Every Waking Moment(69)
Author: Brenda Novak

“I’m strong, huh, Preston?” Max said. “I have big muscles. See?”

Preston raised himself on his elbows to watch Max do his flexing. “That’s good. Now I can rest easy.” He flopped back onto the pillow and closed his eyes. Emma thought he was drifting off again until he nudged her. “Have you tested him yet?”

“I was about to.”

“I’ll do it.” As he got up, Emma’s eyes skimmed over his T-shirt and boxer briefs. With his square, unshaven jaw, enigmatic blue eyes and sleep-tousled blond hair, he looked incredibly sexy. And he had the body to go with the face. Even someone as conscientious about lifting weights and eating right as Manuel couldn’t make a pair of boxers more appealing.

Emma especially loved how unconcerned Preston seemed to be about his physical assets. Outward appearances, things, didn’t seem important to him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be driving that van. Or dressing the way he did.

He yawned as he returned, and Emma focused on watching him test her son. Ogling him wouldn’t help them get through the day—without winding up back in the bathroom—but she was relieved to know she could actually desire someone. Because Manuel had wanted to make love much more often than she did, he’d occasionally accused her of being cold. Once he’d even called her frigid. But she doubted anyone could call her frigid after last night.

“One thirty,” he said.

She frowned at him. “One thirty?”

Preston was obviously surprised by the question. “Max’s blood sugar. He’s one thirty.”

“Oh, right.” She smiled to cover her embarrassment. Her mind had been drifting back to the way he’d parted her robe.

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You’re turning red.”

She cleared her throat. “One thirty is perfect. I guess we could’ve slept a little longer.”

The look on his face told her he was probably remembering the same thing, and caused a tremor low in her belly.

“Or maybe it’s better to get back on the road,” she said, knowing she couldn’t survive another session like the one last night and still expect to go on as if he was simply some nice man who’d helped her.

“We can cross Nebraska in one day if we get started soon.”

“One day? How far is it?”

“I think it’s about five hundred miles, but I’m not sure. I’ve got to do a few things on the computer. I’ll double-check while I’m on the Internet.”

She stretched, pretending not to notice the way Preston’s biceps flexed beneath his smooth skin as he set up his computer. “Should I find a little store and get us some groceries for breakfast?” she asked.

“Order room service,” he said. “It’ll be faster.”

“Okay.”

After turning on the television for Max, she carried the sack containing her new clothes into the bathroom and closed the door. A shower would help her wake up, she decided, but as she peeled off the pajamas she’d worn to bed, she couldn’t help studying her naked body. Preston had told her she was too thin. But he didn’t seem disappointed last night.

She turned to one side and frowned at her reflection. Maybe he liked women with fuller figures.

“Mommy, I’m hungry. What’s taking you so long?” Max called.

Feminine insecurity, at a time when she could least afford it. “I’ll be out in a few minutes,” she called.

She turned on the shower and stepped beneath the hot spray, telling herself she was stupid to become so obsessed with Preston. She’d barely escaped Manuel. But chastising herself didn’t do much good. The water sluicing over her body soon became Preston’s hands and mouth.

The image of him naked and in the shower with her made Emma feel giddy, breathless. She imagined the slickness of his skin against hers, his lips tracing a drop of water down her body….

Closing her eyes, she arched her back and imagined several different variations of last night. Then she smiled. “Take that, Manuel,” she thought. “I’m not frigid.”

PRESTON FELT more rested than he had in months, which was a definite improvement over most mornings. But being rested didn’t alleviate a certain…uneasiness. He suspected Emma had something to do with that uneasiness, but he didn’t want to think about it.

Tuning out the sound of the shower and the television, he focused on the list of e-mails filling his computer screen. He’d been so preoccupied with Emma and Max and getting to Iowa, he’d done little on the computer for the past few days. Spam cluttered his in-box, along with several securities newsletters, stock tips from various people he’d met on the Net, and a message from Gordon Latham containing Joanie’s new contact information.

Preston was reaching the bottom of his mailbox when he came across an e-mail with the subject header: Maybe you should know. Assuming the attached message would start with “Expand your penis size by three inches,” or something similar as most spam messages did these days, he nearly deleted it. But the return address caught his eye.

MellyD8. He recognized that address. It belonged to the Deets family. Their daughter, Melanie, had been a patient of Vince Wendell’s when he lived in Lockwood, Pennsylvania. Vince had mentioned the family a couple of times, but Preston had learned most of what he knew by going through the archives of the Lockwood Gazette, where he’d stumbled upon an article heralding Dr. Wendell as a local hero. Dated three years prior to the Wendells’ move to Half Moon Bay, the article praised Vince for hospitalizing little Melanie when she was showing only flulike symptoms. As it turned out, Melanie didn’t have the flu; she had septicemia, the illness that had killed Dallas. But she didn’t present the rash that sometimes accompanied the disease, so it was a marvel to most everyone that Dr. Wendell had possessed the foresight to get her the help she needed.

It wasn’t a marvel to Preston. He thought Vince should know what was wrong with her, since he’d given it to her in the first place.

The article had ended by saying that the city was naming a park after Dr. Wendell. It featured a photograph of a very distinguished looking Vince—a self-satisfied Vince who was obviously at the height of his glory. That picture now served as Preston’s screen saver, as a constant reminder that he might stand alone but he would never give up.

When Preston first contacted the Deets to ask about Melanie’s illness and recovery, they weren’t very forthcoming with the details, even though there was a little boy from the same town, also Vince’s patient, who hadn’t been as lucky as Melanie. Mere months after Melanie’s miraculous recovery, Billy Duran had come down with the same flulike symptoms. His illness turned out to be meningitis, caused by the same bacteria as septicemia. Only Billy went into shock and died of heart failure on his way to the hospital.