‘Will you just do as you’re flipping told?’ She was just going to have to get bossy. She shoved Luke hard and it seemed to stop him in his tracks. While he wasn’t trying to engineer a break-out, she grabbed him by the hand and dragged him to the edge of the bed. Then she gave him another hefty push so he sat down.
‘Luke.’ This was ridiculous. He probably couldn’t hear her anyway. ‘You’re not going anywhere. Just give up.’
Even in the dark she saw his shoulders droop. His chin dropped on to his chest and he gave a great shuddering sigh. More gently now, she guided him until he was lying on his side and got him to swing his legs on to the bed.
Flushed with triumph, she stood there, grinning in the darkness. Luke Armstrong was going to get what was good for him—whether he liked it or not!
And then she heard a sound that broke her heart. This big strong man, who had been through so much, was crying. It started as just a sniff, but pretty soon the sobs were coming thick and fast.
She couldn’t stand it any more. Just couldn’t bear to hear him take one more gulp. It twisted inside her like a knife. So she clambered on to the bed beside him and put her arms around him. Tears were streaming over her lashes too.
‘Please, Luke. Please don’t cry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.’
It didn’t matter that she had nothing to apologise for, that none of what had happened was her fault. It just seemed right that somebody should say it, somebody should care.
She stroked his hair and rubbed his back and gradually his tears subsided. She lay there, listening to the sound of his breath as it slowed and grew more even.
She was kidding herself. For the past few weeks she’d been telling herself that she was making a difference, helping him put his life back together, but the scene this evening had made that a farce. His wounds went deeper than she could ever imagine. All her notions of being able to make a difference seemed so pathetic.
He seemed to be more deeply asleep now. She started to wriggle away, but the instant she did so, he started to mumble and fidget again. Soothing words alone didn’t do the trick, so she pressed her cheek against his back and snaked an arm around his waist. Physical contact seemed to calm him. Somewhere in his brain the sensations must register and tell him he wasn’t totally alone.
She breathed in the smell of him and felt the smooth skin of his back against her face, the contours of his muscles under her fingers.
This man deserved so much more than this.
He deserved love and happiness and a daughter who idolised him. Not this battered mess of a life. Luke let out one more heart-wrenching sigh and then she felt his muscles slacken. She was pretty sure he was over the worst now, but she’d better stay put for another few minutes, just to make sure.
How arrogant she’d been to think she could fix this family. In truth, she didn’t know where to start. She was way out of her depth. One thing she could do was make sure he got a good night’s sleep. She’d bet he didn’t get too many of those.
So she lay snuggled against him and cried for the wasted years and the horrors he must have endured. And, when she had finished, she placed one tender kiss on his back and closed her eyes.
Something was tickling her face.
She swatted it away, but it didn’t do as it was told. A few seconds later a small puff of air lifted a strand of hair that lay across her cheek. Stupid David! He was always waking her up by breathing on her like this.
And then it struck her that she had been divorced for nearly a year and it wasn’t David who was breathing on her. Her eyelids shot up.
Luke! She was in bed with Luke.
She fought the urge to bolt out of bed and kept completely still. She would just have to do her cringing on the inside. If he woke up and found her here, she’d never be able to face him again.
She took a calming breath—well, as calming as she could—and tried to work out which arms and legs belonged to her and which didn’t. She was lying on her back and Luke was facing her, one arm draped possessively across her torso. Pale grey light was filtering through the curtains. It was only just dawn and she had a good chance of escaping unnoticed if she kept her cool.
She inched out from under his arm, holding it aloft slightly so it didn’t drag across her, then placed it carefully back down on top of the duvet. Moments later her feet touched carpet. She almost smiled with relief. Almost. Luke stirred and she froze. His hand searched the empty space next to him. Thankfully, it landed on the extra pillow she’d thrown aside and grabbed that.
Gaby held her breath for a few seconds more and, when she was convinced he had settled back down, she tiptoed out of the room.
The toast had just popped out of the toaster when Gaby heard Luke enter the kitchen. She blushed. Thank goodness she was leaning over the counter and he couldn’t see her face.
‘Morning, Gaby.’
‘Morning,’ she replied, lowering her head slightly as the blush raged more fiercely.
Anyone would think this was a different kind of morning after!
The thing was, her brain was refusing to recognise last night for what it had been—a friend helping a friend in need. It had all seemed so simple at the time. But now her emotions were weaving themselves into complex knots. She wasn’t sure what she felt. Only that she was embarrassed and aware of him in a way she hadn’t been before.
Sharing a bed with someone, even if it were just for comfort, was an incredibly intimate thing. The barriers she’d erected to stop herself becoming emotionally entangled had been mown down by one nightmare.
Professional distance? Give me a break!
Worst of all, she couldn’t stop thinking about the feel of his skin against hers, the warmth their bodies had generated together. It had been so nice to hold him, to have some of the human contact she had missed in the last year.
Yes, that was it. She was just starved of affection. She was just reacting as any normal person would in the situation.
And normal people got into bed with their bosses, did they? Who was she kidding?
Well, whatever had happened, she was finding it hard to see him as her boss any more. Or the poor downtrodden man she’d come to save from himself. She let out a little huff of a laugh as she buttered her toast. Luke had put his finger on it the first time they met. In some grandiose daydream she’d seen herself as his guardian angel, swooping in to rescue him, then flitting off again when the job was done.
Only she wasn’t an angel. She was just a woman. And now she was having trouble forgetting Luke was just a man underneath all the labels she’d pinned on him: employer, struggling father, charity case. The realisation he possessed a Y chromosome was starting to fuzz her brain.
‘Could you pop a couple of slices in for me, please?’
Gaby swung round to face him. ‘Huh?’ She must look completely gormless, standing there with a buttery knife aloft and her mouth hanging open.
‘Toast. Could you stick some in the toaster for me?’
‘Oh! Of course.’ She smiled.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Nothing, really. It’s just that you said “toast”.’
He eyed her suspiciously. ‘And toast is hysterically funny, because…’
She