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She cocked her head. “What do you mean?”
“Where are your clothes? Your paints?” He raised his voice without meaning to. “Where’s that lotion you use? Your damn yogurt? Where is it?”
She looked at him like he was crazy. “All over the place.”
“No, it’s not!”
She unfolded her legs, the motion awkward. “I’ve been painting at the cottage. I’m working with oils now instead of acrylics. If I paint over there, I don’t have to sleep with the fumes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Oh, God, he was screaming. He tried to calm himself down. “There’s no food here!”
“I eat at the cottage so I don’t have to run back every time I get hungry.”
He pulled in some air to get his adrenaline rush under control. “What about your clothes? They’re missing.”
“No, they’re not,” she replied, still looking confused. “I moved my stuff into Riley’s room. I hated sleeping in here without you. Go ahead and laugh.”
He eased his hands off his hips. “Trust me. I don’t have a laugh anywhere in me right now.” He needed to be sure. “Have you given up bathing, too? You’re not using my shower.”
She dropped her legs over the edge of the bed, her brow knitting. “The other bathroom’s closer. Are you feeling all right? You’re starting to scare me.”
It hadn’t occurred to him to check the other bathrooms or walk over to the cottage. He’d let himself see only what he’d expected to find, a woman he couldn’t depend on. But he’d been the undependable one, not willing to put his heart on the line. He tried to regroup. “Where have you been?”
“I drove to Atlanta. Nita kept nagging me about my paintings, and there’s this incredible dealer there who—” She stopped herself. “I’ll tell you later. Did they bench you? Is that what this is about?” Her indignation flared. “How could they? So what if you weren’t on your game in September? You’ve played brilliantly ever since.”
“They didn’t bench me.” He pushed his hand through his damp hair. The bedroom was cold as hell, and he had goose bumps everywhere, and nothing was settled. “I need to tell you about something, and you have to promise to hear me out before you get crazy.”
She gasped. “Oh, God, you have a brain tumor! All this time, while I’ve been holed up here—”
“I don’t have a brain tumor!” He plunged in. “There was a picture of me in yesterday’s paper. Taken at a benefit for cancer research I went to last week.”
She nodded. “Nita showed it to me when I stopped to check on her.”
“You’ve already seen it?”
“Yes.” Blue continued looking at him as if he were demented.
He moved closer. “You saw the picture in yesterday’s Sun-Times? The one where I’m kissing another woman?”
Her expression finally clouded. “Who was that anyway? I should kick her ass.”
Maybe he’d suffered one too many concussions because he got light-headed and had to sit down on the edge of the bed.
“Nita was in a snit, believe me.” Blue waved her hand and began to pace. “Despite the fact that she’s started to like you, she still believes all men are scum.”
“And you don’t?”
“Not all men, but don’t get me started on Monty the Loser. Do you know he had the nerve to call me and—”
“I don’t care about Monty!” He jumped back up. “I want to tell you about that picture!”
She looked vaguely annoyed. “Go ahead then.”
He did not understand this. Wasn’t Blue the woman who woke up every morning afraid of being abandoned? He tightened the knot on his towel, which was in danger of falling off. “I was standing at the bar when she came up to me. We’d dated a couple of times last year, but it never amounted to anything. She was drunk and she threw herself at me. Literally. I grabbed her so she didn’t fall.”
“You should have let her. People don’t have enough respect for your personal boundaries.”
Now her attitude was starting to piss him off. “I let her kiss me. I didn’t push her away.”
