Come Lie With Me (8 page)

The hard knot of apprehension that had been tied in her stomach since he'd lapsed into depression slowly eased, then relaxed completely. Her spirits soared, and she gave him a blinding smile. With his cooperation, she felt that she could do anything.

 

At first he was capable of very little with the weights. Even the smaller ones were too much for him, though he kept gritting his teeth and trying to continue even when she wanted him to stop.
Stubborn
was too mild a word to describe him. He was hell-bent and determined to push himself to the limits of his endurance, which unfortunately wasn't far. It always took a long session in the whirlpool afterward to ease the pain from his tortured muscles, but he kept at it, even knowing that he was going to have to pay with pain.

To her relief he asked no more questions and in no way referred to what she'd told him of her childhood. Because of the extra demand he was making on his body, he was always sound asleep when she checked on him at night, so there were no repeats.

Over Serena's protests Dione also began giving him therapy in the pool. Serena was terrified that he'd
drown, since his legs were useless and he obviously couldn't kick, but Blake himself overruled her objections. He'd said that he liked challenges, and he wasn't backing off from this one. With his engineering expertise, he designed and directed the construction of a system of braces and pulleys that enabled Dione to lower him into the pool and hoist him out when the session was ended, something that he would soon be able to do for himself.

One morning, after she'd been here a little over two weeks, Dione watched him as he devoured the breakfast that Alberta had prepared. Already it seemed that he was gaining weight. His face had fleshed out and wasn't as gray as it had been. He'd burned a little during the first few days he'd been in the sun, but he hadn't peeled, and now the light tan he'd acquired made his blue eyes seem even bluer.

“What're you staring at?” he demanded as Alberta removed the plate before him and replaced it with a bowl of fresh strawberries in cream.

“You're gaining weight,” Dione told him with immense satisfaction.

“Shouldn't wonder,” Alberta snorted as she left the room. “He's eating like a horse.”

Blake scowled at her, but dipped his spoon into the bowl and lifted a plump strawberry. His white teeth sank into the red fruit; then his tongue captured the juice that stained his lips. “That's what you wanted, isn't it?” he demanded grumpily. “To fatten me up?”

She smiled and didn't reply, watching as he demolished the fruit. Just as he was finishing Angela glided in with a telephone, which she placed on the table before him. After plugging it in, she gave him a shy smile and left.

Blake sat there, staring at the phone. Dione hid a grin. “I think that means you have a call,” she prompted.

He looked relieved. “Good. I was afraid you wanted me to eat it.”

She chuckled and got to her feet. As he lifted the receiver and put it to his ear, she touched his shoulder lightly and murmured, “I'll be in the gym; come down when you're finished.”

He met her eyes and nodded, already embroiled in conversation. She heard enough to know that he was talking to Richard, and just the thought of Richard was enough to pucker her brow in a line of worry.

Serena had been very good after that first day; she'd come to see Blake only in the late afternoon, when Dione had completed her schedule for the day. She'd also learned not to wait until too late to arrive, or Blake would already be asleep. Most nights, Richard also arrived for dinner.

Richard was a witty, entertaining man, with a dry sense of humor and a repertoire of jokes that often had her chuckling in her seat, but which couldn't be repeated when Blake or Serena asked what was so funny.

Dione couldn't say that Richard had been less than a gentleman. In no way had he said or done anything that could be termed suggestive. It was just that she could read the deepening admiration in his eyes, sense the growing gentleness in the way he treated her. She wasn't the only one who felt that perhaps Richard was becoming too fond of her; Serena was subtle, but she watched her husband sharply when he was talking with Dione. In a way, Dione was relieved; it meant that Serena was at least paying attention to her husband. But she didn't want complications of that sort, especially when there was nothing to it.

She didn't feel that she could say anything to Richard about it either. How could she scold him when he'd been nothing but polite? He loved his wife, she was sure. He liked and admired his brother-in-law. But still, he responded to Dione in a way that she knew she hadn't mistaken.

She'd been the object of unwanted attention before, but this was the first time that attention hadn't been obvious. She had no idea how to handle it. She knew that Richard would never try to force himself on her, but Serena was jealous. Part of Dione, the deeply feminine part of her, was even flattered by his regard. If Serena had been giving her husband the attention he deserved, none of this would be happening.

But they weren't important, she told herself. She couldn't let them be important to her. Only Blake mattered. He was coming out of the prison of his disability, more and more revealing himself as the man he'd been before the accident. In another month she hoped to have him standing. Not walking, but standing. Letting his legs get used to supporting the weight of his body again. What she was doing now was dealing with the basics, restoring him to health and building his strength up enough that he would be able to stand when she demanded it of him.

She ran hot water in a plastic container and set the flask of oil that she used down in it to warm it for the massage that she always gave him before he went in the pool, in an effort to protect him from any chill. Not that a chill was likely in the hundred-plus-degree heat of a summer day in Phoenix, she thought wryly, but he was so thin, still so weakened, that she didn't take any chances with him. Besides, he seemed to enjoy the feel
of the warm oil being massaged into him, and he had little enough joy in his life.

She was restless, and she prowled aimlessly about the converted game room, pausing to stretch her body. She needed a good workout to release some of her energy, she decided, and positioned herself on the weight bench.

She liked lifting weights. Her aim was strength, not bulk, and the program that she followed was designed with that in mind. For Blake, she was altering the program enough to build up the bulk of his muscles without pumping him up like a Mr. Universe. Carefully regulating her breathing, concentrating on what she was doing, she began her sets. Up, down. Up, down.

She finished her leg sets and adjusted the system of pulleys and weights to what she wanted for her arms. Puffing, she began again. The demand she was making on her muscles reached a plateau that was almost pleasure. Again. Again.

“You damned cheat!” The roar startled her, and she jerked upright, alarm skittering across her features. Confused, she stared at Blake. He sat in his wheelchair, just inside the door, his face dark red and contorted with fury.

“What?” she spluttered.

He pointed at the weights. “You're a weight lifter!” he bellowed, so furious that he was shaking. “You little cheat. You knew the day you beat me at arm wrestling that you'd win! Hell, how many men
could
beat you?”

She blushed. “Not everyone,” she said with modesty, which seemed to make him even angrier.

“I can't believe it!” He was yelling, getting louder and louder. “Knowing how it would make me feel that a woman could beat me at arm wrestling, you made a bet on it anyway, and you
rigged
it!”

“I never said that I wasn't good at it,” she pointed out, trying to keep the laughter out of her voice. He looked wonderful! If sheer rage could have put him back on his feet, he'd have been walking right then. A giggle escaped her control, and at the sound of it he began pounding his fist on the arm of the wheelchair; unfortunately he was pounding on the controls, and the chair began jumping back and forth like a bronc trying to rid itself of an unwanted rider.

Dione couldn't help it; she gave up even trying to keep a straight face and laughed until tears ran down her face. She howled. She beat the weight bench with her fist in mute mockery of the way he'd pounded the wheelchair controls; she clutched her arms across her stomach, gasping for breath, and every new eruption of rage from him sent her off into renewed paroxysms.

“Stop laughing!” he thundered, his voice booming off the walls. “Sit down! We'll see who wins this time!”

She was so weak that she had to haul herself to the massage table where he'd propped his elbow and was waiting for her with a face like doom. Still giggling, she collapsed against the table.

“This isn't fair!” she protested, putting her hand in his grip. “I'm not ready. Wait until I stop laughing.”

“Was it fair when you let me think I was wrestling a frail,
normal
woman?” he seethed.

“I'm perfectly normal!” she hooted. “You got beat fair and square, and you know it!”

“I don't know any such thing! You cheated, and I want a rematch.”

“All right, all right. Just give me a minute.” Quickly she squelched the remaining laughter that wanted to
bubble out and flexed her hand in his. She began tightening her muscles. “Okay. I'm ready.”

“On the count of three,” he said. “One…twothree!”

It was fortunate that she was ready for the quick count he gave. She threw her entire body into the effort, realizing that the extra weight he'd gained and the few days of workouts that he'd had with the weights had increased his strength. Not by much, perhaps, but with the added impetus of his anger and the laughter that had weakened her, perhaps it would be enough to win the match for him.

“You cheated!” she accused in turn, gritting her teeth as she bore down with all her strength against the force of his arm.

“You deserved it!”

They panted and huffed and grunted for several minutes, and sweat began to run down their faces. They were close together, almost face to face, as their locked arms strained harder and harder. Dione groaned aloud. His initial burst of strength had been greater than hers, but not enough to make a quick end to it. Now it was a matter of stamina, and she thought that she could outlast him. She could have let him win, to soothe his ego, but it wasn't in her to trick him that way. If he won, it would be despite everything she could do.

Something of her determination must have shown in her face, because he growled, “Damn it, this is the part where you're supposed to let me win!”

She puffed, sucking in much-needed oxygen. “If you want to beat me, you're going to have to work for it,” she panted. “I don't
let
anybody win!”

“But I'm a patient!”

“You're an opportunist!”

He ground his teeth and pushed harder. Dione ducked
her head, a movement that placed her head in the hollow of his shoulder, and counteracted his move with everything she had. Slowly, slowly, she felt his arm begin to move back. The rush of strength that winning always gave her zoomed through her veins, and with a cry she slammed his arm down flat on the table.

Their panting breaths filled the room, and her heartbeat thundered in her ears like the hoofbeats of a galloping horse. She was still slumped against him, her head on his shoulder, and she could feel the pounding of his heart throughout his entire body. Slowly she pushed herself off him, letting her weight fall against the table. Like a rag doll, he slumped forward onto the table, too, his color fading almost to normal as he sucked in deep breaths of air.

After a moment he propped his chin on his folded arm and regarded her out of dark blue eyes that still held storm clouds.

Dione drew a deep breath, staring at him. “You're beautiful when you're angry,” she told him.

He blinked in astonishment. Stunned, he stared at her for a long, long minute that hung suspended in time; then an odd little gurgle sounded in his throat. He gulped. The next sound was a full-throated roar of laughter. He threw his head back and clutched helplessly at his stomach. Dione began to giggle again.

He was rolling, howling with mirth, rocking back and forth. The abused controls of the wheelchair caught the impact of his fist again, and this time the jerky movements combined with his back and forth motion to pitch him out on his face. It was lucky that he wasn't hurt, because Dione couldn't have stopped laughing if her life had depended on it. She fell off her stool to lie
beside him, drawing her legs up to her stomach. “Stop it! Stop it!” she shrieked as tears rolled down her face.

“Stop it! Stop it!” he mimicked, catching her and digging his fingers into her ribs.

In all her life, Dione had never been tickled. She'd never known what it was to play. She was so startled by the unbearably ticklish sensation of his fingers on her ribs that she couldn't even be alarmed at his touch. She was screaming her head off, rolling helplessly in an effort to get away from those tormenting fingers, when another voice intruded on them.