He didn't know what to do with his hands. He didn't know what to do at all, if he was completely honest.
The last thing Patrick had expected to find on the other side of his front door in the middle of the December night was his fiancé carrying a large pink box and talking about a bomb. He'd been in bed but Shelagh hadn't woken him; it was difficult to sleep these days with wedding preparations and anticipations crowding his consciousness. The knock at the door of the Turner house and subsequent ushering in from the cold had been a pleasant surprise and distraction. Woken from the unusual ruckus, Timothy had joined them in the sitting room and it had been he who brought up the challenge of Shelagh sleeping in her tweed suit before Patrick offered her the top half of his pajamas and the use of the upstairs bathroom to change. She had followed Timothy up the stairs after Patrick told him where to find his pajamas in the wardrobe and set himself to making tea in the kitchen. He was glad for the separation, knowing being close to Shelagh on her first journey to the second floor might make her nervous.
Patrick had tried not to be anxious himself, but he jumped and clattered the cups and saucers he was attempting to clean when he heard them come down the hall. Pasting an easy grin on his face, Patrick turned to greet Shelagh and only saw his son.
"Where's Auntie Shelagh?" He frowned and his shoulders fell in disappointment.
Timothy gestured toward the stairs behind him. "She's upstairs. I thought I'd come see if you needed help. You're rubbish at kitchen things."
"Tim, you can't just leave her up there! She doesn't know her way around. Here, you finish the tea and I'll see to her…" He pushed past his son and took the stairs two at a time.
Minutes later, he stood tense outside the door. His hands flexed and curled into fists from nervous lack of occupation.
Right now Shelagh was beyond the washroom door shedding her dress, perhaps even taking down her hair. The thought of this made Patrick close his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose. Stop. She would be coming out of that door in the pajama shirt he lent her for the evening, and he would be a gentleman and offer her his bed.
Patrick felt his face and ears burn. Coupled with the thought of her hair unpinned and draped over his own pajamas, imagining Shelagh in his bed might completely undo him. He rapidly blinked away the thoughts and turned from the bathroom door toward the stairs to remove himself from the situation. Surely she would be able to find her own way downstairs without his help. As he took the first step down he heard the click of the door behind him and was unable to stop himself from looking in its direction.
All of his humanly strength was needed to swallow the groan that was rising in his throat.
Shelagh tiptoed from the room and looked in the opposite direction so that Patrick caught a full view of her hair - unpinned as he had feared - dance over her shoulders. Her shoes dangled from her fingertips and her dress was held in the other hand. He caught his breath at the shine of her slip and the stockings floating at her side tangled with the dress she held. He tried to banish the realization that Timothy had given her the top of the pajamas he had purchased for two nights from now, their wedding night.
"Timothy?" Shelagh whispered down the hall away from where he stood.
Patrick cleared his throat and she turned to face him. A bashful smile turned into a grin before she looked at the floor. "It's a bit large," she said with a shrug. The shirt engulfed her, the shoulders falling beyond hers and the long sleeves hiding her hands. "I'm sure my arms are in here somewhere." Her laughter was nervous; Patrick realized she was trying to ease the awkwardness of the moment.
In the brief quiet following he could see in her face that she was thinking the same thing he was: that in two days she might be in a similar state of undress in this very corridor, hair lit only by the light from another room and footsteps away from the door to the bedroom that would be theirs together. There was silence while each of their thoughts went down the same path until Patrick took a tentative step toward her.
"Would you like me to help you with…?" He gestured toward her hands or her arms or her body, not knowing to what he was exactly referring.
Shelagh caught on, as she usually did. Lifting one arm, she let out a whispered laugh. "Could you roll the sleeves for me?"
His relieved crooked smile was enough answer for her to settle into another wide grin. She set her clothes and shoes on the floor and raised a wrist in his direction.
Patrick stepped to her, took the cuff and began to roll it. He tried not to dwell on the smoothness of her wrist on his knuckles or the way the hairs on her arm stood after his contact. He pretended not to notice when her fingertips danced nervously, or when she touched the scar on her left hand with her middle finger. No, instead he chose to focus on the freckles on the back of her hands and the shine of her engagement ring. He tried to count their breaths to steady himself, but gave up almost immediately.
Slowly he tucked the fabric, moving up her forearm until his thumb stroked the crook of her elbow and she flinched. He let go, but before his hand could retreat to the safety of his side it was met with Shelagh's, half hidden under the yet unrolled other sleeve of his pajama top. She stayed like this, reversing their usual intimacy and holding his hand in hers, feeling the weight of it and the landscape of his knuckles and stroking his palm with her thumb. Neither of them could tear their eyes from their hands, listening to the other's breathing and matching the pattern.
"I'm glad you came…" Patrick mumbled. "I'm glad you felt you could come here tonight."
Shelagh's eyes never left his hand. "Thank you for having me. I'm sorry to be a bother."
"Shelagh." His tone made her look up at him, and even in the dark hall he could feel himself drowning in the blue of her eyes. Oh, how long until she would be his? Two days felt like a lifetime. "Shelagh, this is your home now too. You are never a bother."
She smiled and looked down again. "Even so, it's late…" Her words died as she turned his hand in hers and brought her fingers to trail the lines of his palm. Had any other woman done this to him in a similar state of undress, Patrick would have felt as though he were being seduced. But with Shelagh he felt there was so much more, knowing she was thanking him and learning him and marking him as hers in the only way she knew.
As he watched her watch him, Patrick brought his other hand to her elbow and took a tiny step closer. She dropped his hand as soon as she realized what he was about and stepped into his embrace, resting her head on his sternum and sighing; he felt her breath scald his heart and stoke the fire there. One arm around her shoulders, he closed his eyes and rested his chin on top of her head while her fingers entwined his.
There were no words spoken for several minutes. They savored the moment and the warmth of each other in the relative darkness. Then there was a clatter in the kitchen below bringing them back to the present. As they separated, they each heaved a collective sigh. The last point of contact was Shelagh's fingers holding gently to Patrick's braces; he hadn't realized they were resting there. He glanced down, intending to take her hand in his and kiss it as was his custom.
He stopped when he saw where Shelagh's gaze fell: the partly opened door to the dark bedroom that would be theirs in two days. Trying to detect her emotions, Patrick's eyes traced every line on her face, thrilled to see the slow smile that crossed her lips.
"I can hardly believe we'll be married in two days," she whispered toward the door.
Before he could answer, Shelagh reached for Patrick's hand and slowly lifted it to her lips, kissing the finger of his left hand that would soon be wearing a gold band. His silent smile grew when she looked at him with a grin and returned her favor, kissing the ring that tied her to him before flipping the hand and caressing its palm. When she slid it to his cheek he nuzzled and kissed her wrist. They stood for minutes relishing the contact.
"We should go down," he muttered without taking his eyes from the pale skin of her arm.
"We should." Her own words teetered on the edge of questioning, almost giving him permission to stay in the dark corridor with her skin pressed to his.
When he released her hand Shelagh scooped up her clothes from the floor and followed him past the bedroom, glad he could not see her blush as she caught sight of the unmade bedclothes and the dip in the pillow that had obviously been Patrick's.
Timothy was waiting in the hall downstairs. "You were an awfully long time," he groaned. "I didn't know if you wanted cake with the tea, Dad. If there's going to be a bomb explosion, we might not ever get cake again. Why do you only have one rolled sleeve, Auntie Shelagh?"
Patrick and Shelagh looked down to see the observant child was correct. In all that time upstairs they had only half finished the job she had asked of him. They both grinned foolishly.
Patrick laughed. "Cake is fine, Timothy, go ahead and get some out." When the boy was safely out of earshot he turned to Shelagh and nodded toward her arm. "I will take care of this."
"Thank you. I think we found ourselves quite distracted, didn't we?" She laughed and lifted the arm drowning in his sleeve. "I hope this is not an indication of your inability to complete a task, Dr. Turner."
The glint in her eye was everything – playful, romantic, wicked – and Patrick was struck speechless in her presence. While he rolled her second sleeve, Patrick tried to calm himself again while his mind filled with the warmth of her hand on his face moments ago and the softness of her lips on his fingers.
Yes, two days would be an agonizingly long time to wait.