Читать книгу The Baby Arrangement - Lisa Dyson - Страница 11
ОглавлениеBREE LIFTED HER HEAD when she heard Nick move his chair as he returned from taking his phone call. She was tired and would have preferred to go to bed, but she’d promised the girls that she’d let her hair down while they were on vacation. She didn’t think she’d had that much to drink. After all, how much alcohol could there be in those sweet drinks? Still, she felt a little wobbly when she stood up.
“Maybe some fresh air is a good idea,” she told Nick. Afterward, she could go to bed with a clearer head.
“Let’s go.” He offered her his arm and she didn’t refuse.
They stepped through the automatic doors and Bree drew in a deep breath, trying to counter the effects of the alcohol.
The air was humid, but the continuous breeze off the ocean was refreshing.
They followed a masonry walkway that led to a narrow boardwalk, and from there they walked down the few steps onto the sandy beach.
“Hold on a sec,” Bree said, stopping abruptly. “I need to take my shoes off if we’re going to walk on the sand.”
They both slipped off their shoes and left them next to the stairs before heading to the water’s edge.
The sky was clear and Bree saw more stars than she could count, wondering what constellations she was admiring.
“That’s Orion, the Hunter,” Nick said as if reading her mind. “Those three stars together make up his belt.” He pointed to another cluster of stars and took a step to the side as if trying to keep his balance. So she wasn’t the only one who was feeling the alcohol. “And that’s Cassiopeia,” he added.
He’d taken her hand somewhere between the lounge and the beach, but she didn’t mind. In fact, she kind of liked it. She decided to blame her nonchalant attitude on too many sweet drinks.
“You’re probably making that up to impress me,” she teased.
“Is it working?” Nick chuckled, a pleasant sound that made Bree smile. “I promise, those are definitely Orion and Cassiopeia.” He spoke as he looked toward the sky, wavering slightly. “Legend has it that Orion had women trouble. When he wooed Merope, the daughter of King Oenopion, she rebuffed him. One day he drank too much wine and tried to take Merope by force, so the king had Orion blinded and banished.”
“Imagine if today’s sex offenders met the same fate.” Bree was fascinated by the tale. “So this guy, Orion, was blind forever?”
“No, eventually he regained his sight with the help of Hephaestus, the god of the forge. Not sure how a blacksmith can restore sight, but that’s what I learned.”
“What are you, an astronomer or something?” She knew very little about him aside from his skill at rescuing falling women.
“Nope. Just an Eagle Scout.”
“Eagle Scout, very impressive. I’m sure your parents are very proud.”
“They were,” he told her in a more subdued tone.
“You make it sound like past tense.” Bree cocked her head, waiting for his explanation.
“Sorry. My mother still brags about me.” He paused. “My father died almost two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.” Her own father had been absent so much of her life that it sometimes felt like he was deceased. And he lived only a half hour away from her.
He shrugged off her condolence. “It was very sudden and there are times I still can’t believe he’s gone. He actually taught me how to navigate with the stars, and he did all the venture camping trips with me.”
She tried to lighten his mood. “So I don’t have to worry about getting lost, and you’ll protect me from bears?”
That made him laugh, an enjoyable male sound. “I doubt we’ll come across any bears on the beach, and as long as we stick next to the shore I’m pretty sure I can get us back to the main lodge.”
Her head had cleared a bit and she didn’t feel quite as out of control in the fresh air. At some point during the evening, she had stopped resenting Nick’s intrusion on her girls’ working vacation and begun having fun. He hadn’t made a good first impression, but she had been willing to rethink her initial opinion of him.
Maybe the girls had been right about her needing to have a vacation fling. She wasn’t about to seduce him, but he was definitely entertaining to have around.
“Someone mentioned earlier that you were all here on a working vacation,” he said. “So what kind of work do you do?”
This was a subject she loved to talk about. “I own a company that helps women get ahead in their jobs. We offer training and guidance for women already in the workforce, as well as for those coming back into the workforce.”
“Isn’t that a little sexist, just focusing on women’s issues?”
“Isn’t it sexist for men to be paid more than women for the same job? Or for women to be passed over for promotions because they’re of childbearing age and might require maternity leave?”
“Whoa! I’ve obviously struck a nerve. Sorry,” he said. “I just wondered why you don’t offer the same services to men. But you’ve explained it perfectly.”
She relaxed. “I’m passionate about my company and what we do for women. Two years ago we even started loaning money to women to start up new businesses. So far, it’s been very successful.”
“That’s great! When did you start the company?”
“Technically, about thirteen years ago.”
His eyes widened in surprise.
“But I was still in college then,” she added. “I didn’t actually incorporate until two years later.”
They were silent for a while, the pounding of the waves crashing on the shore making for a pleasant soundtrack.
“What brought you here?” she asked as they continued walking. “I didn’t even know this place existed.” The island was small, no more than a few square miles, but with all the luxuries imaginable. So far, four days into the trip, Bree had no complaints.
“Someone recommended it to me,” he said as he looked at the sky.
“And you just had to check it out?”
“Something like that,” he said cryptically, and then looked down at her. “Would you believe I just needed to get away?”
She shrugged. “But why here?”
“Why not? From where I’m standing right now, it seems like I chose wisely.”
She stopped walking at those words.
He stopped, too, and turned to face her.
Their eyes met and she forgot to breathe. He took both of her hands and pulled her to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. His body was solid, and the heat coming off him suffused her in a cocoon of warmth and comfort.
She rested her cheek on his chest. The pounding of his heart and the hard muscles beneath his T-shirt were difficult to ignore.
He tipped up her chin with his finger. Her eyelids closed as his mouth descended on hers. Their first contact was chaste, but her lips hummed with expectation. She ran her hands up his back, enjoying the play of his muscles as he tightened his embrace.
He slanted his mouth over hers, deepening the kiss and stealing her breath away. His hand on her lower back held her securely.
But then Nick ended the kiss abruptly, leaving Bree to question her kissing ability. “What—” she gasped, realizing how truly out of practice she was at this man-woman thing.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “We should get back. Your friends will wonder what happened to you.” He grabbed her hand and tugged her in the direction from which they’d come.
“Slow down,” she cried, trying to keep up. Her foot landed on something sharp. “Ouch!” She liberated herself from his grasp and hopped on her good foot.
“What happened?” he asked, when she sat down hard on the damp sand.
“I think I cut my foot on something,” she sputtered. Then she mumbled under her breath, “As if you cared.” Not only was her pride hurt, but now she’d done a number on her foot if the pain she felt was any indication.
“Bree, I’m sorry. It’s not you,” he began. “I—”
“Save it.” She’d never been as good as her friends were with the opposite sex. Up until this moment, she hadn’t really cared.
She brushed the sand from her cut foot to discover she was bleeding. The moon and stars were bright, but not bright enough to see how deep the cut was. “It’s bleeding.”
Without another word, he picked her up and carried her back to where the light was brighter and set her down.
“You might need stitches,” Nick said, after examining her foot.
No way. That would mean needles and she didn’t do needles. “I’m sure some antibiotic ointment and a bandage will do.”
“Let’s get a second opinion,” he said as he lifted her again and proceeded to carry her to the hotel. He inquired at the front desk about a nearby infirmary, and was directed to the resort’s clinic, just a short walk away. He was also given a towel to wrap around her foot.
“Really, Nick, I’ll be fine.” Being carried around by a strong, sexy guy might be some girl’s fantasy but not hers. She was just plain embarrassed.
He ignored her pleas, as well as her demands to walk on her own. And about five minutes later she was seated in front of a nurse, who was irrigating the sand and debris from Bree’s wound.
“All this fuss is ridiculous,” she said to Nick.
“Humor me,” he said from the fake leather chair in the corner of the exam room. His arms were crossed, the ankle of one leg resting on the knee of the other. Thankfully, he’d picked up their shoes on the way to the clinic, donning his but not even allowing her to carry her own shoes, which were now on the floor next to his chair.
“The wound is pretty deep,” the nurse stated. “The doctor will be in to stitch you up in a few minutes. When was your last tetanus shot?”
Bree’s heart stopped. Stitches and a shot? “In high school,” she mumbled. There hadn’t been a need for one since then. She wasn’t exactly an outdoorsy kind of gal.
The nurse raised an eyebrow. “And you’re thirty-three now?”
Bree nodded her head and frowned.
The nurse made a note in Bree’s chart. “I’ll be back with the booster when the doctor has finished stitching you up.”
“It’s not that bad,” Nick said when the nurse left them alone. He must have seen her panicked expression. “They’ll numb you and—”
The doctor knocked before opening the door, a syringe visible in his hand.
“Numb me? With a needle?” She was suddenly light-headed. “I don’t feel so well.”
Then everything went black.
* * *
NICK FOUGHT OFF CONSCIOUSNESS without success the next morning when bright light stabbed through his eyelids to penetrate the center of his brain with white-hot fire.
He moaned in agony, brought his hand to his head and squinted at the source of his torture.
A sliver of daylight shone through the room-darkening drapes where they hadn’t closed completely.
He rolled from his left side to his back and realized he wasn’t alone. He wasn’t even on the tiny bunk on the boat, which meant this wasn’t his bed. His head jerked to his right, the pain slicing through his skull again.
“Bree!” he gasped. They were in her cottage.
“Hmm?” She lay on her right side, her back facing him.
Nick knew the minute Bree regained consciousness, because she rolled to her back before abruptly sitting up straight. Her hands flew to her head and she moaned. She pulled up the sheet to protect her modesty, but there was no need.
She was fully dressed in the shorts and tank top she’d changed into after they’d gone to the hot tub.
How had he—they—ended up in such a compromising position?
“What happened?” Bree demanded in too loud a voice for his ears to tolerate. Her hand flew to her temple and she lowered her voice. “What are you doing here?” She got out of bed and looked around the room as if there was an answer. “Did we—?”
Nick lifted the sheet to look at his lower body. Definitely fully clothed, too. “I wish I could remember, but I don’t think so.”
“You don’t remember?” Bree’s bug-eyed expression would have been laughable if there had been anything funny about the situation. “Believe me, if we had—you know—there’d be no way you wouldn’t remember.”
“Right back atcha,” he countered.
Bree turned away in a huff, nearly losing her balance on her one good foot before she grabbed on to the bedside table. “Why are you in my bed?”
He sat up too quickly, his head throbbing from the effort. “I have no idea. I’m going to take a guess and say we both passed out last night. Or very early this morning.”
He had this nagging memory of Bree being anything but prudish as she—
Damn. Why couldn’t he remember?
It was more than eight excruciating months since he’d had sex, and here he was with no memory of what could well have been a truly memorable experience. Never mind. He’d obviously passed out before anything happened or they wouldn’t still be fully dressed.
Unless...
“Do you remember anything about last night?” he asked tentatively. “Did we—?”
“You really don’t remember?” She glared at him and then turned away before answering. “Of course we didn’t do anything.” Her words said one thing, her attitude another. She didn’t have a clue, either.
He looked on the floor around the bed and then walked over to check the wastebasket. No sign that they’d used protection. He could only hope they hadn’t been completely stupid. “So do you remember everything?” he asked.
She stomped toward the bathroom in a huff, her hurt foot preventing a full demonstration of the desired impact. She stopped short, put her fingertips to her temple and then faced him. “I’m going to take a shower. I expect you to be gone when I come out.” Her words were succinct, and, judging by her wincing, her head obviously hurt to utter them.
Bree didn’t wait for his reply and slammed the bathroom door behind her. He felt the noise pound like something was trying to escape from his head, and at the same time he heard her moan.
Instead of leaving, he came around the bed to talk through the closed door.
They had to talk. If not now, then later if she needed time to pull herself together. He had to fill in the missing pieces. He couldn’t leave things between them like this. He’d really enjoyed their time together—at least what he remembered—and he didn’t want her to think of him as a bad guy.
He checked the bedside clock. It was just after nine, so they had at least eight blank hours. The last thing he recalled was planning to bring Bree back to her room after the doctor stitched up her foot. But when they heard her girlfriends frolicking in the hot tub, they’d made a detour to see them. After that, a blur.
Nick had opened his mouth to speak when the sunlight streaming through the crack in the drapes shone on a napkin with an embossed W and an anchor on the dresser across the room. He walked closer and his breath caught in his throat.
He was beginning to remember.
Damn, damn, damn.
They’d all gone back to the boat, where they’d done shots. It came back to him now.
Pete had come to the hot tub when Nick had texted him where they were. Pete then invited everyone to the boat. It was obvious that he’d made a liquor run, because the booze had been free-flowing.
Nick also remembered that Bree had refused to take any pain medication since she’d already been drinking, so Nick had figured the shot or two she’d had afterward would at least dull her pain. But from the look of her this morning, she must have had more than he’d known about.
From the other side of the bathroom door, Bree let out a yelp.
“Is everything okay, Bree?” Nick yelled over his shoulder, and opened the door to check on her while mumbling softly to himself. “’Cause it sure as hell isn’t okay out here.”
* * *
BREE HUDDLED IN the corner of the large bathroom, trying to ignore her queasy stomach and aching head. She kept her eyes focused on the creature in the glass-enclosed shower stall.
Nick came straight through the bathroom door she’d neglected to lock after slamming it, his gaze taking in the room until it stopped on Bree. “What’s wrong? Is it your foot?”
Bree’s hand shook as she pointed to the shower stall. “In there.” She hated that she needed his help, but there was no way she was touching that slimy creature.
Nick stepped closer to the stall and laughed. “It’s just a harmless frog. I’ve seen them all over the island, either live or painted on something. It’s called a coqui, I think, named after the sound it makes.”
“Don’t tell me,” she grumbled, the slightest sound piercing her brain, “you earned a merit badge on frogs, too.”
“If you don’t want my help—” He turned to walk out.
“No, no, please.” She’d get down on her hands and knees to beg if that was what it took.
He reached for the shower-door handle.
“Don’t open the—” she yelled without thinking, sucking in a breath when her head reminded her to lower her voice. “It might escape.”
“It won’t hurt you, Bree. In fact, it’s probably more afraid of you than you are of it.”
“Isn’t that what people always say about small creatures who are venomous or carry disease?”
He ignored her and opened the shower door a little at a time. Bree squeezed her eyes to mere slits as he stepped carefully inside the stall, shutting the door behind him. He cornered the frog and carefully picked it up. Cupped in Nick’s large hands, the frog looked smaller than she’d originally thought. Maybe two to three inches at most.
“What are you going to do with it?” she asked when he stepped out of the shower.
He held the frog gently in one hand. “I’ll take it outside and release it.” He winked at her. “Don’t worry, I won’t do it too close to your cabin.” He gestured to her bandaged foot with his head. “Don’t forget, you can’t get that wet.”
“I know. I thought it might be easier to take a bath.” She gestured to the separate tub. Truthfully, she’d forgotten that she had to keep her foot dry. That seemed to be the least of her problems. The total loss of memory about what had happened last night was her major concern.
“There’s probably a plastic laundry bag somewhere if you’d like me to seal up your foot.”
That sounded like a better idea. A long soak in the tub would feel wonderful, but if she wanted to wash her hair, the shower would be best. “Good idea, but I can handle it myself.”
Bree heard Nick go outside and she searched the room for the laundry bag while trying to put two and two together. The hard part was that she had no two and two to put together. Her memory was completely blank.
She had drunk a lot more than she usually allowed herself, that much was clear. After she’d passed out in the doctor’s office, embarrassing herself beyond measure, she remembered coming to and finding the doctor almost finished stitching her foot. Nick had actually been very sweet by distracting her while the nurse gave her a tetanus booster shot. Bree moved her arm tentatively, happy that it didn’t hurt too much, at least not yet. Although nothing was as bad as her headache at the moment.
She remembered Nick walking her back to her cabin. But wait a minute... They’d stopped walking when they’d heard laughing in the distance and Bree had recognized her girlfriends’ voices. So they’d followed the sound to the hot tub. Right, the hot tub.
Amber had been curled up in a towel on a lounge chair, an empty champagne bottle on the ground next to her. Hannah had sat on the edge of the pool, dangling her feet in the water. Roxie. What had Roxie been doing? Oh, right. She’d been in the hot tub with a couple of other people.
She remembered something else, but had no clue how much time had passed between the two memories. There was something about a boat. Had they been on a boat?
The rest was a blank until she woke up this morning next to Nick. At least they’d been fully clothed.
Had they slept together? Evidence pointed to them doing just what Nick had suggested. Sleeping or—more precisely—passing out.
Nick walked back into the cabin then, ending her musings. He headed directly to the small kitchen sink in the corner of the cabin and washed his hands.
“Have you been tested?” she asked.
He spun around. “Tested?”
“Yes. Have you been tested for...for STDs?” The thought that she might have been so stupid made her stomach roil.
“Did you remember something from last night?” he asked, instead. He turned away to finish washing his hands as if she’d merely inquired about the time.
“I don’t like to take chances in case something happened between us. Just answer the question. Have you, or have you not, been tested recently?” She could barely breathe, anticipating his reply.
He dried his hands on the towel hanging on the side of the upper cupboard and finally faced her, a dead serious look on his face.
“Yes, I’ve been tested. You don’t have to worry.” He was hiding an emotion that Bree couldn’t quite decipher.
“You don’t have to worry about me, either,” she said quickly, in case that was what his reaction was about. Her gynecologist tested her yearly, but you had to be having unprotected sex to contract an STD.
That counted her out since she hadn’t had sex since—
“Did you find a plastic bag?” he asked.
She was happy to change the subject. “No, I got distracted.” Trying to remember if she’d screwed up last night.
He walked to the closet next to the bathroom door and opened it. He reached in for the dry-cleaning bag hanging there. “This will work perfectly. Do you have a rubber band or something to go around your leg to seal it?”
She nodded and hobbled to the bathroom where she had a hair scrunchie she thought would fit over her foot and ankle. He’d followed her and she handed it to him.
“Sit down over there.” He pointed to the closed toilet.
“I told you I can do it myself.”
“I heard you the first time,” he said. “But if your head feels anything like mine, then it’s going to explode if you lean over.”
As much as she wanted to argue, she knew he was probably right.
She took a seat and watched the top of his head as he dealt with the plastic bag, wrapping it tightly enough around her ankle to keep out water. He looked up at her and asked, “Is that too tight?”
She shook her head, and that same vague memory came to her as his gaze met hers. She couldn’t wrap her head around it because it didn’t make sense. “Were we on a boat last night?”
“A boat?” he asked. “You remember being on the boat, too?”
So there was a boat.
She nodded slightly. “We were all there. You, me, my friends.” She paused. “Wait. There was another guy there, too.”
“Pete. Pete Buchanan.”
She nodded. “Yes. That sounds familiar.”
“He’s my cousin, although he’s legally my brother. My parents raised him after his mom and dad were killed in a car accident when he was eight.”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” she said. “So it was his boat we were on?”
“No, we borrowed it from a friend of his who lives in San Juan. This vacation was all Pete’s idea. He thought I needed to get away, stop focusing on work so much.”
“Sounds familiar,” she said. “That’s exactly what the girls said to me. ‘Go have a vacation fling,’ they said. ‘You work too hard.’”
“I guess we have that in common,” he said quietly.
He was being very nice to her, and she hadn’t been as thankful as she should be. In fact, she’d been openly hostile. Opening her mouth to speak, she was suddenly very aware that he still had his hand on her calf. Their eyes met and she couldn’t look away. Without thinking she put her hand to his bearded cheek, remembering the softness of it when he’d kissed her on the beach.
She wanted him to kiss her again. In fact, she wanted more than a kiss. She wanted him. All of him. She wanted to take her girlfriends’ advice and have that vacation fling.
With Nick.
She leaned in and he did, too. When their mouths met, she knew for sure that nothing had happened between them last night except for that kiss on the beach. She definitely would have recalled the electricity between them.
Nick rose, pulling her up with him until they were both standing. He deepened the kiss and her body kept screaming that she wanted more.
He suddenly lifted her, and her legs wrapped around his waist. He carried her to the bed without removing his mouth from hers. She touched him everywhere she could reach—his back, his hair, his face, his arms, his butt. She couldn’t get enough.
He caressed her, as well, his large hands learning her body. When he stopped kissing her suddenly and pulled back to look her in the eyes, she groaned. She didn’t want him to stop. She didn’t want this to be a repeat of how he’d ended their kiss on the beach.
“Are you completely sober?” A strange question to ask her at this moment.
“Yes, I’m sober. Why?” She ran her hand down his chest to his abs, lingering on the button at his waistband.
He grabbed her hand and held it in his. “I’m serious. I don’t take advantage of inebriated women. I’m pretty sure neither of us was in good enough shape to do anything last night, but if you’re sure you’re sober enough to consent—” he grinned and waggled his eyebrows “—then I plan on taking full advantage.”
She grinned back. “Would you like it in writing or is my word good enough?”
His answer came in his extremely adept actions. Words were definitely unnecessary.
