Harvesting The Heart Part 2

"Oh?" Astrid said, leaning forward to offer Paige a second chance. "What an admirable hobby for a young lady. You know, that's how it all began for me." She snapped her fingers, and a maid appeared, whisking away her empty plate. Astrid leaned forward, placing her tanned elbows on the fine linen cloth. She smiled smoothly, but the light did not quite reach her eyes. "Where did you go to college, dear?"

"I didn't," Paige said evenly. "I was going to go to RISD, but something came up." She p.r.o.nounced the name of the school as an acronym, as it was known.

"Riz-dee," Robert repeated coolly, staring at his wife. "Haven't heard much about that one."

"Nicholas," Astrid said sharply, "how is Rachel?"

Nicholas saw Paige's face fall at the mention of another woman, one whose name she'd never heard before. He crumpled his napkin into a ball and stood up. "Why do you care, Mother?" he said. "You never have before." He moved to Paige's chair and pulled it out, lifting her by her shoulders until she was standing. "I'm sorry," Nicholas said, "but I'm afraid we have to go."

In the car, they drove in circles. "What the h.e.l.l was that all about?" Paige demanded when he'd finally reached a major highway. "Am I some kind of p.a.w.n or something?"

Nicholas did not answer her. She stared at him for a few minutes with her arms crossed, but finally sank back against the seat.

As soon as Nicholas reached the outskirts of Cambridge, she opened the door of the car. He came to a sudden stop. "What are you doing?" he asked, incredulous.

"I'm getting out. I can walk the rest of the way." She stood up, the moon looming behind her, soaking into the edge of the Charles River like a bloodstain. "You know, Nicholas," Paige said, "you sure aren't what I thought you were."

And as she walked away, a muscle throbbed along the edge of Nicholas's jaw. She's just like the rest of them, She's just like the rest of them, he thought, and just to prove her wrong, he sped past her on Route 2, screaming like a madman, shrieking until he thought his lungs would burst. he thought, and just to prove her wrong, he sped past her on Route 2, screaming like a madman, shrieking until he thought his lungs would burst.

The next day Nicholas was still seething. He met Rachel after her anatomy cla.s.s and suggested they go for coffee. He knew a place, he said, where they do portraits of you while you eat. It was a bit of a hike, all the way across the river, but it was relatively close to his apartment, for afterward. And then he walked beside her to the car, counting the stares of other men as they took notice of Rachel's honey hair, her soft curves. At the door of the diner, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard.

"Well," Rachel said, smiling. "Welcome back."

He led her to the booth he always took, and she almost immediately disappeared to the bathroom. He couldn't see Paige, which made him angry. After all, why else had he come? He was still questioning himself when she came up behind him. She was as quiet as a breeze, and he would not have sensed her if not for the clean scent of pears and willows he had come to know her by. When she stood in front of him, her eyes were wide and tired. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to p.i.s.s you off."

"Who's p.i.s.sed?" Nicholas said, grinning, but he distinctly felt the pinching of his heart, and he began to wonder if this was what cardiac patients always tried to describe.

At that point Rachel came out and slid into the booth across from Nicholas. "I'm sorry," Paige said, "but this booth is taken."

"Yes, I know," Rachel said coolly. She looked at Nicholas and then glared at Paige. She reached across the table and took Nicholas's hand, weaving her fingers through his with the quiet power of possession.

Nicholas couldn't have planned it better, but he didn't expect it to hurt quite so much. It wasn't that Paige stood rooted before him, her lips parted, as if she hadn't heard correctly. It was that when she turned, Nicholas did not see disappointment or betrayal. Instead, he realized she was looking at him, still, as if he were mythic. "What did you come here for?" she asked.

Nicholas cleared his throat, and Rachel kicked him under the table. "Rachel heard about the pictures and would like to have one done."

Paige nodded and left to get a pad. She sat at the front of the booth on a little stool, holding the pad tilted up the way she always did so the picture would be a surprise when she was finished. She drew clean, quick strokes and blended with her thumb, and as she drew, other diners peeked over her shoulder and laughed and whispered. When she finished, she threw the pad in front of Nicholas and walked into the kitchen. Rachel turned it over. There was her hair, her glittering eyes, and even the gist of her lovely features, but quite clearly the picture was that of a lizard.

Although he was scheduled to be on call that night at the hospital, Nicholas did something he had never done before: he phoned in sick. Then he grabbed a bite at McDonald's and walked through Harvard Square after the sun went down. He sat on a brick wall on the corner of Brattle and watched a juggler with flaming torches, wondering if the guy worried about what might happen. Nicholas put a faded dollar bill in the case of a jazz guitarist, and he stood at the window of a toy store, where stuffed alligators wearing rain slickers tumbled in tinfoil puddles. When it was five to eleven, he walked to Mercy, wondering what he would do if Doris or Marvela or anyone other than Paige was locking up that night. He realized that he would just keep walking, then, until he found her.

Paige was emptying the ketchup bottles when he came in. Over her head, taped to the wall, was the picture of Rachel as a lizard. "I like it," he said, making her jump.

In spite of herself, Paige smiled a little. "I'm sure I've lost us one customer," she said.

"So what," Nicholas said. "You made me me come back." come back."

"And just what do I get?" Paige said.

Nicholas smiled. "Whatever you want."

Many years later, when Nicholas thought of that exchange, he realized he shouldn't have made promises he couldn't have kept. But he did believe that no matter what Paige wanted, he could be it. He had a feeling about this, a feeling that all Paige really needed was him, not his trappings and not his success, and that was so new to Nicholas that he felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. He pulled Paige closer and saw her stiffen and then relax. He kissed her ear, her temple, the corner of her mouth. In her hair he smelled bacon and waffles, but also suns.h.i.+ne and September, and he wondered how he could be thinking the things he was.

When she put her arms around him, as if she was testing the water, he put his hands on her waist and felt the hint of her hips below. "Is Lionel still here?" he whispered, and when she shook her head he took the keys from her pocket and locked the front door, turned off the light. He sat on one of the counter stools and pulled Paige to stand between his legs, and he kissed her, letting his hands run from her neck to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to her belly. Softly he kissed her, this child-woman, and when he stroked her thighs and she tensed, he had to smile. She must be a virgin, She must be a virgin, he realized, and he was overwhelmed by a sudden thought: he realized, and he was overwhelmed by a sudden thought: I want to be her first. I want to be the only one. I want to be her first. I want to be the only one. "Marry me," he said, as surprised as she was by the words. He wondered if this was the way his luck would run out; if his career would start its disintegration, if this would be the first downslide to the avalanche. But he held Paige and decided that the hollow in his heart was just the fanning of love. Nicholas marveled at the luck of finding someone who so needed his security, never considering that although the dangers could be different, maybe he needed to be protected too. "Marry me," he said, as surprised as she was by the words. He wondered if this was the way his luck would run out; if his career would start its disintegration, if this would be the first downslide to the avalanche. But he held Paige and decided that the hollow in his heart was just the fanning of love. Nicholas marveled at the luck of finding someone who so needed his security, never considering that although the dangers could be different, maybe he needed to be protected too.

chapter 3

Nicholas.

When Nicholas was four years old, his mother taught him about trusting strangers. She sat him down and told him twenty times in a row not to speak to someone on the street unless it was a friend of the family; not to take the hand of just anyone to cross the street; never, under any circ.u.mstances, to get into someone's car. Nicholas remembered fidgeting on the chair and wis.h.i.+ng he could be outside; he'd wanted to check the tin of beer he'd left overnight on the porch to catch slugs. But his mother would not let him leave, would not let him even take a break for the bathroom-not until Nicholas could repeat, verbatim, her lesson. And by that time, Nicholas had conjured images of dark, stinking phantoms wearing ratty black capes, hiding in cars and in the creases of the sidewalk and in the alleys between stores, waiting to pounce on him. When his mother finally told him he could go outside to play, he'd chosen to remain indoors. For weeks after that, when the postman rang the doorbell, he had hidden beneath the couch.

Although he had got over his fear of strangers, he had never forgotten the consequences, which made Nicholas the one person in a group to stand off to the side. He could be charming if the situation called for it, but he was more likely to feign interest in a frieze on the ceiling than to be drawn into a conversation with people he didn't know. In some individuals this was pa.s.sed off as shyness; but in someone of Nicholas's background and stature and cla.s.sic features, it seemed more like aloof conceit. Nicholas found he didn't mind the label. It gave him time to size up a situation and to respond more intelligently than those who spoke too quickly.

None of which explained why he impulsively asked Paige O'Toole to marry him, or why he gave her the spare key to his apartment even before hearing her answer.

They walked from Mercy to his apartment in total silence, and Nicholas was starting to hate himself. Paige wasn't acting like Paige. He'd ruined it, whatever it was that he had liked about her. Nicholas was so nervous he couldn't fit the key into the door, and he didn't know what he was nervous about. When she stepped into the apartment he held his breath until he heard her say quietly, "My room was never this neat." And then he relaxed and leaned against the wall. He answered, "I could learn to live messy."

Conversations like that in the first hours after he proposed to Paige made Nicholas realize that there was a great deal he still did not know about her. He knew the big things, the sort of things that make up the talk at dinner parties: the name of her high school; how she became interested in drawing; the street she had lived on in Chicago. But he did not know the little details, the things only a lover would know-What had she named the mutt her father made her give back to the animal shelter? Who taught her to throw a sliding curve ball? Which constellations could she pick out in the night sky? Nicholas wanted to know it all. He was filled with a greed that made him wish he could erase the past, oh, six years of his life and relive them with Paige, so he wouldn't feel he was starting in the middle.

"This is all I've got," Nicholas said to Paige, holding out a box of stale graham crackers. He had sat her down on the black leather couch and turned on the halogen lights. She had not said whether or not she would marry him, a detail that Nicholas had not overlooked. To all intents and purposes, he should have wanted her to pa.s.s off his proposal as a joke, since he still wasn't sure what had prompted him to make such a rash statement. But he knew Paige hadn't taken it lightly, and to tell the truth, he wanted to know her answer. G.o.d, he was all knotted up inside over the prospect of her laughing in his face, which told him more than he cared to admit.

Suddenly he wanted to get her talking. He figured if she would just stop looking at him as though she'd never seen him before in her life, if she would start telling him about Chicago or quote one of Lionel's little epigrams or introduce any other favorite subject of conversation, then she might happen to mention that, yes, she wouldn't mind being his wife.

"I'm not really hungry," Paige said. Her eyes roamed the walls of the apartment, the dark shadows of the hallway, and Nicholas began berating himself for scaring the h.e.l.l out of her. She was only eighteen. No wonder she was shying away. Sure, he wanted to be near her; maybe he could even admit that he was falling for her; but bringing up marriage? He didn't know where where that idea had come from. Christ, that was like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly. that idea had come from. Christ, that was like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly.

But he still didn't want to take back the offer.

Paige was looking down at her shoes. "This is weird," she said. "This just feels so weird." She twisted her hands in her lap. "I mean, I didn't have to worry about this before. This feeling. I hadn't planned this. You know, when I was just sort of hanging around with you, it wasn't-it wasn't-" She looked up, groping for the right words.

"So momentous?" Nicholas filled in.

"Yes." Paige's face broke into a smile, and she exhaled in one long breath. "You always know what to say," she said shyly. "That's one of the reasons I like you."

Nicholas sat beside her on the couch. He stretched his arm around her. "You like me," he said. "That's a start."

Paige looked up at him as if she was going to say something, then shook her head.

"Hey," Nicholas said, tipping up her chin. "Nothing's different. Forget I said anything. I'm still the same guy you told off in the middle of Route 2 a day ago. I'm still the one you can beat the pants off when you play poker."

"You just happened to mention getting married."

Nicholas grinned at her. "I did, didn't I?" He tried to sound flip, unconcerned. "That's the way I end a third date."

Paige leaned her head against his arm. "We haven't even had had three real dates," she said. "I can't stop thinking about you-" three real dates," she said. "I can't stop thinking about you-"

"I know."

"-but I don't even know your middle name."

"Jamison." Nicholas laughed. "My mother's maiden name. Now, what else is standing in your way?"

Paige turned up her head to look at him. "And what's my middle name?" she challenged, trying to make her point.

"Marie." Nicholas took a stab in the dark, trying to buy time to figure out his next counterargument. Then he realized he'd got it right.

Paige was staring at him, her mouth dropped open. "My father used to tell me I'd know when someone was the perfect match for me," she murmured. "He said G.o.d worked it so that you'd always be in the right place at the right time." Nicholas waited for her to elaborate, but she wrinkled her forehead and stared at the carpet. Then she turned to him. "Why did you ask me?" she said.

There were a million questions wrapped into that one, and Nich olas didn't know how to answer them all. He was still reeling from the fact that, unbidden, her middle name had just materialized in his thoughts. So he said the one thing that popped into his mind. "Because you didn't ask me," me," he said. he said.

Paige looked up at him. "I really do do like you," she said. like you," she said.

He leaned his head back against the couch, determined to have an ordinary conversation, the kind people who've been together forever have all the time. He brought up the weather, and the local sports teams, and then Paige began to gossip about the waitresses at Mercy. Nicholas was soothed by the sound of her voice. He kept asking her questions just to keep her talking. She told him in detail about the angles of her father's face; she told him that she'd once tried to read the dictionary from cover to cover because a cla.s.smate told her it would make her smarter, but she'd only got to N. N. She described wading into Lake Michigan at the end of May, so vividly that Nicholas actually s.h.i.+vered and got goose b.u.mps up his arms. She described wading into Lake Michigan at the end of May, so vividly that Nicholas actually s.h.i.+vered and got goose b.u.mps up his arms.

They were lying side by side on the narrow couch when Nicholas asked Paige about her mother. She'd mentioned her at the diner, and from what Nicholas could tell, the elusive Mrs. O'Toole drifted across Paige's consciousness like a shadow from time to time but Paige wasn't willing to share the details. He knew that the woman had left; he knew that Paige had been five; he knew that Paige didn't remember her very well. But she had to have feelings about it. At the very least, she had to have an impression.

"What was your mother like?" Nicholas asked gently, so close his lips were brus.h.i.+ng Paige's cheek.

He felt her tense almost instantly. "Supposedly she was like me," Paige said. "My father said she looked like me."

"You mean you look like her," her," Nicholas said, correcting. Nicholas said, correcting.

"No." Paige turned and sat up on the end of the couch. "I mean she looked like me. I'm the one that's still around, right? So I'm the one that you should be comparing her to."

Nicholas didn't argue with that logic, but he sat up and leaned against the opposite end of the couch. He ran his fingers over the smooth black leather. "Did your father ever tell you why she left?"

Nicholas watched the color drain from Paige's face. And almost as quickly, a flush of red worked its way up her neck and into her cheeks. Paige stood. "Do you want to marry me or my family?" she said. She stared at Nicholas, who was speechless, for several seconds, and then she smiled so openly that her dimples showed and the honesty of it reached all the way into her eyes. "I'm just tired," she said. "I didn't mean to yell at you. But I really have to go home."

Nicholas helped her into her coat and drove her to Doris's apartment. He parked at the curb and clenched his hands on the steering wheel while Paige fished in her bag for the key. He was so intent on silently reviewing Paige's comments about her mother that he almost did not hear her speaking. He had frightened her away by asking her to marry him, and then just when she was warming up to him again, he'd blown it by asking about her mother. She had been so fl.u.s.tered by that one stupid question. Was there something she wasn't telling him? A Lizzie Borden kind of story? Was her mother crazy, and was she unwilling to mention that just in case Nicholas thought it might be hereditary? Or was Nicholas crazy himself, for trying to convince his conscience that this gaping hole in Paige's past couldn't really matter in the long run?

"Well," Paige said, facing him. "It's been some night, hasn't it?" When Nicholas didn't look at her, she turned her gaze to her lap. "I won't hold you to it," she said softly. "I know you didn't mean it."

At that, Nicholas turned and pressed his own spare key into Paige's palm. "I want you to hold me to it," he said.

He pulled Paige into his arms. "When will you be home tomorrow?" she whispered against his neck. He could feel her trust opening like a flower and pa.s.sing through her fingertips to the places where she touched him. She tilted her head up, expecting his kiss, but he only pressed his lips gently to her forehead.

Surprised, Paige drew back and looked at Nicholas as if she were studying him for a portrait. Then she smiled. "I'll think about your question," she said.

Paige was waiting for him the next day when he got home from the hospital, and things between them were back to normal. He knew it before he even opened the door, because the smell of b.u.t.ter cookies was seeping over the threshold, into the hall. He also knew that when he'd left that morning, his refrigerator had held little more than a moldy banana loaf and a half jar of relish. Paige had obviously walked all the way here with groceries, and he was shocked at how his whole center seemed to soften at the thought.

She was sitting on the floor, with her hands spread over the pages of Gray's Anatomy Gray's Anatomy as if she were modestly trying to cover the naked musculoskeletal image of a man. At first she did not see him. "Phalanges," she murmured, reading. She p.r.o.nounced the clinical names for fingers and toes all wrong, as if it rhymed with as if she were modestly trying to cover the naked musculoskeletal image of a man. At first she did not see him. "Phalanges," she murmured, reading. She p.r.o.nounced the clinical names for fingers and toes all wrong, as if it rhymed with fangs, fangs, and Nicholas smiled. Then, hearing his footsteps, she jumped to her feet, as though she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't have been doing. "I'm sorry," she blurted out. and Nicholas smiled. Then, hearing his footsteps, she jumped to her feet, as though she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't have been doing. "I'm sorry," she blurted out.

Paige's cheeks were flushed; her shoulders were shaking. "What are you sorry for?" Nicholas said, tossing his bag onto the couch.

Paige looked around, and following her glance, Nicholas began to see that she'd been doing more than baking cookies. She had cleaned the entire apartment, even scrubbed the hardwood floors, from the looks of things. She had taken the extra quilt out of the linen closet and draped it over the couch, so bright colors like lime and violet and magenta washed over the Spartan room. She had moved the copies of Smithsonian Smithsonian and the and the New England Journal of Medicine New England Journal of Medicine off the coffee table to make room for a off the coffee table to make room for a Mademoiselle Mademoiselle magazine open to a feature on shaping your b.u.t.tocks. On the kitchen counter was a spray of black-eyed Susans, arranged neatly in a clean-washed peanut b.u.t.ter jar. magazine open to a feature on shaping your b.u.t.tocks. On the kitchen counter was a spray of black-eyed Susans, arranged neatly in a clean-washed peanut b.u.t.ter jar.

These subtle changes took the focus away from the antiques and the sharp edges that had made the place look so formal. In one afternoon, Paige had made his apartment resemble any other lived-in apartment.

"When you took me here last night, I kept thinking that there was something missing. It-I don't know-it just looked sort of stiff, like you lived in the pages of an Architectural Digest Architectural Digest article. I picked the flowers on the edge of the highway," Paige said nervously, "and since I couldn't find a vase, I sort of finished the peanut b.u.t.ter." article. I picked the flowers on the edge of the highway," Paige said nervously, "and since I couldn't find a vase, I sort of finished the peanut b.u.t.ter."

Nicholas nodded. "I didn't even know I had peanut b.u.t.ter," he said, still gazing around the room. In the entire course of his life, he'd never seen a copy of Mademoiselle Mademoiselle in his home. His mother would have died rather than see highway wildflowers on a table instead of her hothouse tea roses. He'd been brought up to believe that quilts were acceptable for hunting lodges but not formal sitting rooms. in his home. His mother would have died rather than see highway wildflowers on a table instead of her hothouse tea roses. He'd been brought up to believe that quilts were acceptable for hunting lodges but not formal sitting rooms.

When he started medical school, Nicholas had left the decoration of the apartment in his mother's hands because he hadn't the time or the inclination, and to no one's surprise it came out looking very much like the house he'd grown up in. Astrid had bequeathed him an ormolu clock and an ancient cherry dining room table. She'd commissioned her usual decorator to take care of the drapes and the upholstery, specifying the rich hunter-green and navy and crimson fabrics that she felt suited Nicholas. He hadn't wanted a formal sitting room, but he had never mentioned that to his mother. After the fact, he didn't know how to go about changing one into a simple living room. Or maybe he didn't know how to go about living.

"What do you think?" Paige whispered, so quietly that Nicholas thought he had imagined her voice.

Nicholas walked toward her, wrapped his arms around her. "I think we're going to have to buy a vase," he said.

He could feel Paige's shoulders relax beneath his hands. Suddenly she started talking, the words tumbling out of her mouth. "I didn't know what to do," she said, "but I knew it needed something. something. And then I figured-I'm baking cookies, did you know that?-well, I didn't know if what And then I figured-I'm baking cookies, did you know that?-well, I didn't know if what I I liked would be what you liked, and I started to think about how liked would be what you liked, and I started to think about how I'd I'd act if I came home and someone I barely even knew had rearranged my whole house. We don't really know each other, Nicholas, and I've been thinking about that all night too: just when I've convinced myself that this is the most right thing in the world, my common sense comes tramping in. What's your favorite -b.u.t.ter or chocolate chip?" act if I came home and someone I barely even knew had rearranged my whole house. We don't really know each other, Nicholas, and I've been thinking about that all night too: just when I've convinced myself that this is the most right thing in the world, my common sense comes tramping in. What's your favorite -b.u.t.ter or chocolate chip?"

"I don't know," Nicholas said. He was smiling. He liked trying to follow her conversation. It reminded him of a pet rabbit he'd had once that he tried to take for a walk on a leash.

"Don't tease me," Paige said, pulling away. She walked into the kitchen and pulled a tray out of the oven. "You've never used these cookie sheets," she said. "The stickers were still on them."

Nicholas picked up a spatula and lifted a cookie off the sheet, then bounced it from palm to palm as it cooled. "I didn't know I had them," he said. "I don't cook much."

Paige watched him taste the cookie. "Neither do I. I guess you should know that, shouldn't you? We'll probably starve within a month."

Nicholas looked up. "But we'll die happy," he said. He took a second bite. "These are good, Paige. You're underestimating yourself."

Paige shook her head. "I once set the oven on fire cooking a TV dinner. I didn't take it out of the box. Cookies are my whole repertoire. But I can do those those from scratch. You seemed like a b.u.t.ter cookie kind of guy. I tried to remember if you ever ordered chocolate at the diner, and you didn't, I don't think, so you have to be a vanilla person." When Nicholas stared at her, Paige grinned at him. "The world is divided into chocolate people and vanilla people. Don't you know that, Nicholas?" from scratch. You seemed like a b.u.t.ter cookie kind of guy. I tried to remember if you ever ordered chocolate at the diner, and you didn't, I don't think, so you have to be a vanilla person." When Nicholas stared at her, Paige grinned at him. "The world is divided into chocolate people and vanilla people. Don't you know that, Nicholas?"

"It's that simple?"

Paige nodded. "Think about it. No one ever likes the two halves of a Dixie ice cream cup equally. You either save the chocolate because you like it best, or you save the vanilla. If you're really lucky, you can swap with someone so you get a whole cup of the flavor you like best. My dad used to do that for me."

Nicholas thought about the kind of day he had just come from. He was still on rotation in Emergency. This morning there had been a six-car pileup on Route 93, and the wounded were brought to Ma.s.s General. One had died, one had been in neurosurgery for eight hours, one had gone into cardiac arrest. During lunch a six-year-old girl was brought in, shot through the stomach in a playground when she was caught in the crossfire of two youth gangs. And then, in his apartment, there was Paige. To come home to Paige every day would be a relief. To come home to her would be a blessing.

"I take it you're a chocolate person," Nicholas said.

"Of course."

Nicholas stepped forward and put his arms on either side of her, bracing her against the sink. "You can have my half of a Dixie cup anytime," he said. "You can have anything you want."

Nicholas had read once of a five-foot-three-inch woman who had lifted an overturned school bus off her seven-year-old daughter. He had watched a 60 Minutes Minutes segment about an unmarried soldier who threw himself on top of a grenade to protect the life of a fellow soldier who had a family waiting back home. Medically, Nicholas could credit this to the sudden adrenaline rush caused by crisis situations. Practically, he knew that some measure of emotional commitment was involved. And he realized, to his surprise, that he would have done such things for Paige. He would swim a channel, take a bullet, trade his life. The idea shook Nicholas, chilled his blood. Maybe it was only fierce protectiveness, but he was beginning to believe it was love. segment about an unmarried soldier who threw himself on top of a grenade to protect the life of a fellow soldier who had a family waiting back home. Medically, Nicholas could credit this to the sudden adrenaline rush caused by crisis situations. Practically, he knew that some measure of emotional commitment was involved. And he realized, to his surprise, that he would have done such things for Paige. He would swim a channel, take a bullet, trade his life. The idea shook Nicholas, chilled his blood. Maybe it was only fierce protectiveness, but he was beginning to believe it was love.

In spite of himself, in spite of his hasty proposal, Nicholas did not believe in romantic love. He did not believe in being swept off your feet, or in love at first sight-either of which would have accounted for his near-immediate obsession with Paige. When he had lain awake in bed last night, he wondered if the attraction could be based on pity-the boy who had grown up with everything thinking he could light up the life of the girl who had not-but Nicholas had met women of less pedigreed backgrounds before, and none of them had ever affected him so strongly he forgot how to use his voice, how to breathe involuntarily. Those women, the ones Nicholas could win over with a bottle of house Chianti and a disarming smile, usually graced his bed for a week before he felt like moving on. He could could have done that with Paige; he knew he could have if he'd wanted to. But whenever he looked at her, he wanted to stand beside her, to s.h.i.+eld her from the world with the simple, strong heat of his body. She was so much more fragile than she let on. have done that with Paige; he knew he could have if he'd wanted to. But whenever he looked at her, he wanted to stand beside her, to s.h.i.+eld her from the world with the simple, strong heat of his body. She was so much more fragile than she let on.

Paige was sprawled in what was now his living room, thanks to her, reading Gray's Anatomy Gray's Anatomy as if it were a murder mystery. "I don't know how you memorize all this stuff, Nicholas," she said. "I couldn't even do the bones." She looked up at him. "I tried, you know. I thought if I remembered them all without peeking, I'd impress you." as if it were a murder mystery. "I don't know how you memorize all this stuff, Nicholas," she said. "I couldn't even do the bones." She looked up at him. "I tried, you know. I thought if I remembered them all without peeking, I'd impress you."

"You already impress me," he said. "I don't care about the bones."

Paige shrugged. "I'm not impressive," she said.

Nicholas, lying on the couch, rolled onto his side to look at her. "Are you kidding?" he said. "You left home and got yourself a job and survived in a city you knew nothing about. Christ, I couldn't have done that at eighteen." He paused. "I don't know if I could do that now."