Free Hired by Her Husband by Anne McAllister Page A

crutches were leaning beside the couch. But he hadn’t used them to get up the steps to the house earlier. So he’d probably taken advantage of her not being here to make his way on his own upstairs.
    “Idiot,” she muttered under her breath.
    He could have fallen. He was the one who’d said the world was tilting earlier. She pounded up the stairs two at a time, past her own room, up to the third floor, to George’s master bedroom, where she’d come to get his clothes earlier.
    Then she had deliberately got in and out as fast as she could, refusing to allow herself time to look around, to imagine George in his surroundings. She’d deliberately rung Natalieso she wouldn’t. And she’d barely done more than glance in the direction of his king-size bed.
    Now Sophy stalked into the room and flicked on the light, hoping it made his head hurt just a little. She was glad he’d had the sense to go to bed, and at the same time annoyed that he had waited to do it until she was gone.
    “Damn it, George! You can’t do things like this! You’ve got to—”
    Be careful, she was going to say.
    Except there was no one to say it to. The bed was empty.
    He wasn’t in the adjoining bathroom, either. Nothing had changed from when she’d come up the first time. Now she did feel a shaft of concern. Surely he couldn’t have had a relapse and called 911 in the half hour she had been gone, could he?
    “George!” Back down the stairs she went, pausing to poke her head worriedly into the room she’d slept in just in case he’d only made it that far. But it was empty, too.
    Maybe he had tried to get up, had fallen and was lying somewhere comatose.
    “George!” she bellowed again when she reached the main floor, heading back toward the living room to check again.
    “For God’s sake, stop shouting.” The disembodied voice came floating up from the garden floor office.
    Sophy’s teeth snapped together. She skidded to a halt, grabbed the newel post and spun around it to head down the stairs.
    George was sprawled in his desk chair, staring at his oversize computer screen, reading an e-mail. Gunnar, who had obviously found him right away, looked up from where he lay at George’s feet and thumped his tail.
    George didn’t even glance her way.
    Sophy stared at him in silent fury, then stalked across the room and peered at the screen over his shoulder. “Is this all you’ve got open?”
    “I don’t multitask.”
    “Is it saved?”
    “Of course.”
    “Good.” She stepped around to the side of the desk and pulled the plug out of the wall. Instantly the screen went black.
    “What the hell?” At least he spun his chair a half turn to look at her then—even if the action did make him wince and grab his head. “What’d you do that for?”
    “I should think that’s obvious. I’m saving you from yourself.”
    “You could have just said, ‘turn off the computer.’”
    “Oh? And that would have worked, would it? I don’t think so.” As she spoke she was methodically removing all the plugs from his surge protector, then looking around for some place to put it where he couldn’t just hook it up again. Her gaze lit on the file cabinet. She opened the top drawer, dropped in the surge protector, shut the drawer, locked it and pocketed the key.
    George stared at her, dumbfounded. “Are you out of your mind? I need to work. That’s what I came home for.”
    “Well, you’re not fit to work.”
    “Says who?”
    “Says me,” Sophy told him. “And Sam. You hired me to take care of you and that’s what I’m doing.”
    “Then you’re sacked.”
    “Throw me out. Try it,” Sophy goaded him. “You can’t. And I’m not leaving. I gave my word. And I keep it.”
    “Do you?” George said quietly.
    And all of a sudden, Sophy knew they were talking about something entirely different. She swallowed and wrapped her arms across her chest. For a moment her gaze wavered, but then it steadied. She did keep her word. Always. No