She groaned, closed her eyes. “Go away.”
“Ten seconds into the foot rub and you’re going to beg me to stay.”
“Foot rub?”
She pulled her leg back, but he closed his fingers around her ankle, holding it steady as he pried off her shoe. “Ten, nine, eight ...”
And when he ran the heel of his hand firmly up her arch, sheer pleasure shivered through her system and made her groan.
“See, I told you. Just relax. Happy feet are the key to the universe.”
“Galileo?”
“Carl Sagan,” he said with a grin. “Did you get anything to eat down there?”
“If I so much as look at another pancake, I’ll throw up.”
“I thought not. I brought you something else.”
She blinked one eye open. “What?”
“Hmm. You’ve got very attractive feet. Long, narrow, an elegantly high instep. One of these days I’m going to start nibbling on them and work my way up. Oh, you meant what did I bring you to eat.” He pressed his fingers against the ball of her foot, worked them down to the heel. “Strawberries and cream, one of Brian’s miraculous biscuits with homemade jam, and some bacon for protein.”
“Why?”
“Because you need to eat.” He glanced back at her. “Or did you mean why am I going to nibble on your feet?”
“Never mind.”
“Okay. Why don’t you roll over, sit up, and eat? Then I can do this right.”
She started to say she wasn’t hungry—an automatic response. But she remembered Kirby’s orders to eat. And the idea of strawberries had some appeal. She sat up, trying not to feel foolish when Nathan settled down cross-legged with her foot cradled in his lap. She took the bowl of strawberries and picked one out with her fingers.
She studied him in silence a moment. He hadn’t bothered to shave that morning, and his hair was in need of a trim. But the just a bit unkempt style suited him, as did the gold the island sun was teasing out of his thick brown hair.
“You don’t have to go to all this trouble,” she told him. “I’m thinking about sleeping with you.”
“Well, that’s a load off my mind.”
She took a bite of a strawberry, and the taste was so sweet and unexpectedly bright, she smiled. “I guess I’m a little out of sorts this morning.”
“Are you?” He gripped her toes, worked them gently back and forth. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Which is your sly Yankee way of saying I’m always bitchy.”
“Not always. And I think the word I’d have chosen would have been ‘troubled.’ ”
“A Hathaway legacy.” Because the strawberries had stirred an appetite, she picked up a slice of bacon and bit in. “We had a family brawl last night, which was why Lexy was in bed with her head under the covers and I was waiting tables.”
“Do you always pick up the slack?”
Surprised, she shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t say I pick up much of anything. I’m rarely here.”
“And when you are, you’re waiting tables, changing linen, scrubbing toilets.”
“How did you hear about that?”
Her voice had gone sharp, puzzling him. “You told me. You were on housecleaning detail here at the inn.”
