She stretched her left, injured leg flat and hugged her right knee to her chest as she kept watch for any more spiders. The day must have been shaping up to be unseasonably warm again because a rivulet of sweat trickled down Zoey’s face along her hairline. Within another ten minutes, her T-shirt was sticking to her back. She was thinking about how much she wished she had an iced coffee when she heard footsteps on the staircase. “Gabi? Is that you?” she called.
“No, it’s me,” Nick answered, cresting the staircase. He was wearing a deep indigo short-sleeved Henley that made his eyes appear even bluer and his biceps appear even bigger, if that was possible. Just seeing him looking so pulled together when she was coming unraveled made Zoey wish she had tried harder to make it downstairs on her own. Why did he always have to catch her at her worst possible moments?
He crossed the room and squatted beside her. “Are you okay?”
She knew what he was really wondering was why she was sitting immobile in the middle of the attic floor holding a green croquet ball. But the concern she saw in his eyes—those beautiful eyes—was so heartfelt and it had been so long since anyone had asked her that question that she teared up.
She wanted to answer,No, I’m not okay. I’m worried about whether I’m doing a good job looking out for my aunt and taking care of my niece. And I’m worried about my finances and about whatever scheme my cousin may be plotting. And lately I miss my sister so much I can hardly breathe.Instead, she stuttered,“I-I got a splinter.”
Understandably, Nick tipped his head as if he couldn’t believe something so trivial had nearly reduced her to tears. “A splinter?”
“Yeah, the plywood slipped out from under me and I scraped my calf against an old tattered joist.” She turned her leg to the side. “See?”
Nick took one look at the nail-sized hole and his expression went grim. “That’s not a splinter in there—it’s a two-by-four.”
“I know. It really hurts. I couldn’t stand up.”
“You shouldn’t try to. I’ll carry you downstairs.”
“No.” Zoey didn’t want him to get that close; she had coffee breath and her back was all sweaty. “Thanks for the offer, but if you give me your arm, I should be able to make it.”
Nick pointed to her calf. “Listen, I can barely see the tip of that thing as it is. You don’t want to drive it in there any farther. And you really don’t want to put pressure on it and snap it in half. So if you insist on walking downstairs on your own two feet, at least let me go get a pair of needle-nose pliers from my toolbox so I can pull the splinter out first.”
Nauseated at the thought, Zoey covered her mouth. “I don’t think I can handle that,” she mumbled between her fingers.
“So you’ll let me carry you downstairs?” Nick pleaded, his eyebrows almost touching together.
“Oh, all right,” she groaned, but she sounded more reluctant than she felt.
He wrapped one arm around her torso, slid the other beneath her knees and adroitly straightened into a standing position in one smooth motion. And as Zoey rested her cheek against his chest, the thought flashed through her mind that maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that he’d arrived at one of her worst possible moments after all.
Chapter Seven
“This is all my fault. I never should have sent you up there,” Ivy lamented after Nick brought Zoey into the kitchen and she told them the story of what happened.
“No, it’s not your fault,” Nick objected before Zoey could say anything. “It’s my son’s fault.”
Aidan balked at that. “Myfault?”
“Yeah,yours. I distinctly remember telling you to secure that plywood into place last autumn when you were putting the screens away.”
The teenager squinted at his father, as if he’d spoken in a language he didn’t comprehend. Then he smacked his forehead. “Oh, yeah! I remember that now. I mean, I remember that you asked me to do it—I don’t remember why I didn’t. I’m really sorry, Zoey” he said, laughing nervously.
“You think this is a joke, Aidan?” Nick glared at him. “You think it’s funny that she got hurt?”
“No, Dad, of course not. I feel terrible about it.”
“Youfeel terrible? How do you think Zoey feels? She’s just lucky—you’rejust lucky she didn’t fall halfway through the ceiling! How would she have felt then?”
Aidan’s ears were scarlet and he appeared to be shrinking, Ivy was flustered almost to tears, and Gabi hid beneath her hair as she knelt in front of Zoey, applying antiseptic to her wound. Zoey appreciated why Nick was frustrated with his son for not following through and she didn’t want to interfere with his parenting, but she could also see that it was demoralizing for Aidan to be lectured in front of everyone.
“Like a chandelier,” she joked, hoping to break the tension. When everyone stared at her, looking stumped, she awkwardly explained, “Nick asked how I would have felt if I fell halfway through the ceiling…”
Gabi got it first. “Good one, Aunt Zoey.”
Then Ivy swept her hand through the air. “Oh, you!”
Zoey could tell Aidan was trying not to laugh, but when Nick rolled his eyes and cracked a smile, the boy gave in and chuckled. Zoey winked at him, confessing, “If anyone is to blame for me falling in the attic, it’s the ginormous spider living up there.”
