“You told me that Reeve’s life would be in danger if I told him I’d seen you,” she accused him, thinking of all she’d gone through in an effort to keep that secret.

“I lied,” Jamie answered flatly.

Chapter 19

THE BED WHERE REEVE LAY WAS AWASH IN MOONLIGHT. Maggie planned to sleep upstairs, in the attic room she’d originally been given, but she needed to touch Reeve, to assure herself that he was indeed back, safe, if not sound.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, wondering whether he was asleep or awake, and tentatively touched his forehead. She saw his eyes open, and she smiled. “Hello, Reeve,” she said softly.

Maggie thought she saw his lips move, and she was quick to light the lamp on the bedside table. He looked exhausted, but stronger, too, and he was definitely trying to say something.

His struggle tore at Maggie’s heart. She touched his lips with her fingers and whispered, “It’s all right, darling. You’re home now, and you’re safe.”

The word was torn from him in a breathless rasp. “Yank,” he said.

Maggie’s tears threatened to overflow, but she battled them staunchly. Reeve’s doctor, who’d visited just before she left for the theater that evening, had said that there must be no emotional displays in the patient’s presence. She drew a very deep breath and said brightly, “We’ll be leaving for Queensland in a week’s time. Your doctor tells me that the sunshine and the sea are just what you need now.”

The change in his face, so long awaited, was terrible to see. Reeve paled, and there was a wild expression in his eyes. Maggie wondered what she’d said wrong, and then realized that the incident that had done injury to Reeve’s mind had happened at sea. She could have bitten off her tongue. “I’ll go now,” she said, standing up, “and let you rest.”

His left hand made an almost imperceptible movement, then groped for her, catching hold of her skirts. “Stay,” Reeve struggled to say.

Maggie couldn’t leave him, not now. She began removing her clothes and his eyes watched her hungrily as she shed each garment and laid it neatly over the back of a chair. Though she knew that Reeve couldn’t make love to her, there was something intimate and sensual in undressing before him that way, in the light.

She was naked when she turned out the lamp, rounded the bed, and crawled in beside him, cuddling close and running one hand idly up and down his broad chest. He made a low, throaty sound of pure pleasure, and as Maggie’s fingers moved over his abdomen, she felt him responding to her touch.