IN BED WITH THE BOSS

“I can get myself dressed!” he protested.

“Not yet, you can’t,” the nurse fussed. “You’re as weak as a kitten, although I must say that you don’t particularly look as weak as a kitten!”

“Why can’t Vivian help me?” he demanded, his heart sinking as he saw the nurse begin to roll her sleeves up over her rather hefty forearms. He’d much rather that dark-haired angel be at hand.

The nurse coughed. “Well, she was a little taken-aback when you didn’t recognise her, of course-but, as I told her, that’s perfectly normal in these circumstances.”

“You mean I know her?”

The nurse helped him with his jeans and began to get rather pink around the neck.

“Yes, Scott” said Vivian, in an odd, strained kind of voice as she walked into the room. “You do know me-you just can’t remember.”

Scott was still feeling groggy, but not too groggy to wonder how well he had known her.

“Here.” Vivian began to slide a sweater over his head, her fingers automatically colliding with the silken flesh, and she saw him still, their eyes meeting, his full of confusion, and something else, too-some fleeting look of sensual awareness.

Vivian would have been shocked if she hadn’t already noticed Scott’s body responding in the most elemental way possible-even when he’d been deeply unconscious.

It had happened on the second morning, when she had been helping the nurse to wash him. It had been a little embarrassing-for Vivian, in any case.

But as the nurse had cheerfully explained, “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that, my dear! Men are very basic creatures. They would need to be at death’s door before their bodies stopped reacting.” She withdrew the sponge hastily from his chest. “It’s an automatic response,” she added hastily. “It’s not me, or anything.” Vivian had managed to smile. The nurse in question was of pensionable age and although she was very sweet-she did not imagine that she was really Vivian’s type.

But now, the look of surprise in his eyes was not simply an automatic masculine response to the touch of a young woman, of that she was certain. There had been the glimmer of memory there, she would have sworn it.

Did that mean he was starting to remember? Because up until now, his mind had been a complete blank when it came to her. He seemed to recognise his own name, his family and job, but not her. He also had difficulty remembering some days and events. He didn’t know why he had been driving so near to Vivian’s when they were not in a relationship. Nor did he have any knowledge of any relationship between the two of them.

Though that, accepted Vivian wryly, might say more about the definition of their ‘relationship’ than any memory loss.

His family wanted to take him back home, assured by the medical team that he needed only rest and recuperation and not any high-powered nursing care. All of which they were perfectly capable of administering.

Vivian insisted on coming with them and was so glad when his mother agreed. She wanted to do it; she loved him, but she knew that even if she hadn’t she would have done it, anyway-who cares if they were broken up?

It didn’t matter if he didn’t remember her. He needed her and she knew it. That had been the most profound shock of all-of realizing that such a strong and powerful man was, after all, as vulnerable as the next person.

“Let me help you-” She said as she moved to help his arms into the sweater, but he tried to push her away.

“I can do it-” he replied.

“No, you can’t! Are you always this stubborn, Scott?”

“No, baby-you’re the one who’s stubb-”

Their eyes met in a long look. He had called her ‘baby’ and he had called her…

“Yes, that’s right,” she said slowly. “I am stubborn.”

“You mean that’s memory?” he demanded, as if he had just discovered the secret to the universe. “Not guesswork?”

She smiled. “It certainly seems that way. Now stop worrying about it, about anything-We’re going to take you home.”

“You’re bossier than that nurse,” he complained, but he was wondering exactly what kind of relationship he had with this lady.

His mother and sister arrived that minute, and before he knew it, Felicia had wrapped her hands around him. “Oh…. Finally we get to bring you home” she said cheerfully, kissing his face repeatedly.

Scott managed a smile, “It’s okay, mom. I’m fine” he said.

His mother smiled as she stared at Vivian. “Always so macho all the time”

Vivian smiled back. They got into the car. Sara drove. His mother sat beside her, while Scott sat with Vivian at the back.

Vivian didn’t know what to do. Should she hold his hand or give him his space? She shot a glance at him and was shocked to see him already staring at her. A deep frown on his face, as if trying to see through her. She decided to give him his space and watched while Sara and his mother tried to engage in conversation to help him with his memories.

“We’re here” Sara announced when they got to his mother’s house.

“My mother’s house?” he questioned as the car crunched its way up the graveled drive.

“Yeah” Vivian replied evenly, because the doctor had told them to simplify things. He did spend time here with his mother some of the time, and they couldn’t let him go back to his place alone.

“What about my place?”

“You have to stay here with your family until you fully recover”

“Did you live with me?” he asked suddenly.

Vivian shook her head. “No I didn’t. I spent some time there… with you… but we didn’t live together, as such.”

He wondered why. Through eyes newly focussed on the brightness of life after the greyness of his coma, he thought that he had never seen a more beautiful woman than Vivian.

“You have other apartments though and we went there sometimes,” she went on, staring at him for some kind of recognition. But there was none-nothing other than the blank kind of acceptance which greeted each new fact which she recounted. It made her realize how many subtle interpretations of a ‘fact’ there could be.

If you told someone that you spent weekends together, it could sound like quite a commitment-while nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. Not that Scott was into subtle nuances right now.

“Come on, now,” she said gently, thinking how much she wanted to use a term of endearment, like ‘sweetheart’ or ‘darling’-but that was something she had only done when he’d been in a coma and she hadn’t been able to help herself. And now was very definitely not the time to carry on with it. She was supposed to be helping his memory to return by keeping things much as they’d been before the accident.

And besides, the doctor hoped that the amnesia would only be temporary-imagine Scott’s icy horror if his memory suddenly returned, to find her acting lovesick all over him!

She helped him out of the car while Sara and his mother got his stuff out of the car. “You’re very tired,” she whispered, slipping her arm around his waist as she took in the dark shadows beneath his eyes and the lines of fraught tension on his face.

Some autopilot reaction made him try to push her arm away. “I’m fine.”Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

She ignored him, knowing that he didn’t have the strength to resist. She tightened her grip on him and reluctantly he leaned on her as they went into the house.

Felicia asked Sara to bring tea and crumpets and buns to the library, where a fire had been lit and was roaring. He looked around the room, taking in the very cozy scene in front of his eyes. It felt as though someone had muzzled his brain with cotton wool and he shook his head in irritation as he sank down into a chair in front of the fire.

“We will go get his room and yours ready” Felicia said and left with Sara.

“How would you like your tea, Scott?” asked Vivian, lifting up the heavy silver pot.

“Just lemon, please,” he replied automatically and saw her smile. “What is it?”

“That’s how you always take your tea…. Although I know you remember that”

“So my brain sort out the most important things, right?” he questioned drily and she smiled again.

“At least your sense of humor hasn’t completely deserted you.”

“You mean I have one?”

“Sometimes.” She was about to tease him when she drew herself up short. ‘Don’t tire him,’ the doctor had told her-and perhaps teasing would qualify as tiring him. “Have a sandwich.”

He shook his head. “I’m not hungry.”

She nodded. She wasn’t going to force it, but he looked so pale, so unlike her glowing Scott that if she could have persuaded him to eat she would have done. “Okay.”