He released her hand. “That’s not easy.”
“Of course it isn’t. You saw so much.”
He shifted on the bed until he was propped against the wall again. He couldn’t be casual anymore, perhaps. “There are too many things to think of ... too many.”
“Don’t cheat me. There has to be something that is worse. The one thing that makes you cringe beyond anything you experienced.” Part of her wanted him to tell her about the day he learned Velia died. Maybe then she could expunge the guilt that ravaged her.
One of his crooked smiles formed, and shadows in the room appeared to deepen. Cold seeped into the area and made it less comfortable. “I did have this one dream while I was still out on the line. I’d think that I’d woken up and there were shell holes everywhere, trees demolished and no trenches left because of all the shelling. I’d smell the explosives. I’d have a headache. A horrible headache. And then I’d realize I was the only one alive. Everyone, even the entire enemy was dead.” He slid off the bed and found his slippers. With restless motions he paced the floor. “I was alone in the world. There was no one left. I’d wake up and be so grateful I wasn’t the only one left on the planet.”
Her breath caught on an exclamation. “Oh, Cade.”
That drew his attention. “Cade? May I call you Annabelle? I like it more than Nurse Dorrenti.”
She considered his request. “All right. But do not use it in front of anyone else.”
He rolled his gaze to the ceiling. “Ah, I see. Appearances.”
“Appearances. Go on. You were saying about the dream?”
“That’s all.” He glanced at her, then kept pacing.
“But that was a dream, not reality. It’s not the worst thing you witnessed.”
A long silence dominated the room as he stared into space. His deep, flowing voice finally came. “There was this one barrage that was the worst, I think. Damn shelling sounded like drums. That’s why it’s called drumfire—a continuous and steady rumble that doesn’t let up. Sometimes I imagine I hear that sound, when there’s thunder. I’ve had to work on not reacting to the flash and the fire of lightning. Anyway, we had a lot of real and false gas alarms. We had this hellish music of heavy guns, the bark of 75’s and detonations of middle calibers. The earth literally shook under our feet.” He took a deep breath, and sweat dotted his upper lip. “The front for about thirty miles opened up and it was light as day. I saw too many ways to die that night. There was this man with no visible wounds and no blood. Yet he looked so peaceful. I kept wondering what killed him and why I couldn’t see it. At the end of that barrage soldiers went around and there were barrels of rifles sticking up to mark the dead. It was like a damned forest.”
He continued. “That isn’t the worst thing ... I don’t think. After this one barrage, the engineers ... me and several others ... we tried to dig out several trenches where we knew men were buried. They might still be alive, you know. We had a litter with us in case we found anyone. I pulled on this one leg and discovered it wasn’t attached to anyone. I fell backward into the damned mud and the leg hit me in the face.” She covered her mouth with one hand to stifle the gasp. He went quiet and still. Finally he said, “Such massive human destruction should never be witnessed again by another man. But I fear it will be again. I don’t know why or where or when.”
It took her quite awhile to muster her voice. “Are you ashamed or sorry that you lived?”
“My shame is in not being with my men. The people who are there still being wounded and dying. My shame is in not convincing my sister to go home before it was too late.”
“You couldn’t have done that. It wasn’t what she wanted.”
He made a scoffing noise and began pacing again. Like a caged animal he moved, his body sleek and muscled and disturbing. The animal in him made her pulse throb, her body acknowledging everything primal within him. Just watching him made her heart beat faster. She felt like she never knew what he’d do next.
“Perhaps ..." Her voice went thick. “Perhaps you were meant to save men here.” Annabelle was buoyed by the idea. “The war is still in this room, in this building, and you’re here to fight it.”
He stopped abruptly and swung toward her. “I’m not here to relive misery. I’m here to discover life. I want to understand how to feel the way I did before I let war crawl inside my head like some worm that’s eating my brain.”
She stood and took one step toward him, feeling the hum and thrum of something alive between them. “Velia wouldn’t want you to suffer like this. She wouldn’t blame you for what happened to her.”
He moved toward her, and she took two steps back before her legs came up against the bed. Cade’s eyes held fiery emotions, too many to name. “Don’t tell me not to suffer, damn it. Don’t tell me not to take blame. Or I’ll ..."
“What?” She spoke softly, part of her wanting to run, the other part almost too afraid to move. “Or you’ll what?”
Cade’s eyes smoldered. His lips parted, and in that moment her awareness of him grew tenfold. He smelled like man—musk and heat and strength. She breathed in deeply and his closeness made her senses spin.
He reached out slowly and touched her cheek, his gesture gentle. She drew in a startled breath. Cade’s touch impacted her more than she could have imagined. Yes, he’d kissed her before. Touched her before. On impulse, she covered his hand with hers. Not to remove his touch, but to keep it in place.
Before she could move again, he leaned in and tasted her with a feather-light stroke of lips over lips. A smooth brush of his mouth tantalized and promised. She moved into his embrace as he cupped her head. Each second stretched as tension eased from her. Her world was his body and the pleasure it gave her. Caring what may happen in the next moment dissolved until she wanted more and more.
His male scent, musky and clean, seemed to lure her to taste, to touch, and to learn. He drew her closer, hard muscular arms bracketing her to him. Startled and pleasured all at once, Annabelle absorbed feelings. His body was hard, supportive, and muscular. His arms were strong but gentle as he smoothed his hands up and down her back in a caress. Heat swamped her—a fire of longing and craving. Touches blended one into the other. Cade’s kisses pressed over her forehead, her cheeks, and traveled to her neck. She gasped as sweet shivers coursed along her body. She moaned softly at the pleasure.
Annabelle savored the cool, silken strands of his hair under her fingers. He tickled the hollow of her neck insistently with his tongue. Restless with a yearning to feel more, to do more, she found his muscular back, his slim waist. She learned the contours and the hardness of his pectorals, and felt the crisp hair under her fingers. Delight traversed her skin as a low throbbing built in her loins. She wanted and craved. Cade drew her skirt upward. Higher and higher. All the while he kissed her, his tongue tasting and learning her contours.
She met his demand, meeting his tongue. He touched between her legs and found the sweet ache. She wanted ... she didn’t know. Any innocence she had was physical. She knew how sex worked—the mechanics, as such. He rubbed gently, teasing her clit over the cloth. Friction built, and so did pleasure. She tore her mouth from his, restless and feverish with a desire to reach that pinnacle. Illusive and strong, the excitement built. She buried her head against his shoulder as tingling built. It grew, and the dampness did as well. Nothing prepared her for his touch slipping under the waist of her undergarment. Cade smoothed over her mons and straight down until ...
“Oh.” Her gasp was filled with surprise and pleasure as he teased naked flesh. He drew moisture from her center, circled her pussy lips, bringing the evidence of her sexual desire upward to moisten her clit. Faster and faster the pleasure heightened. He kissed her. She moaned into his mouth as orgasm claimed her. Hot and sweet the climax lifted her up, grew, shaking her from the inside out. She muffled her cry of ecstasy against him, riding it out as waves of bliss tossed her up.
She drew away and looked into his eyes. Heat and desir
e and need burned in his eyes. “Cade ..."
He slid one finger into her channel and stroked gently, and the pleasure continued. She heard her own voice whispering in excitement, declaring in gasps and sighs what couldn’t be denied. She loved it, she wanted more, and the need for it stayed strong. Slowly he drew her skirt down and her breathing evened. She came down from the pleasure, the astonishment of what had happened strong in her mind.
Against her leg, the hard press of his sexual need reminded her where they were and what they’d done so far. Brutal reality snapped her straight back from heaven to earth. She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. The single light bulb sent harsh shadows around the room. She knew someone might be looking for her now, that anyone could notice she wasn’t where she should be.
“Oh, God.” She pulled from his arms and took several steps away. “Oh, God.”
His hair was more of a mess than when she’d come to his door. His cheeks were flushed and his lips were parted. And the most telltale and tantalizing thing of all ... his erection tented the front of his pajama bottoms.
“This was ..." What was it? She had no good words. She hurried to the door.
“Yes, you’d better go,” he said softly.
She opened the door slowly, checking the hallway. No one waited for her in stern disapproval. Relief barely eased her panic. She left the room and closed his door slowly so it wouldn’t creak. He didn’t try to stop her, and for that she was grateful. As she walked slowly down the hallway, the magnitude of what she’d done—of what she’d allowed him to do—struck Annabelle. Heady excitement still sang through her body, and she couldn’t deny the ecstasy she’d experienced. No words could describe it beyond the obvious. Though she’d kissed more than one man in her twenty-five years, none of them had ever initiated her into more than furtive kisses. None had broken her defenses so easily and so far. She didn’t know whether to be ashamed, worried, or ecstatic. And so she was all three.
Chapter 10
Denver, Colorado
* * *
Lilly Luna Healy dreaded reading this letter to her husband, especially on such a glorious fall day. When they’d left Tranquil View Asylum and Simple, Colorado ten years ago they'd never spoke of it or allowed room for it in their thoughts since. When a demon came into your life, you cast it out.
Outside their beautiful home in Cherry Creek, the sounds of her two sons, Morgan Junior and Thaddeus rang out from the back yard. Morgan walked toward her, his handsome face a reminder of all she’d gained over the last few years—a man who loved her with all his heart, a man she loved unconditionally, and two small boys who enlightened her life in ways she never could have imagined.
Even reports of the deadly flu ravaging the United States couldn’t put a damper on her life. When the flu had come to Denver, they had done what they could to made certain they stayed as safe as possible. Yet certain things were inevitable, and Lilly supposed the letter was one of those things. The letter ... well, the letter meant they couldn’t avoid it anymore.
“You received a letter?” Morgan asked as he settled at the dining room table.
How wretched things might be if Morgan hadn’t stepped into her life at the asylum. She might still reside there, absorbing the horror that stained the walls, ate the innocent, and created such evil. She fingered the paper and sighed. “It’s from Nurse Summit. She says the superintendent wants your help.”
Morgan frowned. “Why?”
“He knows you’ve been working with soldiers here in Denver with shell shock and war neurosis. He wants your advice.”
Morgan snorted softly. “You know I can’t go back there.”
She sighed and folded the paper. She smoothed it against the table. “And neither can I.”
He held out his hand. “I wouldn’t sacrifice what we have here. Our family. You.”
She stared at the table and worried the letter before opening it again. “Nurse Summit says they’ve done a voluntary quarantine of the asylum. So you couldn’t go there unless the superintendent asked you to come. And there’s more.”
“More what?”
She read the most important bit of the letter “Darkness was vanquished, at least in part, after you both left here and your father and sister perished. Something stirred it up, though, and it’s back. If it were ever gone.” Lilly swallowed hard. “She knows it never left.” She clasped his arm. “We escaped there to get away from horrible memories and the evil living in that town and the asylum. She says we’re the only ones who can banish what’s happening there.” Unusual panic struck her, pulsing deep and bringing with it horrific memories. “Morgan, we can’t go back.”
Morgan nodded, sincerity in his eyes. He lifted her hand to his lips, and ten years hadn’t diminished the beautiful tingle that stirred in her belly when he touched her.
“I’ll call the superintendent or Nurse Summit, but that is all. I’m not going anywhere, my love.” He crumpled the letter, stood, and walked to the fireplace. He tossed the request in the flames.
* * *
“Here are the masks.” Nurse Summit held up the white cotton masks at the front of the dining hall where several nurses gathered in a cluster around a table stacked with boxes.
One nurse held up her hand. “Do we have to wear these every day?”
“All the time,” Nurse Summit said. “You can take them off to eat and to sleep once you’re in your own room. Otherwise it’s a constant thing. We will start brushing down surfaces once a day with ammonia. It might be a little hard to take at first, but it will be clean.”
“Why now?” One short, round nurse said as she lined up with the others. Her expression was pinched, but this woman would complain if someone hung her with a new rope. “Shouldn’t we have been doing this a long time ago?”
“Perhaps.” Nurse Summit kept her voice even. “But we didn’t.” That stopped the woman—Annabelle always admired how Nurse Summit handled people. She never allowed the naysayers and troublemakers to obtain a foothold. Nurse Summit handed a mask to one nurse. “The superintendent requires it. He’s been talking with the Red Cross in Denver and it’s recommended. There are other details you all need to know. You’ve heard the list of symptoms of this disease. There’s more ... and the details are not pretty.”
“I am afraid to ask,” Annabelle said from the back of the line.
Nurse Summit didn’t smile as she lifted masks from the box. “Cyanosis.” The room went completely quiet.
“Cyanosis.” Annabelle didn’t want to sound like a complete idiot, but what the nurse had just said sent chills up and down her body.
“Yes. Patients may have few symptoms at first, but if medical personnel notice cyanosis, the patient will be treated as terminal.”
“Cyanosis of what?” one nurse asked.
Nurse Summit hesitated, as if the very thought of it disturbed her to the core. “Anything. Everything. Lips, ears, nose, cheeks, tongue eyes and fingers. Sometimes, if it is very horrible ... the entire body. Things take on a leaden, dark hue.”
“Wouldn’t that be natural with someone in the distress of pneumonia?” another nurse asked.
“No. This is marked. It isn’t a blueness that might come with pneumonia. This is a deep color, as far as indigo if it is bad enough.” Annabelle’s stomach turned. She considered running out and finding a bathroom. She couldn’t imagine such a horrible thing—wait ... yes she could. But she didn’t want to. “There is significant number of people bleeding from a variety of places, especially the nose. This enza has no bounds with creativity, it seems.”
Stunned silence followed as the nurses looked to each other, perhaps for comfort. One by one the ten nurses retrieved a mask from the box, and several things occurred to Annabelle as she waited at the end of the line. For the rest of their time as nurses here, until the epidemic ceased, they would be slaves to the mask. To muffled voices and stifled breath. She noted expressions on the other nurses that ranged from ease to extreme worry. Despite their d
edication to their jobs and belief in helping others, they’d never encountered this worry. Few had thought about an epidemic of this proportion that raged across the world, that would rage in their town, perhaps this week or the next.
Though Penelope had listed some symptoms for Annabelle previously, others came to the forefront. It was a dizzying array. Some doctors had misdiagnosed the disease because of the confusion. An exceeding variety of symptoms meant so much could go wrong. Annabelle tried to stay optimistic, but sometimes she found her mind wandering where it shouldn’t go and losing the strength that had always made certain she wouldn’t give up during the war. It was an effort, she reminded herself, to keep steady. This war might be different, but disease was a war nonetheless. If she allowed it to destroy her ... well ...
“Annabelle, are you all right?” Nurse Summit held a mask out to her.
“I’m fine.” Annabelle smiled. “I was lost in my own thoughts.”
“So we all seem to be lately,” the older nurse said. She looked grayer, more serious these days. But who didn’t?
The other nurses filed out of the room quickly. Annabelle put on her mask.
Nurse Summit hadn’t donned a mask yet, so her grim-faced countenance was clear. She sighed. “Listen, Annabelle. I have to tell you something. I tell you the strictest of confidence and I want you to take it to heart. If it was up to me ..."
Annabelle hovered in anticipation and dread. “Yes?”
“One of the men came to me this morning and confessed that he’d been having strange thoughts about you.”
Annabelle’s anxiety shot up. Had Cade, whom she’d avoided for two days, come to Nurse Summit and told the woman about their intimate liaison? Anger followed on the heels of shock. Still, when she spoke Annabelle kept her voice steady. “Strange thoughts?”
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