Elizabeth glanced away from his navel, but not before noting that it was sexy and deep and surrounded by a whorl of dark hair. A silky thread of hair perfectly bisected his torso and connected his wide chest to his narrow abdomen. His nipples should have been relaxed. They weren't.
She tiptoed toward the bed as though a slumbering beast lay there and not a harmless man. His eyelids were closed but they were fluttering spasmodically. He mumbled something that she couldn't understand and let out another deep groan.
Moved to pity, she raised a knee onto the bed and leaned over him. "Thad? Are you ill?"
One of his hands reached out blindly. The other one —
She hadn't noticed that until he covered it with his hand, though how it had escaped her attention she couldn't imagine. Maybe she had noticed it, but her mind had refused to acknowledge it. It had no choice now.
Her eyes were too dry to blink. She began panting through her parted lips. A ringing sound, as loud as Quasimodo's bells, filled her head. She felt faint.
He flailed his arm again. His fist landed solidly against her chest. His fingers uncurled and touched the softness of her breast. That must have stunned him out of his troubled dream, because his eyes popped open. He stared up at her, as astonished to see her standing beside his bed as she was to have his large hand covering her breast.
He snatched his hand away from the lower part of his body and, with the other, yanked the sheet up to his waist. Both ignored, or tried to, that the sheet was tented over his lap.
"What are you doing here?" He was hoarse. He ran his tongue over parched lips in an attempt to moisten them.
It took several attempts before she could speak. When she did, she could only stutter. "I–I — The children — Are you sick?"
He laid his forearm over his eyes. "I'll be all right."
His macho refusal to admit that he was ill infuriated her. "Are you sick or not?"
"Yes, I'm sick," he muttered. "Flu, I guess. You'd better get out before you catch it and give it to the kids."
"Do you have fever?"
"I don't know. Do I?"
He lowered his arm. Elizabeth hesitated for just a moment before laying a cool hand on his forehead. It was clammy, but still warm. "I think you have some."
"It broke earlier. I started sweating. Kicked the covers off." Beyond the foot of the bed, a soggy bedspread and blanket were lying in a heap on the floor.
"Do you have a thermometer?"
"In the bathroom cabinet."
Grateful for any excuse to put distance between them, she left his bedside and went into the adjoining bathroom. On the second shelf of the cabinet over the basin she located a thermometer. Resisting the urge to investigate what else might be found in the cabinet, she carried it and a plastic bottle of aspirin into the bedroom.
He had straightened the sheet and pulled it up to an inch or so above his waist. Both legs were now covered, but his chest was still bare and his nipples were still erect. In as detached a manner as possible under the circumstances, she shook down the mercury in the thermometer. Leaning forward, she waited for him to open his mouth, then laid the thermometer under his tongue.
"Have you taken any of these?" She held out the bottle of aspirin. He shook his head no. Giving him an exasperated look, she said, "I'll be right back. Keep that thermometer under your tongue."
Megan and Matt were dancing with impatience when she opened the screen door. "You were right," she began before they had time to fire their thousand and one questions at her. "Thad is sick."
"Can we come in and visit him?"
"No."
"You're s'pposed to visit sick friends. That's what they say in Sunday school."
"But not when your friend is contagious. You could catch the flu."
"You could catch it too. How come you can visit Thad and we can't?"
"Because I'm a mother and mothers don't catch diseases the way kids do." She hoped they would buy that. They didn't.
In unison they said, "But, Mom — "
"No arguments." Her stern expression silenced them. "I'm going to clean up his kitchen and heat some soup for him. While I'm doing that, why don't you check on Penny and the puppies? Make sure they have fresh water."
Having dispatched them, she filled a clean glass with cold water and returned to the bedroom. She caught Thad in the process of taking the thermometer out of his mouth. He passed it to her. "What does it say? I never could read the damn thing."
"One hundred point four," she told him as she shook the mercury down again before returning the thermometer to its plastic case. "Take two aspirin." He dutifully swallowed the tablets with the water she'd brought for him. "Will you remember to take two more around ten o'clock?"
"I'll try."
As soon as he'd swallowed the aspirins, his head weakly dropped back onto the pillow. Elizabeth noticed that it was hard and lumpy and that the pillowcase was damp with sweat. "Would you like for me to change your bed?"
He glanced down his body, then back up at her. "No."
She didn't argue. Actually, she was relieved. Not that she would have minded the chore. But just the thought of getting a naked Thad in and out of the bed left her feeling weak-kneed. "How about switching pillows then?"
He let her do that, raising his head long enough for her to replace the pillow with the one she found on the far side of the bed. "Where are your extra blankets?"
"Linen closet in the hall, but I'm hot."
"If you don't stay covered, you'll get chilled." Maybe that's why his nipples were still hard.
She located the linen closet and found his sheets and towels neatly folded on the shelves. Bringing a blanket back with her, she whipped it high over the bed and let it float down to cover him. She did not put it into place. "Rest while I heat the soup. I assume you have a can of soup in the house."
He nodded but waved his hand in protest. "You've done enough, Elizabeth, I just need to sleep this off. Tomorrow I'll be back at work."
"If you are, then the day after that you'll be in the hospital." She aimed a finger at him. "Stay put. I'll be back shortly."
While the chicken noodle soup was simmering on the range, she rinsed the dirty dishes and loaded them in the dishwasher. She also sponged off the countertops and table and replaced food items that had been left out. The soup was ready by the time she had finished. She ladled some into a bowl and placed it on a tray along with a glass of orange juice, a spoon, and a paper napkin.
It was when she paused on the threshold of his bedroom, holding the laden tray, that her most recent fantasy elbowed its way into her consciousness. This wasn't the French countryside. She wasn't a farmer's virgin daughter, and Thad wasn't a wounded fighter pilot, but the uncanny similarity between the fantasy and this reality made her shiver.
She moved to his bedside, set the tray on the nightstand, and switched on the lamp. The bulb was hardly brighter than candlelight. The soft light fell on Thad's face. He was dozing. His eyelashes cast sweeping shadows on his cheekbones. His chest rose and fell faintly with each breath. The aspirin was working.
She spoke his name softly. His eyes came open. They penetrated hers in a way that was almost sexual. A trill of sensation spiraled up out of her belly like a rising phoenix. "Do you feel like eating something?"
"I guess so." She offered him the glass of cold orange juice. He drank it down in one swallow.
"You should have been drinking more liquids," she chided gently as she passed him the napkin. He seemed at a loss as to what to do with it, so he just held it in his hand.