a one-night-stand kind of woman.

But God knew, he had vastly underestimated how hard it was going to be to stay away from her now that they were, at least for the moment, living in the same town. He strode down the hallway with only one destination in mind. Entering his bedroom, he motioned for Duncan to throw back the covers.