Until You Loved Me (Silver Springs #3)(55)

He climbed out of bed to use the bathroom and ended up wandering through her house, looking at everything a little more closely. A picture he’d noticed on a table in the living room showed Ellie graduating summa cum laude. Another picture showed her wearing a lab coat with several other scientists in front of the logo for the BDC. They looked like a bunch of thin, pale-faced intellectuals—but he found Ellie’s nerdiness sort of endearing.

Yet another photograph showed her smiling at the camera with two older people who had to be her parents. Would her folks turn out to be interfering, annoying, heavy-handed? Would they ask for money or expect him to be available to their friends? Or would he envy her because she had the parents he’d always dreamed of?

His heart was still pounding, so he went into the kitchen, opened a bottle of cabernet he found in the cupboard and poured himself a glass. He was sure she wouldn’t mind. She couldn’t drink alcohol right now, anyway; he’d have plenty of time to replace the bottle.

Fortunately, the wine was decent. For whatever odd reason, it made him feel slightly better that she had good taste in wine. Perhaps it indicated she’d have good taste in other things. He’d liked her well enough in September; he just hadn’t known, when he got into that cab, that he was essentially stapling their lives together.

Trying to talk himself down so he wouldn’t have a full-blown panic attack, he carried his glass into the nursery and leaned against the wall while he drank it. The nursery wasn’t bad, either. He liked her choices—except, of course, he preferred the sports theme to the animal theme. He hoped, now that she knew who he was and what he did for a living, she’d show enough consideration to choose the right wallpaper.

“Wow,” he muttered. So much had changed—and in such a short time. But he supposed he should be grateful the situation wasn’t worse. He hadn’t known much about her when he took her to his hotel. What if he’d gotten another woman pregnant, a woman he couldn’t admire in any way?

With a sigh, he pushed off from the wall and set his glass to one side. He figured he might as well take the crib out of its box and build it for her. He’d create a new nursery in California, wouldn’t try to ship this stuff, but it gave him something to do. Maybe they’d come back here periodically and would need it then.

He was almost done when his phone went off and he had to go back to where he’d left it in her room. “Hello?”

“Hudson?”

Ellie. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Much better.”

“Have you eaten anything?”

“They brought me some Ensure.”

“Will you be able to keep it down?”

“Feels like it.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He didn’t want to tell her about the crib, preferred to surprise her. “Drinking your wine.”

“Sounds like you’re making yourself at home.”

“Figured that bottle wasn’t doing anyone any good sitting in the cupboard.”

“I guess that’s true. What happened to sleeping?”

“Can’t. Too amped up.”

“You’re scared.”

Absolutely terrified. “Maybe a little apprehensive,” he allowed.

“That makes two of us. Are you convinced we’re doing the right thing?”

“We’re putting the baby first. Isn’t that the right thing?”

“I hope so.”

“We’ll work it out. Don’t worry.”

“Easy for you to say,” she muttered. “You’re not the one uprooting your life.”

But he’d be making plenty of concessions. “We’ll set some ground rules, make sure the situation’s tolerable for both of us,” he promised.

“We should do that sooner rather than later, so we know what to expect.”

In other words, she needed some reassurance, and he couldn’t blame her. “Are you saying you want to do it now?”

“Not over the phone. Tonight, after you pick me up.”

“Are they releasing you?”

“In an hour or so. I just saw the doctor.”

“Understood,” he said. “I’ll be there to get you.”





15

Hudson didn’t have much to say on the drive home. Ellie took that to mean he was reeling as badly as she was. “How was the wine?” she asked, breaking the silence before it could stretch to the point of becoming awkward.

“Not bad.”

“Did you get any rest?”

“Very little.”

“Hopefully you’ll do better tonight.” Although she had no idea where he was going to sleep. She had only one bed—her bed. The couch would be miserable for a man his size, especially since he’d already spent one night on that couch while she was throwing up and the next night sleeping in an uncomfortable chair at the hospital.

Maybe he’d get a hotel. Lord knew he could afford it.

“Would you rather have our talk in the morning?” he asked. “You’ve been through a lot the past few days. Another night to recover probably wouldn’t hurt.”

She was tempted to put it off, but she wouldn’t sleep at all if she still had that hanging over her. “I’d rather resolve everything, feel I have a plan. That should go a long way toward relieving my anxiety.”