Stephanie placed her hand over Blair’s. “Are you okay? I take it you didn’t know Oz was taking her out on a boat?”
“No, I didn’t.” Blair tried to keep her voice calm for Addy’s sake, but anger erupted inside her, blowing through her with volcanic force. “But Oz Manning is going to know about how angry I am that he took my daughter out on a boat without my permission.”
Sweat covered Oz’s brow, his body. He’d been jogging for nearly an hour. Usually nothing cleared his head like a good run. In Rochester, he ran a route from his condo to the park and back, a little over five miles total. In Madison, with the sea air filling his lungs, the breeze whipping at his skin, he felt as if he could go on and on.
Or maybe thinking about the night before was what had him so wired.
He’d made love with Blair.
He grinned, probably looking a fool to the older couple walking along picking up shells. Not that he cared. He felt a fool.
A fool high on life.
Last night his eyes had been opened in many ways.
Ways he’d never dreamed of seeing clearly, but thanks to Blair, he saw.
When she’d hurried from his room, he’d sighed. At first he’d thought his sigh had been in relief. But as he’d lain there, analyzing everything Blair had told him, everything they’d shared physically and emotionally, he’d realized his sigh hadn’t been in relief. Instead, he’d sighed at Blair’s backtracking, trying to protect her heart.
He recognized the motions well.
He had a lifetime’s experience.
He’d always compared himself to his father, but wasn’t that taking the safe route? Because, if he wasn’t like his father, that meant he must be like his mother, who had been devastated by Oz’s cheating father. He’d watched his mother’s heart crumble, watched her self-destructive path, and somewhere along the way he’d decided he was like his father as a safety mechanism.
Wasn’t being the cad much easier than being the victim of a broken heart?
For years, he’d operated under that misguided notion. He’d never met anyone to make him question his belief, had never met anyone to make him risk being more than a self-proclaimed cad.
Not until Blair.
While lying in the bed they’d made love in, surrounded by the scent of her on his favorite Egyptian cotton sheets, on his pillow, he’d questioned…well…everything.
The fact that he’d done more than either of his parents, that he had committed to medical school, to Dr T, that he’d met a woman he wanted to explore the possibilities with, a woman worth taking risks with.
Mostly, he’d questioned his feelings for Blair.
From the time he’d met her, he’d recognized something different about her, about the way he treated her, felt about her. He’d thought it secondary to Dr T. Now he knew his feelings went deeper.
He wouldn’t go so far as to say he was in love with Blair, but he cared for her a great deal.
More than he’d ever cared for a woman.
Knowing that she’d been hurt by his silence, that she’d run because she thought that was what he wanted, Oz had snuck across the hallway to the “mermaid room.”
He’d tapped on the door, but Blair hadn’t answered. He’d pushed the door open to see her curled next to Addy, fast asleep.
He’d watched her and Addy sleep, wondering how he could care so much for the two sleeping beauties. How he couldn’t have realized how important they were to him. That he’d used the guise of friendship to give himself permission to be close to Blair.
He’d gone back to his room, content they’d talk when they woke. He’d risen early, anxious to tell her everything, but not surprisingly, Blair had slept in.
Not breaking from his normal routine so as not to alert Dr T or Stephanie that anything had changed, not until he and Blair had a chance to talk first, Oz had taken off for his usual run. Which was likely for the best.
When he came face-to-face with Blair again, he was going to pull her into his arms and kiss her until she was breathless and no longer spouting garbage about why they’d ended up in bed together.
They’d ended up making love because it had been inevitable. From the day they met they’d been moving in that direction.
Just the memory of making love with her had him stirring beneath his gym shorts. Hell, he was going to have to run into the cold Gulf water if he didn’t get his act together.