The Winner Takes It All. Alison Roberts

coughed.” Her voice sounded hoarse. “It hurt.”

      “I’m sure it did.” He sat next to her. “Let me check your incision.”

      Her eyes widened with a hint of panic. “It was the cough.”

      He brushed the hair away from her face. His fingers touched her cheek. She didn’t feel warm. “I want to make sure.”

      She pulled the blanket to her neck. “You don’t have to go to all this trouble.”

      “It’s no trouble.” He understood Sarah’s leeriness. In spite of being a little out of it last night, she must have realized he’d been turned on. Even after a cold shower, he’d wanted to sleep in here, to hold her, to breathe in her scent. Loneliness did strange things to a man. “If you were in a SNF, someone would check you.”

      “Yes, but not…”

      “Me.”

      She nodded. “I’m sorry.”

      “Don’t apologize.”

      Her fingers rubbed the edge of the blanket. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “It’s the situation. I’m not sure how to feel around you. Parts of last night were nice, then awkward, then nice again. So nice I hated sleeping alone.”

      A combination of relief and satisfaction radiated through him. He’d thought the same thing. He touched her shoulder.

      Her muscles tensed beneath his hand.

      “I get it,” he admitted. “Having you here is…”

      “Weird.”

      “Different,” he said at the same time. “A little weird, too.”

      She blew out a puff of air. “Good. I mean, not that things are weird, but that I’m not alone or imagining things.”

      “You’re not alone.” He’d been imagining things about her all night. Unfortunately. Because those fantasies would never become reality. “We’re adults. We can handle this.”

      “It’s not like we have another choice.”

      If only…“It is what it is until you’re ready to go back to Bellingham.”

      “If things get too weird we can talk it out.”

      She had wanted to talk about everything. He hated doing that. He’d been talked out after his parents had the family attend counseling and grief sessions following Blaine’s death. The intense sessions helped, but they also frustrated Cullen because no amount of counseling or rehab had been able to help his brother kick his drug addiction.

      Sarah looked expectantly at him.

      “Sure, we can talk.” He relented. “May I check your incision?”

      She lowered the blanket. “It’s not like you haven’t seen this before.”

      He slowly raised the hem of her nightshirt over her thighs. The bruises were fading. He lifted the material higher, past her orange polka-dotted bikini panties that showed off the curve of her hip. He willed his hand not to tremble. He continued to the large incision on her abdomen from her emergency splenectomy.

      Cullen might have seen her body before, but he liked seeing all that creamy skin again. His gaze strayed back to her panties. He swallowed.

      Focus.

      The skin around the sutures wasn’t any more red then it had been at the hospital. No drainage, either. He placed his fingertips on her stomach. The skin wasn’t hot, but boy did she feel nice. Soft, smooth, silky.

      He dragged his hand away. “No drainage or rash. Are you hungry?”

      She nodded.

      “That’s a good sign.” He pulled down the hem of her nightshirt before he became more unprofessional. “Has the pain lessened since the surgery?”

      “Yes, until I coughed.”

      “Next time you have to cough place a pillow over your incision.” He stood. “Let’s get you up and moving. That should ease some of the pain.”

      She scrunched her nose. “It’s too early for you to be up if you have to work tonight.”

      Her concern brought a smile to his face. “I’ll take a nap later.”

      “You’re sure?”

      “Positive.” He cupped her elbow and helped her out of bed. “Is it hard to breathe?”

      “Nope.”

      “Let’s see how you feel walking.”

      She moved slowly and carefully, the way she should to make sure she didn’t fall. “It helps.”

      He noticed her long legs, liked the curve of her calf, the slender slope of her ankles. “You’re doing great.”

      She walked out of the bedroom. “I must look pretty frightening.”

      “Not frightening.” He followed her down the hall. “You look pretty good for someone recovering from a bad fall, broken bones and surgery.”

      She glanced over her shoulder, her green eyes hopeful. “Any chance I could shower?”

      An image of him taking off her panties flashed in his mind. He gave his head a mental shake. “Uh, sure. I’ll have to wrap your cast.”

      “That’s what the nurse did at the hospital,” Sarah said with a relieved smile. “I may need you to pour the shampoo into my left hand.”

      Or he could join her in the shower and wash her hair for her. He wouldn’t mind lathering her up.

      Strike that. Cullen pushed the idea from his head. He found it too easy to think about her as his wife, not his soon-to-be ex-wife. She’d wanted out of the marriage. No reason to assume she wanted back in. Not that he wanted her back. He didn’t. At least most of the time, he didn’t. “Let’s get you fed, then cleaned up.”

      Sarah stood in the bathroom wearing her orange robe and nothing underneath. She stared at the tile floor, not wanting to meet Cullen’s watchful eyes. She tightened the belt around her waist as best she could with one hand so the robe wouldn’t slip open.

      His height and wide shoulders made the space feel cramped even though the bathroom was larger than the one at the hospital. He checked the plastic around her cast. “It should stay dry.”

      “I don’t think any water is going to come close to my cast.”

      He turned on the shower. Water splashed against the tub and curtain. “That’s the plan.”

      Cullen had always been a planner. Too bad he hadn’t stuck to his plans instead of letting her derail them. That would have saved them both a lot of heartache. Well, at least her. “Have your life figured out again?”

      His gaze met hers. “Pretty much. I made a few changes.”

      Like removing her from his future plans. She pinched the bridge of her nose, ignoring the hollow feeling inside her.

      He checked the water temperature. “Ready?”

      Not really. “Sure.”

      He pulled back the shower curtain. “There’s a mat on the bottom of the tub, so you shouldn’t slip, but be careful.”

      “Okay.”

      She waited for him to leave. He didn’t.

      “Aren’t you getting in?” he asked.

      Cullen stared at her as if she had something on her face. Left-over French toast, perhaps? She rubbed the back of her hand over her mouth. “Are you staying in here?”

      “Yes.”

      It was as simple and as complicated as that.

      “I