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“Better now?” Tate asked her. Mandy nodded.
“I’m sorry you had such a bad dream,” Avery whispered, wiping Mandy’s damp cheeks with the pads of her thumbs. “Do you want to tell Mommy about it?”
“It’s going to get me,” she stammered on choppy little breaths.
“What is, darling?”
“The fire.”
Avery shuddered with her own terrifying recollections. They seized her sometimes unexpectedly and it often took several minutes to recover from them. As an adult, she found it hard to deal with her memories of the crash. What must it be like for a child?
“I got you out of the fire, remember?” Avery asked softly. “It’s not there anymore. But it’s still scary to think about, isn’t it?” Mandy nodded.
Avery had once done a news story with a renowned child psychologist. During the interview she recalled him saying that denying the authenticity of a child’s fears was the worst thing a parent could do. Fears had to be acknowledged before they could be dealt with and, hopefully, overcome.
“Maybe a cool, damp cloth would feel good on her face,” Avery suggested to Tate. He left the rocker, and returned shortly with a washcloth. “Thank you.”
He sat down beside her as she bathed Mandy’s face. In a move that endeared him to Avery, he picked up the Pooh Bear and pressed it into Mandy’s arms. She clutched it to her chest.
“Ready to lie back down?” Avery asked her gently.
“No.” Apprehensively, her eyes darted around the room.
“Mommy’s not going to leave you. I’ll lie down with you.”
She eased Mandy back, then lay down beside her, facing her as their heads shared the pillow. Tate pulled the covers over both of them, then bridged their pillow with his arms and leaned down to kiss Mandy.
He was wearing nothing but a pair of briefs. His body looked exceptionally strong and beautiful in the soft glow of the night-light. As he started to stand up, his eyes locked with Avery’s. Acting on impulse, she laid her hand on his furry chest and raised her head to lightly kiss his lips. “Good night, Tate.”
He straightened up slowly. As he did, her hand slid down his chest; over the hard, curved muscles; across the nipple; through the dense, crisp hair; to the smoother plane of his belly; until her fingertips brushed against the elastic waistband of his briefs before falling away.
“I’ll be right back,” he mumbled.
He was gone only a few minutes, but by the time he returned, Mandy was sleeping peacefully. He had pulled on a lightweight robe, but had left it unbelted. As he lowered himself into the rocking chair, he noticed that Avery’s eyes were still open. “That bed’s not meant for two. Are you comfortable?”
“I’m fine.”
“I don’t think Mandy would know if you got up now and went to your own room.”
“I would know. And I told her I’d stay with her the rest of the night.” She stroked Mandy’s flushed cheek with the back of her finger. “What are we going to do, Tate?”
Resting his elbows on his knees, he sat forward and dug his thumbs into his eye sockets. A tousled lock of hair fell over his forehead. With stubble surrounding it, the vertical cleft at the edge of his chin seemed more pronounced. He sighed, expanding his bare chest beneath the open robe. “I don’t know.”
“Do you think the psychologist is doing her any good?”
He raised his head. “Don’t you?”
“I shouldn’t second-guess the choice you and your parents made while I was indisposed.”
She knew she shouldn’t get involved at all. This was a personal problem and Avery Daniels had no right to poke her nose into it. But she couldn’t just stand by and let a child’s emotional stability deteriorate.
“If you have an opinion, be my guest and say so,” Tate urged. “This is our child we’re talking about. I’m not going to get petty about who had the best idea.”
“I know of a doctor in Houston,” she began. One of his eyebrows arched inquisitively. “He… I saw him on a talk show once and was very impressed with what he had to say and how he conducted himself. He wasn’t pompous. He was very straightforward and practical. Since the current doctor isn’t making much progress, maybe we should take Mandy to see him.”
“We haven’t got anything to lose. Make an appointment.”
“I’ll call tomorrow.” Her head sank deeper into the pillow, but she kept her eyes on him. He sat back in the rocking chair and rested his head against the stuffed pink cushion. “You don’t have to sit there all night, Tate,” she said softly.
