Coming Undone (42 page)

Hurrying out to the kitchen, he dialed his phone.

“
Y-ello.” Kelly’s voice was calming.

“
Kell, it’s Ben. Kathryn was in a wreck. I’ve got her here at my apartment, but I can’t leave to get her meds.”

“
Ben. Whoa. Hold up, dude. Slow down. What happened?”

It felt good to take a breath and better that he wasn’t in this alone. Kelly agreed with the general plan and in no time they were smoothing out the path in front of her.

The world shifted slowly back and forth as Kathryn woke up. She couldn’t figure out where she was at first, but then the headache reminded her. Trying to sit up, she coughed which hurt like fire. “Ben? Hm. Ben?”

Like a shot Ben was off the couch. He hadn’t slept more than five minutes in six hours. “I’m here. I’m right here.” Racing to her, he got to her just before she made it up and out of the bed. For one solid second he had no idea what to do as he watched her moving. Then she reached her hand out for something to stabilize her, and what to do snapped into place. In the next instant he was right there to help. “Careful. Just take it slow.”

She stood, holding onto him with every movement.

He looked around. “Where are you going?”

“
Bathroom?”

He hadn’t seen that one coming, but he swallowed the questions. “It’s right down here. Do you want the light?”

“
No.” She sounded pitiful and looked worse. Her normally soft blonde hair hung in strings, and even in the darkness, he could see that her face had bruises on it from the trauma of the wreck.

“
Okay. No light.” He’d never done this kind of thing before—helping someone. Some of it was natural, like holding her and feeling her reliance on him. Some was not, like not knowing the proper way to help someone who was so weak she could hardly stand up. It was a slow, awkward shuffle down the hall. “Careful here at the corner.” At the bathroom door, he hesitated. “Do you want me to…”

The little night light coupled with the ambient blue light illuminated the bathroom enough to see.

“
It’s okay. I can. I’ll be back,” she said, hanging onto the wall. “Just don’t go anywhere.”

“
Don’t worry.”

Shaky. Everything about her was shaky and weak, but Kathryn managed the bathroom, wondering at one point what had happened to her shoes. However, that seemed irrelevant in a way she couldn’t even put into words. When she was finished, she carefully made her way back to the door and opened it. “Ben?”

“
I’m right here.” His hand followed by his body came out to support her.

She liked the feel of that, of him. He was so solid. His T-shirt was soft, and he smelled so good.

“
I think I need some aspirin or something.” The headache had come back with a vengeance. It was going to be a long, hard crawl to morning.

“
We got your meds. Do you want that?” he asked even as he walked right beside her, holding her up every step.

We?
But she didn’t ask. “Yes. Please.”

Back in the bedroom and once again seated, she looked down at her clothing. She couldn’t believe she had been sleeping in her best suit and silk shirt. The dry cleaners were going to love this.

“
I’ll be right back.”

When he was gone, she carefully pulled at the suit coat and had it halfway off when she realized that to tug on the other side was going to send her wrist into screaming pain far worse than it already was. She felt like a walrus trapped on an ice flow—unable to move in any direction.

“
Here. Let me help you with that,” he said, suddenly reappearing and setting the glass on the nightstand next to her. Gently he worked the coat off from around her before tossing it into the darkness beyond the bed. “Here’s your meds.” Handing her the water first, he got the pills ready as well.

“
Just one,” she said, knowing her intolerance for strong drugs.

His concern was written all over his face. “You sure? One’s not very strong.”

“
It’s strong enough.” She took the one he offered and downed it with some water. The headache was unbelievable. When she was finished, he took the glass and set it on the nightstand.

Anchoring his hands at his hips, worry scrawled across his face, he gazed down at her. “Better?”

“
Yeah.” Her gaze traveled down to her blouse and helplessness drained through her. She couldn’t worry about that now. Sleep was already making a comeback.

“
Are you all right? Do you need something else?”

She looked up, trying to get impish to her face. “My pajamas?”

“
Pa…?” Then he looked down. “Oh, my gosh. Of course. Um.” He stepped back and sent his fingers digging through his hair. “Here. How about these?” He went over to a chest of drawers shrouded in the darkness at the other side of the room. “I don’t know if they’ll fit. They’ll probably drown you, but… it’s the best I have.” When he came back, he was holding a pair of pajamas. Only then did she realize he hadn’t left to get them, and the thought ripped through her.

Not a piece of her moved to accept the gift he held out. Instead, she looked around the room and swallowed. “Wait. Is this… your… room?”

He seemed confused by the question as he looked around the room himself. “Uh, yeah?”

Horror crashed into her. How could she have been so presumptuous? “Oh, my gosh. I’m sorry. I’ve taken your bed and your room.” She started upward but snagged on the earth shifting the other way out from under her. “Oh!”

“
Ho…” Just like that, he caught her downward momentum, halted it, and righted her back onto the bed. “Slow down there. Okay, first of all, I’m fine on the couch. Second of all, no sudden moves like that again, or we’re both going to end up crashing onto the floor. Got that?” His hand brushed the top of her shoulder making sure she wasn’t going to make any more sudden moves.

She nodded, chastened as much from the stumble as from being humbled by his generosity and the feel of his warm hand on her with only the thin silk in between.

“
Good. Now here are some pajamas.” He laid them in her lap, and she missed his hand on her shoulder. “You just get into those. I’ll be right out here if you need anything.”

She nodded again. What could she say?
Don’t be so nice to me. I don’t deserve it
? That’s what she wanted to say. Or better yet,
Don’t be so nice to me, I might actually think you mean it.
Could he really mean it? Could this actually be happening to her? Or was it just some crazy dream that she was going to wake up from?

As she changed into the pajamas, the part of her brain that didn’t hurt like crazy thought about that. She had always thought she wanted someone who would be there for her, but letting him be there for her was humbling in ways she hadn’t expected. Worse, it was scarier than she had expected. What if she really started trusting him and he let her down? What if this nice fantasy turned out to be just that… a fantasy? Wouldn’t reality then hurt worse than never seeing the dream?

Pushing away those thoughts, she buttoned the long, soft pajama top. It smelled like him. Where that thought came from, she wasn’t sure. Not many of her thoughts were making much sense. Carefully she removed her skirt and hose and got into the pajama bottoms. They, too, were soft. They felt so very, very good. Sleep was not going to be hard like this. She had already climbed back into bed and under the covers when he knocked.

“
Everything okay?”

“
Yeah,” she called back already drifting and assuming that he was going to go back to bed. It didn’t matter. Sleep was already winning.

He opened the door but not more than that. “Do you need anything else?”

Ben listened at the door for the answer that didn’t really come. He pushed it opened a bit more. “Kathryn?”

Through the darkness he could see her already on the bed. Her clothes were in a heap on the floor. He knew he should let her sleep, but wanting to make sure she was all right just one more time, he stepped in and over to her. Carefully he pulled the covers closer around her and then sat next to her on the down mattress. He reached over and picked the strand of hair off her face and moved it to the side.

With a long sigh, he closed his eyes. “Thank You, God for Kathryn. I don’t know what I would’ve done if You’d taken her away from me tonight.” His heart literally hurt at the thought. “Please, God, please be with her. Help her to recover quickly.” He turned slightly and laid his hand on her, feeling her presence in his heart more than he ever had. “Thank You, God for letting her stay here with me.” Emotion choked the words from his throat. He hadn’t considered what it would be like to lose her until that moment, but suddenly he fully understood the gift God had given him in her by just giving them more time together. “Thank You, God. Thank You so much.”

“
Wow,” Ben said, coming to attention when she walked in from the bedroom the next morning. He’d been up since six, making phone calls to her work and his, downing pots of coffee so if and when she woke up, he would be awake as well. He’d been listening for her the whole night, jumping at every sound, so the fact that she was suddenly standing there, in his pajamas, hair tousled, and face marred by bruises jolted him right off the couch. He went straight to her and put out his hands out to steady her and to help her. “How are you feeling?”

Her hand came up to her head, and she looked like she might pass out right there. “Ugh. Like I fought with a semi and lost?”

“
I can see how that could be.” At the couch, he helped her sit down. “I hope you don’t mind, but I called your work and told them what happened.”

She looked up in surprised mortification.

“
About the wreck,” he clarified quickly, “and how you won’t be coming in today.”

A groan came from the bottom of her. She sat there, breathing in hard exhales. “Wow. I’m sore.”

“
I can see that.” He stood back and put his hands on his hips. He was in the same jeans he’d had on the night before. They looked like they’d been through the rinse cycle and dried in a heap. But he didn’t care. He was far less into impressing her than just making sure she was all right. “Can I get you something?”

Her gaze was hollow. “Meds? Water? Something to eat? I’m starving.”

“
Meds. Water. And something to eat. Coming right up.”

Most of the day passed with him fetching things and trying to make her more comfortable. She slept again in the mid-afternoon, and by the time she woke up again, life was starting to come back into some brand of normal.

“
Wow. I’m glad that wasn’t a serious crash. I’d have been in trouble,” she said as she sat on his couch that evening, sipping the hot chocolate he had gotten for her at some point during her nap. She didn’t know how that had happened exactly because when she asked for some with breakfast, he didn’t have any, but now he suddenly did. Things were kind of like that at the moment for her—random, disconnected, and confusing.

“
It was serious enough.” His voice had a touch of anger and a lot of gravity. He rearranged the pillows behind her on the couch. “That better?”

“
It’s great.” Gingerly she settled back into the cascade of pillows. They felt really good.

“
So.” He backed up and looked at her with those worried eyes as he put his hands in his pockets. “Do you need anything else? More meds? Something to eat? Another pillow?”

She shook her head and almost managed a smile. “No. I think I’m good.”

“
You sure?” He glanced around as if looking for bubble wrap to wrap her in. “’Cause I could like make some popcorn or get out the rice cakes… if you like those. I have some of those. But I don’t know if you like those.”

Taking a sip, she tried not to laugh. “Not really.”

“
Yeah. I don’t like them either. I bought them when I was on this stupid health-kick thing back in January. I was going to go to the gym every day and exist on rice cakes and pineapple juice. That lasted a whole two days and I was so sore and hungry, I couldn’t move.”

She smiled and almost laughed. Through the dull pain it began to dawn on her how nervous he was. In fact, he was standing in the middle of his own apartment with his hands in his pockets, looking like he was afraid of breaking someone’s good china. “You know you could sit down.”

“
Sit?” He looked around, his gaze darting here, there, and everywhere. “Oh, yeah. I could, huh?” Carefully he lowered himself to the chair next to the couch but just to the edge of it. A moment and he scratched his head. “You know, I could get dinner. I’m not real big on cooking. I mostly do take out.” He rubbed his hands together. “But I could try it. I can open cans. Soup? I have some soup I think.”

With a small sigh for how hard he was trying, she leaned forward taking the pain with her. Laying her hand on his wrist, she fought not to let the pain from the movement show on her face. “Thank you.”

He looked completely surprised. “Thank me? For what?”

“
For being here.” All of the things he had done for her drove into the softest middle of her core. “I was a mess last night.”

His smile came almost all the way to his face. “You’re never a mess.”