Chapter Eight
LUKE AWOKE DISORIENTEDand out of sorts. His room was dark, and he had no idea how long he’d been sleeping. With a lazy stretch, he contemplated going back to sleep. He closed his eyes, but a soft, repetitive thwacking sound caught his attention, and he remembered he was no longer alone in the house.
With a smile, he let his head fall back against the headboard. He pictured Sarah bustling around in his kitchen, that charming, distracted look on her face. The thought filled him with a strange contentment, one he was careful not to analyze.
He sighed and scooted out of bed, struggling to attach the boot to his stump and get dressed in the dark. Following the noise, he found Sarah in the parlor, standing upon a chair, beating at the heavy, dark green drapes with furious determination.
“Pretending those curtains are my brother?”
Sarah spun around and his heart skipped a beat as she tilted precariously before regaining her balance. “Good morning,” she said with a bright smile. “Did you sleep well?”
This was one of the reasons he liked her so much. She always seemed so glad to see him.
He grinned, giving a pointed glance out the window at the darkness. “It’s hardly morning. You should have awakened me.”
She shook her head and carefully stepped off the chair. “You were exhausted. Besides, I slept until late afternoon myself.”
“Oh, that’s good.” He skirted the sofa, noticing as he moved closer that her face was flushed and her skirt had black spots on the front, as though she’d been kneeling on the floor. Something smelled delicious. Fresh bread, he guessed, and his stomach growled, reminding him how long it had been since he’d eaten. Sarah had been very busy, indeed. “You didn’t have to do all this.”
“I won’t accept your charity. If I’m going to stay here, I intend to earn my keep.”
He had a sudden, unbidden vision of her body twined with his, her skin flushed from his lovemaking.
“You’re my guest,” he muttered. “Not my housekeeper.”
She stared at him, her green eyes shadowed with uncertainty. “Perhaps it would be best if you told me exactly what to expect from this arrangement.”
He thought of the dark times, when he’d drunk himself unconscious, only to wake up and start all over again. He’d raged against God for taking his leg, the woman he’d loved, and his belief in himself. His despair had seemed bottomless, and he still wasn’t certain he’d conquered his demons.
Sarah had brought a little light to his life, but it wouldn’t last. It never did.
“I don’t know,” he told her helplessly. “Perhaps we should just play it by ear for a while.”
She frowned, and he knew his swift change of mood hadn’t gone unnoticed.
“I made some soup for dinner,” she murmured, changing the subject. “It’s almost ready.”
