During the drive out of the Burg, I gave serious consideration to the idea of jumping out of Morelli's car. I decided against it, not because I was feeling too weak and exhausted to get very far if I did manage to get out. Nor because I knew Morelli would be extremely angry if I tried to pull that kind of a stunt. Morelli wouldn't hurt me—I knew this from months of experience at getting on his nerves—but he would probably yell a lot and catch me before I managed to get very far.

No, the deciding factor in my decision not to escape was that my arms were so much entangled in the blankets that I knew I couldn't reach the seatbelt without drawing a lot of attention to my plan.

And that would make implementing the plan kind of difficult, since Morelli would figure out something was up as soon as I tried to unbuckle my seatbelt.

I sat there in angry silence as Morelli drove to his house, listening to the radio station he'd turned on. Some news station with occasional music breaks.

Morelli pulled the car into his driveway, grabbed the duffle bag from the back seat, and unlocked the doors. I figured he'd let me walk in by myself, but he had me scooped up in his arms before I could protest. I vaguely wondered what his neighbors were thinking if they saw him carrying me, wrapped in a blanket and a flannel nightgown, into his house. Probably, my mother would be calling me this afternoon to tell me that she'd received hundreds of calls from neighbors.

Great.

Once we were in the house, Morelli put me down so I could walk. He kept a firm arm around my shoulders, like he was afraid I was going to bolt from his house the second he took his hands off me.

He steered me upstairs, and I assumed that he was taking me into his bedroom, but we stopped outside of one of the bathrooms. I looked at him expectantly.

"You're feverish, Cupcake, and honestly, you stink. You need to take a shower before you can go back to bed. And maybe brush your teeth?"

I sighed loudly, but knew he was right about the smell. I'd been alternating between sweating and shivering the past night, which has seriously limited my capacity for sleeping. I'd pushed the blankets away from my body and over my body so many times, I ended up losing track.

"Do you want me to help you?" Morelli continued.

I wrinkled my nose in disgust. "I can clean myself up without help!" I growled.

"I'll wait outside," Morelli promised.

"Outside the bathroom, not outside the shower!"

"What if you trip on the floor and pass out?" he persisted.

"I'll take that chance."

Morelli raised his eyebrows. Maybe he was concerned about my safety, but I thought that at least part of him wanted to see me naked.

"You'll leave the door unlocked?"

"Promise."

I walked past Morelli and headed into the bathroom. I was starting to feel dizzy, and hoped I'd be able to manage a fast shower without collapsing onto the floor. The idea of getting clean was appealing, but the process needed to get to this end seemed unnecessarily risky. Maybe I should have let Morelli help me. He probably wouldn't do anything—we never had sex when I was drunk—but I wasn't an invalid and didn't want him treating me like one.

I stood under the warm water and washed my hair. I noticed that my legs and underarms had gotten pretty hairy, but didn't feel like risking cutting myself shaving. The hair would still be there when I wasn't sick. I scrubbed my body, made sure all of the shampoo was out, and then turned off the water. I grabbed a towel from above the shower—Morelli had really soft towels—and brushed my teeth with the spare, unopened toothbrush and toothpaste Morelli provided for his guests. I brushed out my hair with a brush that hadn't been touched. I knew this because it was still in the plastic container. I was pretty sure I was the only overnight guest, and I felt kind of warm inside thinking that he cared enough to provide that kind of thing in case I forgot to bring mine. I wondered if he kept tampons in the medicine cabinet in case I forgot mine, but didn't feel like wasting the energy looking.

When I was finished, I opened the door, still wrapped in a towel. Morelli stood in the doorway, holding a flannel nightgown. I took the nightgown, shut the door, exchanged the towel for the aforementioned nightgown, hung the towel on the towel rack, and opened the door again.

"Feel any better?" Morelli asked as he put an arm around my shoulder.

I guessed he was still afraid I'd fall down if I didn't have that protecting my balance.

"A little," I replied, because it was true. I was still in no condition to do anything but lie in bed for the rest of the day (maybe sit up for a few hours, if I pushed myself), but at least the sweating was gone.

Morelli didn't let go of me until I was lying on the bed in the guestroom I'd stayed in a few months ago when my apartment had been firebombed. He partially removed the covers from the bed, plopped me down, and then pulled the covers up to above my chin. After doing this, he took the comforter I'd previously been wrapped in and put that on top of the blankets. Then, he proceeded to tuck me in, which meant tucking all of the blankets around my body so that they produced the maximum amount of heat possible.

"Warm enough?" he asked.

I nodded drowsily. I felt nice and toasty, and about a thousand times more tired than I'd felt in the shower. Which I hadn't thought was possible.

Morelli sat on the bed and began to run a hand through my damp hair and I momentarily shut my eyes, thinking about how nice it felt to have Morelli run his fingers through my hair. I wasn't ready to fall asleep yet, so I forced my eyes open and my attention on Morelli. Morelli had transferred his weight so that he was sitting on the bed next to me, and now carefully maneuvered me into his arms. I felt my body slump against his chest, my head fall on one of his shoulders. Morelli stopped stroking my hair, keeping his arms wrapped around me in a secure hug. I felt my mild anger melt away, replaced by a not totally unfamiliar sense of contentment that being in his arms usually brought me. My last thoughts were along the lines of annoyance that Morelli had kidnapped me, but relief to be this comfortable and this near to my kind of sort of fiancé. I'd recognized for awhile that that, in his weird way, he really cared about me and ultimately had my best interests at heart. This abduction was further proof of his "weird ways" and his concern for my well being. I yawned, and finally allowed myself to shut my eyes.

When I woke up, I felt disoriented and wondered where I was. Morelli had left a note next to my pillow.

Steph,

Had to leave for work. Didn't want to wake you up.

Back for 5. There's food by the table if you get hungry. Also, cough medicine.

Bringing back soup for your throat. Call if you need anything.

Love,

Joe