by Karina Bliss
The next second she was lying under him, while he supported his weight on his forearms. “Don’t tease a tiger, Miss Browne.”
Having achieved her aim of making him smile, Pip turned her mind to other matters. “How did you break your nose…a fight? A football injury?”
Joe started to laugh. “I stepped on a rake when I was six.”
Pip caught her breath. Laughing, he was irresistible.
She would stay tonight, she told herself, only tonight. First thing after breakfast she’d leave, before this guy got any more addictive than he was already.
But for now…Pip slid down his magnificent body. “Maybe I am still hungry,” she said.
JOE WOKE IN THE NIGHT to the sound of Pip retching in the bathroom. It took him a while to come alert after the first deep sleep he’d had since he could remember.
He heard her again. Instantly, he rolled out of bed and reached for his jeans. Looking at the bedside clock’s luminous numbers in the dark, he saw it was only 1:00 a.m.
“Pip?” The bathroom door was locked.
“I’m okay.” More retching; it sounded as though very little was left in her stomach.
Joe rattled the handle. “Open the door.”
“Noooo!” It was a moan of self-conscious anguish.
“Now,” he ordered.
The toilet flushed; there was the sound of running water, then the bathroom door opened a crack. “Please,” she whispered hoarsely. “Go back to bed. This is embarrassing enough…oh!”
He heard her scramble back to the toilet, then more gagging. Joe pushed open the door to see Pip embracing the porcelain bowl. He held her shoulders until she’d finished throwing up and sank weakly onto the floor, then saturated a hand towel under the faucet and bathed her face with warm water.
“What did you have for dinner again?”
Sweat beaded on her forehead. “Don’t mention the fried—” She grabbed the toilet bowl again.
“You really have a thing for my bathroom, don’t you?” Joe said three hours later. Fully dressed, he sat on the floor with his back against the tub and Pip, a ball of bathrobe-clad misery, cradled in his arms. He’d coaxed her back into bed once—a mistake.
Housekeeping had taken away one bundle of ruined sheets at 2:00 a.m. and delivered a new set, which Joe had made up.
“No jokes,” she moaned. Both of them had dozed between Pip’s bouts of nausea, and he’d forced her to drink a little boiled water. It gave her something to hurl, but he figured enough stayed down to prevent dehydration.
The rest of the hot water had gone into a plastic water bottle, which she clutched against her cramping stomach.
Somewhere in the long night, Joe had stolen ten minutes to do an Internet search. Given what she’d eaten and the symptoms, it seemed likely she had Bacillus Cereus food poisoning, which would last around twelve to twenty-four hours. In all probability, Anita was suffering similar symptoms.
Pip was an uncomplaining patient, wan and so pathetic it was no hardship to look after her. Though she was too exhausted to apologize anymore, he knew she was mortified.
“It’s been thirty minutes since you last threw up. Think maybe you can risk bed again?”
She roused from a half doze and struggled to her feet. “I’ll go home.”
“You’re not going anywhere like this.” With one arm around her shoulders, Joe opened the bathroom door and firmly steered her toward the bed. She didn’t argue with him, crawling between the sheets and hauling them over her head like a child.
Joe tucked her in and positioned the champagne bucket where she liked it, in the crook of her arm. Pip opened her eyes. “Thank you,” she rasped.
He kissed her brow and smoothed the blond curls. Even with hair like a rag doll, she was appealing. It seemed extraordinary that he’d known this woman only two weeks, biblically less than eight hours, and here he was, solicitously tucking her into bed.
But they’d met under circumstances that stripped away a conventional relationship, and everything since had fast-tracked them to intimacy. In some ways, he felt closer to her than he did to the woman he’d been married to for almost nine years. The thought gave Joe pause.
How had Pip insinuated herself into his life and thoughts so quickly? If she wasn’t leaving the States he might worry about it, but her departure date, like a warning beacon, showed him where the rocks were. And with an end implicit from the beginning, he could relax his guard, enjoy the voyage.
Even weather the seasickness.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IN THE END, Pip stayed the whole weekend, cocooned in muted luxury, a temperature-modulated climate and crisp sheets. She passed the intervals between attacks of nausea with sleeping, standing under the needle-sharp hot shower and drinking packets of electrolytes mixed in ice water.
After a while, she even managed to keep some down.
Anita, who’d developed symptoms earlier and already visited a doctor, confirmed Joe’s Internet diagnosis. That saved Pip the humiliation of going out in public carrying a bucket—the same persuasive argument Joe had used to make her stay. Frankly, she was too ill to argue.
She’d given him the key to her apartment and he’d picked up toiletries and clothes. If she’d been well she would have asked what he thought of the candy-pink building and the over-the-top interior decorating she’d inherited. Instead she was simply grateful he didn’t mention the camp laundry still piled in the living room.
More often than not when she woke from some half-fevered doze, through that interminable Saturday, her gaze fell on Joe, sitting at the desk with his laptop or pacing the living room with a phone pressed to his ear, talking contracts in a deep-voiced murmur.
Their eyes would meet, he’d give her an encouraging smile and she’d either stumble to the bathroom to continue her worship of the porcelain bowl or, as her symptoms subsided, close her eyes and drift back into sleep.
He made no unnecessary fuss, simply made sure she had everything she needed.
That night she woke to find him sleeping beside her. On Sunday morning, she opened her eyes to the steamy scent of a recent shower and a note.
“Taking Kaitlin to the zoo, then visiting Adam with Daniel. Expect you here when I get back. Joe.”
His dictatorial tone annoyed her. She must be getting well. With a weak chuckle, Pip showered, donned a fresh nightgown he’d brought from her place, then made peppermint tea and called Anita.
“I’ve finally recovered enough to realize you’ve gone through this alone,” said her mortified coworker. “You want me to send my hubby over with chicken broth?”
“No, I’m staying with a friend.” Fluffing up her pillows, Pip leaned back against the headboard. She and Joe had decided to keep their romance secret; they’d been subjected to enough virulent interest at camp.
“On the bright side, we’re lucky it was the emetic toxin,” said Anita, “and not the other one. Personally, I think throwing up is better than diarrhea.”
Pip’s sense of the ridiculous reasserted itself and she laughed until she cried. Diarrhea would have been the ultimate indignity for Joe’s poor bathroom. And no doubt the end of the affair. So much for femme fatale.
“Pip, you’re obviously still delirious,” said a puzzled Anita. “Go back to sleep.”
Instead, she got up and packed, until a wave of dizziness sent her back to bed. She’d have a quick nap, then catch a cab home before Joe returned. The poor man had done enough.
“HEY, ADAM.” Joe led the way into his father’s room. “Look who’s back from El Granada.” Because he was expecting it, Joe saw the flare of shock in Daniel’s gray eyes as he took in Adam’s condition. The wasted limbs under the pale blue blanket, the gaunt cheekbones and saggy jowls that made Adam so hard for the nurses to shave and explained the tiny cut on his jawbone. The scent of allspice warred with the tang of disinfectant.
Joe swallowed. He could discount Aunt Jenny’s opinion, dismiss Sam’s reaction as insensitive, but he couldn’t
ignore Daniel’s response. Guess he should stop avoiding that “talk” the specialist wanted to have.
“Listen, there’s someone I need to catch up with,” he said. “I won’t be long.”
The late-afternoon sun was painting the far wall when Joe returned, walking against the flow of the departing Sunday visitors. Daniel was standing beside Adam’s bed, holding up sketch plans and outlining details of his latest construction project. Saving Adam the effort of having to talk.
“Sounds like you’re about to hit the big time,” Joe commented.
“Either that or go bust,” said Daniel. “I’ve pretty much put everything I have into it.” He might be joking or he might not. His deadpan expression gave nothing away.
Both of them were good at hiding things.
“Coffee?” said Joe. He needed it. As he measured the ground coffee into the dispenser he went over the specialist’s report in his head.
“How strong are you making that stuff?” his uncle asked, amused.
Joe looked at the mound of coffee, then spooned most of it back into the jar. “So what sort of return are you looking for?”
Telling himself it was the specialist’s job to err on the side of caution, Joe lost himself in the technical details of Daniel’s residential subdivision. His very first job had been with Kane Construction before he switched to commercial real estate, where sales were driven more by intellect and less by emotion. Joe preferred to stay away from people’s dreams.
Handing Daniel his coffee, he picked up an album from Adam’s bedside table. “These photos of the project?”
“No…Emily…brought,” his father answered.
Joe opened it at random and saw a picture of Sam and Jenny as skinny-legged children. Arms folded over a knitted vest, Sam already had his bluster. Jenny stood beside him with a shy smile.
Frowning, Joe turned more pages. Robert Carson in his serviceman’s uniform, a wedding photo of Robert and Sarah. “What the hell was Emily thinking?”
“I…asked….”
He came across a photograph of his grandfather as a young man. Except for Robert’s blond hair, Joe could have been looking in the mirror. He’d been told there was a similarity, but seeing it sickened him. “How can you stand to look at Robert Carson? The bastard didn’t even have the decency to offer your mother financial support.”
“Jenny…thinks…did.”
“She uncovered something in her mother’s papers?”
“No…says…good…man.”
Joe snorted. “She loved her daddy and doesn’t want to think badly of him. The fact is, not a penny made its way into the house that Josephine didn’t work for.”
“Maybe…turned…down?”
“That would be stupid.”
“Or Mom,” said Daniel. He’d always had issues with his mother, felt that Adam had been the favorite, then Joe. It was true that Joe had an easy rapport with his grandmother, but she’d loved her youngest son despite their difficulties. Some relationships came easy and some—Joe glanced at Adam—some didn’t.
Still, Daniel had a point. Josephine had prided herself on never having gone on welfare to raise her sons and grandson, working long hours rather than surrendering one iota of independence.
She’d been financially comfortable when Joe was sent to live with her—at least that’s what she’d told Adam. In reality, she and Daniel had been living hand to mouth, relying on Joe’s child support checks.
But Adam’s payments had always been erratic, far too dependent on a good catch and far too influenced by his proximity to a bar. Yet Josephine had never suggested Adam quit chasing the big dollar and settle for a regular wage. In his mother’s eyes, her oldest son could do no wrong.
Irritably, Joe flipped through the rest of the album. “Robert Carson should have made Nana Jo accept money.”
“As though anyone could make Josephine Fraser do what she didn’t want to,” said Daniel with as much bitterness as affection.
“Maybe you’re right.” Joe hesitated at a shot of Robert Carson and Billy Fraser. That’s how his grandmother and her lover had met. Robert had been a close friend of her husband. In the picture, both men were in uniform, their arms slung around each other’s shoulders in easy friendship. Billy wore his Medal of Honor. By the condition of the uniforms, the picture had probably been taken after the presentation ceremony. Robert had been one of the men Billy had saved.
How ironic that Billy had survived the war a hero, only to be killed in a car accident. Then his best friend got his widow pregnant.
Joe touched the face of the man he still thought of as his grandfather. Adam had always been so proud of Billy Fraser’s Medal of Honor, only letting Joe help polish it when he was old enough to be awed. Their best times as father and son had been discussing Granddad’s heroics.
Joe shifted uncomfortably. Now Adam was the illegitimate bastard of a torrid affair, with a father who hadn’t cared enough to be part of his life. How must that feel?
Like I felt all my life. Abandoned.
He snapped the album shut and a loose photograph fell onto the carpet. “Care…ful,” growled Adam.
“Yeah, yeah.” Joe bent and picked up the Polaroid, glanced at it, then froze.
“You okay?” said Daniel.
“Fine.” Surreptitiously, Joe pocketed the photograph. “Listen, Sue’s putting on a farewell dinner next week before Aunt Jenny and Uncle Luke fly back to Florida. She wants you to come.”
“Sorry, I’m tied up.”
“I haven’t even told you what night yet.” It occurred to Joe his uncle had been working today; why else would he carry plans and be dressed for a work site on a Sunday? “The dinner’s Thursday.”
Adam spoke. “Jen…wants…know…you.”
Joe took up the argument. “She is your sister and Sue’s your niece.”
“Half sister, half niece.”
“Now you sound like Uncle Sam.” Joe studied Daniel’s intractable expression and added, “He won’t be there, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Daniel gave him the kind of look a lion might give lunch. “Terrified.”
“Kaitlin’s coming. You haven’t seen her in a while.” Good God, he was wheedling. “Don’t make me beg,” he added, “I need you as my wingman. I’m picking up the Carson necklace.” He filled Daniel in on the latest.
“Fine, but this is a once-only. Are we clear?”
Joe nodded.
“Adam?” Daniel turned to his half brother.
Adam gave his noncommittal grunt, but Daniel wasn’t practiced in interpretation and read it as a yes.
Joe glanced at his watch, wondering if Pip had followed instructions and stayed. Given her independence, probably not. Still, the possibility lured him, as irresistible as a worm to a hungry fish.
The fish knew there was a hook in there, but he just couldn’t help himself.
WHEN PIP WOKE UP it was night. The sliding door had been closed and only a sliver of light suggested Joe had returned. Disorientated, she glanced at the clock: 7:00 p.m. She’d slept for eight uninterrupted hours. Sitting up, she felt no nausea, no dizziness. She drank some water from a glass on the bedside table and her stomach rumbled, not in protest, but in hunger.
Turning on the lamp, she opened the slider. The other room was empty, with only one light on, in the entry. Joe wasn’t there.
Yawning, she padded to the bathroom and stopped in the doorway. Joe sat in the three-corner hot tub, arms resting on the rim, head back, eyes closed. For a moment Pip thought he was crying, then realized his face was beaded with water from a recent dunking that had also flattened his hair against his head. But the water wasn’t what misled her; his expression was the saddest she’d ever seen.
Something about him evoked her favorite childhood fairy tale, “The Happy Prince,” about a beautiful statue that cried real tears when he saw the misery of the city at his feet. So he commissioned a sparrow to pluck out his jeweled eyes and strip him of his gold leaf and give i
t away to the needy. But it would never be enough.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, then remembered he’d visited his father after dropping off Kaitlin. “Is it your dad?”
The water sloshed in the tub as he opened his eyes and sat up, forcing a smile. “You’re awake.” Unlike the Happy Prince, this man gave everything away but himself.
“What is it, Joe?” she asked again. “You look so sad.”
“I had a meeting with Adam’s specialist about his slow progress. His prognosis for a full recovery isn’t good.” She’d noticed before that he called his father by his first name.
Joe picked up the washcloth and started soaping his shoulders. “I figured you’d be hungry when you woke up so I ordered some food. Bananas, toast and applesauce seem to be the invalid diet of choice. Incidentally, Michael the hotel manager sends his best wishes. You made quite a hit with him.”
Pip took off her nightgown. His running commentary stopped. She stepped into the tub and sank into the hot water. “Come on in,” said Joe drily, but she’d startled some of the desolation out of his eyes.
“Turn around,” said Pip. “I’ll wash your back.”
With the washcloth and soap she worked on the tense muscles of his shoulders, felt them gradually relax.
“How’s Kaitlin handling it?”
“She doesn’t know. Hell, Adam’s been working so damn hard at therapy, too.” Joe gave a shuddering laugh. “I used the promise of a visit from Kaitlin as an incentive, and now it’s come back to bite me.”
Surprised, Pip stopped the massage. “She doesn’t visit?”
“His speech is impaired, he’s paralyzed down one side. I don’t want her to see him like that. It will frighten her.”
“If you prepared her—”
“Pip…”
Leaning forward, she touched her lips briefly to his wet spine. “Butt out?”
“Yes…no!” He returned to his end of the spa bath and shot her an exasperated look. “You’ve got two minutes to give me your best advice, Counselor, but I reserve the right to ignore it. Go.”