Listed: Volume IV Read online

  Assisting Emily as she lowered herself into the tepid bath, Amy started to say something, which Emily guessed was another attempt to brush off the subject. But maybe the nurse could tell that it was going to fester in Emily’s mind if she didn’t answer the question, because she paused, restarted, and said, “You were talking about camping and Anne of Green Gables.”

  That didn’t sound too terrible, and Emily was able to relax as she stretched out in the tub, the water blissfully cool against her hot skin. She breathed deeply and closed her eyes.

  When she’d determined that Emily was all right, Amy left the bathroom and went into the bedroom, probably to straighten up the room and remake the bed, which she usually did while Emily was in the bath.

  As Emily’s body cooled down, it also started to ache more. She tried not to think about feeling this way for three more months.

  Feeling even worse.

  Until she finally died.

  She didn’t want to do it.

  She just didn’t want to do it.

  She wanted Paul, and he wasn’t here.

  A few tears slipped out of her eyes, and she brushed them away impatiently. Being sick was definitely making her emotionally unstable. She’d cried more in the last month than she had her entire life. She took a shaky breath and tried to control herself.

  Emily gasped in surprise when Amy’s voice broke into the silence. The nurse must have come back in to check on her, since she was standing in the bathroom doorway now. She must have seen Emily crying.

  “Let me get your husband for you.”

  Fighting the impulse to accept the offer, since it was exactly what she wanted, Emily shook her head. “I’m really fine. This has been hard on him. He shouldn’t have to help me all the time.”

  Amy was silent for several moments. Then she said in a voice that was matter-of-fact, almost bland. “I’ve been doing this a long time. And, in my experience, it’s easier for someone who loves you to be able to help—in any way they can—than to sit around and do nothing.”

  Emily didn’t correct the other woman’s assumption. She didn’t have the energy to explain that Paul didn’t really love her. She kind of liked the way it sounded anyway.

  She shook her head again, shifting her position and making the bathwater ripple. “Please don’t get him,” she mumbled.

  “Okay. It’s your choice.”

  * * *

  Emily spent the afternoon in a groggy, uncomfortable haze—sometimes dozing off and sometimes just tossing restlessly on the bed. Her fever didn’t spike so high she became delirious, though.

  She hadn’t seen Paul all day, not since the previous evening at the Masons’ party. If he occasionally came to look in on her, it was when she was asleep. Somehow his absence made everything worse.

  Slowly waking up again, out of a restless, feverish sleep, she felt a cool cloth on her face. “Paul,” she gasped instinctively, although she was becoming lucid enough to realize her caretaker was almost certainly Amy.

  “I’m here, baby,” a familiar, male voice broke through the heated darkness. “I’m here.”

  Emily’s eyes flew open and she saw him, leaning over her. She saw his face, his rumpled dark hair, his eyes. She gave a silly little sob of relief.

  Paul’s face twisted briefly, but his voice was mild when he said, “It’s not quite time for more medication yet. Can I get you anything else?”

  She shook her head, realizing he must have misinterpreted her sob. “I’m okay.” She looked around the room and realized it was otherwise empty. “Where’s Amy?”

  “She’s getting some rest.” He stroked the cool cloth gently over her face again, dampening her hairline and then sliding it down to her neck.

  “Oh.” She tried to think clearly, but she couldn’t do so. She stared at the bedside clock, and it took a long time for her to register that it was almost eight in the evening. “Did you get a lot of work done today?”

  “Not very much.”

  “Oh.” She experienced another hot wave of achiness and twisted on the bed, desperately trying to find a cool spot and get comfortable. When she was able to speak again, she mumbled, “Maybe you should go back to the apartment so you can focus better. I’m fine here with Amy.”

  There was a long silence, during which Emily earnestly but futilely tried to adjust her covers so she wouldn’t somehow be both hot and cold at once.

  Then Paul replied, “I will take that suggestion as a symptom of fevered delirium and thus won’t be offended by it.”

  Emily sucked in a surprised breath and tried to focus up at his face. While his voice had been very dry, his expression did look a little stiff. “Sorry,” she muttered, guilt doing nothing to ease her physical condition. “I just hate for you to have to deal with all this.”

  “You need to stop worrying about me.”

  “I do worry about you.” She squirmed some more and tried to shake her sheets into feeling better against her skin. It didn’t work. They were hot, slightly damp from her perspiration, and smelled like sickness. She gave a little whimper of frustration.

  “Amy said you could have another bath if you wanted one,” Paul told her, standing up and looking down at her. “And I can make the bed up with clean sheets while you’re in there. Does that sound all right?”

  “Yes, please,” Emily rasped, desperately wanting to get out of the icky bed. Acting on instinct, she reached her arms up toward Paul, so he could help her get to her feet.

  He reached down for her and eased her up, but his face twitched slightly with what looked like amusement. Emily had no idea what would be funny.

  “Are you laughing at my hair?” she asked, a little dazedly, as she leaned against Paul and tried to get her balance. Her legs felt ridiculously weak.

  “How could you possibly think I would laugh at your hair when you’ve been so sick?”

  “Oh.” She clung to his gray t-shirt and looked up at his face. She was too groggy to effectively read his expression. “Why were you laughing at me then?”

  “I wasn’t laughing at you.”

  She wasn’t sure she believed him. She was too ill to pursue the matter, though, so she let him help her into the bathroom.

  When she got there and stared down at the empty bathtub, she was suddenly stumped. “Oh.”

  “I didn’t have a chance to get the bath ready,” Paul explained, leaning down to turn on the faucet and check the temperature of the water. When the water was the temperature he wanted, he pulled the tub stop and took a couple of small bottles from a shelf. He poured in a few drops of each. Then he turned back to Emily, who was still staring at the puzzlingly empty tub. “It will just be a minute before it fills up.”

  “Oh.” She blinked up at him. “That’s why you were laughing at me.”

  “I told you I wasn’t laughing at you,” he said with a smile that was almost fond.

  “Liar.” She wasn’t insulted. In fact, his expression was intimate in a way she liked. She was hot and shaky, though, and she desperately wanted to get into the bath. She should never have gotten out of bed until it was ready.

  Paul had leaned over to feel the water in the tub again. Evidently satisfied with the temperature, he straightened up. He looked at Emily for a moment, and then he sat down in the white accent chair that had seemed to her completely useless when she first saw its position in the bathroom.

  “Come here,” he murmured, reaching an arm out toward her.

  Emily was far too hot and sticky to feel like cuddling, but she let him draw her onto his lap anyway. She didn’t have the strength to keep standing, and she didn’t want to sit in only an inch of water in the tub.

  Paul was hot—way too hot—but she liked the way his arms wrapped around her tightly, and she liked the inexplicable tension she could feel in his body as he held her.

  She buried her face in his soft shirt and felt like she was falling apart, felt like he was barely holding her together.

  When the tub filled most of the way
up, she pulled away from him. He exuded too much heat—it was making her too hot. And the churning emotion she sensed in him was making her confused and shaky.

  The bath was cool and mild and peaceful, and Paul was none of those things.

  * * *

  She was ice-skating on fire.

  The whole rink was on fire, and she kept falling down, the ice burning her as much as the flames were.

  She struggled to pull herself up, but every time she did her ankles or knees would buckle again. Over and over again.

  Paul was skating too, except he was on the opposite side of the rink. He skated like a professional, doing turns and jumps and even a couple of spins. She called out to him frantically to help her. She was burning alive and needed his help.

  But he was too far away or too focused on his skating. He didn’t hear her. He didn’t save her.

  She kept falling, kept burning, kept struggling to get off the smoldering ice. Until she made it to the edge of the rink and stumbled off.

  But she stumbled off into nothing.

  She was falling, kept falling, helplessly falling through the air into a vast, blue emptiness.

  She was skydiving, but her parachute was burned away. And she was on fire, falling at a sickening speed, all by herself. Her heart pounded, and panic surged through her scorching body.

  She was a falling like Lucifer in a ball of white-hot fire, with only hell waiting at the end of the drop.

  She screamed for help, and then she saw Paul. He was skydiving too, but he still had a parachute. He was good at this. He could catch up with her, grab her, save her. She cried out to him for help, over and over again.

  He could hear her. He had to hear her. But he didn’t respond. He pulled the cord to his parachute and surged upwards as it deployed.

  She kept falling. Far away from him.

  She should have died when she hit the ground, but she didn’t. She landed in a lake. But the lake suddenly erupted in fire, and she was trying to swim through it naked.

  She didn’t want to skinny-dip in a lake of fire, and she flailed her arms and legs desperately, trying to get herself out.

  Through the smoke and flames, she saw that Paul was standing on the shore. But his back was to her, since he didn’t want to see her naked body.

  She shrieked for him to save her, but he never even turned around.

  And then the lake turned into her old house. And it was hell. Scorching, sulphurous, pitch black despite the fire.

  She was burning alive, and she saw her father in the flames too, much farther into the depths of the house than she was.

  She cried out to him to come back to her, not to leave her alone.

  Then she saw Paul behind her, near the entrance.

  She sobbed for him to help her, to please help her and her father. But Paul wouldn’t dare step into hell. Not for her.

  Demons came to drag her farther in, and she fought them off as hard as she could. She needed to get to Paul. She needed to get to her father.

  And she couldn’t seem to reach either one of them.

  Then the demons dragged her down into a molten lake, and she screamed. She screamed. She screamed because she knew this was finally going to kill her.

  But the lake was cool. Somehow, it was cool, and she sobbed. She sobbed. She sobbed with relief.

  “Daddy,” Emily gurgled, breaking out of her delirium so suddenly it felt like the world had ripped into pieces. “Daddy, help me!”

  “Emily,” someone said. It was Paul, she realized, not her daddy. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

  She was sobbing, she realized. Genuinely sobbing. It hadn’t just been a dream. She was in the bathtub, and Paul was basically in it with her, his arms wrapped around her tightly to control her writhing. “Paul!” she choked, overwhelmed with relief and gratitude that she was alive and Paul was here.

  And broken again at the realization that her father had been dead for two years.

  She clung to Paul blindly, trying to climb out of the water so she could get even closer to him. “Paul,” she gasped, incapable of saying any other word.

  He held her so tightly she couldn’t breathe, and he buried his face in her wet hair. “I’ve got you, baby,” he rasped, as if his voice was too strained to use. “I’ve got you.”

  It wasn’t until Amy spoke that Emily realized she and Paul weren’t alone. “I think her fever has finally broken,” the nurse said with a calm, matter-of-fact tone that was like a balm on all the frantic urgency. “If you’re able, Mr. Marino, it might be a good idea to dry her off and get her back to bed. We don’t want her to get chilled.”

  Emily was wet and naked, and Paul was just as wet, although he still had on his clothes.

  She realized that Amy must be right. Her body wasn’t aching the way it had been. She wasn’t scorching with heat. She was actually a little chilly in the cool of the room. She couldn’t seem to let Paul go, though—not even to dry off and get back under the covers.

  Since she wouldn’t let go of him, Paul ended up carrying her back into the bedroom. He released her just long enough to help her into the clean pajamas that Amy had retrieved. Then he pulled off his soaked t-shirt. His trousers were damp too, but Emily didn’t care.

  She huddled against his warm, hard body, dragging him into the bed with her. Her teeth were starting to chatter, but she nestled against his heat. He pulled the covers up over both of them.

  He held her just as tightly as she wanted, and he was still holding her a few minutes later when she fell into an exhausted sleep.

  * * *

  Things had changed when she woke up. She could see from the edges of the window coverings that it was nighttime. The sheets on the bed seemed to have been changed again, since they were clean, crisp, and cool. Her body felt weak and drained but blissfully without heat or pain. And Paul had changed clothes—he was now wearing a t-shirt and pajama pants.

  He was also sound asleep.

  But he was still holding her against him, her body pressed up against his side and her cheek pressing against his chest.

  She felt absolutely wonderful, exulting in the relief from fever, achiness, and delirium. Something was deliciously satisfying about the way Paul was asleep beside her—that he’d lowered his guard, relaxed, let go.

  But she was curious enough to make the effort to raise her head and look at the clock.

  It was just after three-thirty in the morning. She had no idea what day it was.

  Her slight stirring must have woken Paul. He shifted beside her and, when she looked down, his eyes were opened.

  “Are you all right?” he asked thickly, his eyes still groggy from sleep.

  “Yeah,” she murmured with a tender smile, emotion rising up without restraint in her chest. “I’m better.”

  He returned her smile and pulled her into a soft hug, and she adjusted until she was comfortable in his arms.

  “How long was I sick?” she mumbled.

  “Two days.”

  “Oh. It felt like longer.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Something about the dryness in his voice touched her, and she squeezed him hard with a sudden overflow of feeling.

  “So we can still go camping?”

  “Of course. You can take it easy today and, if you’re recovered, we’ll leave tomorrow.”

  She let out a sigh. “Sounds good. Didn’t want to waste all my wonderful birthday presents.”

  Paul gave a huff of soft laughter.

  She settled against him happily, looking forward to going to sleep again.

  It wasn't long before she did.

  * * *

  Paul was in a really bad mood.

  Emily had never seen him in this kind of mood before. He’d been angry with her. He’d been withdrawn. He’d been frustrated and impatient. But she’d never seen him just generally grumpy for no apparent reason.

  The closest she’d seen him like this was that day in Egypt when he’d been annoyed by their guide, A
kil, and then she’d gotten into a fight with him over leaving the sights early. His mood then, however, had clearly been prompted by a specific situation—no matter how irrational his response to it was.

  But there was no explaining what was wrong with him today.

  He was just in a bad mood.

  They were flying to Prince Edward Island for their camping trip, and Emily had woken up cheerful and excited. Paul had been quiet over breakfast, but she hadn’t let it worry her. He’d been as considerate with her as normal as they'd gotten ready to leave for the airport.

  But things had started to go wrong when they’d been about to take off in the private jet he’d chartered—a ridiculous expense, but he said all the commercial flights were too long and roundabout. Their takeoff was delayed because of severe weather in the area. While Emily was anxious to get to PEI, and delays at airports were always frustrating, she wasn't too worried about it. It wasn’t like she was squeezed into a coach seat on a hot, crowded airplane for hours. She could stretch out and read Shakespeare. Waiting an extra hour or two just wasn't that big a deal.

  Paul had not been pleased, though, and his displeasure had been evident to everyone around him, including the airport manager who ended up apologizing to Paul more than once for a weather situation he had no control over.

  Emily had tried to get Paul to drink his mimosa, telling him he needed more vitamin C but mostly just hoping a little champagne would take the edge off his mood. He’d eyed her with cool impatience and obediently drunk the flute of mimosa in four gulps.

  His mood hadn’t improved.

  Emily quickly grew annoyed, but she didn’t reproach him. Not until he snapped at the young woman serving them on the plane. Emily asked for no zucchini in her vegetable and cheese omelet, but it arrived with zucchini in it. She didn’t think it was a problem, and she just started to pull out some of the unwanted zucchini and eat the rest of the very tasty omelet in perfect contentment.

  But Paul called the server over and made Emily give the woman the plate back until they could get the order right. Emily had never seen him be anything but perfectly polite to service workers, and even now he didn't say anything directly rude or offensive. But his manner was brusque, and his tone was very, very curt.