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He looked around. “The last time I checked, this was my house.”
She sat up straight. “You’re absolutely right. My bad! I’ll get my things and clear out of your way.” She started gathering up the wasted balls of paper.
He held up a hand. “Hold on a second. What are you doing here?”
“I figured this was the last place you’d come. I thought I was safe.”
“Safe from what?”
“Safe from you.”
He clucked his tongue. “And why would you need to be safe from me?”
She froze, staring up at him across the expanse of the bed. “If you don’t know the answer to that, I don’t know what to tell you.” Her speech was beginning to slur.
He moved toward her side of the bed. She scrambled over the mattress, her feet knocking over the empty wine bottles. As they stood facing each other again from opposite ends, he glanced down, witnessing the evidence of her binge.
“There are a lot of dead soldiers here. How long have you been drinking?”
“I started when I was sixteen, in the barn at Jason Moore’s house.”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a smart-ass, Nicole.”
She looked straight back at him. “I think I got a drink on the flight and haven’t stopped since.”
“Have you eaten anything in that time?”
She scoffed. “I’m drinking wine,” she rolled her fingers. “
Grapes. So, yeah, my nutritional needs are being met.” She was swaying on her feet. “I think that was the last of the wine, though. Guess I’ll have to start on the brandy.” She squinted down the hall. “Just remind me which corridor to take to get to the living room, and we’ll be square.”
She wasn’t feeling too hot right now. As soon as she stood up, the alcohol she had consumed leaked into her other extremities. “I think I’m going to be sick,” she said, stumbling to the bathroom.
Reece followed as she fell to her knees, retching over the toilet. He leaned down, pulling her hair out of the way as she heaved. Just as one spell ended, another began.
She felt like she’d been there for hours. “Oh God, kill me now,” she moaned.
Reece rolled his eyes. “I’m going to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. Try to be here when I get back.”
She didn’t acknowledge his sarcasm, continuing to lean against the toilet with her head resting on the seat.
While he was making the coffee, Reece put in calls to her parents and his, along with her editor and her sister. They were relieved she was okay, scrambling to get to her as quickly as possible. He asked them to wait. He wanted some time alone with her, so they could make sense out of their muddle.
The house was silent as he moved back down the hall, the sound of her heaving dwindling away to nothing. He stood in the doorway, contemplating her slumped form. She had fallen asleep on the bathroom rug. He set the cup on the sink, leaning down to pull her into his arms.
She moaned in her sleep, snuggling into his embrace. “I really hate you,” she mumbled.
“I know, baby. I don’t blame you.”
~ ~ ~
Nicole slept off and on for three days. She’d wake up long enough to use the bathroom, stumbling back to bed to pull the covers over her head. Reece paced the length of the cottage, his feelings over the situation notching high before dwindling low. He wanted to let her sleep it off. He wanted to shake her awake and demand answers. He wanted to hold her tight. He wanted to walk away. He had no idea how he was going to handle the situation when she finally rose, but he knew he wasn’t going to let this impasse go on for much longer.
~ ~ ~
Reece was up, sitting in the kitchen, when Nicole stumbled in the following morning. She winced and covered her eyes at the sunshine blazing in through the windows.
“Is there coffee?” she asked, making a beeline to the coffee pot. He didn’t answer but watched silently as she poured herself a big mug and swallowed it down. She quickly refilled it, gulping that down as well. On the third cup, she finally moved to the table and sat, staring down into the depths of liquid.
