A Younger Man

by Linda Turner

  “I just feel so rotten,” she said, sniffing. “And you shouldn’t even be here. This is an awful bug. If you get this because of me, I’m going to feel terrible.”

  Far from concerned, he only grinned. “Don’t worry about me. My mother says I’ve got the constitution of a horse. I get exposed to everything from viruses to the latest strand of the flu going around the campus, and I still somehow manage to escape the worst of them. I’ll be fine. You’re the one I’m worried about.”

  Squeezing her hand, he rose to his feet. “I’ll take care of everything—you just lie there and let me take care of you. I’ll start the water running in the tub, then help you into the bathroom. Where are your clean nightgowns?”

  She should have insisted that he’d done enough for her, but the steady look he gave her warned her he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. And he didn’t have a clue how much that touched her. It had been so long since she’d had someone in her life she could lean on—she’d forgotten how wonderful it could feel.

  “In the top drawer of my dresser,” she told him with a watery smile. “I can get it—”

  “Don’t even think about it,” he growled. “I’ve got everything under control.”

  Not giving her a chance to argue further, he stepped over to her dresser, grabbed a clean nightgown and underwear and strode into the bathroom to start the water running in the tub. When he stepped back into the bedroom a few minutes later, he walked over to the bed and studied her consideringly. “I can carry you or help you into the bathroom. Either way, I’m afraid your stomach’s not going to like it.”

  She grimaced. “I think you’re right. But it’ll be worth it for a bath. Here goes nothing.”

  Easing her feet to the floor, she held out her hands to let him help her up. Her stomach lurched, and for a moment she was afraid she was going to toss her cookies, as the boys said, right then and there. Her hands tightened in Max’s, and with a soft moan, she leaned her head against his chest and closed her eyes as she waited for her stomach to settle. “I’ll be okay,” she said weakly. “Just give me a few minutes.”

  “Take all the time you need,” he told her gruffly, and released her hands to wrap his arms around her.

  His touch was so gentle, so tender, she suddenly found herself fighting tears. She’d thought she knew who he was, the kind of man he was, but she’d never dreamed he could be so caring. Every other man she knew would have cut and run at the mere mention of a stomach bug, but he’d made it clear that not only was he not going anywhere, he was going to be there for her as long as she needed him. If she hadn’t been so sick, she would have kissed him for that.

  When she sighed, he tightened his arms carefully around her. “Feeling better?” he asked huskily.

  She nodded, then forced herself to pull free. “Here goes nothing.”

  Pale, her stomach gurgling the entire way, she cautiously made her way to the bathroom. Max was right behind her, hovering close, but she made it without mishap. “Can you do this on your own?” he asked as she sank down onto a small wicker bench next to the old-fashioned clawfoot tub. “I can help if you need me to.”

  For the first time in what seemed like a month, she laughed. “I’m sure you would, but I can take it from here.”

  “Damn,” he swore, grinning. “You can’t blame a guy for trying.”

  “Not at all,” she said with a chuckle. “Now if you’ll excuse me…”

  She started to shut the door, but he quickly stepped forward and kissed her. “I’ll be right here waiting for you. Call if you need help.”

  Max was waiting for her when she stepped out of the bathroom twenty minutes later, just as he’d promised. “That was fast,” he said as he laid his palm across her brow. “Your temperature’s gone down. Good. How’s the stomach?”

  “Still there,” she admitted with a grimace. “But better, thank God.”

  He moved to help her to the bed, but she’d only taken a single step before she stopped dead in her tracks as she got her first good look at her bedroom.

  Over the course of the last week, her room had become a disaster area. She’d been so tired from taking care of the boys when they were sick that she hadn’t had the energy to do anything but let her clothes fall where they may at night when she got ready for bed. She’d kept promising herself that she was going to pick everything up, but just as the boys had gotten better, she’d become sick herself.

  The boys had done their best to take care of her, but they were kids, and they hadn’t cared less that the entire house was a disaster area. They’d brought her juice and soup and snacks to tempt her appetite, then left the dirty dishes on her nightstand or dresser. And she’d been too miserably sick to care.

  Max, however, had noticed—and done something about it. While she was in the bathroom, he’d not only picked everything up, he’d changed the sheets on her bed. Then he’d turned back the covers, fluffed the pillows in their clean pillowcases, and drawn the shades, turning her bedroom into an inviting hideaway. She took one look at her favorite sheets, and just that quickly her eyes flooded with tears. “Oh, Max!”

  “Hey, what’s this?” he growled, smiling into her eyes as he caught an errant tear with his thumb. “I thought you’d be happy that I picked up.”

  “I am,” she sniffed. “I just wasn’t expecting…men aren’t supposed to know to do these things. Derek certainly never did. When I was pregnant with the boys, he didn’t care if I was tired or had morning sickness. When he came home from work, he expected me to have dinner on the table.”

  Privately Max thought the man was a jackass. She’d been seven months pregnant with his sons, for God’s sake! And what had he done? Walked away like they didn’t exist, like she didn’t exist! How? How could a man do that? Even if he’d fallen out of love with Natalie, she was still the mother of his children. If for no other reason than that, he owed her respect and support. Instead, he’d just abandoned her.

  Just the thought of all the heartache her ex had put her through infuriated Max, but that wasn’t his fight, he reminded himself. He would, however, give the man a piece of his mind if he ever got the chance.

  In the meantime Natalie was his only concern. “My mother and grandmother are both incredibly caring women,” he told her. “My grandmother used to say that nothing felt better than a bath and clean sheets when you were sick. Obviously, you agree with her.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said as she sank down onto the edge of the bed and ran her hand over the soft sheets. “This feels wonderful. Thank you.”

  When she smiled at him like that, she could have asked for diamonds from the far side of the moon and he would have found a way to get them for her. “It was my pleasure,” he told her gruffly. “Can I get you anything else? You must be hungry….”

  “No,” she began, only to yawn. “I’m sorry,” she said, yawning again. “I’m just so tired.”

  “Then I’ll bring you something to eat in a while,” he promised, and pulled the covers up over her. “Go to sleep, sweetheart. I’ll check in on you later.”

  He surprised her with a kiss on the cheek, and before she could find her voice again, he was gone. Disappointed, she wanted to call him back, but she just didn’t have the energy. She yawned again and pushed her pillow into a more comfortable position. Seconds later she fell asleep, only to discover that Max hadn’t gone far. He was right there in her dreams.

  The rest of the day passed in a blur. Natalie woke several times to find Max sitting on the side of the bed, watching her in concern, but she only summoned a weak smile and drifted back to sleep. Later that afternoon her fever broke, thank God, and her stomach settled down, but it had been years since she’d had a chance to sleep, really sleep, and she was on the verge of exhaustion.

  Still, she felt guilty for putting the responsibility of the boys off on Max. She tried to get up, but Max was there almost immediately to stop her. He assured her he didn’t mind taking care of the boys—the three of them were getting along f
ine—and the only thing she had to worry about was not rushing her recovery. Too weak to fight him, she did as he said and slept.

  When she finally woke up, she was rested…and starving. How long had she been out of commission? She glanced at the clock on her nightstand and gasped. Three o’clock? It couldn’t be! It had been after four when Max had changed the sheets for her while she took a bath. That meant she’d slept around the clock!

  Stunned, she tried to convince herself that she was mistaken, but she knew she wasn’t. She’d been so tired, she must have just died away. And while she’d been playing Sleeping Beauty, Max had had the responsibility of her children. And that horrified her. Jumping up, she grabbed her robe. Was he still there? Still taking care of the boys? Had he spent the night?

  Her heart knocking against her ribs, she stepped out of her room and paused, listening. The television was on in the living room, but the rest of the house was as quiet as a tomb. Where was everyone? Frowning, she quietly headed down the hall and stopped in surprise at the entrance to the living room. The boys were seated on the floor in front of the television, quietly coloring in what appeared to be new coloring books. But it was the sight of Max asleep on the couch that touched her heart. He was sprawled on his stomach, with his head half-buried under one of the couch pillows, and his feet hanging off the end. He looked dead to the world.

  Later, she didn’t know how long she would have stood there, watching him sleep, if she’d had the chance. But she must have made some kind of sound because suddenly, the boys glanced up sharply and spied her in the doorway. In the time it took to blink, they launched themselves at her.

  “Mom! You’re awake!”

  “You slept all day and night! We thought you died!”

  Laughing, she staggered slightly under their fierce hugs. “No, I’m not dead. You know I wouldn’t go off and leave you guys. I was just really, really sick.”

  “You look a hundred percent better.”

  Max’s quiet comment startled her, and she glanced back at the couch to find that he’d rolled to a sitting position and was watching her with sleepy eyes. Her heart lurched at the sight of him. No man had a right to look so sexy the second he woke up. His hair was tousled and spilling over his brow, his jaw rough and unshaven. And all she wanted to do was touch him.

  Heat climbing in her cheeks, she said, “I feel a lot better, thank God.”

  “Max took us to the video store, Mom!”

  “Look at all the movies we rented!”

  At least ten movies were spread out on the coffee table, and Natalie only had to glance at them to see that they were all children’s movies. “That was very sweet of you,” she told Max. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “No thanks necessary,” he said with a grin as he pushed to his feet. “The boys and I had a great time, didn’t we, guys? They beat the socks off of me at Go Fish.”

  “He was terrible, Mom!”

  “We beat him ten times in a row!”

  “Okay,” Max admitted, chuckling, “so it’s been a while since I played Go Fish. I was a little rusty. I didn’t do so badly once I got back in the groove. So who’s hungry for breakfast?”

  “I am!”

  “Me, too!”

  “But it’s three o’clock in the afternoon,” she protested. “Surely you’ve already eaten breakfast.”

  “We were waiting for you,” Harry said, looking up at her with a wide grin as he hugged her. “Max said we could have chocolate chip pancakes!”

  “Oh, well, we can’t pass that up,” she said lightly.

  “I’ll have you know I know my way around the kitchen,” he told her, grinning. “Ask the boys. I made everything they like while you were sick, including mac and cheese.”

  “Only, he puts hot dogs in his, Mom!” Tommy said, impressed. “We had it for supper and breakfast.”

  “Really?”

  When she arched a brow at Max, he only grinned boyishly. “I was trying to take their minds off you. They were worried. And they like hot dogs.”

  “I’m not quite sure where hot dogs and chocolate chips fit on the food pyramid,” she said with a chuckle, “but I don’t guess they’re any worse for you than anything else.”

  That was all the encouragement Max needed. He quickly whipped up some pancakes, and Natalie had to admit they were good. “I’m impressed,” she told him, smiling. “I didn’t know you liked to cook.”

  “I don’t know if I would go so far as to say I can actually cook,” he replied ruefully. “It doesn’t take a lot of skill to throw chocolate chips into a pancake mix…”

  “Or hot dogs into a box of macaroni and cheese,” she teased.

  “No, that was nothing more than pure genius,” he corrected her, “and you know it.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed with twinkling eyes. “A couple of five-year-olds were certainly impressed.”

  “I aim to please,”

  He’d done that and more. The boys cleaned their plates, then asked for seconds and finished off the last of the pancakes. Watching them as they carried their plates to the sink, Max said quietly, “You’ve done a heck of a job with your boys, Natalie. They’re good kids.”

  A soft smile curled the corners of her mouth. “I got lucky,” she said simply.

  “It’s more than that,” he insisted as the boys ran outside to play in the backyard. “Kids aren’t well mannered and respectful by chance. And they’re certainly not secure and confident and funny unless their mother is doing everything right. I enjoyed watching over them for you.”

  “I don’t know what I would have done without you,” she said honestly. “When I first got sick, I thought I could handle it by myself, but then I just got sicker and sicker. It was awful.”

  “You were lucky you kept the boys home from school once they were feeling better. You could have been in serious trouble if you’d been here all by yourself.”

  “I hadn’t planned to keep them home,” she said wryly as she rose from the kitchen table to carry her plate and his to the sink. “I was just too sick to get them up in the morning for school.”

  “Next time, call me,” he told her, joining her at the sink to put the dishes in the dishwasher. “You don’t have to go through something like this alone. Okay?”

  Tears misted her eyes. “Okay,” she said thickly. “Thank you.”

  She stepped forward to give him a quick hug, and at the first feel of her arms around him, Max swallowed a groan. This, he told himself, was not smart. She was on the mend, well on her way back to being her old self, and all he could think about was kissing her. And it was all her fault.

  If she hadn’t gotten sick, if he hadn’t spent the last few days taking care of her, he might have found it easier to remember that they were friends…just friends. But he’d changed her sheets for her, helped her to that bathroom, wiped her face with a cool cloth after she’d been sick, cooked for her, made himself at home in her home. Right or wrong, there was an intimacy between them that neither of them could ignore—he could see it in her eyes every time he looked at her—and he wanted to kiss her, dammit!

  But after all they’d shared, he wasn’t sure he could stop with just a kiss. And she was still weak from being sick, and the boys were just outside in the backyard. They could come inside at any moment.

  That, more than anything, sobered him. He liked the little squirts. And he didn’t doubt for a minute that they liked him. That didn’t mean they wanted him kissing their mother. Frustrated, he told himself this was why he didn’t get involved with women with children. Not that the reminder did him any good at this point. He was involved, and he didn’t even know how it had happened.

  Troubled, in need of some serious time to himself to think, he returned her hug, then eased out of her arms to study her with a frown. “You should spend the remainder of the day resting, you know. You don’t want to jump back into things too quickly.”

  “I’m just going to lie on the couch and catch up on my reading,” she tol
d him. “What about you? You must have things to do….”

  She’d just given him the perfect opening, and he knew he was in trouble when he felt guilty for using it. Irritated with himself, he nodded. “I need to get home, but I want your promise that you’ll call me if you need me. I can be here in ten minutes.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured him. When he just looked at her, patiently waiting, she sighed, a reluctant grin curling the corners of her mouth. “Okay, okay. I promise.”

  Satisfied, he gave in to temptation and kissed her…but only on the cheek. “If you don’t feel like working on the arrangements for the dig tomorrow, don’t worry about it. We can get started on Tuesday.”

  “Oh, no, tomorrow will be fine.”

  “Then, I’ll see you then,” he said gruffly, and stepped outside to tell the boys goodbye.

  Standing at the kitchen window, Natalie watched him tease the boys, then ruffle their hair before leaving though the side gate by the garage. Seconds later she heard his motorcycle roar down the street. She’d never heard a lonelier sound in her life.

  Shaking off the sudden melancholy that threatened to settle over her, she refused to even consider the possibility that she was missing him already. She couldn’t miss what she didn’t have. He was a friend, a teacher, nothing more. Life was back to normal.

  It didn’t, however, feel that way as she approached his office late the following afternoon to work on the arrangements for the dig. Butterflies swarmed in her stomach, and a smile of anticipation tugged at the corners of her mouth. Images teased her…Max sprawled on her living room couch sleeping, while her sons played quietly on the floor in front of him; his hand tenderly pressed against her brow as he checked to see if she had a fever, the strength of his arms as he carried her to bed when she was too sick to get there under her own power.

  Don’t go there! her common sense warned sharply. Don’t start thinking you’re falling in love with the man. You’re just still caught up in the memories from the weekend. Once you change gears and go back to the relationship you had before you got sick, you’ll be fine.