Harrison fisted his hands. “I’d wear a blindfold, but I doubt I’d be much help.” He tried another angle. “I’ve seen a hundred women totally bare in my thirty-eight years of living. Believe me, honey, I won’t see anything I haven’t seen before. You’re taking this shyness too far. We’re two grown-ups. Hell, we’re both moving into middle age.”

She’d refused to wear anything but the hospital gown because it was open in the back when she needed it to be. But now she wanted to look proper.

They’d been together since she’d left the hospital. They’d talked. Told secrets. Admitted fears and laughed. They’d eaten every meal together and devoured ice cream sandwiches as their guilty delight. Showing a little skin didn’t seem a big deal to him.

“I don’t suppose you’d go naked if I did. Then we’d be even.”

She almost smiled. “Not a chance, cowboy.”

Hank walked to the bedroom door, turned, and walked back. If they’d been living together, he would have stormed out and gone for a drink, but that wasn’t possible. Damn, damn, double damn. It’s hard to argue with her all crippled up. Every time her face tightened with pain or she moved and let out a cry reminded him all this was his fault.

He knew her. How she liked her steak cooked. How she hated ketchup. How she loved reading. He’d carried her around the whole house and even outside to check on her dumb sunflowers. He’d seen her backside several times, even though she tried to keep the gown closed.

He’d even slept next to her that first night. But they were now going outside their cocoon, and she did not want to be seen in her stained gown.

She looked so upset and it suddenly hit him that she’d never been bare before a man. The very proper librarian was a virgin. How on earth was that possible? She’d told him she was thirty-six. To his way of thinking she should be wiser.

Dealing with a virgin was way out of his league. How could a woman make it halfway through life and not have let a man see her bare? She’d never felt another’s body, skin-on-skin against her. He’d bet she’d never been held all night while she slept or pulled so close she couldn’t tell if she heard his heart beating or hers.

Hank had to tread softly.

“I got an idea.” He walked out of the room and returned with an apron. “Now be still. Trust me on this, pretty lady.”

He tied the apron around her neck and untied the gown. “Pull the gown off. You’ll still be covered with the apron.”

She made sure the sheet covered her to her waist, then tugged the gown away.

It worked.