Nicole stared silently at Elaine Notte. She really wanted to believe her, because—Nicole cut off her own thought there, unwilling to finish it.
“Because you’re afraid you’re already half in love with my son,” Elaine finished for her and then smiled sympathetically and said, “You’re wrong.”
Nicole blinked in surprise at the words. “I am?”
Elaine nodded. “You’re not half in love with him, you just love him, plain and simple,” she assured her, and then added, “I can read your mind, dear. I can see that you think you may only be on the way to loving him, but I can also see the veils and subterfuge you have put in place to protect yourself from admitting that you do love him. The logic you’re using that claims it’s too soon. But it isn’t. You love the man you think Jake is, but are afraid he’s not that man and is presenting only what he thinks you want him to be. But he isn’t playing games. What you see is what you get with Jake and he is every bit the man he seems to you: smart, funny, brave, and considerate. You love the man this time, not the idea.”
Nicole let the words resound inside her head briefly, but then glanced toward the door as Jake returned to the room.
“The doctor is signing the release papers right now. We can take her home,” he announced with a smile. “I ran into Father and Neil on the way back and they’re off finding a wheelchair for her.”
“Do Dante and Tomasso know?” Elaine asked, standing up. “Or are they busy trying to eat the cafeteria out of food?”
“They know,” Jake said, his smiled fading before he added, “They went down to check the vehicles and be sure they haven’t been tampered with before we leave.”
Elaine nodded, apparently unsurprised, and then glanced to Nicole. “You don’t want to wear that hospital gown home. Where did they put your clothes, dear?”
“Do you want another pillow behind your back? Or maybe another blanket?”
“No,” Nicole said on a laugh. “Jake, I’m fine, really. Stop fussing.”
“You just got out of the hospital, Nicole. I’m supposed to fuss,” he said mildly, glancing around the bedroom.
“I only bumped my head. It’s fine now. I—what are you looking for?” she interrupted herself to ask.
“The television remote,” Jake muttered, moving over to the love seat against the wall beyond the bed and across from the TV. “You can watch television and relax while I get you something to eat and drink.”
Nicole frowned. Relaxing in bed watching television sounded delightful . . . and decadent. She hadn’t watched TV in what seemed like months. Her workload was too full for that. Reminded of her workload, she immediately felt guilty and began to push aside the sheets and blankets he’d just finished arranging over her. “I should really go down to the studio and—”
“Do not even think about getting up,” Jake barked, whirling on her, remote in hand. Striding back, expression grim, he added, “The doctor only agreed on your release if you relaxed today and that’s what you’re going to do. Tomorrow, if you don’t have a headache and everything seems fine, you can go down to the studio. But for one day you will relax. Doctor’s orders.
Nicole heaved an irritated sigh and pulled the sheet and blankets back over herself, but she also stuck her tongue out at Jake for being so bossy. However, the truth was, she liked his bossiness right now, and his concern. Rodolfo would have told her to suck it up and get back to work. The world didn’t care if she had a little headache, she had deadlines to meet and she should get to it. Rodolfo hadn’t been a very sympathetic fellow. During their two-year marriage, he’d urged and even insisted she work while down with a fever of 104 due to pneumonia, and then another time when she had a broken ankle. Painting while delirious was really not very smart, but standing on a broken leg for hours on end had been worse. Incidents like that had made it hard to believe he cared about anything but the money she made for him to spend.
“There.” Jake turned away from the television as it came on and carried the remote to her. “Find something you want to watch and we’ll cuddle in bed and eat lunch while we watch it when I come back.”
“You cuddle?” Nicole asked with interest. That seemed to be something most men avoided like the plague as far as she could tell.
“Oh, baby,” he said, dropping the remote in her lap and placing his hands flat on the bed to lean in and growl, “I’m just a big old teddy bear when it comes to cuddling.”
He was close enough she felt his breath on her lips as he spoke, and then Jake kissed her. She suspected he’d meant it to be a quick brush of lips before leaving, but it didn’t end up that way. Quite simply, it couldn’t end up that way. The moment his lips touched hers, the passion that always seemed to lie in waiting roared up between them like a backdraft exploding up a long hallway when a door was opened. In the next moment, Nicole somehow found herself flat on her back in the bed with him crawling on top of her, his hands seeking out all her hot spots through the flannel pajamas she’d changed into on getting home.
Nicole wasn’t still under the onslaught; her own hands were pulling at his clothes, tearing at them desperately as she alternately sucked at his tongue and thrust her own out to tangle with it.
“Yo, Stephano!” Dante said from the open door. “Your mom wants you in the kitchen . . . now. And get off that poor girl or I’ll find a pail of water to dump on you. Nicki has a concussion.”
Jake groaned into her mouth, then slowly disentangled himself and crawled off the bed, saying, “I’ll make you grilled cheese and tomato soup . . . and ginger ale and orange juice.”
Nicole blinked with surprise. “That’s what my mother always made for me when I wasn’t feeling well.”
“Yeah? So did mine,” Jake said with a grin and then he was gone.
Nicole stared after him for a minute, and then glanced to the television. She picked up the remote and pulled up the guide, looking for something interesting, but it was the middle of the afternoon on a weekday. Talk shows seemed to be the only thing on and she wasn’t big on talk shows. She continued to click through the guide, but her mind began to wander to wondering what Jake was doing. He was making them lunch, of course, but how far had he got? And did he like his tomato soup made with water or milk? Her mother had always used milk and Nicole did as well. It was too acidy for her taste with just water.
Maybe she should just go out and see if he used water or milk. She could always sit at the island and chat to him while he cooked. That would still be relaxing, wouldn’t it?
“Ugh,” Nicole muttered as she realized how pathetic she was. The man had just left her and she wanted to follow him like a lost puppy following a kid home from school. How pathetic was that?
It was the nanos’ fault, she told herself. Elaine had said so. She wasn’t supposed to judge herself by normal—or mortal—standards. This situation was neither normal, nor mortal.
Gad, Nicole realized with a grin. The woman had basically given her permission to just follow her instincts and act like a ho’ . . . guilt free.
“Cool,” she muttered. Tossing the sheet and blankets aside, Nicole looked around for her robe. She’d donned it over her pajamas after changing out of her street clothes at Jake’s insistence on arriving home. Now she couldn’t recall what she’d—oh, there it was, she’d laid it over the end of the bed and then tossed the blankets over it to get up.
Pulling it on, Nicole left the room in search of Jake.
“So she now accepts that someone is out to kill her, but still doesn’t accept that it’s her husband,” Elaine Notte murmured thoughtfully and Jake glanced around to where his mother sat at the kitchen table with his brother, stepfather and the twins.
“She doesn’t?” he asked with a frown. “Still? After everything that has happened?”
“No, I’m afraid from the thoughts I’ve read she’s completely bewildered as to who could be causing these events, but she’s quite sure it’s not her husband.”
“Ex-husband,” Jake growled, turning back to give the soup in the pot a stir and flip the grilled cheese in the frying pan.
“He’s not quite yet her ex, dear,” his mother said gently.
It made Jake want to growl. He didn’t like the idea that any man had a claim to Nicole, no matter how short term or tenuous.
“Well, it doesn’t matter what she thinks, someone is out to kill her and they aren’t going to stop now,” Neil said quietly. “I suggest the two of you stick close to home until this is resolved.”
