That kind of mindless bliss couldn’t last for long. Maybe it could for some people but definitely not for her. Eventually little prickles of worry started to pierce the cloud of satisfaction. Slowly they intensified and expanded until the prickles became a full-fledged panic.
She sat up abruptly, sucking in a ragged breath.
Carter’s eyes had been closed and his breathing slow and even, but he lifted his head at her motion. “You okay?”
She forced a casual smile. “Yeah. Just need to pee.”
She didn’t. It hadn’t been very long since she’d gone earlier. What she needed was to escape for a minute.
“Okay.” He watched her until she got out of bed, pulled down her gown, and limped into the bathroom.
There, she sat on the toilet and tried to breathe slowly, talking herself down from the flare of fear.
She’d made herself completely vulnerable with Carter just now. As vulnerable as she’d ever been in her life. And it wasn’t because of the sexual activity or the particular position she’d been in or how much control over her body he’d had. It wasn’t because of the accident or the concussion or her physical weakness.
It was her heart.
Her heart was completely vulnerable to him, and somehow what had happened between them just now had made that perfectly clear.
She loved him.
She’d tried not to. She’d been telling herself not to fall for him for two and a half months. She’d been telling herself that she wasn’t his type, that he’d never love her back. She’d been telling herself that they’d both been having a good time and that was all it could ever be.
But she’d done it anyway.
She’d stupidly fallen in love.
Which meant she needed him now in every way.
He might finally be recovered from his heartbreak over Summer. He might even have realized that what he’d felt for her wasn’t what he thought. Ruth hoped that was true, for his sake more than her own. But that didn’t mean he was available to her now any more than he’d ever been.
Love disappointed you. At least that was what it had always done to Ruth. And her intense desire to tell Carter of her feelings for him would only lead to the worst disappointment of her life.
It would put him on the spot. It would make him feel bad, guilty. It would destroy all the good things that were real about their relationship.
If he felt the same way, he would say something.
There had to be a limit to how much of herself she exposed to him, how vulnerable she allowed herself to be.
With that resolved in her mind, she flushed the toilet, washed her hands and face, and brushed her teeth. Then she returned to the bedroom.
Carter was still lying on his side, his head on the pillow and his eyes focused on her. She walked back to the bed and sat down on the edge, taking a couple of gulps of water from the bottle on the bedside table.
“Come back to bed, Ruth,” Carter murmured when she put down the bottle and didn’t move.
“I should get up.” She felt heavy. And suddenly so exhausted she could barely keep her eyes open.
“Why?”
“It’s Monday morning. I’ve got work to do. I’m supposed to meet Mrs. Lopez about her master suite at ten.”
“I’m sure Mrs. Lopez would be happy to reschedule. You were in a car accident yesterday. You have a concussion. She’s going to understand.”
“I feel okay today.”
“You don’t look okay. You look pale. Maybe we shouldn’t have done that earlier. It was too much for you.”
She wasn’t looking at him—she couldn’t—but she could hear the worried frown in his tone. “I’m fine. I really am. I’m just tired.”
“So then come back to bed.” He tugged gently on her arm.
She tried to resist but couldn’t. With a soft sigh, she let him pull her back into a reclining position and pull the covers back over them both. He didn’t take her in his arms this time, but he was close, and he was watching her. “Maybe I’ll see if she can reschedule.”
“Yes.” He reached over to stroke her messy hair back from her face. “You were in a car accident. It’s really okay to reschedule.”
Ruth closed her eyes and took another deep breath, blowing it out slowly. “Shouldn’t you be getting up? Aren’t you usually in the office long before seven?”
“Yes.”
When he didn’t move, Ruth turned her head to see what he was doing. “Are you going to go in late?”
“I’m not sure I’m going to go in at all.”
“What? Really?”
He gave a faint shrug. “I don’t have any important meetings today. Just tedious stuff at my desk. I’m exhausted. The only time off I’ve taken this year besides holidays was my pitiful drunken binge last winter. I can probably take a day.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “You can definitely take a day. You’ve got to be exhausted too.”
“I am.” His brown eyes were very dark in the dim light of the room. Soft and searching and tired. “You okay?”
“I’m okay. I’m going to text Mrs. Lopez. Then I might go back to sleep.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Ruth reached for her phone, sent the text, and then curled up on her side. She faced away from Carter since she was feeling emotional again, which meant she couldn’t be sure what might come babbling out of her mouth.
Her strategic position didn’t actually work. Carter had sent a text message from his phone too, and then he moved against her back, spooning her from behind.
She let him. She wanted him to. And she was just barely able to keep the swell of emotion from spilling out into words until she went to sleep.
THEY SLEPT LATE. IT was well after ten when Ruth finally got up and took a shower. She didn’t have many clothes over there, but a couple of weeks ago she’d left a pair of soft fleece pajamas, so she changed into those since she wasn’t planning to go anywhere anytime soon.
Carter had gotten up when she had, and he’d obviously had similar ideas about appropriate clothes for the day. He came out of his room, wearing sweats and a long-sleeved T-shirt from their old high school.
“You look very cozy,” he said with a smile as his eyes ran up and down her body.
She gave him a half-hearted scowl. “So do you.”
“I’m planning to lie around and do nothing all day.”
“Me too.”
“Good.” He pulled her into a soft hug. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”
When they got downstairs, Mrs. Wilson was bustling around, getting ready to go to a yoga class and then have lunch with some of her friends. She didn’t appear to find it surprising that Ruth and Carter had canceled their days and were planning to stay in. She asked the housekeeper to fix them something good for breakfast and then told them there was a fire still going in the library, so they might as well go and enjoy it. They could have breakfast in there.
Ruth saw no reason to argue with that suggestion. She went to the library and curled up on the sofa near the fireplace.
It was warm and toasty and felt like the holidays, even more so when breakfast came. Eggs, sausage, bacon, and waffles with fruit. Plus coffee and hot chocolate.