He heard a thud on the other side of the door and reached for the knob. It turned in his hand, and the door swung inward.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said.
It was too dark to see more than her outline. He wasn’t sure what possessed him to lift a hand and touch her face. She was drenched in sweat, her hair sticking to her damp cheeks. Or maybe she’d been crying and the wetness on her face was tears.
“You sounded really scared,” he said.
“Just a dream,” she whispered.
“What about? Maybe it will help to talk about it.”
“I—I don’t remember. I never remember the dream. Just the feeling it gives me.”
A terrible feeling, if the sounds she’d been making or the trembling in her body were any indication.
“You have it a lot?”
She nodded, and her head tipped forward, sending tendrils of hair slipping across her pale face. “I’m sure it’s just the hormones. They make me a little crazy.”
He stepped away. “Well, if you’re okay, I’m going back to bed. I thought you had gone into labor or something.”
When he turned, she grabbed the back of his T-shirt. “Just a minute,” she said before pressing her face into the center of his back. “Stay just a minute. Until . . . until I feel safe again.”
“Lindsey . . .” He tried to turn back around to comfort her properly.
“No. Don’t look at me. Just . . . stay.”
He stood there feeling foolish and uncertain of why she was clinging to the back of his shirt like a baby monkey. After a moment she pressed closer, straightening so that her face was between his shoulders and her breasts and belly were against his back. The hand that had been clutching his shirt now slid around his body, flattening against his belly
“Almost,” she whispered.
Almost what? What was she doing back there? He noticed that her breathing was slowly returning to normal and the tremors of her body had gone still. She took one last deep breath and stepped away.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “Sometimes . . .”
She took several steps backward until she’d crossed the threshold back into her room.
“Sometimes what?” he pressed, still not sure what she’d been doing as she held on to him. It hadn’t felt like an attempt to seduce him. As horny as he was, it hadn’t even excited him. It had tugged at other parts of him, though. Parts of him that usually made him do things like climb into a culvert to pull out a crying kitten or empty his wallet into the Salvation Army bucket.
“Sometimes a woman just needs something solid to hold on to.”
She closed the door and left him standing in the hall puzzling over her words. He still hadn’t figured them out when he crawled back into bed to lose a little more sleep.
~~~
The next morning Owen was woken by the smell of bacon. His stomach growled loud enough to make him laugh. He rolled out of bed and placed his hands on his hips, glaring down at his cock, as if that would make it behave. Hoping that a piss would cure him of his annoying problem, he cracked open his door and peered into the hallway for signs of Lindsey. He could hear her humming in the kitchen, her muted song accompanied by the sizzle of frying bacon and the occasional scrape or clang of a utensil against a pan.
He hurried down the hall, and it seemed to take a century for his stream to start. He was pretty sure he’d be permanently disfigured if he didn’t see Caitlyn soon. He planned to get on the road to Houston as soon as he could drive. Of course, there was the problem of finding a place to put Lindsey before he left. He returned to his room to slip on a pair of jeans, convinced they’d conceal his overly excitable dick, and padded down the stairs in his bare feet. As he’d expected, Lindsey was cooking breakfast. What he hadn’t expected was for her to look so tousled and beautiful while doing so.
It was his little head having such thoughts, he told himself as he leaned over the center kitchen island to watch. He refused to stare at the curve of her ass under her nightgown. Much.
“Good morning,” he said quietly, and she jumped as if he’d shouted through a megaphone. “Something smells good.”
“You said I could help myself,” she said, stirring a huge skillet of scrambled eggs with a spatula.
“And I meant it on one condition.”
Her eyes were wide as she turned to gape at him.
“That you’ll share some with me.”
“Oh!” She flushed prettily and turned back to the stove. “Of course. I was going to make toast, but—”
“Mold?”
She nodded. “The milk is still good, though. Do you drink coffee?”
“After not sleeping well?” he muttered, going to the coffee maker to start a pot and finding the coffee ready. He reached for his favorite mug. “I’ll drink the whole pot.”
“I’m sorry about waking you in the middle of the night,” she said as she turned off the burner. “I don’t know why, but ever since I got pregnant I’ve been having nightmares.”
“Maybe it’s the stress.”
“Probably,” she said. “That or my crazy hormonal swings. You can have all the coffee. I’m supposed to be watching my caffeine intake.”
“I have some decaf around here somewhere,” he said, opening a cabinet and shifting its contents around as he looked for the likely stale container of decaf—because, really, what was the point?
“I’ll have orange juice,” she said. “Unless it’s fermented.”
Her giggle made him laugh. Was it odd that he felt so at ease with her in his home? When she’d been around him on the tour bus or backstage, he’d been so tense he thought he’d snap. But here? Here he was at home. She was at home.
Shit.
He opened the fridge and pulled out the orange juice, sniffing it with trepidation but finding it consumable. He also discovered an English muffin and after determining that it was safe to eat, popped it into the toaster.
They filled their plates in the kitchen and carried their breakfast to the small table in the dining room. She smiled at him dreamily as she sat in the seat across from him. He concentrated on his food and not on the way the sunlight streaming through the window caught the golden highlights in her hair.
“Is there an employment agency nearby?” she asked.
He stopped eating with his fork halfway to his mouth. “I’m not sure it will be open on Saturday,” he said.
“Oh. I can try calling and see.”
Even if she found a job today, she wouldn’t have an income for weeks. What was he going to do with her? Leave her here in his house making herself at home while he went to Houston to be with Caitlyn so he could fuck himself into oblivion? Maybe he could take Lindsey to a women’s shelter or maybe—
“The garage apartment,” he said aloud. His parents rented the apartment above the garage to college students, but he knew it was unoccupied until the fall. That would give them the time they needed to find Lindsey permanent accommodations.
Lindsey squinted at him. “What?”
“My mom will help you out while I’m on tour. She loves charity cases.”
Before he could tell her about the apartment, Lindsey’s blue eyes turned stormy. “You think I’m a charity case?”
“No,” he said quickly. “You just need a little help to get back on your feet.”
“I can’t ask your mom for help,” she said. “She’ll think I’m a total slut.”
“Why would she think that?”
She pointed both hands toward her pregnant belly. “Hello?”
“She doesn’t need to know the story behind how you got in that condition.” He poked another bite of eggs into his mouth.
“Do you plan on telling her it’s yours?” Lindsey asked.
“No.”
“Don’t you think she’ll wonder why you’re helping me then?”
“Not really,” he said with a shrug. He’d brought h
ome all sorts of strays in his youth—wild animals, abandoned pets, Kellen Jamison. Lindsey seemed like a natural progression to him. His mom loved dealing with such things. She said his tendency to bring home strays proved that her son had a big heart and was a good person.
Or that he was a total sucker.
“What if she hates me?” Lindsey asked, shifting her eggs from one side of her plate to the other.
“She doesn’t hate anyone. Trust me, okay?”
A crease formed between her pale eyebrows. “I kind of have to. I don’t have many other options.”
After they’d finished their breakfast and cleaned up, Owen checked his messages while Lindsey collected her things from