“You need to get that foot elevated. It wouldn’t hurt to ice it for a few minutes, since it’s swelling again.”
“I’ll take an anti-inflammatory.”
He shrugged. “Whatever you think best.”
Pushing herself to her feet, she limped awkwardly toward the doorway. “I’ll wait for you in the bedroo
m.”
There was an undercurrent of laughter in his voice when he called after her, “That sounds good to me.”
She discovered then that she could move more quickly than she’d realized while hopping on one foot.
Chapter Seven
Though Gideon tended to be a restless sleeper on the best of nights, rarely needing more than five or six hours total, he slept very little that night. The couch in the office was perfectly comfortable. He’d spent many nights on it after writing until the wee hours and finally collapsing into sleep. So it wasn’t physical discomfort that caused him to prowl the dark hallways during those long hours.
He was concerned that Isabelle was getting sick or had encountered problems at school that he was unprepared to deal with. He certainly didn’t relish the prospect of a parent-teacher conference with him in the role of parent. But it wasn’t Isabelle’s odd behavior that had kept him awake—not entirely, anyway.
His mind filled with images of Adrienne, lying asleep in his bed. She would look flushed and warm and tousled, as she had when her soft moans of pain had led him to her. Something else was drawing him to her now and it was all he could do to resist.
She’d still been fully dressed when he had taken his unfinished manuscript to her. Sitting on his bed, her back propped against the pillows, her swollen foot stretched in front of her, she had looked both fetching and self-conscious. Attractive enough to make his palms sweat yet vulnerable in a way that made him keep his distance.
He’d been strung tight as a banjo string ever since. Partly because it made him nervous letting someone else read his work in progress—something he almost never trusted to anyone. But mostly because he had left that room with a need so deep he ached from it.
Maybe it was time for Adrienne to go back to New York, Isabelle notwithstanding.
If Adrienne had been under the illusion that Isabelle never misbehaved, she learned differently Thursday morning. She and Gideon were treated to an outburst that came perilously close to a tantrum when they tried to get Isabelle ready for school.
“I don’t want to go to school!” she cried out, stamping one foot, her face red and tear-streaked. “I want to stay here!”
Leaving her sobbing in the den, her face buried against her stuffed owl, Adrienne and Gideon retreated to the kitchen for a hasty conference.
“We’ll let her stay home,” Gideon decided, looking shaken by the flare-up. “Everyone needs an occasional mental health day.”
Adrienne tended to agree with him, mostly out of fear of what they might encounter if they insisted Isabelle go to school. And yet, “What if she refuses to go again tomorrow?”
“A four-year-old dropout.” Gideon squeezed the back of his neck with one hand. “Maybe we can get her a job serving Happy Meals.”
“This isn’t funny, Gideon.”
“No,” he admitted. “But we might as well lighten up about it. Mom or Nathan will be home soon, and they’ll probably know a heck of a lot better than we do how to handle this. I agreed to baby-sit for a few days, but I never promised to handle emotional crises.”
Adrienne bit her lip, hoping they were doing the right thing by giving in to the child’s tantrum. Adrienne knew her father would never have tolerated such behavior. But she also remembered how she had so often longed for him to listen to her problems and offer sympathy rather than lectures.
“You had better call the school and tell them Isabelle won’t be there today,” she advised him. “They’ll worry if you don’t.”
He didn’t look enthusiastic about making the call. “Miss Thelma will probably remind me of my total incompetence as a baby-sitter and ask me again what my mother was thinking leaving a helpless child in my care.”
“Maybe you should ask her what’s going on at her school that’s making Isabelle almost hysterical at the prospect of going back,” Adrienne suggested in return. “She’s perfectly happy here, but there’s something at school that’s upsetting her badly.”
Gideon nodded. “Maybe I will ask her that.”
“I’ll go sit with Isabelle while you make the call.”
“See if you can get her to stop crying, will you? I can’t handle much more of that.”
“I’ll do my best.”