was warm, and he smelled like the country and morning sunshine—the way her cotton clothes smelled if she dried them on a clothesline. She pressed her face against his shirt and closed her eyes again.
He didn’t stop until he’d carried her all the way to his back porch, and then he paused only long enough to elbow the door open. Once inside, he set her down on a big, striped sofa as gently as if she were an armload of eggs.
She opened her eyes and blinked at him.
“Thank God. You’re awake. Are you okay? What am I saying, of course you’re not okay. You fainted.” He ran his hands through his thick, chestnut hair.
Bridget thought irrelevantly that he was adorable when disconcerted.
“We should take you to the hospital,” he announced.
She quickly found her voice. “No, really, that’s not necessary. It’s just morning sickness. By ten o’clock I’ll be fine. Believe me.”
“You fainted. I thought morning sickness was just nausea.”
“I was light-headed. Maybe a little dehydrated.”
“Eyes rolling into the back of your head is not ‘light-headed.’ You were unconscious.”
“Just for a couple of seconds!”
“I’m calling a doctor. I have a friend—”
“No! As soon as I get something in my stomach, I’ll be fine. And I have an appointment with my obstetrician this afternoon. I’ll mention the morning sickness and see if he has any suggestions.” She sat up, though it cost her to do it without groaning. “See, I’m feeling better already.”
He looked almost convinced. She decided she’d better distract him with a task, or she’d be paying some strange doctor for a house call.
“Hot decaf tea with milk and honey usually helps. Do you have some tea?”
“No. Coffee?”
She shuddered. “’Fraid not.”
“Orange juice?”
The thought of OJ made her stomach twinge. “A glass of water and some dry toast or crackers?” she countered.
“That I can do.”
He practically knocked over furniture in his effort to get to the kitchen. She could hear him clattering around in there, searching through drawers, opening and shutting cabinets. Heavens, didn’t he know where things were in his own kitchen?
It occurred to her, then, that he might not live alone. He’d been at the charity ball without a date, and there clearly wasn’t a woman in residence at the moment, or the panicked man would have dumped his ill guest on her. But maybe his wife traveled on business or something.
For the first time she took stock of his living room. Peach-and-white-striped furniture and pastel woven rag rugs created a pleasant atmosphere. A wealth of houseplants, set in decorative Mexican pots, were apparently thriving, probably due to the abundant light spilling in through two generous skylights. Either Nick had good taste, he’d hired a decorator or some woman had staked her claim on his home.
Then again, something about his house was uniquely male, even with the flowers out front and the pastel living room. It was…unpretentious, she supposed. Lived in. No fussy widgets on the coffee table or lace whats-its around the no-nonsense window blinds. He must be single, after all.
Just as well he was unattached, she decided. More than once she’d been doing a portrait for a husband, and the wife got jealous over the amount of time Bridget spent with the man.
She got up and took a closer look at the items on his fireplace mantel—a large quartz crystal rock, a pocket watch under a display glass and a model biplane very similar to the one in the garden.
She nudged the tiny propeller on the plane, delighted to see it actually spun.
“I thought you were sick.” Nick stood directly behind her, much too close for comfort.
She whirled around, her heart racing for no good reason. “It…comes and goes,” she managed. “That’s the way this morning sickness thing is.”
He held a glass of ice water in one hand and a plate of buttered toast—at least four pieces—in the other. He’d forgotten she wanted it dry. He set both down on the maple coffee table. “Sit down before you fall down. A good breeze could blow you over.”
She followed orders, not wishing to be any more of a problem than she’d already been. “I’m sorry if I scared you. I do appreciate your concern.” She did, too, sort of.
Nick sank onto the opposite end of the sofa and put his head in his hands. Goodness, her sudden illness really had taken a lot out of the man.
“You’re not going to sue me, are you?”
“Sue you? Good heavens, what for?” She nibbled on a corner of toast.
“I’m an easy target. And you were talking about suing my brother—”
“I never said I was going to sue your brother. I never even met your brother! That was my sister.”
“She’s pregnant, too?” he asked, faintly amused.
Bridget slumped back on the sofa. “No. She’s not pregnant. She was referring to me, but she was only making a joke. Not a very good one, I’m—”
“A joke? I wouldn’t think an unplanned pregnancy is something to joke about.”
Now he was getting personal. “You think I should hide myself away like I’ve done something shameful?”
“Forgive me for saying so, but some people might think that sleeping with so many men that you don’t even know your child’s parentage is shameful. There, I’ve said it. I’m an old-fashioned, fossilized dinosaur. I know it. I can’t help it.”
Bridget knew she should be furious by the assumptions he’d made about her. But there was something pretty funny about a studly guy like Nick Raines talking about family values like a blue-haired old lady.
She folded her arms. “So, that’s what this hostility is all about. It’s not the baby that bothers you. It’s my sleeping habits.”
“It’s both. I don’t understand how you, a seemingly intelligent, successful woman, could so thoughtlessly conceive a child.”
Okay. It was time to put that particular misconception to rest. “For your information, Nick—not that it’s any of your business—I put a great deal of thought into conceiving this child. I love children. I want to raise a family more than anything in the world. I just don’t happen to have a husband.”
“How would you have time for a husband?” he grumbled.
What seemed humorous a moment ago suddenly didn’t. Bridget felt tears coming on—her raging hormones had turned her into an emotional wreck—but she ruthlessly swallowed back the lump in her throat. “I was artificially inseminated.”
She almost enjoyed the look of consternation on his handsome face. Then she promptly burst into tears.
“Oh…oh, here, now, stop that. There’s no need…” Nick waved his hands around helplessly. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Bridget sniffed. “I’m just overemotional.”
He held the glass of water out to her. “Here.” When she didn’t take it right away, he set it down, dashed out of the room, then back again with a box of tissues. “Here.”
She took the tissue and dabbed at her eyes, then blew her nose in a most unladylike fashion. After a few more sniffs, she had herself under control.
“I’m really sorry,” he said again, though he looked relieved. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. But you have to admit,