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.
She and Carter ate on the couch. They ate a lot, and all of it was delicious. It was almost noon when Carter pushed the cart with the dirty dishes out into the hallway and shut the door.
“That was really good,” she said, smiling up at him from the couch. She was full now and suddenly tired again. She grabbed a cashmere throw from a chair and used it to cover up with.
“It was.” Carter went to poke at the fire.
She admired his tight butt in the thin cotton of his sweats with leisurely interest. “It feels like it