by Joss Wood
“I suppose you’re right.”
He was but this was one time when he didn’t want to be. He wanted to have her, take her and damn the consequences, but he knew that those complications would come back and take a solid chunk out of his emotional ass.
Be smart, Latimore.
“Okay then. If you have a car waiting, let’s not worry about my clothes. I can handle the cold for a few minutes,” Sage told him, cradling her plaster-cast arm.
“Probably, but you’d be a lot more comfortable, and warmer, in yoga pants and a hoodie than in those scratchy scrubs the nurse found for you to wear.”
“I refused a hospital gown.”
Tyce gestured to the sterile, unattractive hospital room. There was less chance of them getting carried away here than there was at her apartment.
“Let’s just get this done.”
Pulling out her clothes from the bag, Tyce stopped to look at her. Her cheekbones were slightly red. They’d discussed this, discussed making love, why was she now embarrassed? Girls could be so weird about their bodies and nudity. “Honey, I have kissed, tasted and explored every inch of you. What’s the problem with me seeing you in your bra and panties?”
Sage’s shoulders lifted up to hover around her ears. “That was sex. This is...I don’t know how to explain it...this is different.”
It was more intimate, Tyce realized. And intimacy scared Sage, as it did him. She liked being in control of what she shared with him and how much of herself she gave him and she was suddenly thrust into a situation where she had to allow him control. Tyce sympathized. He didn’t like losing control either. He dropped a hand onto her shoulder and squeezed before holding up a pair of soft, well-worn yoga pants.
“So, those clothes or these?” he asked in his most businesslike voice.
Sage nodded at her pants. “Those, please.” She started to fiddle with the band of her scrub pants with her left hand, muttering soft curses. “God, it even hurts to stand.”
Tyce dropped to his haunches, whipped her pants down and off, trying to ignore those long, gorgeous legs that had wrapped around his hips, back and neck many times in the past. Ignoring the wave of memories, he slid the yoga pants over her lifted foot and then the other. Just get it done, Latimore. He pulled the stretchy fabric up her legs, standing up to pull the material over her butt. He glanced down and noticed the football-size bruise starting to form on her lower back. “Holy hell, Sage, how hard did you fall?”
“What?”
“You have a hell of a bruise on your butt. That’s why sitting hurts,” Tyce said, reaching for her socks. He quickly put her sneakers on her feet and tied the laces. Standing, he lifted the top half of her scrubs up her torso and gently pulled the shirt over her arm, trying to keep his eyes off her round, firm breasts half covered by a dusky-pink lacy bra that matched the color of her thong. God give him strength! And please, God, make her injuries heal fast; he couldn’t wait to have her under him again... No, wait, that wasn’t on the agenda; that wasn’t part of the plan. The mission was to find a new way of dealing with each other and not to reexplore the missionary position.
Sex, moron, he chided himself, will only add a truckload of complicated to an already convoluted situation. Did you not say that ten minutes ago?
“Are you okay?” Sage asked him as he dropped a long-sleeved T-shirt over her head.
“Not even close,” Tyce muttered under his breath. He picked up her hoodie, threaded her injured arm through the sleeve and frowned at the blank canvas of her plaster cast. “I’m going to have to make that more gangsta.”
“Huh?”
Tyce tapped her cast. “It’s white and boring. We’ll graffiti it up.”
The corners of her mouth tipped up. “It’ll be the most expensive cast in the history of the world. You’d better sign it so that when it’s removed someone can sell it on the net and make a fortune.”
Tyce finished dressing Sage, helped her with her sling and picked up the spare coat he’d brought with him. “Right, let’s bust you out of here.”
Sage took one step, yelped, took another and groaned. Not bothering to ask her, he picked her up and held her against his chest, his temple against her head. “Better?”
“Much,” Sage murmured as her good arm encircled his neck. “Though they are going to insist on a wheelchair, hospital policy.”
“They can insist until the air turns blue, I’m not letting you go,” Tyce told her, walking in the hallway.
I’m not letting you go.
Why did that statement resonate with him? Tyce couldn’t understand why that particular order of words made deep, fundamental sense. This was the problem with being around Sage, he thought, and the reason why he’d backed away all those years ago. With her, strange thoughts and concepts popped into his head.
Keeping her, he fiercely, and silently, told himself, wasn’t an option, not then and not now. He liked his own company, liked the freedom of not being tied down to a woman, a place, city or town. If he wanted to he could leave New York and go to Delhi or Djibouti; he could go anywhere. Lachlyn would be fine. He would sell or rent his space and he could take off. He could only do that because he was free of commitments; he didn’t have another person to consider, someone else’s feelings and wishes to take into account.
He wouldn’t have to explain...
Maybe when Sage was back to full strength, he’d backpack for a couple of months. He could travel, only coming home a week or two before the baby was due to be born.
But then, he thought as he lowered Sage into the back seat of the waiting taxi, he’d miss seeing Sage’s tummy grow with life, would miss the ultrasound scans, the doctor’s visits. Could he do that? Could he leave?
He so badly wanted to say yes, to be convinced that she would be fine, but uncertainty twisted his stomach, his gut instinct insisting that he wasn’t going anywhere, that he was going to see this process through.
So no Delhi or Djibouti then. That was okay, Tyce thought as he took the seat next to Sage. He could deal.
* * *
Much later that afternoon Sage’s eyes fluttered open and she pulled in the familiar scent of her apartment... She was home, in a bed. Rolling over, she yelped. Every inch of her body was sore, from the back of her head to her shoulders, her damned tailbone, her legs. Her wrist throbbed. Glancing down at her cast, she sucked in an astonished gasp. Her plaster cast was no longer white but filled with miniature portraits, all wickedly accurate. Linc, Jaeger, Beck, Jo, Connor—God, Connor’s picture looked so like him, his patrician face wearing a huge smile. Tyce had sketched her nephews, her niece. Her brother’s partners. She could see that they’d been drawn quickly but, quick or not, they were fantastic. It was another reminder that Tyce was phenomenally talented...
“I was bored.”
Sage’s eyes shot up to see Tyce leaning against the half wall that separated the spare bedroom from the rest of the apartment. Uncomfortable with Tyce carrying her up the narrow staircase to her bedroom, she’d told him she’d be fine in the spare.
She immediately noticed the smudges of charcoal on his white T-shirt and faded jeans. Sage traced the outline of Connor’s face with her finger, happy to see that the lines didn’t blur. “They are fantastic. How did you seal them to stop them from smudging?”
“There was a tin of clear lacquer under your workbench.” Tyce shrugged. “Thanks to your obsession with framing photographs, I managed to get them all.”
“They are amazing. How long did they take you to do?”
Tyce shrugged. “Not long. I would’ve been quicker but you kept distracting me.”
She distracted him? How on earth? “I was asleep when you did this!” she protested.
“You’ve always been beautiful but I’d never watched you sleep before. You’re simply stunning,” Tyce said, sounding utterly sincere.
&nbs
p; Sexual awareness arced between them and Sage pushed her fingers into her hair, thinking that it felt odd to wake up with someone in her home. She felt a little self-conscious, a tiny bit awkward but, mostly, having Tyce in her apartment made her feel protected, cared for. Safe.
Safe? Not possible, Sage thought. She hadn’t felt safe for years, not truly safe, not since before her parents were alive. She was misreading what she was feeling; she had to be because safe wasn’t something she expected to feel, would allow herself to feel, ever again.
Either way, it was time she stopped.
Sage rolled onto her back and winced, using her good arm to push up. In a flash Tyce was at her side, strong arms helping her up the bed so that she could lean against her headboard. He disappeared into the bathroom and came back with a glass of water and two pills. “Acetaminophen—they’ll take the edge off.”
“Thanks.” Sage took the pills, threw them into her mouth and chased them down with a long pull of water. Right, it was time to take back control. She needed her home back, some distance between her and whatever she was feeling for Tyce.
“I appreciate you bringing me home from the hospital, for watching out for me, but it’s time for you to go.”
Tyce just lifted one dark eyebrow in response. “No.”
Sage glared at him. This was her apartment; he was here only because she allowed it. “Tyce, I don’t like having people in my space, in my face.”
“I don’t either but—” Tyce shrugged “—tough.” He pointed at her stomach. “In less than six months we’re both going to have a new person in our lives—a very demanding creature if I understand the process correctly. So maybe we should try to, and get used to, the notion of sharing space so that we don’t die from shock.”
Sage’s mouth dropped open. What was happening? She was trying to push him away but he wasn’t budging. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go! When she pushed people away, most people were polite enough to give her the distance she needed.
Not Tyce.
Then again, she was quite convinced that God broke the mold after Tyce was born. One of him, she was pretty sure, was all the world, and she, could handle.
What could she say to make him leave?
“I’m going to be around for a few days so...you might as well get used to it.”
Crap.
Tyce continued speaking, utterly at ease. “So, while you were sleeping, I answered what felt like a million calls from your family.” Tyce took her empty glass and placed it on the bedside table. He sat down on the side of the bed, lifting his knee up onto her comforter, and resting his hand on the far side of her leg. His other hand gripped her thigh. “I don’t normally talk to that many people in a month, let alone in an afternoon.”
She was trying to keep up with the conversation, she really was, but his hand on her leg turned her brain to mush.
Sage could feel the size and shape, the heat of it through the covers and her yoga pants. If his hand moved a little up, and a little in, he’d find her happy spot—
Aargh! Really?
Sage mentally gave herself a head punch and pulled her focus back to their conversation. “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. You were never chatty.”
“Oh, I can mingle and make small talk when I need to, although it’s very dependent on whether I want to. I don’t often want, or need, to.”
“And, let’s face it, people like your surly and brooding attitude. It’s, apparently, sexy,” Sage muttered.
“Only apparently?” Tyce murmured, leaning forward, his eyes on her mouth. Sage’s breath caught and held as he moved closer and her heart rate inched upward. He hovered just above her, prolonging the anticipation, and then his mouth met hers in a kiss as seductive as it was sweet. There was passion in his kiss, but it was banked, restrained. This kiss was designed to give comfort, to rediscover, to seduce.
It wasn’t a kiss she’d received from Tyce before and Sage didn’t know how to respond. She wanted to urge him to deepen it, to take more, to stoke the fire but she also didn’t want the sweetness of this kiss to end. It was pure seduction, totally charming. And over far too soon. Tyce lifted his mouth off hers and leaned back, his black eyes glinting in the low light of the room. Sage was surprised to see the fine tremor in the hand he put back on her thigh.
“Seeing you fall... You scared the crap out of me, Sage.”
Her words had deserted her so Sage just nodded, unable to drop her eyes from the emotional thunderstorm in his eyes. It was the first time she’d seen Tyce without his reticent cloak, his barriers. There was so much emotion in those dark depths that it made her breath hitch, her heart rate accelerate.
Her hand lifted to touch his face. She longed to run her hands down his big biceps, to pull his shirt up and feel the definition in his chest. She wanted to crawl inside him, explore that steel-trap mind, his creative genius, peek into his soul. Tyce made her forget to keep her distance; he tempted her in ways that petrified her.
It was time to step back... Way back.
“So, the phone calls,” she said, her voice curt.
At her prosaic words, his shields came up. “Everyone said they would come over tonight to check up on you, so instead of them arriving in dribs and drabs, I told Linc to tell them to come around after work and to stay for dinner.”
Sage nodded, resigned. Sure, they were worried about her but she knew that her brothers wanted another chance to check up on Tyce, to see if he was treating her right and to, possibly, drop another threat or two in his ear.
One day they’d wake up and realize that Tyce marched to the beat of his own drum and didn’t really care what they thought.
Sage ran a hand over her face, pain pounding through her head and her tailbone and her arm in symphony. “They’ll want food and I don’t have much in the fridge. I’ll have to order in.”
Tyce squeezed her thigh to get her attention. “I made a chicken casserole and there’s more than enough for everybody.”
Sage frowned at him. “You cook?”
“I do.”
“Since when?”
“Since I was a kid and the only way to get a good meal into my stomach, and more important, into Lachlyn’s, was to learn,” Tyce shot back and immediately looked annoyed that he’d allowed something so personal to slip.
Sage knew that he didn’t want to pursue this conversation but since he’d opened the door, she was going to walk through it. She was just...doing a background check on him, she told herself. Finding out information about her baby’s father.
Pffft. Even she didn’t believe the garbage she was thinking! The truth was that Tyce fascinated her. And, yet again, she was venturing where she shouldn’t go.
Oh, well...
“Where was your mom? Didn’t she feed you?”
“When she felt well enough to do so,” Tyce replied, standing up. That action and his closed-off face was a sign—billboard high and painted in neon—that he wasn’t discussing his past anymore. Or again.
“Was she sick?”
Tyce stared at the abstract painting above her head and he eventually shrugged. “She suffered from depression. There were days when she wouldn’t get up off the floor, when she’d rock herself for hours. Most days, she managed to work—just—but when she got home she’d collapse into a nonresponsive heap. If I didn’t look after myself, feed myself, and Lachlyn when she came along, we didn’t eat. It was... Yeah, it was tough.”
“Where is she now? Is she...” Sage hesitated, keeping her voice neutral, knowing that she had to be careful how she framed her questions. If she was too blasé she’d sound callous; if she came across as being too sympathetic Tyce would immediately stop talking. “...still alive?”
“She died from a bout of pneumonia a long time ago.”
Sage pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m so sorry, Tyce.”
When he looked around the room, Sage knew that he was trying to change the subject. She wasn’t surprised. Tyce had told her more in ten minutes than he’d shared the entire time they’d been together three years ago. He resumed his seat next to her on the bed and picked a curl up off her cheek and pushed it behind her ear. “I keep looking at that photo of the red diamond flower ring. It’s amazing. It’s your time to spill. Tell me about it and tell me why you didn’t want it displayed at the exhibition.”
And this was the price she had to pay: she’d peeked under the lid of his Pandora’s box and he thought he could do the same. Damn the person who’d invented the concept of tit for tat.
Sage sighed, pushed the rest of her wayward hair behind her ears and looked at a spot behind his head. She eventually looked at him again. “How much do you know about red diamonds?”
“Not much. That they are rare? That they are phenomenally expensive?”
Sage nodded. “There are only around twenty to thirty true red diamonds in the world and most are less than half a carat. My father was, like Jaeger, a gem hunter and my mom often accompanied him on his trips. He bought that diamond from a Brazilian farmer and it’s, as far as we know, the largest red diamond in the world. It was his biggest find, ever, and I remember how excited they, and Connor, were. My mom assumed that the stone would be sold but my dad wanted to give it to my mom to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary. Connor designed and made the ring. The flower petals represent each of her children.”
Tyce frowned. “There are four petals but only three of you.”
Sadness passed through Sage’s expressive eyes. “My mom was pregnant with her fourth child when she died.”
Tyce swore and rubbed a hand over his face. He then slipped his hand around the back of her neck and he rested his forehead against hers. “Now it’s my turn to say I’m sorry.”
Sage managed a small smile. “One of my clearest memories is of her looking at that stone, holding it up to the light, a soft smile on her face. She was utterly entranced by it. She would’ve loved the ring.” A small laugh left her lips. “The stone was worth millions and millions but my father was prepared to give it to my mother because she loved it so much. They were like that, you know. People before things, before money.”