All of a sudden, Erin stopped talking and pressed a palm to her waist. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Wyatt wasn’t surprised. She probably hadn’t taken a break that evening to eat, and now she had a bottle of wine sloshing around on an empty stomach. He helped her walk to a flower bed that looked bedraggled and pathetic even in the dark. When she bent over to purge her stomach, she almost pitched forward onto her head. He held her up until the spasms finally passed and then led her into the house, which became a zigzag course because Erin was weaving. Wyatt thought about just picking her up and carrying her. As it was, she led him to the kitchen. He thought maybe the door he’d seen off that room went to her bedroom, but it housed only a guest bathroom.

“Where’s your bedroom?” he asked.

She peered owlishly up at him. Normally, her face had a sun-kissed look, but now it was drained of color. “Why? We’re only friends, and you stressed the only.”

Wyatt couldn’t help but smile. “I thought you might want to go to bed.”

She blinked. “Not with you. Not with anyone, actually.”

“I promise not to join you,” he assured her. “But I think it’s time for you to lie down. Lights out, as the saying goes.”

Under her direction, he got her to the bedroom. It was tidy just like the rest of her house. He lowered her to sit on the foot of the bed and rifled through her drawers for a pair of pajamas or a nightgown. All he found were sweatpants and T-shirts. He settled on one of each, led her to the adjoining bathroom, which featured a beautiful garden tub, and got her perched on the toilet seat.

“You think you can manage by yourself?”

“Yup.”

Wyatt helped remove her belt, which he thought might be problematic for someone whose fingers were no longer getting the messages from her brain. He left her to figure the rest out by herself and sat on the end of the bed while he waited. He couldn’t tell if she was bumping around in the bathroom, and his only reference for the time was his cell phone.

Ten minutes passed, and Wyatt decided maybe she had decided to grab a shower. She’d worked all day. He liked to feel fresh when he hit the sack. Only she still hadn’t emerged after five more minutes dragged by. He decided he’d better check on her. To say she was a little drunk would be an understatement. He stepped over to the door and rapped on it. Then he eased it open a crack.

“Erin, are you okay?” Nothing. But that was the story of his life. If she’d just cried out that she was bleeding to death, he wouldn’t know. Gathering his courage, he stepped into the enclosure, half expecting to find her naked. Instead she still sat on the toilet fully clothed. Well, she’d managed to unbutton her uniform shirt partway down, and he couldn’t say she was exactly sitting. She was slumped sideways with her shoulder pressed against the side of the vanity and her chin resting on her chest, which he tried not to look at. “Erin? I thought you were going to get your nightclothes on.”