Page 51 of Truth, Lies, and Second Dates
“I apologize,” he said seriously. “I behaved foolishly.”
She sighed. The apology was sweet, but she couldn’t fault him for listening to his instincts. “Forget about it. It’s better to err on the side of ‘whoops, my bad’ when it comes to family, anyway.”
“Thank you.” Then he just looked at her. Just when the silence started to skew from charged to awkward, he added, “You require antihistamines, an antinauseant, and I wish to drop off your moisturizer for testing. Please remain in your room and leave it locked and dead-bolted until I return.Do not let anyone in.Not even room service.”
“A first in my life, but okay.”
“And you have to shower.”
“Rude.”
“A cold shower.”
She shivered. “Pass.”
“It’s the first step toward recovery,” he explained, looking earnest and adorable. “Get rid of the irritant. Do you have any diphenhydramine?”
Eh?“Not on me, no.”
“Or calamine?”
“Yeah, I grabbed some of that yesterday.”
“All right. I will be back within sixty minutes. Please take all precautions until then.”
“While showering.”
He laughed. “Yes. A cautious shower.”
Am I really going along with this? Looks like. And it’s nothing to do with the man’s essential hotness. Well. That’s not the main reason.
If she was honest with herself—and post-Hazelden, she tried to be—it was mostly fear. Someone had her in their crosshairs and she didn’t care for that in the slightest. And while Tom appointing himself bodyguard was presumptuous and possibly problematic, he was also the one who put it together and who seemed determined to get to the bottom of… well… everything.
Thatshe could understand, even if it was the only thing about this she understood.
Sighing, she got up, flipped the lock and the dead bolt, and went to run the
(warm, thank you very much, Tom)
shower.
Twenty-Six
“This isn’t how I pictured this.” This in a low voice as he smeared medication all over her arms.
“You’re blind to the erotic qualities of calamine lotion, Dr. Baker?”
He snorted. True to his word, he’d returned within the hour in time to hand her a robe, politely look away as she dropped the towel to slip into it, then got her to sit down and briskly rubbed her hair with another towel. After she’d gone to the bathroom to comb out the mess he made, he politely hectored her into downing a couple of Benadryl, gave her sugared ginger to chew on
(Where the hell did he findthat? And where has it been all my life? It’s roughly a zillion times better than Pepto!)
and then got out the calamine lotion.
He cleared his throat as he dabbed more lotion until she looked like someone with vitiligo. And not someone beautifully cool, like Winnie Harlow. More like Michael Jackson just before the autopsy. “I… think about you all the time.”
“Yeah? Well, I definitely haven’t thought of you more thanseveral times an hour for the last few days, so don’t get your hopes up.”
He smiled and dabbed.
