•••
Rose intended to stay up until Tom got back, but she must have fallen asleep despite all the lights she left on, because she woke up in the dark when Tom slid the elastic band that secured the nebulizer mask over the back of her head. Confused, she made a sleepy noise of protest.
“Shh, it’s okay, you don’t have to wake up,” Tom whispered. He turned the machine on, and its familiar hum oriented her as the sticky-sweet mist of the medication began to flow into the mask. “Just sit up a little.”
He gently tilted her up, and she heard the rustle of the covers and felt the dip of the mattress under his weight, but she didn’t get alarmed until she felt his bare skin brush against her arm.
“Wait, are younaked?” she demanded, lowering the mask.
“I’m wearing underwear,” Tom said defensively, scooting into bed behind her and arranging her so she was lying backagainst his chest. “I had to take the rest off. It’s as hot as the surface of the sun in here with the fireplace on.”
He pulled the mask back over her face and settled in, his arms clasped loosely over her stomach and stiff body.
If she had a lot of self-respect, she’d tell him to get out of her bed now. He didn’t get extra credit for fixing disasters he’d created. Even assuming he was telling the truth about Boyd, Tom had spent the past three days turning her world upside down and shaking it. This wasn’t the help she’d asked for!
But she was comfortable.
Those new chest muscles of his made a perfectly functional backrest, it turned out, and also, there was the added benefit of being able to breathe for the first time in several days once the medicine started kicking in. Tom might have complained about the heat, but Rose was always, always cold. Adding his body heat underneath the stack of blankets she’d burrowed into meant she was finally at what she considered a reasonable sleeping temperature.
Rose couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt like this—warm, safe, coddled. The steady rise and fall of Tom’s breathing against her back felt like medicine, just as much as the mist flowing through the machine.
It didn’t mean anything had changed, she told herself. Tom had always been better in a crisis than expected. He’d always been good when she was sick, or when her childhood cat had run away under suspicious circumstances, or when she’d had a fight with her mother. That he was exactly what she needed in this moment didn’t mean he’d be what she needed on anordinary Tuesday evening, and her life was going to be made of a lot more ordinary Tuesday evenings than snowy nights when she needed medicine from the mainland.
Still. He was here. He was the only one she could even imagine being here. That was something.
She dozed until the liquid chamber sputtered on empty and Tom flipped the nebulizer off. Rose tensed, not really interested in moving but not sure she ought to be sleeping on Tom’s chest either.
“You seem warm enough now,” Tom said with watchful nonchalance, rolling over to flip off the light. “Do you really need all these blankets?” His tone was innocent, even though he was making a patent play for promotion to the bed.
“I’ll get cold later.”
“I’m sweating,” Tom complained, flapping the covers to air them out.
“Maybe you’d be more comfortable staying in the inn with Boyd,” Rose deflected, hands protectively clutching her pile of blankets.
“No, I’m fine,” Tom backpedaled.
“I thought you were hot.”
“It’s notthathot.” He paused. “Unless…are you going to make me sleep on the love seats again?”
“Are you leaving if I say yes?”
Tom craned his neck to give her a disappointed look. “No, I’m staying regardless because you’re going to need another breathing treatment in four hours.”
Rose chewed on that. When she didn’t roll out the welcomemat for the bed, Tom sighed and sat up. He slid his legs off the mattress, then reached for the covers as though he’d peel her hand off them.
“I guess I just need one if I’m sleeping downstairs,” he said.
She held on to the blanket stubbornly.
“Rosie,” Tom chided her. “You can’t have them all. It’s time to compromise. Give me a blanket or make some room.”
Compromise. He had no idea. She did nothing but compromise! Her entire life was one big compromise between the things she’d wanted and the things she actually expected she could have now.
If she let him back into the bed, it would be wonderful, for tonight at least. She’d pillow her head on that dreamboat chest, luxuriate in his warmth and comfort, and wake up feeling safe and rested.
The thing was, if he slept here tonight, then he’d think her bed was a place he was allowed to sleep. Which would make it into his choice whether he slept there or not. And the very smallest Rose had ever felt was the first night Tom hadn’t come home. If there were going to be nights in the future when Rose’s bed wasn’t the place he most wanted to be, she didn’t want to know about it.
