Aching for Always (28 page)

She exited the alley and stopped while a line of cars passed. She looked at her phone: 6:13. It was going to be tight making an eight-thirty flight. With an impatient huff, she pressed the Cross button and spotted a hand-lettered sign taped to the pole.

ARE YOU CURRENTLY TAKING PRESCRIPTION
ANTIBIOTICS
?
ADULT SUBJECTS
,
AGES
18–54,
NEEDED
FOR RESEARCH STUDY ON SIDE EFFECTS
ONE HOUR.
$75.
CALL NOW
.

She froze. The light turned. A woman passed by her and stepped into the street.

She could go back. She had to.

There was an early morning flight. Would she make it? It didn't matter. It didn't matter if she missed the flight or her wedding or the buyer. A man's life was at stake.

The light began to blink, warning her to cross before it was too late.

Instead she turned, pulled out her phone and pulled up the number of her dentist.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-SIX
 

T
HE
N
ORTH
A
TLANTIC
, T
HREE
H
UNDRED
M
ILES OFF
THE
C
OAST OF
S
COTLAND
, 1706

She waited on the islet, clutching a bottle of antibiotics for the “toothache” that had miraculously struck her on Grant Street. Thank God her dentist had evening hours.

It was almost dawn. She'd waited all night in the cold and crashing surf at the edge of the cave, huddled in her now considerably dirty white spring trench coat. The flashlight on her phone had raised nothing more than the lonely call of a far-off seabird.

Surely the ship would appear again. If it didn't, she would return to the alley, but she refused to believe her sacrifice would be wasted. She would not make the dawn flight. She had tried Rogan's cell from her office, only to remember she'd thrown it into the sea. Then she'd tried his home and office phones, missing him at both places. She knew he thought she was heading from Di's place to Vegas, and had left a message saying she was sorry she'd missed him, that the stomach
bug had been horrid and that she'd see him soon; but the fact that she missed connecting with him seemed somehow prophetic, and the messages he'd left on her phone, while concerned and warm, had an underlying hint of desperation to them that had made her shift uneasily as she listened.

She'd had a lot of time to think in the dark, sea-rocked night—about her mother, about her father, about Rogan and about Hugh. She had come to no conclusions. It would have been foolish, ahead of the facts, but she knew when she and Rogan met again, she would never look at him the same way. No matter what she learned or didn't, there would always be a doubt tucked into the back of her mind.

A gray-pink glow had begun in the east—what she knew now was the east. Soon she would be able to see the horizon.

Please come. For Hugh. Please return.

There was no reason for the ship to return to the island. But still, she hoped.

The glow grew brighter. The world—her world—teetered on the edge of a new beginning. Somewhere in Las Vegas, a man sat in a chair in a hotel restaurant, sipping his coffee and reading the
Wall Street Journal
as he waited for Joss. The list of people to whom she owed apologies was growing longer and longer.

She wasn't afraid, at least not for herself. Though if the wind picked up and waves reached the top of the islet, she would have to return. Then she would be afraid only for Hugh.

The first shining rays hit the sky and ran like liquid
silver over the water. She stood and chivied herself up the seam to the tiny vertical opening at its peak, from which she gazed westward, northward, eastward, and at last she saw it—a tiny spot of white far to the south, growing larger with each passing minute.

Joss removed the coat and waved it back and forth and back and forth in the air.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-SEVEN
 

“Miss O'Malley, 'tis a surprise to see you again,” Roark said gravely as she was lifted from the seat onto the ship's deck. “I'm sorry the news is not better.”

“Take me to him.”

“Mr. Lytle is with him.”

“I thought he didn't want Mr. Lytle,” she said under her breath. “In case he spoke.”

Roark gave her a heart-wrenching look. “He hasn't spoken since midnight.”

She was shocked at the change. Hugh's skin was deathly white, and he hardly breathed.

“Oh my God.”

“He is very ill, m'um,” Lytle said. “There is little more we can do but wait.”

“Can he swallow?”

“I have been keeping him hydrated.”

“I need him to take some pills. Can we grind them into water for him?”

“We can, but what sort of pills are they?”

“You'll have to trust me. They will help.”
If anything will at this point
, she thought.

Lytle looked to Roark. Roark met Joss's eyes and gave Lytle a nod.

“This is very irregular,” Lytle said, but made the concoction, a triple dose. Joss was not going to take any chances.

Both men held Hugh upright as Joss dribbled the liquid into his mouth, trying to keep the tears of fear from clouding her sight as she worked.

She stood at his side long enough to ensure he didn't throw it up, then asked for a bed, a clean set of clothes and requested to be awakened if anything happened.

Now there really isn't anything else to do but wait.

When she opened her eyes, after a sleep that seemed as long and deep as a winter hibernation, the sun was low in the sky.

No one has come for me. That has to be good. Or at least not very bad.

Nonetheless, she threw on the coat and ran to the sickroom.

Roark was seated outside with his head in his hands, and Joss's knees nearly buckled.

“What?”

His head jerked up and he waved away her immediate concern. “There is no change. I'm sorry. I was . . . I must have dozed off sitting here.”

“No change?” She felt like crying.

“No change is . . . better than I expected.”

“Let's give him more.”

“More? Are you certain?”

She didn't know what a dangerous level would be. She knew that they used to give a single shot of antibiotics instead of a course of treatment with pills, something they still did in less-developed countries, so she didn't think overdosing was a risk, but she wasn't certain. She wasn't even sure this antibiotic was the sort that treated the kind of infection Hugh was suffering from, but it was all she had. “Yes.”

Joss mixed more pills with water, and Roark lifted him again while she dribbled the concoction into Hugh's mouth. He seemed even more listless than before, and much of the liquid spilled down his chin.

“Come,” Roark said when they had their patient resting again. “Let us eat.”

She finished a slice of fish pie without tasting any of it and was clutching a mug of coffee when Lytle opened the door to the officers' mess.

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, and Joss felt her stomach drop a foot.

“The fever has broken.”

Joss was the first to the sickroom door. “He's awake,” Lytle's boy said, and turned the handle.

“Oh, Hugh—” She stopped.

He was smiling weakly, and Fiona held his hand.

“Oh.”

Joss was simultaneously relieved and immensely irritated, though she knew relief was the only feeling that mattered.

“I beg your pardon,” said Roark, who had appeared behind her. “I forgot to mention that Nathaniel and Miss McPherson were dropped off by the other ship earlier this afternoon, while you were sleeping.”

Hugh smiled. “Good to see you, Joss.”

“He's still very weak,” Fiona said.

Had there been a note of accusation in her words?

“Are you hungry?” Roark asked, grinning. “The cook is making plum pudding.”

“There will be no plum pudding for my patient,” cried Lytle. “Do you wish to kill him, now that we've raised him from the dead? Broth, perhaps. Nothing more.”

“I must acquiesce to the surgeon,” Hugh said, “but please see that the cook puts it on the menu again for tomorrow.”

“We will see about that, sir. We will see about that. Now I want my sickroom to be emptied. You may return in the morning—one at a time, of course—if the patient continues to improve. Until then, be off.”

“You will continue to give him the pills as I've directed?” Joss said.

“I will,” said Lytle.

Joss exited, as did Roark, who patted her happily on the shoulder. Lytle followed with an empty basin in his hand, and the boy gave them all a good-bye nod and closed the door with a firm
click.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-EIGHT
 

Hugh shifted uncomfortably. He would have preferred that Joss stayed instead of Fiona. And he would have strongly preferred to avert the flash of fire he'd seen in Joss's eyes when she'd arrived, despite the fact that that flash had given him permission to hope. Now he was afraid his hope would slip away if he didn't act quickly.

“Get the boy,” he said to Fiona.

“We need to talk.”

“Get him.”

Fiona huffed but got up. In a moment, the boy was by Hugh's side.

“Aye, sir?”

“Find Mr. Roark. He is to stop any further passages to the islet. It's too dangerous at present. Do you understand?”

The boy's eyes flickered toward the calm sea beyond the porthole, but his face remained unchanged. “Aye, sir,” he said, and exited.

That boy has a future,
Hugh thought.

Fiona gave Hugh a long look. “Would you like to tell me what happened?” She pointed to his shoulder.

“No” was the honest answer, but there seemed no way to avoid it. “I was shot.”

“Aye, that is apparent. My interest lies in who did it.”

“Who do you think?” His shoulder was ablaze with pain.
Please, God
, he thought,
don't let Fiona turn this into another argument.
There are certain women one should never take to one's bed, though other than an increase in fractiousness, Fiona's behavior toward him had not changed since that night and she never made reference to it again. Had she regretted it as much as he?

“I can think of two possible guilty parties.”

“Don't be absurd. The girl knows nothing.”

“She lives a life denied my ancestors,” Fiona said, the anger as quick to flame as overdry gunpowder.

“Then she is guilty of being born into the wrong family. 'Tis all.” That, and being affianced to the wrong man.

Fiona glared, but let the subject pass. “How do you know it was Reynolds? Did you see him?”

“The person who attacked me wore a green stocking cap over his face—”

“Then it could have been her.”

“Allow me to finish. I was with Joss, and I had seen Reynolds only a few moments earlier with the same green o'erflowing his pocket.”