Edmund could see the guilt all over her. Was that why she shied away from people? She didn’t want to hurt anymore? “How old were you when it happened?”
“Six.”
That young? “Who raised you?”
“My aunt. At least until I was sixteen. Then she and her husband and their baby left and told me I wasn’t welcome to come with them.”
Edmund was surprised. “She abandoned you after what you’d been through?”
“They said I was strong and grown and I didn’t need them.”
“Was that true?”
Maude hesitated. “No.” But she didn’t want to talk about that. “What about you?” she asked him.
Edmund didn’t know what she meant. “What about me?”
“What about your parents? Are they alive?”
He knew she was deflecting, but he allowed it. “Very much so, yes. They live in Maine. That’s where I’m from.”
“It’s just you and Natasha as siblings?”
“And our baby brother, yes.”
“Are you married?”
“Never.”
“A girlfriend?”
“Never.”
How could he say that when that woman left his house that night? Wasn’t she his girlfriend? To Maude, she certainly acted like there was some kind of relationship gone bad. “Your job is your companion too then, hun?”
“Is it yours?”
Maude hesitated. “Yes. Is it yours?”
“Perhaps,” he said.
Then he stared at her. What manner of woman did he have on his hands? “What happened to that boyfriend you mentioned to the nurse?”
“He got married.”
“While he was dating you?”
Maude nodded. “At least I thought we were dating for sure. But he said I was mistaken. He said we had broken up the same day we met.”
“Is that true?”
“No! That made him feel better by lying like that. Like every man that’s ever lived he wanted to cheat, but he was abrother with a conscience. He needed an excuse to do so. With his pathetic ass.”
Then a look of hurt came into her eyes and she looked away from Edmund. But he saw that hurt, and it bothered him. He began massaging her shoulder.
His touch, that massage, felt so good to Maude that she almost allowed a soft sigh to escape her tongue. She needed that massage! She wanted him to massage her other shoulder too. Or even all over!
But when she looked into his large eyes and they appeared more sensual than his usual contemplative look, as if he needed that massage just as much as she did, she couldn’t help it. She glanced downward at his midsection. And that was when she saw that he was fully aroused, and in a huge way. She looked back up into his eyes.
