Damn. She couldn’t just leave him on the hard kitchen floor. It was drafty, cold, dirty. The couch or carpet in the living room was warmer, safer, more protected.
But how to move him, without moving his right ankle or his head? How to move his weight at all?
She thought, then trekked upstairs, thinking Mrs. Cunningham had to have a linen closet somewhere. She found it and pulled a sheet from the bottom shelf, hoping it wasn’t a good one. The plan was to somehow wrestle him onto the sheet, with the hope that she’d be able to pull him across the floor that way.
If that didn’t work… But she amended that thought. It had to work. She had no other ideas.
Crouching down, she gently pushed and prodded until she’d maneuvered the sheet under his weight. It took a while, partly because she was so worried about injuring him further, and partly because she kept glancing at his face.
He took her breath away; she had to admit it. He just had the kind of looks that really rang her chimes. Rugged jaw, dusted with whiskers. The kind of thick, rough hair that never stayed brushed, not too short, not too styled, just…himself. Shoulders that wouldn’t be subdued in an ordinary shirt. Jeans worn soft, the kind that said he didn’t give a damn what they looked like.
Physical, she thought dispassionately. One look, and she could immediately picture him hot and sweaty, throwing a woman on the bed and diving in after her. The kind of guy who was lusty about sex, lusty about life, lusty about everything he did. Bullheaded. Those kinds of guys always were. The thicker the neck, the more stubborn the brain. And the bigger the feet, the bigger… Well, it wasn’t as if she cared how big he was under that zipper.
She was immune. She could look, she could enjoy-as long as he stayed alive for her, anyway. But she already knew he was totally wrong for her. She didn’t know why at that precise moment. Maybe he was married. Or maybe he couldn’t define faithful with a big-print dictionary. Or maybe he’d found some creative, new way to break a woman’s heart.