Chapter 3 #4
So she went on, “Then you’ll sleep on the settee in the parlor next door, or on the floor, or anywhere that allows you to lie flat.
Your hip injury won’t heal properly if you keep sitting upright, and your circulation is already compromised enough without adding positional stress.
” She picked up the tray but left the plate of beans on the desk.
“Eat the rest of those in an hour. Small bites.”
She left without waiting for his response, mostly because she was already learning that giving the Collector the last word was a mistake.
Doing so would only allow him to reestablish the illusion that he was in control of the situation.
Roslyn knew she couldn’t afford to let that illusion take hold, not because she wanted power over him, but because his recovery depended on him following her directions to the letter.
The second he convinced himself that her authority was negotiable, he’d start making decisions that would set his treatment back by weeks, if not more.
There were still some beans left, so she ate them slowly and mechanically, spooning them directly from the pot until they were gone.
When she was done, she washed the pots and the dishes by hand, dried them, and put them away.
She wiped down the counter, checked the burners, and folded the towel over the edge of the sink.
Then she stood in the darkened kitchen with her hands braced on the counter’s edge and stared out the window at nothing.
The house was quiet around her, and she could practically feel the way the artifacts pulsed and hummed behind their failing wards, each one a distinct signature in the static.
There were dozens of them, objects that had been collected, contained, and cared for by a single man operating alone, and they were all dangerous enough that, if left uncontained, they could cause damage she didn’t want to think about.
And the only thing holding all of it together was a warlock currently too weak to climb a flight of stairs.
Roslyn understood now why he’d summoned her.
Not out of revenge, even if that was what he might have preferred to believe.
He’d summoned her because he was dying and his collection couldn’t survive without him, and it absolutely couldn’t be allowed to fail.
The objects in this house were his responsibility — his life’s work, his purpose — and he’d done the only thing he’d thought he could when faced with the prospect of leaving them unguarded.
He’d found someone who couldn’t walk away from a dying patient. She had been kidnapped by a warlock who’d correctly calculated that her greatest weakness was her inability to let someone die in front of her.
A small chuckle escaped her lips, but it was a quiet one, nothing he could hear from his study down the hall.
She looked around the kitchen to double-check everything was in order, then headed out to see how he was doing.
The small bowl of beans was empty. When she looked at it, he sent her an almost challenging look, and she decided it was probably better not to comment.
“Now you should sleep,” she said lightly.
“I will,” he said, then added in quelling tones, “in here.”
Obviously, he’d never seen her get a McAllister toddler to bed. She didn’t babysit much anymore, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have plenty of practice.
“No, you won’t,” she told him. “I’m going to put some sheets and blankets on the settee in the next room, and you’re going to sleep in there.”
Before he could reply, she went out to the linen closet in the hall, gathered the necessary bedclothes along with a spare pillow, and headed into the parlor.
The settee could use a good dusting, but she settled for giving the cushions a few hearty smacks to get rid of the worst of it, and then spread out the sheets and the blanket, and laid the pillow on top.
The Collector hadn’t moved from his chair when she returned to the study.
“Everything’s ready,” she said, still in that light, brisk tone, one she was sure must irritate him to no end. “Let’s get you over there so you can get a good night’s sleep.”
“I already told you — ”
He didn’t get any further than that, however, because while he was speaking, she’d moved closer and slid her arm under his, raising him to a standing position.
It looked like she’d caught him off guard, since he got to his feet and then glared down at her, as if realizing she’d just pulled a maneuver on him.
“Great!” she said.
“It is decidedly not great,” he replied.
Without missing a beat, she said, “Getting up is half the battle. Now it’s just a little ways more to get you next door.”
Actually, it was a bit more than that. However, he seemed to decide that wrestling with her would be completely undignified, so he allowed her to guide him out of the study and into the parlor next door.
With him standing, she realized how tall he actually was.
He’d been so slumped in that damn desk chair that she hadn’t been able to get a good read on his height, but now she realized he must be at least six foot three, maybe a little more.
At just a hair under five feet and eight inches, she wasn’t used to having men tower over her, but that was exactly what he was doing now.
But she managed to get him lowered onto the settee, and then pulled off the low boots he was wearing — now with their soles beginning to detach — before pulling up the sheets and blankets to cover him.
“I’ll bring you breakfast in the morning,” she said, “and then we’ll do your next round of healing.”
Dark eyes glared at her from under equally dark brows, but something about his expression seemed almost resigned, as if he understood this was best for him even though he didn’t like it very much.
“If you must,” he said, and closed his eyes.
Fighting back a smile, Roslyn went to the door, turned off the light, and closed the door most of the way. However, she left the sconces in the hallway burning, just in case.
As she headed upstairs, she realized for the first time how much her own body ached, every muscle tired and spent from her vigil of the night before. Well, she could get some sleep now. Her patient was stable, and she had no reason to believe he’d need her before morning.
She splashed cold water on her face in the bathroom, rubbed her teeth with some toothpaste she’d found in the medicine cabinet, and then headed into the bedroom.
It felt strange to climb out of her clothes and into one of the Collector’s borrowed shirts…
but not strange enough that she had any second thoughts about doing so.
Outside, the ocean murmured, and leaves rustled in the wind. The bed was still hard, the mattress still flat, but Roslyn found she didn’t mind so much.
She realized then that this was the first time in years that she wasn’t fielding phone calls at odd hours of the night, the first time in a very long while that she was allowed to simply stop and do nothing.
It was an extremely odd sensation…and odder still that it was accompanied by a sensation of relief.
She shouldn’t be relieved. She should be horrified by her situation.
Shouldn’t she?
But she wouldn’t think about that now. She needed sleep, and she could chalk up her strange reactions to exhaustion and nothing more.
She rolled over and closed her eyes.