Tender Loving Care

He mumbled something unintelligible and was still. Melissa tilted his jaw toward the left and began to work. The burns from the sandblast were healing nicely, but he flinched as the sharp steel slipped over the welts.

“I know,” she said. “I’m being careful.”

He was still damp from his bath. Droplets of water clung to his chest hair, individual prisms catching and reflecting the light. A white towel was wrapped casually at his waist. The contrast between the soft terry cloth and his tanned skin made her nervous. Part of her wanted to rip away the barrier and plead with him to take her; the other part wanted to get into her car and drive until she’d forgotten that Logan Phillips ever existed.

“Have you ever been married?” he asked.

“Didn’t I already answer that?”

“No. You said you weren’t married now.”

“Fair enough. I’ve never been married.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight. Why are you so interested in me and my personal life? I promise, it’s not the least bit exciting.”

“I feel strange having you know so much about me, physically I mean, and I don’t even know what you look like.”

She finished shaving him and wiped his face with a damp washcloth. “You’ll see me in about five days. I think you can contain yourself until then. Here.” She thrust some clothes at him. “Get dressed. Then we’re having lunch in the kitchen. Afterwards, if you’re very good, I’ll let you call the office again.”

He stood up and looked down at her. Even with the bandages, he was intimidating. What color were his eyes? she wondered. Green like Wendi’s? Or maybe blue or brown? She had to wait the same five days to find out.

“Who died and left you in charge?” he asked.

“Mr. Anderson. He’s signing my check.”

Logan turned toward the house when he heard another burst of laughter. A breeze had sprung up in the late afternoon and was chasing away the heat of the June day. The French doors leading to the living room and kitchen were open. He couldn’t hear the entire conversation between Melissa and his daughter, but snatches drifted out to him. The sentence fragments had to do with clothes and boys and who liked whom.

There was a cry of “Oh, no,” followed by silence, then more laughter. He thought about getting up to investigate, but by the time he’d made his tortuous way into the house, whatever crisis existed would have already passed.

“You’d better be hungry, Dad, because there’s a ton of food.”

Wendi’s voice was accompanied by the slap of her sandals on the cement patio. He was seated at the picnic table by the pool. “What were you two having such a good time about?” He smelled Melissa’s perfume before he heard her soft chuckle.

“I was having a little trouble with the indoor grill,” she said.

“Yeah, you should have seen how high the flames—”

“Wendi!” Melissa said.

“But it was great. Anyway, none of the chicken burned. And I made the salad.”

His Wendi had helped in the kitchen? The same daughter who measured every action on a scale of how cool it would make her look? Logan shook his head in disbelief. “I’m impressed.”

“You should be. It’s so much work. Tearing up all that lettuce, then cutting up everything. Next time, let’s go to a salad bar.”

He instinctively turned toward Melissa before he remembered that they couldn’t share an amused glance over the girl’s head. In fact, for all he knew, she wasn’t looking at him at all. Frustration knotted up inside him and dampened his enthusiasm for the meal.

“Breast or thigh?” Melissa asked.

“Excuse me?”

Wendi giggled. “She means the chicken, Dad. Jeez.”

“I knew that. Thigh, please.”

When Melissa had finished serving the meal, she began the now-familiar task of pointing out where his food was located. “Good luck with the salad,” she murmured. He could feel her soft breath in his ear. “I wasn’t sure you’d want any, but certain people were quite insistent.”

“Just tell me if I have dressing on my chin or lettuce in my teeth.”

It took most of his concentration to get the food from the plate into his mouth, without any serious mishaps in between, so he simply listened to the talk flowing around him. Wendi was her normal exuberant self. In Melissa’s presence, she seemed to have shed some of the hard cynical edge she’d been developing as she grew up. If only he could keep her his little girl forever.

“We’re going to have pork chops tomorrow, Dad. Then Mexican the next night.”

He carefully wiped his mouth with the napkin and turned his head toward Melissa. “I don’t expect you to cook every night. We can have something brought in.”

“I don’t mind, Logan. Besides, I don’t think you’re ready to use chopsticks or wrestle with spaghetti.”

“You do keep threatening that, don’t you?”

He felt her hand on his arm. The brief contact grounded him in space and time; the warm sensation lingered long after she’d pulled her fingers away.

“Mom doesn’t cook at all.” Wendi uttered the words with all the innocence of youth, but Logan sensed Melissa stiffening in her chair.

“I’m sure she doesn’t have time,” Melissa said casually.

“Maybe you can meet her when she comes to pick me up,” Wendi offered.

Over my dead body, Logan thought with a fierceness that startled him. Fiona had women like Melissa chopped up and served for breakfast.

“Sure. If you’d like.”

He wasn’t certain, but he could have sworn there was a slight tremor in Melissa’s voice. He wanted to reassure her that she’d be safe, that he’d protect her, but it wasn’t his place. His reaction was simple gratitude, he told himself. She had been there for him and he owed her. She was just his nurse and he’d better not forget that. If he did, he might do something they’d both regret.

“I’m too cool for you, boy…”

Melissa hummed to herself as she folded the laundry. Except for cooking, domestic chores weren’t part of her job description. There were two ladies who came in twice a week to clean the house, but she found the simple tasks of washing and ironing actually quite fun. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d ironed a man’s shirt. No, that wasn’t strictly true. It had been Jeff’s shirt…the night of the banquet…when he’d announced he was leaving her for a very successful, very beautiful, pediatrician. Six years was a long time between creasing sleeves, she thought humorously. She’d better get all her fun while she could.

She’d already been with Logan and Wendi for six days and they’d settled into a comfortable routine together. On the days she wasn’t at camp, Wendi spent her time with friends or had them over. The kitchen still hadn’t recovered from seven twelve-year-olds practicing their baking skills at the same time. The cleaning people would be digging flour out of corners and cracks for weeks yet.

Logan spent his mornings working by phone. Then they’d have lunch together and she’d read to him for an hour or so. After dinner by the pool, the three of them would play games, with Wendi or Melissa taking turns reading the cards or telling him what number he’d rolled with the dice. The temptation to conspire against him was strong, but so far they’d only given in once…well, twice, if she counted the time they’d dug for a really hard question when playing Trivial Pursuit.

After Wendi drifted off to catch up on her MTV, Melissa would spend time with Logan. She’d change his bandages, then they’d stretch out on the big bed in his room and talk, or she’d simply read to him. With the crickets calling outside the windows and soft music playing in the background, she allowed herself to pretend the nights were real. For those few hours, Logan was her handsome prince…and she was as beautiful as Fiona.

All that would change shortly. When she’d driven Logan to the doctor a couple of days ago, he’d been told he was healing nicely. The bandages would come off this morning.

Melissa picked up the pile of T-shirts and headed toward Logan’s room. He was pacing restlessly, counting the steps from the wing chair to the doorway.