“Why don’t you take another shower and lie down for a few minutes. I’ll go have a mini-consultation with Trap, and when I come back, I’ll try my hand at cooking. After we eat, we’ll get some sleep.”
Shylah nodded. When he turned away from her, she caught his hand. “Thank you, Draden. You pulled me back from the edge.”
“You would have gotten there. I just got you there a little sooner.” He bent his head to hers, cupping her chin in his palm, looking into her dark eyes. “I think getting married to you is a really good idea. Let’s plan it and do it tomorrow, even if we can’t make it legal.”
Her tongue touched her upper lip, tracing the intriguing bow. The corners of her mouth turned up. She had a small indentation when she smiled, a little dimple that came and went but fascinated him.
He brushed kisses over the dusting of gold across her nose and cheeks. She had amazing bone structure and he kissed along the line of her high cheekbones. Shifting his hands to frame her face, he brought his mouth down on hers. The world dropped away. The fact that they were infected with a terrible virus disappeared.
There was heat. Fire. Perfection. The moment his lips rubbed against hers, soft and sensuous, the flames leapt and burned. Electricity arced from his skin to hers. He kissed her over and over until neither of them could breathe. When he finally lifted his head, it took effort not to just pick her up and carry her to the bed. Instead, he found medicine for the rash and aspirin for her headache. Kissing her was paradise but taking care of her was more important to him.
Leaving her to shower and nap, Draden made his way to the remote lab, trying not to think about living without her. He should have thought about dying, about having to kill her and then himself to avoid the effects of the hemorrhagic virus. Instead, with every step away from her, he tried to picture what it would be like for both of them to survive and split up. He couldn’t face that bleak future any more than he could face the idea of dying in such a vile way.
He wanted that future the two of them talked about. He wanted the fun of planning a ceremony and looked forward to being with her and working out the details.
Wyatt Fontenot appeared on the screen when Draden called. In the background, he could see Trap bent over a worktable. Trap reminded Draden of a mad scientist, but then he always did when he worked in a laboratory. The human race lost him to whatever intriguing medical mystery he was working on. Unless Cayenne was around. The woman had a way of making him eat and sometimes sleep. Several times a day Trap would look around him a little helplessly, and she’d hand him whatever it was he needed. Other times he’d just look at her and the two would disappear for an hour and he’d come back looking refreshed.
“Shylah’s developed a large rash that’s spread across her body. She’s fatigued, and her muscles ache. She’s running a low-grade fever and her lymph nodes are swollen.” He tried to be clinical. “I still have the headache and I’m very tired. I have a small rash on my arms, belly and chest. My muscles are extremely painful and my temp has gone up a degree.”
Wyatt nodded. “That’s to be expected, Draden. You’re both infected, but your bodies are fighting it aggressively.” He turned away from the screen to talk to Trap.
At first Trap kept his back to Wyatt, but he suddenly swung around and stalked across the room to appear in front of the camera. “Tell me exactly how Shylah is feeling. What’s happening to her?”
“She’s never been sick, Trap. At least that was what Whitney told me when I talked to him. I forgot to tell you, I spoke with him. That’s how you got the file on her. It did get to you, didn’t it? I received it, so I thought you would have.”
“Yes. I’ve been working on sorting out what the two of you have in your makeup that would have you both fighting so aggressively.” He waved his hands in the air. “I need to know about Shylah. Her symptoms.”
“I’ve sent you a picture of the rash. She has a low-grade fever and her lymph nodes are swollen throughout her body. She’s showing signs of fatigue, and her muscles ache. She’s never complained about anything in all the time we’ve been together. I can see that she’s scared.”
Trap waved that away. “There’s no need to be yet. I’ll check the new blood samples. Just hang in there. We’re working night and day on our end.”
“Thanks, Trap.”
There was no need to profess gratitude, Trap was already gone, consumed by his work. Wyatt’s face was there again. “We really think with what Whitney sent us and the file on Shylah, we’ve got a good chance of figuring this out,” he said.
“Time’s running out, Wyatt. We want to get married. Can you get an expert on all things Indonesian and get the ball rolling to make it happen? Who’s the resident expert on Indonesia?”
“That would be Malichai,” Wyatt responded. “Give me a minute and I’ll have him here.”
Draden took the opportunity to look for information on the Internet while Wyatt was away from the computer. They could be married in Indonesia. That much he’d learned by the time Malichai sat in the chair Wyatt had vacated.
“You doing all right, bro?” he asked.
Draden nodded. “For having a killer virus in me, I’m doing surprisingly well. Need to know about getting married in Sumatra.”
“You have to have a religious ceremony, Draden. You both have to be the same religion. I believe six religions are recognized. Hindu. Are you Hindu?”
“Very funny.”
“I’ve got to ask. What about Islam or Catholicism?”
“Neither. And she isn’t either.” He hadn’t asked her, but he was certain she wasn’t.
“There’s Protestant Christian, Buddhist or Confucian. Take your pick. You need one to make it legal. Buddhists, Christians and Hindus hold the ceremony first, and then it must be recorded with the Civil Registry. They issue the marriage certificate. You would still have to register that in Louisiana.”
“I see. We’ll figure it out tonight and do the paperwork. Can you get Joe to push it through for us?”
“You’re serious about this? You’re actually going to marry her?” Wyatt asked, leaning into the camera around Malichai. “You aren’t going to die, Draden. We’re not going to let that happen.”
That was easy enough to say. He thought they might be a little delusional. Trap and Wyatt were good, but so were a few hundred other virologists, microbiologists and scientists. No one had yet come up with a vaccine for Ebola and it wasn’t for lack of trying.
They talked for a few more minutes, but he was in a hurry to get back to Shylah. He didn’t like being away from her. Images of her sprawled out on the bed, her long legs bare, her body naked after her shower, kept creeping into his mind. He signed off quickly and hurried back to her. He half hoped she’d be in bed, just so he could remove the blankets.
Before he opened the door, he knew she was cooking. The aroma coming from inside the house was amazing. Joe had managed to get his hands on chicken, and clearly she was making full use of it. She stood at the stove. “I thought I’d make soup. I wanted something light. I used the chicken again and tons of veggies. Is that all right with you?”
She wore a pair of soft Capri bottoms and a racer-back tank that clung to her every curve. She looked more delicate than ever. For some reason the simple, comfortable outfit enhanced her fragile bone structure and emphasized her firm, defined muscles and soft skin.
He went right to her and leaned down to kiss the nape of her neck, so inviting with her hair piled on top of her head in a messy knot. “That smells wonderful. I’m suddenly starving.”
“Me too.”
There was the smile in her voice that told him she approved of him kissing her. He wrapped his arms around her middle, his fingers threading together just under her breasts, so he could nuzzle her neck. She smelled as delicious as whatever she was cooking, and for a moment he buried his face in that sweet spot between her neck and shoulder and just inhaled.
“Do you have a religious preference?” he asked, his mouth
against her skin.
She burst out laughing. “So much for whispering sweet nothings.”
“We have to have a religious ceremony to get married.”
Her hand paused in her task of adding seasoning and she looked back at him. “You can’t be serious, Draden.”
“I absolutely want to marry you. I want us to plan the ceremony and what we’re going to say to each other and then tomorrow, I want to do it.”
She turned back before he could read her expression. Staring down at the soup, she shook her head. “I don’t see how it’s possible.”
“Wyatt said our immune systems are fighting the virus off like crazy, so I know we’ll have the time. We can do it. I know we can.”
“Do you have any idea how special you are, Draden? How extraordinary a man?”
She made him feel as if he were the best man in the world and she’d never be able to see any other—and she most likely wouldn’t.
“I’m going to let you think that, Shylah, because I want you to marry me. And if you knew about the thousands, maybe millions of good men out there who are all so much better than me, you’d run away fast and find someone else.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
Shylah regarded him with that sober look that turned him inside out. She looked cute as hell with her freckles standing out on her face and her eyebrows drawn together.