“Oh, you don’t need to,” I said. What? What had just come out of my mouth? Why? Why was I telling him no? Hadn’t I wanted to be alone with him just a few minutes ago? Yes. But now that I was, I was actually nervous. So stupid.

“Probably not,” he said. “But I’m going to anyway.”

“Do you want your wheelchair?” I asked. “I can go get it.”

He stood still as if trying to decide. Then he shook his head. “No, I think I can do this.”

We strolled through the enormous house and stepped outside into the backyard. The scent of citrus blossoms was heavy in the night air. It was chilly and very quiet. The only sound was the soft bubbling of the hot tub. I almost asked if he wanted to go in with me, but I thought that might be pushing it.

We crossed his patio and followed the path along the line of trees that circled the pool until the path broke off to my house. My back door was open just a few inches. I had fed Sir before arriving for dinner and left the door open for him if he wanted to leave. I glanced at Nick to see if he was taking all this in. If he was, he didn’t show it.

I thought about Lexi and wondered how she’d react when she discovered that he’d been keeping his stroke and subsequent issues secret from her. It had been my experience that secrets didn’t like to be held. They were like wiggly toddlers that way, and the harder you held on to them, the more of a fuss they made until they were loose.

“Are you going to tell Lexi?” I asked him.

“Tell Lexi?” he asked.

“About your . . . issues.”

“Issues?” He stopped walking and turned to face me, forcing me to stop, too. “That’s a helluva euphemism for a stroke and the residual fallout.”

“I was trying to be delicate,” I said.

“No need, I’m not that fragile. Truthfully, I don’t have any plans to tell her anything,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“It’s complicated.”

“Really? Seems to me you just need to ‘break it down to its simplest construct.’ ”

A slow smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “Very clever, using my own words back on me.”

I shrugged. “Just sharing some very wise advice.”

“The difference being you had a situation you wanted to change, and I don’t.”

“No?”

“No,” he said. He began walking again. “Lexi is only in Phoenix for this project, and then she’ll go back to the East Coast and on to her next job. I’m not going to bog her down with my stuff. She’s better off not getting too attached.”

“How do you figure?” I asked, falling into step beside him.