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“I’ll have some later. Seriously, Tate, you can leave anytime. I’m sure you’d like to go home and change. You probably have other plans for today. Daryn and I will be fine.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said, a bit vaguely. “But first I’ll clean up the kitchen. Don’t want to leave you with dirty dishes when you aren’t feeling well.”
“That isn’t necessary.”
He merely gave her a look and started gathering dishes.
Knowing when to concede, she took Daryn out of the high chair and carried her back into the living room. She would deal with Tate after she took something for her aching head, she promised herself.
* * *
Leaving Daryn on her tummy on the play blanket, Kim ducked into the bathroom to swallow two over-the-counter pain relievers with a handful of water from the tap. She rubbed her temples as she returned to the living room.
“Head still hurting?”
Seeing Tate on the couch, she dropped her hands. “That was some fast cleaning.”
He shrugged. “I clean as I go. All I had to do was rinse the bowls and stick them in the dishwasher.”
“I see. Then you can—”
“You didn’t answer. Do you still have a headache?”
“Yes, but I’ll be fine—”
He patted the couch beside him. “Sit. Unless you want to go lie down again? The monkette and I will be fine in here.”
“The monkette?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I called her that a few times last night and it always made her laugh. Not that I think she really understood me or anything, but something about the word struck her as funny. Right, monkette?”
Daryn giggled.
“See?”
Kim looked from Tate to Daryn and back again. She wasn’t sure how she felt about him giving her daughter a cutesy nickname, making himself indispensable when they were sick, acting as though she could count on him to be there next time she needed him.
“Really, Tate. You should go.”
“Why?”
“Why? Well…because you should.”
“That’s not much of an answer, Kim. And sit down, you’re looking wobbly again.”
“I am not wobbly.” She pushed a hand through her hair, then had to take a quick sidestep when her head spun with the movement. “Not much, anyway,” she muttered.
He stood, put a hand on her shoulder and guided her to the couch. “I know you can handle anything life throws at you without asking for a thing, and I admire you enormously for your courage and self-sufficiency, but every once in a while it’s okay to let someone give you a hand, you know? I have nothing better to do today than to keep an eye on Daryn while you get over this bug. I even have a change of clothes in the car.”
She frowned. Did that mean he made a habit of staying over at random places?
Perhaps he read her thoughts on her face as he took a seat beside her. “I keep a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and some running shoes in the trunk in case someone suggests a game of pickup basketball or touch football after work. I don’t make a practice of spending the night out. You’re actually the only woman I’ve shared a bed with since we met that day in the Chinese restaurant. Five months and three weeks ago, not that I’m counting. I’m not sure if I’ve just lost some cool points by admitting that, but I thought you should know.”
It was a good thing she was already sitting down, because her knees might have buckled then. Surely he wasn’t saying that she was the reason he hadn’t been with another woman in all that time? “You—uh—”
“It’s strange, I know,” he continued conversationally, though his eyes were focused intently on her face. “All those months I kept telling myself I couldn’t ask you out because of your daughter, and because of your friendship with Lynette—but the minute an opportunity arose for me to spend time with you and Daryn, I jumped on it with both feet. Even though it was a pretty damned crazy idea.”
She couldn’t smile in response to the description, even though he spoke teasingly. Unless she was mistaken—and she wasn’t—Tate was making a declaration here. And the spinning in her head had little to do now with whatever germ had been skipping around in her bloodstream.
