Hidden Depths(31)

He glanced at the darkened windows, then back at her. “You won’t have something to eat?”

She closed her eyes as he flicked off the lamp. “No,” she whispered and felt him slide into bed beside her, tugging her down, into his arms, spooning against her.

“Then go to sleep,” he added, “You too, Bingo.”

She sighed. He had known what she wanted without her having to say it.





Chapter Five




Evan held the painfully thin Andrea Prentiss in his arms as her breathing slowed and became even. Despite that he had only been able to give her a sponge bath while she slept and hadn’t even been able to wash her hair, just braid it, she smelled clean and fresh snuggled up in his arms, in his shirt, in his bed. What did she want? Hell, the better and more elusive question was what did he want?

After stitching up her wound last night, he had found sleep impossible in the guest bedroom, less because of the unfamiliarity of that bed and more due to his worry for the injured girl in his own bed. He’d finally settled on dragging a comforter back into his room and settling into an easy chair, alternating between dozing and watching his unexpected guest sleep, the dog letting out a plaintive sigh every once in a while from the hallway where he’d been exiled.

Although Evan was fully awake by dawn the next day, Andrea was definitely out for some time after. When she stirred enough to take the glass of whiskey, she went right back to sleep, her body and probably her spirit as well obviously exhausted.

He had left her long enough to walk around the island, twice just as he’d told her, his puppy enthusiastically at his side, and there was no evidence of a boat other than his own. But it could have been dashed against the rocks, all trace of it swept out to sea again. It probably was, although that still didn’t explain why she was here, even if it explained how.

He let her sleep through the day and into the night, as she seemed almost unconscious, so deep was her rest, sponging her off every few hours. She was quite a bit thinner than six months ago. So much so he wondered if she really had not had a good meal in a long time. Her ribs, covered only partially with the bandages, were right up against the skin, her tummy concave and her breasts not quite as lush as he had last seen, but smaller, though still high and firm.

Not that he touched them, except with the cloth. The mixed messages that sent his long-celibate body were what had prompted him to pull a dress shirt out of his closet and button her into it, though he had no underwear he could put on her. Even as she snuggled up to him now, wrapping her arms around his as they clasped her narrow waist, the thought of the no-underwear thing gave him pangs.

Was why he had been so indignant when she accused him of wanting sex from her? Because he did? Or because that wasn’t all he wanted. He sure as hell didn’t know. Her long dark braid teased his nose and he moved his head slightly.

“Did you braid my hair?” she asked in a sleepy voice, proving she was not quite asleep.

“Yes. It was getting matted as it dried, the way you were tossing around in bed.”

“Where did you learn to do that?”

“I had a little sister,” he said vaguely.

Of course he never would have been permitted to touch Samantha’s hair, Daddy’s little princess having her own lady’s maid in addition to a governess from the time she could walk—before she started driving both of them away screaming.

Evan wouldn’t have wanted to brush his little sister’s hair anyway. What guy would want to brush a girl’s hair? It was a ridiculous concept, but one that his first girl friend at prep school had harbored. Mary Lehmann. He still remembered her name. She was at the sister school to his own elite prep school and they would sneak away whenever they could, him to try to get in her pants—like all the boys were trying to do with their girlfriends at that age, and pretty successfully, times being what they were. But he had the bad luck to choose a romantic for a girlfriend. Pretty little Mary Lehmann wanted him to take her on picnics—which was okay as far as he was concerned since he was as romantic as the next guy and if he could score in a deserted meadow, fine with him—but once there, she somehow managed to get him to do any number of ridiculous things such as reciting poetry, singing love songs and, yes, brushing her hair. He went along, since at that age he would have tap-danced for a girl if it meant getting laid, but had always thought the whole thing pretty ridiculous. Last he had heard, Mary Lehmann had become a poetry professor specializing in Shelley and Byron. Big surprise. When he had finally gotten into her pants, he found she was a pretty uninspired lay anyway and he quickly moved on, pig that he was.