“I—” Her lips slammed shut at the look he gave her.
“Even all this.” He flicked the bag of soil and one of the plastic pots tumbled off the table. “What is all this about? Cornelia Brewster 2.0?”
Color flagged her cheeks. “What if it is? I can’t practice law right now even if I wanted to. Not until the state bar decides whether or not to censure me. Your grandmother’s library is just a stopgap and one that’s not even going to last all that much longer now that we’ve gotten the official go-ahead. For all of my adult life the only thing I have focused on is the law. I’m thirty-six years old. Isn’t it about time I figured out if there’s something else I might like to do?”
“For God’s sake, Nell. Go work in a bloody bookstore. Or open one of your own. It’s what you’ve always wanted to do. Or have you forgotten telling me that when you were a month away from graduating law school?”
She stared at him. Color rose in her face, then drained away just as abruptly. She suddenly pushed past him, bolting into the house. He hadn’t taken two steps into the kitchen after her when he could hear the sound of her retching through the thin walls.
He shot Montrose a look. The man was sitting at the table, looking like he wished he were anywhere else. “Suddenly Nell’s your best friend?”
“She doesn’t take advantage of Mrs. Templeton,” he said in his annoyingly pompous way.
Archer raked back his hair. “She doesn’t take advantage of anyone,” he muttered. “Has she been sick like this before?”
Montrose’s lips pursed. Obviously he wasn’t going to say.
Which actually said all that Archer needed to know.
Annoyed with the chef, annoyed with her and most of all annoyed with himself, he went to find her.
She was sitting on the floor of a bathroom smaller than a coat closet, resting her head on her knees. Her curly hair looked darker than ever splayed across her pale shoulders.
He had five sisters. Four of whom had babies.
“Are you pregnant?”
Her head whipped up. Her eyes were like saucers of hot fudge. Glistening. Brown. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
He flipped down the lid on the toilet and sat, even though the room really didn’t have enough space for the two of them. But it did mean she didn’t have a lot of room for escape.
“We did get a little carried away that night.” Understatement of the century. It was the only time in his life, except for the first time with her all those years ago, when he hadn’t given a thought to protection.
She tapped her hand on her opposite arm. “I have an implant. The never-fail birth control because you never fail to forget it.”
It took him a minute to identify the sensation inside him, because it should have been relief and it wasn’t.
She’d lowered her head again to rest on her knees and he started to touch her curls, but drew his fingers into a fist instead and pressed it to his thigh.
“That’s good,” he lied. “Would’ve had to marry you.”
She didn’t look at him, but her scoffing sound was more than clear. “You’re not the marrying kind.”
“Maybe not. There’s only one girl who ever made me consider it.”
She finally raised her head. Her face was still pale, but at least it wasn’t ashen the way it had been earlier. Her lashes were lowered, keeping him from seeing her eyes. “What happened?”
He shrugged. “She threw her lot in with someone else. You’re sure you’re not—”
“I’m not. Besides, just because a man is a husband, it doesn’t necessarily follow that he’s a good father. My own is proof of that.”
“Montrose says you’ve thrown up more than once.”
She finally gave him a look. “Montrose would never.”
“The fact that he didn’t confirm it was confirmation enough.”
She maneuvered herself around until she could push to her feet, but had to use his shoulder as leverage in the confining space. “You shove your career in a cement mixer for a while and see if it doesn’t cause you enough stress to throw up a few times.” She opened the crackled-mirror cabinet above the sink and pulled out a bottle of mouthwash. She swished some in her mouth, spat it out and returned the bottle to its spot. Then without looking at him, she sidled around his legs again and left.
He followed her back into the kitchen, where the dough was now resting inside an oval basket. Montrose was wiping up the flour covering the counter.
“I think I can take it from here,” Nell was telling him as she tugged the cloth from his resistant hand. “Thanks.”
“Once it’s doubled, you punch it down and let it rise again.”
“I know. I remember.” Archer felt as if he was hallucinating when she tucked her arm through the other man’s and maneuvered him out of the kitchen. “I’ll bring you pictures tomorrow to show you the results.”
“Bring the loaf,” Montrose ordered. “I’ve made fresh jam to go with it.”
Then he heard the door shut and a moment later, Nell returned to the kitchen. She picked up the cloth and started scrubbing at the flour still stuck on the faded pink-and-gray countertop.
“He has fresh jam.”
“And I hope it’s something pedestrian like good old strawberry and not weird like caviar basil or God knows what.” She gave a quick shake of her head.
“I wish you’d have told me about Martin,” he said quietly.
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “And let you know how blind I was?” She had one hand braced on the counter as she scrubbed with the other, her springy hair bouncing around her shoulders. It was longer than it had been a few weeks ago.
“Why did you wait so long to report it?”
Her shoulders sagged and she stopped scrubbing. She angled her chin and looked at him.
“Ros.”
She moved to the sink, a set expression on her face. “You’re not
