Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
I WAITED A few minutes, and when Luke didn’t reappear, I went to find him.
I’d hoped I was wrong about him being ill, but when I heard the gagging noises coming from the downstairs loo, that hope faded. When I pushed the door open, he was kneeling over the toilet, and judging by the mess on the floor, he hadn’t made it in time.
He groaned when he looked up and saw me. “Please go out. I’m fine.”
No, he wasn’t “fine.” Embarrassed, yes, but definitely not fine.
“I’ve seen worse.” Although not by much. He’d gone from nought to Norovirus in sixty seconds. “Somebody has to look after you.”
“Yes, but not you. I don’t want you here while I’m like this.”
Under his grey pallor, a red tinge spread across his cheeks.
“Well, do you want me to call someone else? Your mother? Or your sister?”
“No! My mother would totally overreact. I’d end up at the hospital, probably in intensive care. And Tia would just call my mother. She doesn’t deal with things like this.”
“You’re stuck with me, then. Suck it up.”
He didn’t argue further, which showed how rough he must have been feeling. That and the fact he puked again. I dampened a wad of tissue and handed it to him, then averted my gaze while he wiped his mouth.
“Think you can stand?” I asked.
Did that groan mean yes? I had to assume so.
With my arm around his waist, I guided him past the mess and towards the stairs that wound up both sides of the entrance hall.
“Just lean on me. We can go as slow as you like.”He’d have given a tortoise a run for its money, but we made it to the top. “Now where?”
“To the right, last door on the left.” His voice was barely audible.
I hadn’t planned on ending up in Luke’s bedroom tonight, but that was where I found myself. The elegant decor spoke of his mother’s touch again.
He sank onto the bed and leaned forwards, head in his hands. His face was paler than the cream quilt, and I couldn’t help wrinkling my nose at the splashes of vomit on his clothes. The smell turned my stomach.
“Lean back,” I said, then unbuttoned his shirt.
Hmm… Not bad at all. He had a gym, and he knew how to use it. There was no time to stop and admire, though. I needed to find him something clean to wear.
Opposite the bed, two doors hung ajar. I tried the left one first. Unlucky—that was the bathroom, complete with whirlpool bath. Did every house around here have one?
The right door hid what I was looking for—Luke’s dressing room. I rummaged around until I found a clean T-shirt, old but soft with a faded slogan:
Binary
It’s as easy as
01.10.11
Okay, geek alert. That was one for Mack, not me. She was probably sitting at her computer in Virginia right now. She rarely left it.
Luke made no attempt to help as I tried to shove his spaghetti arms through the holes. Good grief. Dressing Nate’s four-year-old was easier. Luke’s jeans were dirty too, and I reached for his belt.
“Tell me you don’t go commando?”
He managed a weak shake of his head, so I stripped him down to his boxer shorts and shoved him under the duvet.
Drugs. I needed drugs. Oh, don’t look at me like that—I meant painkillers. His bathroom cabinet yielded a box of condoms, vitamins, and four kinds of moisturiser. Surely he had paracetamol? Ah, there it was, a half-empty packet of Anadin shoved behind his spare razor blades.
By the time I got back to the bed, Luke had fallen asleep, and I didn’t want to wake him. Instead, I filled a glass of water and left the pills next to it on his nightstand. He could take them when he woke up.
Wonderful. What promised to be a pleasant evening had turned out awful, just like everything else in my life. Was I cursed? I stuffed Luke’s dirty clothes into the washing machine and found a pair of rubber gloves and disinfectant in the cupboard under the sink so I could sort out the downstairs toilet.Even after it was spotless, the smell of vomit lingered in my nose.
Back in the bedroom I’d borrowed earlier, I stripped down to my T-shirt and knickers. The door had a lock, but just to be on the safe side, I hid the key and dragged a chest of drawers across in front of it too. Not to keep Luke out, but to keep me in.
I checked on him once during the night, and although the covers lay twisted, he was still sleeping soundly. That was more than could be said for me.I’d barely dropped off when the sun rose over the balcony outside, waking me. Once, I’d thought of each sunrise as a new beginning, something to be thankful for, but now it signalled another day of sadness.
How much more of this could I take?
I was sipping a cup of coffee as I read the doom and gloom in the morning paper when Luke stumbled into the kitchen in his underwear.
“What the…?” He stopped short when he caught sight of me at the breakfast bar. “You didn’t leave.”
I looked down at myself. “Nope, still here.”
“But I threw up in front of you.”
“I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d seen worse.” He shuffled closer, and I laid a hand on his forehead. “You’ve got a fever.”
“I was freezing five minutes ago.”
“You should have stayed in bed. Did you take the painkillers?”
“Yeah, but they’re not working yet.”
“Go and lie down. I’ll bring up some Lucozade.”
And for goodness’ sake, put a shirt on. Trousers would be good too. I was having a hard time keeping my eyes on his face.
Luke did as he was told and went back to bed, and when I took his drink up five minutes later, he was dead to the world again. No, the universe. He didn’t stir for the rest of the day.As he hadn’t kicked me out, I took advantage of his pool table and dartboard, not to mention the giant TV and the well-stocked fridge. I was tempted to skinny dip in the pool, but Murphy’s law would have ensured he woke up and caught me.
Swimming or no swimming, it was a far more pleasant Saturday than I’d have had at Hazelwood Farm. Susie had drawn today’s shift, and she was no doubt enjoying the company of the whining brats.
As the hours ticked by, I used my phone to find a recipe for macaroni and cheese and attempted that for dinner. Since it was my comfort food, I figured it would be good for a sick person as well.
“You didn’t have to cook,” Luke said when he appeared in the early evening, thankfully dressed this time.
“Don’t get too excited. I might end up poisoning you.”
And for once, it wouldn’t be intentional. At least I’d fished out the fingernail I’d accidentally grated into the cheese.
“Didn’t you cook when you lived in America?”
“Not much. We just ate a lot of takeaways.”
He must have been hungry, because he shovelled his plateful down, despite the pasta not being entirely cooked. Not bad for a first attempt, but was I brave enough to try a second?At least Luke had some colour back.
“I’ll clear up the dishes before I head off. I’m glad you’re getting better.”
“Stay. Please. I like having you here.”
Stay? What did he have in mind? “Why?”
“It’s nice to have company.”
I wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or disappointed by such a bland response, but in the end, hot water won the day. That and the central heating were too good to turn down.
I shrugged, careful not to appear too enthusiastic. “Okay, I’ll stay.”
“Fancy a movie?”
“Sure.”
I vetoed the rom-com that Luke half-heartedly suggested and let him pick out a spy thriller instead. The storyline was vaguely interesting, but I couldn’t help picking out all the factual inaccuracies in my head as it played.Although I had a movie theatre at home, watching a film from start to finish was a novelty for me. Usually if I fancied seeing some action, I only had to pop into the control room at work. Assuming I wasn’t in the middle of it, of course.
After a family-sized bowl of popcorn and an unrealistic ending where the bad guy’s chest exploded after being shot with a .22, my eyelids grew heavy.
“You look like you’re ready for bed,” Luke said. “After all the chores you’ve done today, you’ll sleep well.”
“I doubt it. I rarely do.”
“You suffer from insomnia?”
“Not insomnia, exactly. I have a few problems at night.”
Problems. What an understatement. Murderous tendencies more like, but I didn’t want to explain that one.
“Doesn’t everybody, sometimes?”
“With me, it’s more than that. Promise that if you ever hear me cry out, or see me sleepwalking, you won’t come near.”
“Why not?”
“I once hurt someone in my sleep, and I can’t let it happen again. It’s why I always sleep alone.”
“Hurt someone? How?”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
He rolled his eyes, clearly convinced I was exaggerating. “If it makes you feel better, I promise.”
It was Luke’s turn to make breakfast the next morning, and mine to wake up sweating. I kicked the sheets away from my feet and stumbled out onto the balcony, gripping the railing as I gulped in air. The peaceful view turned black as I screwed my eyes shut. No, no, no . I’d seen my husband’s death again, played out in all its fiery horror. Why couldn’t I forget? The noise, the flash of heat, the smoke. Would it ever fade?
The delicious aroma of bacon filled the air as I shuffled into the kitchen, and Luke greeted me with a smile more genuine than my own.
“My specialty,” he said, pointing at the frying pan with a spatula. “Something I can actually cook from scratch.”
“I’m impressed.” I headed for the coffee machine, drawn like a magnet. “Let me show you my specialty.”
I’d made us both cappuccinos by the time Luke set two bacon rolls on the counter. I could work a coffee machine as well as I could fire a gun. My survival depended on both.
“Ketchup?” he asked.
“Lots of it.”
He slid a plate over, and I bit into my roll and groaned. “You know if you ever wanted to quit your job, you could become a bacon chef?”
“Keep that up, and I’ll make you breakfast every morning.”
Two weeks ago, I couldn’t have contemplated that, but now… The idea didn’t seem so bad. I could wake up to worse than Luke’s easy grin.
“Anything you want to do today?” he asked when we’d both finished eating.
“I’ve been eyeing up your gym.”
“Knock yourself out.”
“I’ll try not to take that literally.” I’d always preferred to knock out other people instead. “I’ll have to pass for the moment, though—I don’t have any shorts with me.”
“Have a look in my wardrobe—there’s probably something with a drawstring you can make do with.”
I used to “borrow” my husband’s shirts all the time. Would it feel weird wearing another man’s clothes?
“They’re clean, I promise,” Luke added.
Ash, stop being sentimental . “Thanks. I’d like that.”
The air-conditioned gym would make a pleasant change to running through mud. I found a new pair of navy blue boxer shorts in Luke’s closet, relieved to note the lack of novelty underwear. Nothing killed a girl’s libido faster than Bugs Bunny hopping over a man’s package. Not that my libido needed killing, of course. Nope. No way.
The boxers sat low on my hips, but I was only wearing them in private, so they’d do. I snagged one of his T-shirts too. Comfy. What were the chances of me taking it home without him noticing?
“I’m tired just watching you,” Luke said a couple of hours later. He’d spent the last thirty minutes sitting on the floor with his tablet while I ran on the treadmill.
“Perhaps you should try joining in?”
“Not today. I’m still groggy. I will next weekend.”
Next weekend?He’d made a big assumption there. I opened my mouth and closed it again. What was stopping me from setting him straight?Maybe how sweet he was. When I staggered off the treadmill, he had a towel and a smoothie waiting for me.
“I put protein powder in it. You need it after that run.” Then, despite me being all sweaty, he put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. “Thanks for looking after me yesterday. Nobody’s ever done that before.”
In the gloom beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, movement caught my eye. What was it? A fox? An owl? I tried to focus, but Luke blocked my view with his chest, and I gave up.
“Everybody needs a hand when they’re down,” I muttered.
Or lips. Lips would do. He leaned down and softly kissed the top of my head.
A shiver ran through me, and my heart pounded faster than it had on the treadmill. Not just because Luke was hot, but because that was the first moment since I’d left home that I started to feel human.
Maybe the first moment ever.