“You are up and walking,” she said when she had regained her composure. “Barely. I feel like a toddler taking his first steps.” “Toddler? I do not know this word.” He made his way to a low bench in the corner of the room and eased down onto it. “A baby. Learning to walk.” “You are no baby,” she said, then immediately regretted it when his gaze held hers for a long moment. She quickly turned back to her stove and the meal she was in the middle of preparing. But she could not stop the thoughts of that moment by his bed several days ago, when he had kissed her hand. Or thoughts of the way she had held him during the withdrawal tremors, the way she had bathed his face and cooled his brow when it felt as though he were burning up with fever. Memories of her hands on his feverish skin, of his warm body pressed against hers, of his face pressed against her breasts as she had held him in the dark and willed him through the worst of it would not leave her alone. Her face flushed hot, and not from the heat of the summer day or the cookstove.
