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“And you’re an expert on that, I take it,” she retorted.
It occurred to her, completely out of left field, that she didn’t even know if Bowie had a wife stashed away somewhere, or maybe a fiancée. For all she knew, the man had mistresses tucked away everywhere. She knew absolutely nothing about Bowie’s private life, nor had she wanted to—until just now.
What if she’d gone to bed with a married man? Or with someone who was just interested in nothing more than a one-night stand?
If it turned out to be the latter, it almost seemed like poetic justice, seeing as how, at the time it had happened, she hadn’t exactly been interested in establishing a permanent relationship, either. She had wound up going upstairs with him strictly for pleasure—something she wouldn’t have allowed herself to indulge usually.
But there was something about mixing champagne with equal doses of Bowie that had blurred all the lines for her. It had made her behave like someone she didn’t even begin to recognize.
“I read a lot,” he said in response to her snide question about his being up on the symptoms of morning sickness. “I also read that crackers and soda water sometimes help you feel better.”
Marlowe was really skeptical about that. Right now she was feeling miserable, and all she wanted was to retreat and pray that exhaustion would just take over and blanket her.
Bowie answered her glibly, “But the article did say that the prospective mother might react badly to attempts to help her and behave like an angry wet hen.”
“A wet hen?” Marlowe echoed indignantly.
“An angry wet hen,” he deliberately corrected.
For some reason, the fact that they were having this discussion about the condition of a hypothetical chicken managed to hit her funny bone and she began to laugh.
The sound of her laughter coaxed laughter out of Bowie. His laughter fed hers and vice versa. They laughed until her sides literally ached and she couldn’t laugh anymore.
When she stopped laughing, allowing an exhausted sigh to escape, she looked at Bowie, feeling contrite.
“I suppose I should apologize for being so short-tempered,” she told him.
“You can if you want to, or we could just forget about it and you could go to bed.” He clearly had already surmised that she was having a hard time of it, and he apparently wasn’t interested in any apologies.
For the first time, she looked around the room and spotted the bed.
She felt a wave of heat wash over her. Did Bowie intend to sleep in it with her, perhaps even have an encore of that night they had spent together six weeks ago?
“What about you?” she heard herself asking nervously, although she tried her best not to show it.
Bowie seemed rather unfazed by the question. He answered her as if it was already a given. “I’m going to take the couch.”
She peered out of the bedroom, looking into the living area. “It’s not very comfortable,” she commented.
“That’s okay,” he said, unconcerned. “I don’t intend to be very comfortable.”
Marlowe looked at him, wrinkling her forehead in confusion. What was that supposed to mean? “I don’t understand.”
“Well,” he told her matter-of-factly, “if I get comfortable, I just might wind up falling asleep on the couch.”
“And you don’t want to?” she asked him, still confused.
He laughed quietly. “It’s pretty hard to stand guard if I’m sleeping.”
“Wait.” He wasn’t making any sense, she thought. “You said no one followed us.”
“And from what I saw, they didn’t,” he agreed. “But even so, I don’t want to take any unnecessary chances, and I’ve always been a firm believer in being safe rather than sorry.”
Marlowe sighed wearily. “More sayings for that book,” she said more to herself than to him.
“Maybe,” he allowed with an engaging grin. “But that doesn’t make it any less applicable to the situation,” Bowie told her. And then he advised, “Get some rest.” Before she could protest, as she was so very capable of doing, he winked at her and said, “Remember, you’re sleeping for two.”
Did he mean she was sleeping for him as well, because he couldn’t, or was he referring to the baby as part of that “two”?
