Come Lie With Me by Linda Howard Page B

either. How could she scold him when he’d been nothing but polite? He loved his wife, she was sure. He liked and admired his brother-in-law. But still, he responded to Dione in a way that she knew she hadn’t mistaken.
    She’d been the object of unwanted attention before, but this was the first time that attention hadn’t been obvious. She had no idea how to handle it. She knew that Richard would never try to force himself on her, but Serena was jealous. Part of Dione, the deeply feminine part of her, was even flattered by his regard. If Serena had been giving her husband the attention he deserved, none of this would be happening.
    But they weren’t important, she told herself. She couldn’t let them be important to her. Only Blake mattered. He was coming out of the prison of his disability, more and more revealing himself as the man he’d been before the accident. In another month she hoped to have him standing. Not walking, but standing. Letting his legs get used to supporting the weight of his body again. What she was doing now was dealing with the basics, restoring him to health and building his strength up enough that he would be able to stand when she demanded it of him.
    She ran hot water in a plastic container and set the flask of oil that she used down in it to warm it for the massage that she always gave him before he went in the pool, in an effort to protect him from any chill. Not that a chill was likely in the hundred-plus-degree heat of a summer day in Phoenix, she thought wryly, but he was so thin, still so weakened, that she didn’t take any chances with him. Besides, he seemed to enjoy the feelof the warm oil being massaged into him, and he had little enough joy in his life.
    She was restless, and she prowled aimlessly about the converted game room, pausing to stretch her body. She needed a good workout to release some of her energy, she decided, and positioned herself on the weight bench.
    She liked lifting weights. Her aim was strength, not bulk, and the program that she followed was designed with that in mind. For Blake, she was altering the program enough to build up the bulk of his muscles without pumping him up like a Mr. Universe. Carefully regulating her breathing, concentrating on what she was doing, she began her sets. Up, down. Up, down.
    She finished her leg sets and adjusted the system of pulleys and weights to what she wanted for her arms. Puffing, she began again. The demand she was making on her muscles reached a plateau that was almost pleasure. Again. Again.
    â€œYou damned cheat!” The roar startled her, and she jerked upright, alarm skittering across her features. Confused, she stared at Blake. He sat in his wheelchair, just inside the door, his face dark red and contorted with fury.
    â€œWhat?” she spluttered.
    He pointed at the weights. “You’re a weight lifter!” he bellowed, so furious that he was shaking. “You little cheat. You knew the day you beat me at arm wrestling that you’d win! Hell, how many men could beat you?”
    She blushed. “Not everyone,” she said with modesty, which seemed to make him even angrier.
    â€œI can’t believe it!” He was yelling, getting louder and louder. “Knowing how it would make me feel that a woman could beat me at arm wrestling, you made a bet on it anyway, and you rigged it!”
    â€œI never said that I wasn’t good at it,” she pointed out, trying to keep the laughter out of her voice. He looked wonderful! If sheer rage could have put him back on his feet, he’d have been walking right then. A giggle escaped her control, and at the sound of it he began pounding his fist on the arm of the wheelchair; unfortunately he was pounding on the controls, and the chair began jumping back and forth like a bronc trying to rid itself of an unwanted rider.
    Dione couldn’t help it; she gave up even trying to keep a straight face and laughed until