Hired by Her Husband (8 page)

Crossing the room quickly, before she could have second thoughts, she bent down, dropped a nanosecond-long kiss on George’s lips, then stepped back, smiling and, she dared to hope, unscathed.

“Good night, George,” she said firmly, turned and flicked out the light.

“Not much of a kiss,” he said.

She kept on going, refusing to be baited further as she tried not to notice that her lips were tingling ever so slightly.

“Sweet dreams, Sophy.” His voice drifted after her as she headed down the hall to the stairs,

Shut up, George,
she thought silently, scrubbing her fingers
against her mouth, assuring herself that whatever she was feeling had nothing to do with kissing him.

It was just because…because…

Well, she didn’t know. She couldn’t think what else might have caused it, and fortunately she didn’t have to because just then her mobile phone rang.

It was a local number, but one she didn’t recognize. “Hello?”

“Sophy? It’s Tallie. I couldn’t reach George on his cell phone. So I called the hospital and they said
his wife
had taken him home.” His sister sounded surprised to say the least.

“It wasn’t my idea,” Sophy protested. Then she explained what the doctor had told them. “He wouldn’t let George go unless someone came with him. So George hired me.”

“Hired
you?”

“Well, that’s what he called it,” Sophy said. “Don’t worry, I’m not letting him pay me. I owe him, so I’m returning the favor and paying him back.”

“I’m sure George doesn’t think of it that way.”

Sophy was hard-pressed to articulate what George thought. All he did was confuse her—and try to run her life.

“At least you’re staying! That’s wonderful. We’ll have you over. Of course Lily will be coming. When?”

It was a given that she would be staying long enough for her daughter to come as well, Sophy noted.

“On Saturday,” she said. “My cousin is bringing her.”

“Great. We’ll have you over. Elias can grill. Or if George can’t do that much yet, we’ll bring food and come by your place.”

“His place,” Sophy corrected. “He’s still pretty battered,” she felt compelled to say. “He needs calm and quiet right now.”

“We’ll wait until you say you’re ready then,” Tallie decided. “This is such good news,” she went on eagerly. “Wait till the folks hear.”

“No!” Sophy said quickly and more forcefully than she should have. “I mean, they’re a long way away. You don’t want to tell them about George’s accident. They’ll worry. And I don’t want you telling them I’m here, either,” she said firmly.

There was a pause, as if Tallie’s thoughts had finally caught up with the eager wheels turning in her brain. “Yes,” she agreed, suitably subdued. “You’re probably right. Better not say anything until it’s settled.”

“Tallie!” Sophy protested. “This is not a reconciliation. I’m here for the short-term. I live in California. George lives here. We’re getting divorced.”

“You could change your mind.” Tallie wasn’t going to give up.

“Good night, Tallie,” Sophy said firmly. “I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day.”

She took a quick shower, then put on the elongated T-shirt she’d brought to sleep in, brushed her teeth, washed her face and had just turned back the duvet on the bed when her phone rang again.

Again it was a local number, but not the same one. Surely Tallie wouldn’t be calling her back to continue the conversation on another phone. No. Tallie was determined, but she would know when to back off.

George?

Sophy felt her heart quicken. But she hadn’t given him her number. She probably should have, she realized, so he could call her if he needed her.

She punched the talk button. “This is Sophy.”

“Hey, it’s Sam.” She could actually hear him smiling.

And while she liked him and had felt comfortable with him, she felt herself stiffen. Was he, as George had suspected, calling her up to hit on her?

“Hi,” she said cautiously.

“Checking on my patient,” Sam said. “Figured I’d get a straighter answer from you than from him.”

Sophy breathed again, feeling foolish. “He’s alive. Grumpy. Annoying. I took the dog for a walk at one point and while I was gone he went downstairs to his office to work.”

“You’re going to have to keep an eye on him.”

“I will,” Sophy said, feeling guilty.

“Tonight. All night.”

“What do you mean, all night?”

“If he were at the hospital, he’d be on monitors. And he’d have someone awake and checking on him regularly. You don’t need to be awake, but you do need to wake up and check on him regularly. And you need to be right there.”

“There?” Sophy said warily.

“Wherever he is.”

“In bed.”

“Perfect. Wake him every couple of hours. Make him talk to you. Be sure he makes sense. Call me if there are any problems. Do what you have to do.”

And just like that, Sam was gone.

Sophy stood there and stared at the phone in her hand, feeling a strange compelling urge to throw it across the room. Then she felt another urge to pretend she hadn’t got the call at all, to just crawl into bed and forget it. She could set her travel alarm and go up and check on George every couple of hours like Sam said.

Yes, and what if he needed her?

He wouldn’t call her. Not if he needed her. He was too bloody-minded to admit he needed help. But what if he really did?

“Oh, blast,” she muttered and, pulling on her lightweight travel robe, then dragging the duvet and her pillow with her, she climbed the stairs to George’s room.

It was dark. It was silent. He was probably sound asleep.

She hoped to God he was. She padded over to the near side of the bed and began to make herself a nest on the floor.

“What the hell are you doing?”

So much for him being asleep. She kept right on making her nest. Gunnar came over to see what she was doing. “I’m sleeping here.”

“On the floor?” George rolled onto his side and peered down through the darkness at her. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Sam called. He said I’m supposed to stay with you. Keep an eye on you,” she corrected herself immediately.

“Did he?” George sounded all of a sudden in far better humor. “Good old Sam.”

Sophy snorted. “Right. Good old Sam.” She sat down on the duvet. It had felt warm and fluffy on top of her on the bed. It felt flat and thin between her and the floor. At least she’d be awake to wake him up.

“Don’t be an idiot. Get up here and share the bed.”

“I’m fine.” She wrapped the duvet around her and snuggled down with her head on her pillow. Gunnar stuck his nose down and poked her cheek. She reached out a hand and scratched his ear.

“Sophy.”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Like I was fine climbing all those damn stairs.”

“Exactly.” She kept her back turned and snuggled farther down. Damn this floor was hard.

George said a rude word and Sophy heard the bed creak. She ignored it. She ignored him—until she realized he had got up and was dragging the duvet off his bed and throwing it down on the floor beside her.

She rolled over and sat up in the darkness to see his white T-shirt in the moonlight as he eased himself off the bed and down onto the floor beside her!

“What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

White shoulders shrugged. “Being as stupid as you are.” He stretched out on the crumpled duvet. “Which is pretty damn stupid,” he muttered. “God, this floor is hard.”

Sophy grunted. “Then get on the bed. You need to be on the bed, George.”

“It’s up to you,” he said.

She glared. She grumbled. She wished she could just say,
Fine, stay there,
and let him be as uncomfortable as she was. But she doubted that was what Sam had had in mind when he’d said to keep an eye on George tonight.

“And here you are again, making me do what you think is best for me,” she pointed out.

“And sometimes I’m even right,” he said mildly.

Which, damn it, was actually true.

“Fine.” She flung back her duvet and scrambled to her feet, flung her duvet onto his bed and plopped down on top of it to glare at him, which might have been more effective if she could really have seen him and not just the shape of him in the darkness.

“Ah, sanity rears its ugly head.” George grunted and tried to shove himself up as well. It was harder for him. Served him right, Sophy thought. But then guilt smote her. He was only in this shape because he’d saved a child’s life, because he’d put his own life on the line.

“Give me your hand.” She offered hers.

Immediately he gripped it, his long hard fingers wrapping around hers as he tried to lever himself up. It was more complicated that she imagined. He didn’t have his boot on, so had to be careful of his ankle as well as his shoulder.

“I can’t believe you did this.” She shifted to get a better grip, had to move in to slide an arm around him to get enough leverage to get him to his feet. “Of all the stupid—”

“Your fault,” he reminded her. But as she could hear the words hissing through clenched teeth, she didn’t think he was enjoying it.

Neither was she. Having her arm around George’s hard body, being so close she could smell the hospital soap, the disinfectant and something male that she remembered as quintessentially George unnerved her more than she wanted to admit. She shoved, hauled, hoisted.

And at last he stumbled to his feet.

“Don’t do that again.” His arm was over her shoulders and hers, still wrapped around him, allowed her to feel the thundering of his heart.

“I won’t if you won’t,” he said, a catch in his breath.

She didn’t answer that. It didn’t merit a reply. Wordlessly she edged him over to the bed. He sat. Gunnar put his chin on George’s knee. Sophy picked up his duvet and spread it over the bed, then pulled it back so he could lie down.

Then, because she knew he’d just do something stupid again if she didn’t get in bed, too, she went around and slid beneath the duvet on the far side. There had to be at least two feet separating them. Plenty as long as they were awake.

But asleep she didn’t trust herself.

Like Lily, she had a homing instinct for the nearest warm body. And she didn’t want to wake up and find herself in George’s arms.

“Told you it was a big bed,” George said gruffly.

But not big enough, Sophy thought. “Gunnar,” she said. “Here, Gunnar.”

It didn’t take any urging. In a second she felt the bed move and Gunnar’s black form appeared, looming in the moonlight, looking up at them from the foot of the bed.

“For God’s sake,” George muttered.

“You’ve never let him on the bed? Oh, right. Tell me another.” Sophy patted the space between them, and Gunnar instantly obliged, lying down there and heaving a contented sigh.

George made a disgruntled huffing sound.

“Just be glad you’re home,” Sophy said. “You could still be in the hospital.”

“Promises, promises.”

“If you want to go back, I’ll call Sam.”

“I’ll bet Sam wouldn’t think much of the dog in my bed.”

Sophy smiled. “Sam said to do what I had to do. I’m just following instructions. Good night, George. I’ll wake you in a couple of hours. Wake me if you need anything.”

She rolled onto her side away from him. Away from Gunnar. It was the best she could do. She wondered if she would get a wink of sleep before it was time to wake him again.

It was a shock the next time she opened her eyes to see that it was morning and worse to discover that the warm body she was snuggled against wasn’t covered with black fur.

G
EORGE KNEW THE MOMENT
Sophy woke up.

Her breathing changed tenor. And as she realized where she was, her muscles tensed, her body stiffened. And then her eyes flicked open with something akin to horror.

He steeled himself against giving a damn. “He left,” he said, refusing to apologize, refusing to pull back, or make any effort at all to untangle their limbs. Yes, no doubt he would regret it later. But right now he wasn’t sorry. And right now he was staying right where he was.

“He?” There was an infinitesimal pause while she computed that, and then realized who he was talking about. “Gunnar.” And as she said his name, Sophy was already moving, pulling away, putting space between them.

George didn’t hold on to her. He let her go as if it didn’t matter to him in the least.

“What time is it?” Sophy demanded. She jerked up to a sitting position and raked her fingers through her long tangled hair, making his fingers itch to do the same thing.

While she’d slept, he’d breathed in the crisp fresh scent of her shampoo, the scent of Sophy herself, and when several long, silken strands of hair had fallen across her face he’d been unable to help himself, and had stroked it slowly back. His hand had lingered, wanting to let his fingers play in her hair, to bury his nose in the silky tresses.

“It’s a little before eight.” George nodded at the clock on the dresser across the room.

Sophy glared at it as if it had let her down. “I was supposed to wake you up during the night!”

She scrambled out of the bed now and shot another hard accusatory look at Gunnar. He’d been curled up on the area rug. But now, seeing Sophy up and moving, he got up and stretched and wagged his tail at her.

“I can’t believe I slept all night.”

“You were tired,” George said. “You said you hadn’t slept much on the plane. You needed your rest. And you must have been comfortable,” he suggested.

Now the glare focused on him. She didn’t reply, either. She gave her head a little shake, as if she was still trying to make sense of what had happened. Then she shrugged, folding her arms across her chest, denying him the view of her breasts braless beneath the extra-long T-shirt she had slept in.

It still gave him a nice view of her legs halfway up her thighs, though, so he wasn’t complaining. He studied them, remembering the sleek smoothness of those legs when they’d tangled with his. Desire had stirred then. It hadn’t entirely disappeared now.

Sophy followed his gaze, realized what he was looking at and abruptly bolted out of the room.

“Damn it,” George said mildly as she pounded down the stairs. He looked at the dog, who was watching him. “When she comes back she’s going to be all proper and bossy,” he said.

Gunnar came over to the bed and poked George with his nose. George in turn scratched him behind his ears. It was part of their morning routine. Life hadn’t been exactly routine since Sophy had shown up.

“Thanks for leaving last night,” George said to the dog. “Appreciate it,” he added, as if Gunnar had done it on purpose.

Well, probably he had, because once George was sure Sophy was asleep, he had lain there periodically tapping the dog on the foot.

Gunnar didn’t like his feet messed with. He twitched them. He shifted. And, finally, just as George hoped he would, Gunnar got up and jumped down onto the rug beside the bed. Then, unless Sophy’s sleep habits had changed, it was just a matter of waiting.

George had waited.

He was used to waiting. With Sophy he felt as if he’d been waiting forever. In fact he was so tired that he fell asleep waiting.

But sometime in the middle of the night he woke up to discover Sophy was curled against him. Her arm lay across his waist, her face was pressed against his shoulder. And if he turned his head, he could touch her hair with his lips.

If?

No “if” about it. He turned to her instinctively. And when she had kept right on sleeping, he’d stroked her hair, had pressed his lips to her jaw, had even allowed himself a lingering kiss on her forehead.

Why not? Self-preservation was highly overrated.

But lying here now thinking about what else he would have liked to have done with Sophy was a bigger exercise in frustration than he wanted to endure. So he dragged himself up, got out of bed and hobbled across the room and got out clean underwear, khakis and a shirt.

It was a struggle to dress. Getting the T-shirt over his head was tricky because his shoulder was painful. Still, when he moved his head, the anvil in it didn’t feel as if it were being pounded quite so vigorously. And while his bruises were a Technicolor marvel, they weren’t worse. Once he put on a long-sleeve shirt most of them wouldn’t be visible.

Nevertheless, by the time he was zipping up his khakis, his head was spinning a bit, and when he hobbled into the
bathroom to shave, he ended up gripping the edge of the countertop so he didn’t fall over.

He didn’t feel like shaving, but the two-plus days of dark stubble on his jaw and cheeks were not a pretty sight. So he ran the hot-water tap and leaned against the countertop while he waited for it to heat up. Gradually the spinning in his head slowed down, the water was hot enough to shave and he began lathering his face.

He had the razor against his jaw when a voice behind him said, “What are you doing?”

In the mirror he could see Sophy, dressed now, looking just as prim and proper as he’d told Gunnar she would be, staring at him. He applied the razor before he answered. “Guess.”

She pressed her lips together as if he were doing it to annoy her. He wasn’t, and she must have realized it because she said, “Be careful you don’t fall over.” And she turned away to start straightening up his bed. “You’ll be ready to lie down again when you’ve finished.”

Judging from the way the anvil banger was picking up the tempo inside his head, George was pretty sure she was right. Not that it mattered. “I have to teach an eleven o’clock class,” he told her through barely moving lips.

She swung around and met his gaze in the mirror again. “Teach? Don’t be ridiculous. You need to go back to bed, not teach a class.”

He didn’t answer, just turned his gaze back to the job at hand. His fingers were none too steady. At the rate he was going he could cut his throat. He slowed the stroke of his razor. His head was starting to spin again. He wanted desperately to finish up and sit down. But he was damned if he was going to hurry, and damned if he would stop and rest while Sophy was hovering. Instead he leaned his weight against the sink.

“The world will stop if you don’t teach your class?” Sophy said sarcastically.

“It’s my job.”

“Ah, yes. Duty. Responsibility.” She twitched the duvet, flipping it up and letting it settle over his mattress. Her eyes shot sparks at him.

George tried to remain steady and upright. “You don’t believe in them?”

“Of course I believe in them. But I also believe in sanity and common sense. Don’t you?”

He started to grit his teeth but it hurt his head. “I’m only standing in front of a class. I’m not herding cattle or climbing ladders or jackhammering up the pavement.”

“And you think it’s that important that you go?” She met his gaze levelly. Her tone wasn’t sarcastic now, but it did have its share of challenge.

“It wouldn’t be the end of the world if I didn’t, but I can be there, so I should be there. It’s a matter of example,” he explained. He expected her to scoff, but she didn’t.

She pressed her lips together in a thin line. Her mouth worked and he could tell that whatever she was thinking, it wasn’t cheerful. Then she sighed. “Fine. If you don’t cut your throat shaving before it’s time to go, we’ll catch a cab.”

He paused the razor halfway down his cheek. “We? What do you mean, we?”

Sophy shrugged. “If you’re going, I’m going with you. It’s my job.”

She didn’t know the first thing about George’s work.

He was a physicist. She knew that. And now he taught physics, according to Tallie, at Columbia University. He had had lots of offers, his sister said, but he’d taken this one two years ago after his appointment in Sweden ended.

“I guess he had reasons to come back to New York,” Tallie had said, watching Sophy for a reaction.

But Sophy couldn’t think why he would have bothered other than his parents and his sister were nearby. She certainly
wasn’t. When she left their marriage, she’d left New York. And he hadn’t taught physics when she was married to him.

He’d done something with physics. But heaven knew what. Sophy certainly didn’t. He hadn’t told
her.

Ari had always said George was brilliant. Sophy knew he had a Ph.D. And the first time she’d met Socrates, George’s father, when arrangements were being made for their wedding, he had made a point of telling her that George was highly sought after. He had, according to Socrates, a new job offer at a university in Sweden that he was expecting to take a few months after their marriage.

George had brushed off Sophy’s questions about it. “It’s not important,” he’d said at the time.

It had been important to Sophy. If he had been serious about their marriage—about making it real—he would have shared that with her. It had to do with their future, after all.

But in fact he’d brushed off all her questions, not only about his new job offer, but about what he did, period, making Sophy feel out of line asking anything—as if she were intruding where she had no right.

And as far as what he taught, well, he probably had considered her too stupid to understand anyway.

It had not been a good feeling.

Maybe she
was
too stupid. Certainly physics was a far cry from early childhood education, which was what she had majored in. Well, if she was over her head, she’d simply sit there and watch him being brilliant.

Because she was going to class with him, whether he liked it or not.

George didn’t argue with her. And that, more than anything, proved to her how very unlike himself he still was. He looked pained at her insistence. But he didn’t tell her no. He said, “Whatever,” through barely moving lips and went back to shaving.

His sullen acquiescence was all it took to convince her that
she was absolutely doing the right thing by going along—provided he didn’t see sense and stay home in the meantime.

“I’ll make some breakfast,” she said. “Gunnar’s been out once. Shall I walk him?”

“If you want. I usually take him to the park in the morning,” George told her. “Dogs are allowed off-leash in Central Park until nine. But it’s okay if he misses a day or two. You can take him this evening…”

At least he didn’t entertain the notion that he was going to be able to do that.

“Come on, then,” Sophy said to Gunnar. “We’ll take a quick run now. Then we’ll fix breakfast. Maybe your master will have seen sense by the time we get back.” Gunnar began to bounce eagerly, obviously understanding every word she said.

George snorted and went back to shaving.

But Sophy had seen how heavily he was leaning against the sink, and she knew he was bullheaded enough to fall over before he would sit down and rest while she was standing there.

“Men are idiots,” she said to Gunnar as they went down the stairs together.

The dog didn’t disagree.

They went for a fifteen-minute run. When they got back, she fixed scrambled eggs and toast and put out cereal as well, not sure what George would want, just using what he had in the refrigerator.

She’d been back nearly half an hour and had the table set in the dining room by the time George came downstairs As she worked, she told herself it was just like the early days of Rent-a-Wife when she didn’t just do the administration but actually went out into houses and performed wifely duties as required.

Though most of her meal preparation had been dinners, more than a few times she’d been called into a house with a
new baby where she’d been in charge of taking care of getting breakfast ready and the older kids off to school.

“It’s just like that,” she told Gunnar, feeling calm and professional.

But the minute George appeared in the doorway to the dining room things weren’t businesslike and impersonal anymore.

And seeing him now, leaning heavily on his crutches, his smooth-shaven jaw nicked here and there with tiny razor cuts, his dark brows drawn down, the normally healthy-looking color in his cheeks now pale and strained, Sophy felt a desperate urge to run to him, to touch him, to fuss over him.

Good thing she would have had to leap the kitchen bar between them to do anything so foolish.

Clutching the edge of the countertop to anchor herself right where she stood, Sophy pasted a smile on her face. “Ah, you made it. Good. Breakfast is ready.” She gestured toward the table where she’d set a place for him.

She imagined he usually ate at the bar separating the modern kitchen from the rather more formal dining area. But she didn’t want him looming over her from the bar while she was working in the kitchen.

“I don’t eat there,” he said brusquely.

“You do today.”

He shook his head. “No. It’s much easier to get up and down from a bar stool than a chair at a table.”

Sophy scowled, studied the situation, then sighed, annoyed that he was right. So she moved his place setting to the bar and relaid it all out for him. “All right now?” she said shortly.

“Yes, thanks.” And damned if he didn’t give her a smile.

George was not normally a smiler. He was far too serious, too intense. His usual expression was grave and made it hard to imagine a lighter-hearted, swoon-worthy George.

So when he did smile, it was very nearly heart-stopping. At least it always had been to Sophy.

She remembered how serious he had been when the nurse had first placed tiny minutes-old Lily in his arms. He’d looked somewhere between wooden and terrified. But then Lily had looked up at him—had tried to focus her eyes on him—and instinctively her tiny fingers had wrapped around one of his. And George had smiled such a smile!

No! Sophy spun away from the memory and jerked open the refrigerator door.