New Year Escapes. Leslie Kelly

the door and staying out of sight so he could get up the stairs without an audience. Or at least without her. Gunnar was delighted to see her. He bounced eagerly and nosed her hands. But then he went back to the window to check on George.

      Sophy went to the door to hold it open for when he finally got there, which he did at last. He looked like death.

      “I know Sam said to get you to bed, but we’re not doing any more stairs right now,” she told him.

      He didn’t argue. Wordlessly he headed straight down the hall to the living room, then sank down onto the sofa as soon as he got there. Sophy ran upstairs and got the pillows off her bed and grabbed the comforter folded at the bottom of it, then hurried back down. George hadn’t moved. He didn’t open his eyes when she returned. The north-facing windows let in some light, but his face was in the shadows. His head rested against the back of the sofa, the skin beneath his stubbled cheeks almost white. He looked completely spent.

      Sophy plumped the pillows at one end and said, “How about lying down?”

      It was an indication of how bad he must feel that he didn’t argue. Slowly, laboriously, wordlessly, eyes still shut, George stretched out on the sofa. She covered him with the comforter.

      “Can I get you anything?”

      Okay, she knew she was hovering, and he didn’t like hovering. But she wanted a response. Yes, he was doing what she suggested. But she needed a word or two. It unnerved her to see him like this. It was so out of character. George took charge. George could do anything, always had.

      “No,” he said, lips barely moving, his voice low and a little rusty. “I’m fine.”

      “Of course you are,” she said with a smile and tucked the comforter in around him, unable to fight the feeling of fondness—no, not simply fondness … love, God help her—that swamped her.

      “Oh, George.” She swallowed hard and blinked back sudden unexpected tears.

      His eyes flicked open. “What?”

      But Sophy turned her head away. “Nothing. I’m going to get you some water.” She started toward the kitchen.

      “I don’t need water,” she heard him say.

      “Well, I need to get it,” she replied, not turning around. And she hurried toward the kitchen where, please God, she would get a grip.

      She could not survive the coming month if she got teary-eyed at the drop of a hat.

      Death didn’t seem like such a bad alternative.

      George was appalled at how weak he was, how badly his head hurt—how badly he hurt—and how dizzy and dazed and out of control he felt.

      There was no way on God’s earth he could climb the stairs to his bedroom. Not now. Maybe not even today. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and lie perfectly still.

      What he did not want to do was deal with Sophy.

      Of course it was his own damn fault Sophy was here.

      When he heard her footsteps returning, he forced his eyes open, even though as soon as he did the room began spinning again. “You don’t have to stay.”

      “Of course I don’t,” Sophy said. But she made no move to leave. She set the glass on a coaster behind his head on the end table. She was so close when she bent to do it that he could smell the scent of her shampoo, enough that he could have reached up a hand and touched her. But God knew what he’d do if he did.

      And George, for one, didn’t want to find out.

      “So go,” he said with all the firmness he could manage. “You were right before. At the hospital. There are plenty of home nurses in New York. Call one.”

      “I don’t think so.”

      “Sophy—”

      “I’m going to put Gunnar out. C’mon, buddy,” she said as if he hadn’t even spoken. She snapped her fingers lightly. And George heard the clink of Gunnar’s tags as the dog—his dog, damn it!—jumped up from beside the sofa and obediently followed Sophy down the stairs.

      He didn’t hear them come back.

      He must have slept. He didn’t know how long. The first thing he was aware of was a mouthwateringly delicious smell. The second thing was that his head didn’t hurt quite as much. He moved it slowly, experimentally. The pain was still there, but less explosive now. It hurt, but not enough to make him sick to his stomach.

      He cracked his eyes open.

      Sophy was sitting in the recliner, her laptop on her outstretched legs, her head bent, her burnished copper hair, almost brown in the shadows, hiding her face as she looked at the screen. He turned his head to try to see her better.

      Her gaze flicked up. “Ah, you’re awake. How are you doing?”

      The first time he’d met her—with Ari at some cousin’s wedding—George had been struck not just by her amazing hair and her pretty animated face, but by her voice. Amid what he thought of as “stage five rapids” of conversational white noise wedding chatter surging all around them, Sophy’s clear soft voice had seemed like a cool still welcome pool. It still did.

      He shifted his head again experimentally. “Better.”

      “Can I get you anything?”

      He flexed his shoulders and discovered that most of his muscles were still on strike. So he said, “Maybe that water you brought earlier.”

      Immediately Sophy set aside the laptop and got up to fetch the glass for him. He considered saying he could get it himself, but he wasn’t sure he could—not without making a production of it. So he just said, “Thank you,” when she handed him the glass.

      He wasn’t expecting her to kneel down next to him and slide her arm under his shoulders to lift him up enough to drink easily. He let her do that, too, because it did help—and because her hair brushed his cheek and he could breathe in the scent of her just as he used to. Hers was a scent so uniquely Sophy that even if he hadn’t known it was her, one breath would have taken him straight back to the night’s he’d lain next to her in bed, wanting her.

      Now he swallowed too quickly and choked, coughing, making his head pound once more.

      Swiftly Sophy set the glass down. Her arm tightened around his shoulders. “Are you all right?”

      George coughed again, wincing, then made himself nod even though it hurt. “Yeah. Just … swallowed the wrong way. I’m okay.”

      She eased him back down and slid her arm from beneath him. Then she sat back on her heels, her gaze intent. “Are you sure about being home, George? I can call Sam. Tell him you’ve changed your mind. Or he can come over. He said he’d stop by after work.”

      “No.”

      “But—”

      “No! I’m not going back and Sam is not coming over. No way. Not having him here hitting on you and—”

      “What?”

      He gave her a derisive look. “You didn’t notice Sam was just a little bit interested?”

      “Interested in what?”

      George stared at her. “In you!”‘

      “Me? Sam? Oh, don’t be ridiculous. We just met. We spent five minutes talking about you and—”

      “Doesn’t take Sam long. He’s a fast worker,” George muttered. “You don’t want to fool around with Sam. He’s not dependable.”

      “I don’t even know Sam.”

      “And now you won’t have to. Got you out of there before he could work his wiles on you.”

      “What?” Sophy’s cheeks were nearly as red as her hair.