Come Lie With Me Read online

  “This definitely calls for champagne,” he murmured, leaning over to crush his lips lightly over hers, then withdrawing before the contact could start anew the searing fire of discovery.

  Dione was under control again, and the therapist in her began to take over. “Definitely champagne, but first let’s get off the floor.” She rolled gracefully to her feet and extended her hand to him. He used his hands to place his feet in a secure position, then placed his forearm against hers, his hand cupping her elbow. She stiffened her arm, and he used the leverage to pull himself up, swaying for a moment before he found his balance.

  “What now?” he asked.

  Someone else might have thought he was asking about the immediate future, but Dione was so attuned to him that she knew he was asking about his progress. “Repetition,” she replied. “The more you do it, the easier it’ll be. On the other hand, don’t push yourself too hard, or you could hurt yourself. People get clumsy when they’re tired, and you could fall, break an arm or a leg, and the lost time would really hurt.”

  “Give me a time,” he insisted, and she shook her head at his persistence. He didn’t know how to wait; he pushed things along, impatient even with himself.

  “I’ll be able to give you a ballpark figure in a week,” she said, not letting him push her. “But I’ll definitely be able to keep my promise that you’ll be walking by Christmas.”

  “Six weeks,” he figured.

  “With a cane,” she threw in hastily, and then he glared at her.

  “Without a cane,” he insisted. She shrugged. If he set his mind to walking without a cane, he probably would.

  “I’ve been thinking of going back to work,” he said, startling her. She looked up and was tangled in the web of his blue gaze; it captured her as surely as a spider caught a helpless fly. “I could do it now, but I don’t want to interfere with my therapy. What do you say about the first of the year? Will I be far enough along that working won’t interfere with my progress?”

  Her throat clogged. By the first of the year she’d be gone. She swallowed and said in a low but even voice, “You’ll be out of therapy by then and can resume your normal schedule. If you want to continue your exercise program, that’s up to you; you have all of the equipment here. You won’t have to work as hard as you have, because I was building you up from a very low point. All you have to do now, if you want to continue, is maintain the level you’re at now, which won’t require such intensive training. If you’d like, I’ll draw up a program for you to follow to stay in your present shape.”

  Blue lightning suddenly flashed from his eyes. “What do you mean, for me to follow?” he demanded harshly, his hand darting out to grip her wrist. Despite her strength, her bones were slender, aristocratic, and his long fingers more than circled her flesh.

  Dione could feel her insides crumbling; hadn’t he realized that when his therapy was completed, she’d be leaving? Perhaps not. Patients were so involved with themselves, with their progress, that the reality of other responsibilities didn’t occur to them. She’d been living for weeks with the pain of knowing that soon she’d have to leave him; now he had to realize it, too.

  “I won’t be here,” she said calmly, straightening her shoulders. “I’m a therapist; it’s what I do for a living. I’ll be on another case by then. You won’t need me anymore; you’ll be walking, working, everything you did before…though I think you should wait a while before climbing another mountain.”

  “You’re my therapist,” he snapped, tightening his grip on her wrist.

  She gave a sad laugh. “It’s normal to be possessive. For months we’ve been isolated in our own little world, and you’ve depended on me more than you have on any other person in your life, except your mother. Your perspective is distorted now, but when you begin working again, everything will right itself. Believe me, by the time I’ve been gone a month, you won’t even think about me.”

  A dark red flush ran up under his tan. “Do you mean you’d just turn your back on me and walk away?” he asked in a disbelieving tone.

  She flinched, and tears welled in her eyes. She’d gone for years without crying, having learned not to when she was a child, but Blake had shattered that particular control. She’d wept in his arms…and laughed in them. “It…it’s not that easy for me, either,” she quivered. “I get involved, too. I always…fall a little in love with my patients. But it passes…. You’ll pick up your life and I’ll move on to another patient—”

  “I’ll be damned if you’re going to move in with some other man and fall in love with him!” Blake interrupted hotly, his nostrils flaring.

  Despite herself, Dione laughed. “Not all of my patients are men; I have a large percentage of children.”

  “That’s not the point.” His flesh was suddenly taut over his cheekbones. “I still need you.”

  “Oh, Blake,” she said in a half sob, half chuckle. “I’ve been through this more times than I can remember. I’m a habit, a crutch, nothing more, and I’m a crutch that you don’t even need now. If I left today, you’d do just fine.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion,” he snapped. He shifted his grasp on her wrist and brought her hand up, cradling it to his beard-roughened cheek for a moment before touching his mouth to her knuckles. “You shoved your way into my life, lady, took over my house, my routine, me…. Do you think people forget volcanoes?”

  “Maybe you won’t forget me, but you’ll discover, one day soon, that you don’t need me anymore. Now,” she said briskly, deliberately inserting cheer into her voice, “what about that champagne?”

  They had champagne. Blake rounded up everyone, and between them they drank the entire bottle. Angela received the news of Blake’s progress by gently crying; Alberta forgot herself so far as to give Dione a smile of self-satisfied complicity and drank three glasses of champagne; Miguel’s dark face suddenly lighted, the first smile Dione had ever seen from him, and he toasted Blake with a silently raised glass, the two men’s eyes meeting and communicating as memories flashed between them.

  There was another bottle of champagne at dinner that night. Serena hurled herself into Blake’s arms when he broke the good news to her, wrenching sobs of relief shaking her body. It took some time to quiet her; she was almost wild with the joy of it. Richard, whose face had become more and more strained as the weeks passed, suddenly looked as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. “Thank God,” he said with heartfelt sincerity. “Now I can have that nervous breakdown I’ve been putting off for two years.”

  Everyone laughed, but Blake said, “If anyone deserves a long vacation, it’s you. As soon as I get back into harness, you’re relieved of duty for at least a month.”

  Richard moved his shoulders tiredly. “I won’t refuse it,” he said.

  Serena looked at her husband with determined cheerfulness. “How about Hawaii?” she asked. “We could spend the whole month lying on the beach in paradise.”

  Richard’s mouth thinned. “Maybe later. I think I just need to be by myself for a while.”

  Serena drew back as though he’d slapped her, and her cheeks paled. Blake looked at his sister, reading the dejection in her, and anger brightened the dark blue of his eyes. Dione put her hand on his sleeve to restrain him. Whatever problems Richard and Serena were having, they had to work them out by themselves. Blake couldn’t keep smoothing the path for Serena; that was a large part of the trouble. He was so important to her that Richard felt slighted.

  In only a moment Serena gathered herself and lifted her head, smiling as though Richard’s comment had completely missed her. Dione couldn’t help but admire her grit. She was a proud, stubborn woman; she didn’t need big brother to fight her battles for her. All she had to do was realize that for herself, and make Blake realize it, too.

  Dinner was an astonishing melange of items that weren’t normally served together, and Dione suspected that Alberta was still celebrating. When the cornish hen was followed by fish, she