Daddy On The Doorstep

“I wanted to talk to her!” she exclaimed, frustration rising.

“The operator cut in and asked us to hang up. Aunt Bess is okay. The doctor thinks it was indigestion.”

“Indigestion?” she questioned faintly. Indigestion. She’d worried herself sick, driven through a major storm, and unexpectedly had to face Nick. All for indigestion.

And she’d do the same thing again. She wouldn’t take any chances with Bess’s health. “I’m glad,” she whispered.

Nick made no response, only stared at her. Chilled by the coldness in his eyes, she stepped around him and headed for the front door.

“Where are you going?”

“To the hospital.” She didn’t expect him to ask her to stay. He probably didn’t want to talk to her any more than she wanted to talk to him. However, he surprised her by catching her arm.

“No, you’re not.”

“What are you talking about?” she protested. “Of course I am. Let me go!”

“Andy! Listen to me. The bridge is out.”

“Nice try. I just crossed over that bridge.” And she dreaded the thought of doing so again.

“I flew in on the police helicoptor. We watched it wash away.”

The sincerity in his voice almost convinced her. But she couldn’t face the prospect of staying here alone with him. “I don’t believe you,” she insisted, and turned back toward the door.

He wouldn’t let her go. “Andy. Use your head for once. You can’t go!”

She wrenched her coat from his hold. “Use my head for once?” she repeated, glaring at him. Then she snapped her mouth shut and ran to the front door.

He called her name above the storm and she was sure he pursued her. Nick never gave in or admitted he’d been bested. But this time she would do things her way. Tumbling down the steps into the rain, she had to slow down or she’d lose her footing. Too bad she left the car so far from the porch. But she’d been in as big a hurry when she’d arrived, as she was now.

He caught her just as she rounded the front of the car. She turned to scream at him over the thunder and rain. Before she could say anything, however, he yanked her toward him and they both fell into the mud. Even as she raised up to ask him if he was crazy, a louder noise stunned her.

She looked up at a roof of sodden greenness. And a deep crease in the roof of her car. A nearby tree, its roots exposed by the washing away of the soil the past month, had been blown across her car.

Another foot and that crease would have been in her head. She’d have been dead. If Nick hadn’t stopped her, that tree would have fallen on her.

Stunned by that cataclysmic thought, Andrea turned to stare at him. He was rising to his feet, without letting go of her, his clothing covered in mud, rain streaming down him. For the first time, she realized she was in much the same condition.

“Andy, are you hurt?” he gently demanded as he slid his hands beneath her arms to lift her.

“No—no, I don’t think so.” Trembling seized her, but whether it was from the cold or the shock, she didn’t know.

“Come on, we’ve got to get inside and get warm and dry. Can you walk?”

He didn’t wait for her to answer. As efficient as always, he led her to the porch. “Take off your clothes.”

Had he lost his mind? She stared at him, wondering if she was having a nightmare.

“Andy,” he explained, his voice laden with exasperation, “you’re wet and muddy. There’s no point in dragging these clothes through the house. Take them off and go get in the shower.”

The thought of a hot shower was heavenly; stripping in front of Nick was not. Even if what he said made sense, she wasn’t prepared to make herself so vulnerable to him. “Turn around.”

“Andy, you’re being ridiculous!” he exploded.

She raised her chin and stared at him, but her rebellion was undermined by the shivering that seized her.

“Damn, you’re a stubborn woman!”

Before she could decide her next step, he abruptly spun around, turning his back to her.

It took her a second to realize he was complying with her request. Then she hurriedly started removing the wet, muddy clothes. As she reached her underwear, her shivering became almost uncontrollable.

“Haven’t you finished yet?” Nick demanded.

“Yes. I’m going in now.”

“Don’t use all the hot water,” he shouted after her.

She raced to the only bathroom, next to Bess’s bedroom, and slammed the door behind her. Quickly removing her underwear, she stepped beneath the hot spray of the shower. It took several minutes for her skin to respond, but gradually the chill disappeared.

A loud banging on the door almost caused her to lose her footing. “Andy? Here’s your bag. And hurry. I’m half frozen.” The bathroom door opened and closed.

She turned off the water and pulled back the curtain. Her suitcase sat on the bathroom mat. Quickly she dried off and dug into the bag. In only minutes she opened the bathroom door to discover Nick leaning against the bedroom wall, his bareness minimally covered by a bath towel. She couldn’t hold back a gasp as her gaze encountered his broad chest.

Her mouth dry, she moved away from the bathroom door and gestured for him to enter. Words were beyond her.

“Thanks. By the way, I didn’t bring any clothes with me. Unless you want me to wear a towel until we can get out of here, see what you can find for me to put on.” He ignored her gaping mouth and closed the bathroom door behind him.

Andrea gulped. Did she want him to wear a bath towel until they were rescued? The man was insane. As she would be if she were constantly exposed to that much of Nick’s well-muscled, tempting skin.

The sound of the shower awoke her from her stupor, and she headed for the basement door. The last time she’d spent a weekend with Bess, she’d been sorting old clothes. If she hadn’t yet given them to charity, surely there would be something for Nick to wear. There had to be.

She returned to the bedroom just as the shower shut off.

“Nick?” she called through the closed door.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve found a few things from the basement. I’ll toss them in.” She hurriedly did what she’d said and pulled the door closed again, as if afraid the steam might escape. As she did so, she heard Nick shove back the shower curtain.

Visions of him stepping from the shower, his dark hair curling from the steam, his body glistening with droplets of water, made her stomach turn over.

She wasn’t going to think about it. Her marriage to Nick was over. Those days were behind her. And she was glad. She swallowed the pain she’d been trying to ignore for the past month. Right, she was glad.

Anxious to occupy her mind with something other than Nick, she hurried to the kitchen and put on a kettle of water. She and Bess loved to share their secrets over a cup of hot tea. She didn’t want to share any secrets with Nick, but at least making tea gave her something to do.

“Do you think Gentleman’s Quarterly will want photos?” Nick asked, his voice husky.