He stopped at the foot of the steps and looked over his shoulder, “Your hovering is going to make me fall. Step off. If I fall, I fall. I’ll roll the other way and protect my foot.”
“No.” She turned his head to face forward. “Looking back compromises balance. Move it, or I am going to do a fireman’s lift and carry you up there, if for no other reason than to prove to you I’m not a delicate flower who can’t help you.”
“I’m just doing this to save your fool back. We can’t both be laid up.” Liam shook his head but took the steps as directed. Despite the bone-deep shaking in his frame, he got up them with ease and went to flop on the end of the bed. “You want to help me? Take off my pants.”
* * *
Grace stopped in her tracks, her hands going to her hips as she regarded him. However pained and cranky he felt right now paled to the irate tilt of her head as she looked down at him. “Your hands work fine. Take off your own pants.”
He unfastened them and then looked up at her, giving his best pitiful but harmless look. “Come on, Gracie. Don’t make me stand up again. All I want to do is kick back, take some flavor of painkiller, eat, and sleep. And maybe ice it once it stops throbbing...”
“Fine. If you’re going to play imbecile, I’ll help you with your pants.”
“Don’t you mean invalid?”
“Nope, I’m pretty sure I meant imbecile. I went to the theater. Even with your limp it shouldn’t have taken more than five minutes to make it the length of that stupid carpet, but I didn’t leave here for forty-five minutes because Tom came by with clothes and made me try them on.”
She hooked her fingers in the belt and tugged as he lifted with his good leg. He fell back on his elbows and watched her toss the trousers over her shoulder as she knelt to get a look at his foot. God, that thing hurt. If she touched it, he might cry like a baby. Maybe then she’d give him a little sympathy rather than her anger.
“Liam Jefferson Carter! What did you do?”
Uh-oh. The middle name had come out. She wasn’t even going to pretend not to be furious.
One cool hand cupped his calf and lifted, contrasting with the fire in her eyes. “You know, I was thinking we might switch you to heat—ice is usually only for the first forty-eight hours after the injury, but it’s worse now. That’s why it hurts more, that’s why it swelled despite the tape. Might as well be a new injury.”
“I know,” he muttered. “I’d actually say it hurts more right now than it did when I fell. So, congratulations, you were right. But you know I wasn’t doing this just to be a pain in your butt. I have to, Grace. That’s what this life is, if you’re lucky enough to get this high, then your whole life is schedules and obligations, and when I sign a contract to do a movie I also sign on for the promotional aspects at the time of opening. It’s contractual.”
“And is it also contractual that you go in there without any support? You could have done this a lot better with crutches, Liam. Then you would still have met your obligations.”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“Tell me why. Tell me exactly why, because...”
He lay back fully on the bed, pinching the bridge of his nose as if that would dispel his headache. The whole night had taken him to the end of his tether, so if she didn’t get off this, he might kick her out with the others. Then he could sleep and let tomorrow worry about itself.
“Liam.”
“I don’t need a lecture. If you’re going to keep after this, then you maybe should just go to the other room. Or your own room.”
“We didn’t get me my own room. I’ve been here all the time.” She straightened and leaned over the bed, looking down at him.
He couldn’t deal with this right now. “Then we’ll get you a room.”
Just when he was about to scoot up the bed to reach the phone, she touched his face and stopped him.
That warmth again. She slid her hand to cup his cheek and his frustration all but left. And with it his ability to care whether or not he should enjoy her touch. It comforted him. It meant she still cared, and this wasn’t just a job. She cared about him. And it felt good, he felt better.
Closing his eyes, he tilted his head into her hand and held it there with his own hand.
“Liam?”
“Shh. Just wait...” he said, not opening his eyes, just letting the warm strength of her hand soak into him.
Her thumb stroked his cheekbone in a soothing arc. “Tell me why it’s so important. I need to understand this if we’re going to keep working together. Because right now I know you’re frustrated and in pain, and it isn’t just hard to see you hurting yourself like this, it makes me feel ill. If you want me to stay, tell me why you have to do this.”
He wanted her to stay. Hell, he wanted her to stay right there. Or maybe put his head in her lap and stroke his weary brow. That would be nice.
But staying was actually important for more reasons than his hedonist tendencies.
It wouldn’t matter if he gave her what she’d asked for. This was Grace, not someone who’d use the information against him.
“I’m starting another project in a few weeks—a part I’ve been dying for—and I don’t want the producers to think that I am going to slow down production. It was between me and one other, right down to the wire, and they went my way. If I show up limping around now, they’re going to reverse course.” He opened his eyes and looked into hers, and then slid her hand from his cheek to his chest but kept holding it there. “We haven’t even signed the contracts yet. It’s all verbal agreements until there’s a signature on the dotted line. And even then sometimes contracts can be broken.”
“What’s so special about this part?”
“It’s a book...” With her hand in his and her eyes fixed on him, he could tell her why. Maybe not everything, just give her an idea. “Sit here with me.” He patted the bed and transferred her hand to his other one so she could sit.
When she had, and turned her hand over to wrap her fingers around the edge of his palm in return, he took a breath to steel himself.
“Don’t laugh.”
She shook her head, squeezed his hand.
“Do you remember, well, your parents would just come home with little gifts sometimes?”
She nodded, still not speaking.
“The book was the first time...I’d been hanging out at your house pretty much every day for about six weeks, and then one night they came home from work and had stopped at a bookstore. Lucy got you some book you’d wanted—I don’t remember what it was—but then she reached into the bag and pulled out two copies of another book, handed one to me and one to Nick.”
“Mom liked to do that—still does that, actually. Now they’re making that book into a movie and you want to be in it?”
She didn’t get it, but he could see in her eyes that she was trying to.
He might be able to explain, but he couldn’t do it while looking at her. Letting his gaze fall to where their hands joined in his lap, he tried again.
“It was the first time anyone ever gave me a gift for no reason. Birthday and Christmas presents were real hit-and-miss with my folks, depending on what they’d done with their money that week. It wasn’t really about the book. I was just included, like I was an extra son who’d sprung up and was automatically accepted. So...it was the first time I had any idea of what it was like to be in a family.”
When he looked back at her, her eyes were damp and she was silent, clearly working through what he’d told her,