“So, those clothes or these?” he asked in his most businesslike voice.
Sage nodded at her pants. “Those, please.” She started to fiddle with the band of her scrub pants with her left hand, muttering soft curses. “God, it even hurts to stand.”
Tyce dropped to his haunches, whipped her pants down and off, trying to ignore those long, gorgeous legs that had wrapped around his hips, back and neck many times in the past. Ignoring the wave of memories, he slid the yoga pants over her lifted foot and then the other. Just get it done, Latimore. He pulled the stretchy fabric up her legs, standing up to pull the material over her butt. He glanced down and noticed the football-size bruise starting to form on her lower back. “Holy hell, Sage, how hard did you fall?”
“What?”
“You have a hell of a bruise on your butt. That’s why sitting hurts,” Tyce said, reaching for her socks. He quickly put her sneakers on her feet and tied the laces. Standing, he lifted the top half of her scrubs up her torso and gently pulled the shirt over her arm, trying to keep his eyes off her round, firm breasts half covered by a dusky-pink lacy bra that matched the color of her thong. God give him strength! And please, God, make her injuries heal fast; he couldn’t wait to have her under him again… No, wait, that wasn’t on the agenda; that wasn’t part of the plan. The mission was to find a new way of dealing with each other and not to reexplore the missionary position.
Sex, moron, he chided himself, will only add a truckload of complicated to an already convoluted situation. Did you not say that ten minutes ago?
“Are you okay?” Sage asked him as he dropped a long-sleeved T-shirt over her head.
“Not even close,” Tyce muttered under his breath. He picked up her hoodie, threaded her injured arm through the sleeve and frowned at the blank canvas of her plaster cast. “I’m going to have to make that more gangsta.”
“Huh?”
Tyce tapped her cast. “It’s white and boring. We’ll graffiti it up.”
The corners of her mouth tipped up. “It’ll be the most expensive cast in the history of the world. You’d better sign it so that when it’s removed someone can sell it on the net and make a fortune.”
Tyce finished dressing Sage, helped her with her sling and picked up the spare coat he’d brought with him. “Right, let’s bust you out of here.”
Sage took one step, yelped, took another and groaned. Not bothering to ask her, he picked her up and held her against his chest, his temple against her head. “Better?”
“Much,” Sage murmured as her good arm encircled his neck. “Though they are going to insist on a wheelchair, hospital policy.”
“They can insist until the air turns blue, I’m not letting you go,” Tyce told her, walking in the hallway.
I’m not letting you go.
Why did that statement resonate with him? Tyce couldn’t understand why that particular order of words made deep, fundamental sense. This was the problem with being around Sage, he thought, and the reason why he’d backed away all those years ago. With her, strange thoughts and concepts popped into his head.
Keeping her, he fiercely, and silently, told himself, wasn’t an option, not then and not now. He liked his own company, liked the freedom of not being tied down to a woman, a place, city or town. If he wanted to he could leave New York and go to Delhi or Djibouti; he could go anywhere. Lachlyn would be fine. He would sell or rent his space and he could take off. He could only do that because he was free of commitments; he didn’t have another person to consider, someone else’s feelings and wishes to take into account.
He wouldn’t have to explain…
Maybe when Sage was back to full strength, he’d backpack for a couple of months. He could travel, only coming home a week or two before the baby was due to be born.
But then, he thought as he lowered Sage into the back seat of the waiting taxi, he’d miss seeing Sage’s tummy grow with life, would miss the ultrasound scans, the doctor’s visits. Could he do that? Could he leave?
He so badly wanted to say yes, to be convinced that she would be fine, but uncertainty twisted his stomach, his gut instinct insisting that he wasn’t going anywhere, that he was going to see this process through.
So no Delhi or Djibouti then. That was okay, Tyce thought as he took the seat next to Sage. He could deal.
* * *
Much later that afternoon Sage’s eyes fluttered open and she pulled in the familiar scent of her apartment… She was home, in a bed. Rolling over, she yelped. Every inch of her body was sore, from the back of her head to her shoulders, her damned tailbone, her legs. Her wrist throbbed. Glancing down at her cast, she sucked in an astonished gasp. Her plaster cast was no longer white but filled with miniature portraits, all wickedly accurate. Linc, Jaeger, Beck, Jo, Connor—God, Connor’s picture looked so like him, his patrician face wearing a huge smile. Tyce had sketched her nephews, her niece. Her brother’s partners. She could see that they’d been drawn quickly but, quick or not, they were fantastic. It was another reminder that Tyce was phenomenally talented…