She was on the verge of saying, “Shut up” again, but stopped herself. Instead she closed the shower curtain again and began toweling off.
“I’m sure I’ve looked wonderful the whole time you’ve been here,” she said. “Barfing over the toilet . . . ”
“Hallucinating in bed . . . ”
“I didn’t,” she insisted.
“Okay, if you say so.”
The truth was, there might have been a dream right before she woke up. And he might have been in it. If she’d said any of that out loud . . .
“Burke, why are you messing with me? Do you think I’m feeling up to it right now?”
“I don’t know, that’s what I’m testing,” he said. “I’m trying to gauge whether you can fly back home today, or whether you need to stay here.”
Sarah paused in her drying. “We have depos in Idaho.”
“Not anymore,” he said. “Not this week, anyway.”
“Why?”
“No one wants what you have,” Joe said. “Especially right before Thanksgiving. Paul saw you go down yesterday morning, and he was on a flight home by the afternoon. The court reporter, too. We’ve all agreed to reschedule.”
Sarah stepped out of the shower with the towel wrapped around her torso. She used one of the other towels to hide her spiraling hair. “Rescheduled them when?” she asked, feeling less self-conscious now that they were talking about work again. “We don’t have time.”
“We’ll stop by here again as part of Montana next week,” Joe said. “The flight from Missoula to Billings goes through Salt Lake anyway. And we’ll squeeze in Idaho after that. Don’t worry, Henley, it’s all taken care of.”
She liked it better when he called her “Henley” than when he called her “Red.” She almost felt like they were back on normal footing now. Except for the fact that he was standing in her bathroom wearing loose cotton pants and a T-shirt, and she wore nothing but two towels.
“Chapman left yesterday?” she said, finally processing that bit of information.
“Yep.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Nope.”
She looked at Joe in the small space between them. He gave her an easy look back, not trying to get credit, it seemed, but just stating the facts: he had taken care of her. He had stayed to watch over her. And he was still there.
Sarah shook her head. “This doesn’t change anything.”
Joe looked her in the eye. “I know.” Then he turned to leave, saying, “Coffee, Red?”
Sarah bit back her first response. She forced herself to be pleasant—for her own sake, not his. Yes, what he had done was very kind. Above and beyond, even. But if he expected anything in return—anything more than the most basic, polite gratitude—he was deluded.
“Tea would be better,” she said.
He walked over toward the bed and picked up the hotel phone. While he ordered breakfast for them both, Sarah closed the bathroom door and changed into the white robe. Her hair was appalling, but she didn’t have the strength to do anything about it. And like Burke said, he’d seen her straight out of the shower—and in it—before.
“I let your office know yesterday,” Joe said when she emerged again.
“Know what, exactly?” she asked, her pulse jumping.
“That you were sick and the depositions were off.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “What did you think I meant?”
That we used to be lovers, that you carried me to my room, that you helped me undress, that you held me so I could vomit, that you spent the night with me despite how disgusting that must have been—
“What did they say?” Sarah asked, deflecting his question.
“I spoke to your secretary.”
“Not mine,” Sarah corrected. “I’m just sharing her—”
“I spoke to someone,” Joe continued, “and I told her you’d call her when you were feeling up to it.”
“Oh. Okay.” Sarah sat on the edge of her bed. Sleep was calling to her, but she needed to deal with business first. “Thanks for letting her know. That was . . . probably right.”
“I try to be right,” he said, looking amused at how hard it seemed to be for her to give him any compliment or a thank you.
He pulled on the sneakers lying next to the couch she hadn’t even noticed before. All the hotel rooms seemed so alike to her now, all she cared about was whether they had a bed and a bathroom.
“I have to go down to my room for a few minutes,” he said. “I’ll be back before room service is here. You should get into bed.”
Sarah decided he wasn’t ordering her around if it was something