stared at each other for a full minute. She might have been teasing but he wasn’t in the mood for games right now. Especially not with the dark thoughts that careened through his head whenever he laid eyes on her. Thoughts that made him do a mental penance dance each time they arose. It had become a vicious cycle, one he’d have no hope of breaking if they were forced to shack up together.
No, it wouldn’t be shacking up.
As if aware of his thoughts, Sophia’s throat moved in a quick swallow. Maybe she was about to take back her offer.
Yes. Please do.
The doctor spoke up. “Well, I’ll leave you two to work out the details. Sophia, if you could free him from that IV? I’m sure he’ll be glad not to be dragging it behind him any more.”
Something flashed through her eyes and her teeth came down on her lip before she answered, “Of course, Doctor.”
Lucas couldn’t hold back a small smile. She’d been none too gentle when she’d jabbed the catheter back into his vein the other day. He could have sworn she had been trying to get a wince out of him.
For not remembering her?
There it went again. He really needed to stop dwelling on this.
The doctor left the room, and he was alone with her. His smile widened just a bit. “I could always unhook myself, you know, if it makes you more comfortable. I did it once before.”
“No, I’ll do it.” She moved to the counter with quick, precise motions, snapping on her gloves and getting a cotton ball and sticking plaster.
As soon as she was within reach, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“The doctor said to undo you.”
His thumb swept across her hand, grimacing when it met latex rather than the silky skin he knew lay beneath the gloves. “I’m not talking about the IV. I’m talking about you staying with me. I’m sure there are nurses I can hire. A...” He struggled to find the Portuguese equivalent of an LPN. “The kind that come to patients’ homes.”
Her brows went up in that indignant way he was coming to recognize. “You think I’m not qualified?”
Hell. How did he get himself into situations like this? “No, that’s not it. I just know that you’re busy with your job.”
“I don’t normally work at night. And the hospital is close to Marcos’s apartment.” She tugged her hand free. “Surely you can manage for a few hours here and there while I’m at work.”
Why was she so insistent? They were nothing to each other, and she’d made it pretty clear she didn’t want to have much to do with him. So to spend the night in the next room—at least, he figured it would be the next room. Who knew? Maybe the bedrooms were nowhere near each other. “Don’t you have someone waiting for you at home?”
She sucked in a breath then released it in a slow, steady current of air. “That doesn’t really have anything to do with this situation. You’re Marcos’s brother, and he’s a special friend.”
Exactly how special?
He shook his head clear of that thought. His brother had said he’d had trouble picturing Sophia as an adult so surely... Besides, Marcos and Maggie were evidently an item now. And Sophia didn’t act as if she was jealous. In fact, she seemed genuinely happy for them.
With gloved fingers she took hold of his arm. “You might want to look away.”
This time Lucas was the one who lifted his brows. “I think I can handle it.”
“Okay.” She put the cotton ball over the catheter and slid it free of his vein, then pressed on it lightly. “Hold this for a few seconds.”
He blinked at her then gave the arm in the sling a little wiggle, grimacing when it hurt more than he’d expected. “Kind of hard to do that right now.”
Her face turned pink. “Oh. That’s right. Sorry.” She kept pressure on his wrist with her thumb for a few seconds, fingers curling around his wrist. The contact lasted long enough that Lucas began to wish he’d used his chin or something else to hold onto that cotton ball as the warmth of her skin was quickly cutting through the chill of the room.
At last she eased the compression and lifted the gauze to look. “That should do it.” She dropped the cotton ball into a basin then quickly peeled apart a sticking plaster and applied it over the puncture mark.
Dragging a nearby chair to the bed, she dropped into it and regarded him with serious eyes.
“What?” For the first time he wished he actually had some real clothes on, because if a certain part of him decided to go rogue, it was going to be awfully difficult to conceal it.
“The doctor was right. We need to work out the details.”
“Of?” He decided to play stupid.
“How things between us are going to work.”
Okay, that rogue part was already feeling the heat.
Think of something else.
Should he refuse her offer of help? Or should he suck it up and decide to make the best of a bad situation? He’d asked her to tell him about their shared past, so he could look at it as a way to kill two birds with one stone. “How many bedrooms does Marcos’s apartment have?”
“Two, of course.” She leaned back and crossed her legs. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have offered to stay.”
“Right.” And she’d just made everything worse because now he was picturing a single shared bed and Sophia’s lush figure sprawled across the mattress.
She fiddled with the hem of her top. “Besides, you weren’t worried about the number of bedrooms a few minutes ago when you were talking about hiring a nurse.”
Bingo. But then again he doubted any other nurse was going to mess with his head the way this particular one did. And he had no idea why she affected him so much. He’d love to blame it on the pain meds, but as he’d refused to take anything yesterday or today, that was impossible.
“I wasn’t expecting a hired nurse to actually spend the night.”
“Oh. I think that’s what the doctor intended, though.” She smiled at him, her brow clearing. “I’ve taken the rest of the day off, so whenever you’re ready we can get your discharge papers signed and be on our way.”
Something about that rattled around in his brain for a moment or two before he realized what he was looking for. “You were already going to offer to stay with me, weren’t you, even before the doctor said anything? Why?”
“Because Marcos asked me to.”
Ah, yes. His brother, the saint. Sophia would never have agreed to do it on her own, evidently.
Even though he knew his waspish reaction was childish, he couldn’t help it. Lucas had often felt guilty over the years, wondering if his brother had been adopted as well. Finding out he hadn’t been...that he’d spent most of his childhood in that orphanage...was hard to swallow. He had no idea why his folks hadn’t taken them both, and by the time he’d been old enough to have asked, he’d rarely thought of the life he’d left behind in Brazil. And what memories he’d had weren’t ones that would make him proud.
And yet he’d permanently inscribed his father’s name on his arm, along with a rod of Asclepius and the words “Promises Kept” written beneath it. He did remember both he and his brother promising their father they’d become doctors—that they’d make him feel better. Of course they hadn’t been able to keep the last part of that promise. Their father had died, leaving them orphans.
To take his mind off those morbid thoughts, he slid off the bed and stood. “Well, since you seem determined to stay at the apartment, I do have one rule about this whole