“Sore.”
“Your knee?”
“And my head.”
“According to your doctor, you’re going to need surgery on your knee.”
She rubbed her temple. “He said something about that when he was here earlier. He said it won’t be any big deal, but I’ll be on crutches for a while afterward.”
Crutches. She didn’t want to deal with that, or the physical therapy he’d talked about. She had insurance through her work, but she wasn’t sure how good it was. Maybe the building owners would cover some of the expense, or their insurance would, because of the fire. Or maybe—
She bit her lower lip. She didn’t want to think about any of this now. Everything hurt too much, and she was too confused.
“Cathy?”
That voice. She still couldn’t believe that Stone was actually here, that he’d seen her and didn’t seem angry about her deception.
“Yes, sorry. I’m kind of out of it.”
“I understand.” He leaned close, but not close enough that he moved out of the shadows. “I don’t want you worrying about anything,” he said. “Everything is taken care of. The doctor, the surgeon, the physical therapy.”
“But it can’t be.”
“It is. I’m taking care of all the details. All you have to worry about is getting better.”
She looked at him, at the shape of him, and tried to figure out why he was being so nice to her. “I don’t understand.” Any of it, including him.
“It’s very simple. When they release you in a couple of days, I want you to come stay with me. My house is large, and you’ll have plenty of room. I’ve already arranged for a physical therapist to come by and help you. My housekeeper will be there, too, and she’ll make sure you’re completely taken care of. I want to do this, Cathy. The fire really scared me. I was afraid something had happened to you.”
She couldn’t have been more stunned if he’d suddenly started speaking a foreign language while performing a folk dance. “You want me to stay at your house?” Her voice was a squeak.
“Yes. The doctor said you shouldn’t be alone for a few days. Unless you have someone else who can look after you, you’re coming home with me.”
Someone else, she thought dully. As in family or friends. She had neither. “I can’t,” she told him.
“Of course you can. We’re friends. Friends look out for each other. You’d do the same for me if you could.”
He sounded confident, but she wasn’t so sure. She couldn’t imagine having anything that someone like him wanted or needed. She was just boring Cathy Eldridge. Nothing about her life was exciting or even the way it was supposed to be.
“My housekeeper will be there all the time,” he said. “So you don’t have to worry about being alone with me.”
Oh, yeah, that was her big concern. That Stone would suddenly lose control and want to attack her in the night. If she hadn’t felt so weak and tired, she might have smiled.
“It’s not that,” she managed to say.
“Then what is it? You’ll like the house. It has a nice view of the ocean. Think of it as a vacation.”
Something she’d never been on in her life. A vacation. Just like those lies she’d told him. She averted her gaze and turned her head away. “I didn’t really go to Mexico a couple of weeks ago.”
“I know.”
“Or Paris.”
“I figured that out, too.”
“I just thought—”
“I understand,” he said. “Please believe me. I don’t want to talk about this now. It’s not important.”
