by Penny Jordan
Kate’s face went white, but before she could say anything Sean had turned on his heel and was heading for the door.
‘Don’t come in to work tomorrow, and if Oliver isn’t better by Monday let me know. And that’s an order,’ Sean instructed her grimly. ‘I’ll make arrangements to have your car brought here for you.’
CHAPTER SIX
‘WELL, OLIVER MIGHT have escaped going down with the dreaded bug, but it doesn’t look as though you’ve been quite so lucky,’ Carol commented forthrightly as she studied Kate’s wan face.
‘I’ve had a bad night,’ Kate admitted reluctantly.
Kate had met her friend as she walked Oliver to school, and now the two boys were walking together, leaving Kate to fall into step with Carol.
‘My daddy can do anything,’ Kate heard George boasting.
‘Boys!’ Carol laughed, shaking her head and exchanging a rueful look with Kate.
‘Well, Sean can do everything in the whole world!’
Kate bit her lip as Oliver’s voice rang out, miserably aware of the comprehensive and sympathetic look Carol was giving her.
‘Sounds as though Sean is a big hit with Oliver,’ she commented lightly, but Kate could guess what she was thinking. The griping pain in her stomach bit harder and she winced, causing Carol to exclaim with concern, ‘You really aren’t well, Kate, are you? You should be in bed! Look, why don’t you go home and go back to bed? I’ll take Oliver to school and collect him for you.’
‘I can’t. I’ve got to go to work,’ Kate told her. ‘I didn’t go in on Friday because of Oliver. I can’t take more time off.’
‘Kate, you can’t possibly go to work. You look dreadful,’ Carol protested, adding worriedly, ‘Look at you! You’re shivering, and it’s nearly eighty degrees. This bug is really nasty if it gets a grip.’
‘Thanks!’ Kate said dryly, adding determinedly, ‘Anyway, I’m fine.’
But she could see from her friend’s face that Carol knew she was lying, and the truth was that she felt anything but fine.
Unlike Oliver, who had recovered from his upset tummy within a matter of hours, ever since she’d been sick the morning before she had steadily become more and more unwell. Her head felt as though it was being pounded with a sledgehammer, she had been sick on and off all night, and every bone in her body ached. She felt as if she was having flu and food poisoning all in one go.
Now the pain in her head increased, and when she closed her eyes against it a wave of nauseating dizziness hit her.
‘No way are you going to work!’ Carol’s firm voice broke into her misery. ‘How on earth are you planning to get there? You can’t possibly drive. Go home, and as soon as I’ve dropped the boys off I’ll call in and make sure you’re okay.’
Another surge of nausea reinforced the truth of what Carol was saying, and, handing Oliver over to her, Kate hurriedly made her way back home. She was unable to tell which felt worse—the agonising pain in her head, which made her want to crawl into a dark place and with any luck die there, or the knowledge that unless she got home soon she was all too likely to be sick in public.
Half an hour later Carol returned from dropping the boys off. Kate was barely aware of her knocking and then entering through the back door.
‘Thank goodness you’ve seen sense,’ her friend exclaimed in relief, finding Kate safely tucked up in bed and adding with concern, ‘I’d stay with you, but I promised I’d take my mother to hospital for her check-up today.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Kate assured her wanly. ‘I just need to sleep off this headache, that’s all.’
‘Well, if you’re sure...’
‘I’m sure,’ Kate insisted, only realising when Carol had gone that she ought to have asked her to telephone the office for her and explain what had happened.
Somehow just the thought of making the call herself was exhausting—and besides she needed to be sick again...
* * *
Sean frowned as his gaze flicked round Kate’s empty office. Why hadn’t she rung in? Was Oliver more seriously ill than anyone had realised?
It was the human resources department’s responsibility to check up on why Kate hadn’t reported in, not his, Sean reminded himself grimly. He was simply her employer now, and that was all.
A muscle twitched betrayingly in his jaw. Who the hell did he think he was deceiving?
He was supposed to be leaving here today, to return to headquarters for an important meeting, and he had not planned to come back until the following week.
If the woman in human resources was surprised that he should ask for Kate’s home telephone number she was professional enough not to show it, Sean acknowledged.
In the privacy of his office Sean dialled the number, his frown deepening as it rang out unanswered.
* * *
Slipping in and out of a feverish half-sleep, Kate was vaguely aware of the telephone ringing, but she felt far too ill to get up and answer it.
* * *
Sean waited until he heard Kate’s answering machine cut in before hanging up. Where on earth was she? Unwanted thoughts tormented his imagination. Kate sitting in a hospital waiting room whilst medical staff sped away with Oliver’s vulnerable little-boy body... His feeling of anguish and anxiety, combined with a need to be there, surged through him and caught him off guard.
He would feel the same concern for any young child, Sean assured himself grittily. Just as he had been himself, Oliver was a fatherless child. He knew all too well how that felt. How it hurt.
A brief telephone call to Head Office was enough to cancel his meeting. How could he chair a meeting when Oliver might be ill?
He stuck it out for as long as he could, punctuating his anxiety with several more unsuccessful telephone calls, but midway through the afternoon he threw down the papers he was supposed to be studying and reached for his jacket.
When Sean reached Kate’s house the open back door and the relief on two of the three anxious faces that turned towards him told its own story—or at least some of it.
‘Sean!’
‘Oh, thank goodness!’
As Oliver raced towards him Sean bent automatically to pick him up.
‘My mummy is very sick,’ Oliver said, causing Sean to grip Oliver tightly.
‘Kate isn’t at all well,’ Carol explained quickly. ‘In fact when I came round with Oliver after school I was so worried I sent for the doctor.’
Sean looked at the tired-looking middle-aged man who was the third member of the trio.
‘Kate appears to have contracted a particularly virulent strain of this current virus,’ he explained wearily. ‘She’s dehydrated and very weak, and in no way able to look after herself at the moment—never mind her child. She needs someone here to make sure she drinks plenty of fluids and generally look after her.’
He was looking meaningfully at Carol, who bit her lip and told him uncomfortably, ‘Normally I would have been only too happy to have Oliver to stay, but—’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Sean announced firmly, breaking into the conversation. ‘I’ll stay with Kate and look after her and Oliver. I’m her ex-husband,’ he explained tersely, when he saw the doctor beginning to frown.
‘I should warn you that she’s only semi-conscious,’ the doctor told him sharply, after Carol had left to go back to her own family. ‘And slightly delirious and confused in fact,’ he added. ‘But that will pass. She’s got a high fever, combined with stomach cramps. I have given her some medication which should start to make her feel better within the next twelve hours, although it will be considerably longer than that before she starts to recover properly and—’
‘Why the hell aren’t you admitting her to hospital?’ Sean demanded angrily.
‘For several reasons,’ the docto
r answered. ‘One, I doubt very much that I could get her a bed. Two, she has a child, who will no doubt be distressed by such an action. And three, whilst she’s very unwell, her condition isn’t acute. I appreciate that looking after her isn’t going to be easy. If you’re having second thoughts then perhaps you could let me know now, because I shall have to organise some kind of temporary foster care for the child and a district nurse to call round when she can to check on my patient.’
‘Foster care! Oliver doesn’t need foster care and Kate doesn’t need the district nurse—they’ve got me,’ Sean announced protectively.
The doctor tried not to show his relief. This virus was stretching local medical resources beyond their limits.
‘Very well. Now, this is what you will have to do...’
Sean listened grimly as the doctor gave him his instructions.
Oliver was still nestled sleepily in his arms, and after the doctor had gone Oliver looked up into Sean’s face and demanded anxiously, ‘When is my mummy going to get better?’
‘Soon,’ Sean assured him calmly, but inwardly he was feeling very far from calm.
Ten minutes later, as he stood beside the bed looking down into Kate’s pale face whilst she lay frighteningly still, he felt even less so. Her left hand lay limply on top of the duvet, her fingers ringless and her nails free of polish. She had beautiful hands and fragile, delicate wrists, he reflected sombrely. They had been one the first things about her he had noticed. Now, if anything, her wrist looked even narrower than he remembered.
Suddenly she made a restless movement and turned her hand over. He could see the blueness of her veins through the fine skin. Beads of sweat burst out on her forehead and she moaned suddenly, shivering violently, her eyes opening and then widening in confusion and bewilderment as she saw him.
‘It’s all right, Kate,’ Sean reassured her as she looked vaguely up at him. But even as he was trying to reassure her Sean knew that he could not reassure himself. He could feel the heavy, agonised thud of his heartbeat.
‘My head hurts,’ Kate told him plaintively.
‘Why don’t you sit up and drink some of this water, take these tablets the doctor has left for you?’ Sean suggested gently. ‘They should bring your temperature down and help you to feel better.’
Obediently she tried to do as he suggested, but Sean could see that even the small effort of trying to sit up was too much for her.
Without giving her the chance to protest, he sat down on the bed and put his arm round her, supporting her as he plumped up the pillows.
She was wearing some kind of cotton nightshirt, which was soaked with sweat and damp, and as he supported her she started to shiver so violently that her teeth chattered together.
It made Sean’s own throat hurt to see the difficulty she had swallowing even a few sips of water.
‘My throat hurts so much,’ she whispered to him as she pushed the glass away. ‘Everything hurts.’
Automatically Sean placed his hand against her forehead.
‘That feels good,’ she told him quietly. ‘Cool.’
Sean had to swallow back the feelings both her words and the burning hot feel of her skin had aroused.
‘I feel so hot,’ she complained fretfully.
‘You’ve got a bad virus,’ Sean told her.
‘I don’t want to keep you away from work, Sean. Not with the Anderson contract to get finished.’
Her eyes were closing as he lowered her back against the pillows, and Sean watched her with a frown. The Anderson contract she had referred to was one he had worked on in the early days of their marriage.
‘Slightly delirious.’ The doctor had warned him. And she was wringing wet, burning up and shivering at the same time.
She had been his wife, his lover, and her body held no secrets from him. How could it when she had given herself so freely to him, when he had been the one to help her to explore and discover the power of its female sexuality? Even so he could feel his muscles clenching as he worked to remove her fever-sodden nightshirt, blessing the fact that it fastened down the front with buttons. Or was it a blessing? Instead of removing it quickly he was having to fight against the savage stab of arousal he felt when he exposed the pale curves of her breasts, to force himself to ignore the sensuality of her naked body and to focus on her illness instead.
Reluctant to search through her drawers for a clean nightshirt, after he had sponged down her fever-soaked body he wrapped her in a towel instead, answering the disjointed questions she asked when she woke up briefly.
By the time he was satisfied that she was both dry and warm, and was finally able to cover her with the duvet, his hands were shaking.
‘Sean?’
He froze as he realised she had woken up again. ‘Yes?’ he replied.
‘I love you so much,’ she told him simply, smiling sweetly at him before she closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep.
There was, Sean discovered, a dangerous pain inside his chest, and the backs of his eyes were burning, as though they had been soaked with limewash.
* * *
It was two o’clock in the morning and Sean was exhausted. Kate’s temperature seemed to have dropped a little, much to his relief. And Oliver was fast asleep in his own bed, unaware of the sharp pangs of emotion Sean had felt when Oliver had solemnly explained to him his bedtime routine.
Suppressing a yawn, Sean pushed his hand through his hair. Kate was asleep but he was reluctant to leave her.
He went into the bathroom and had a shower. It had been a long day. His eyes felt gritty and tired. He looked at the empty half of the bed. It wasn’t going to hurt anyone if he just lay down and snatched a few minutes’ sleep, was it?
* * *
Kate could feel the pain of her anguished despair. A bleak, searing sense of loss engulfed her, lacerated by panic and agonising disbelief. In her jumbled fever-induced dream she ran on leaden legs from room to room of a shadowed empty house, frantically searching for Sean whilst the icy-cold tentacles of her fear took hold of her heart.
Sean had left her and she couldn’t bear the pain of losing him. She couldn’t endure the thought of living without him. She felt bereft, abandoned, and totally alone.
The pain of her dream was unbearable, and she fought to escape from it, dragging herself frantically through the layers of sleep, crying out Sean’s name as she did so.
* * *
The moment he heard Kate cry out, Sean was awake.
‘Sean?’
He could hear the panic in her voice as she repeated his name, and even in the semi-darkness he could see how her body was shaking.
‘Kate, it’s all right,’ he tried to reassure her, and he placed his hand on her arm and leaned over her.
Kate could feel herself shaking with the intensity of the emotions flooding through her, piercing her muddled confusion. When she managed to force her eyes open she exhaled in relief. She could see Sean’s familiar outline in the bed! Sean was here. He had not left her! She had just been having a bad dream!
But, despite her relief, somewhere on the edge of her consciousness something was niggling at her—something she did not want to recognise. Defensively she pushed it away, escaping instead into the comforting security of Sean’s presence. But she needed more than just his presence to banish the dark shadows of the dream, she recognised.
Instinctively she moved towards him, wanting, needing to be closer to him. Although her brain felt muddled, and somehow not fully functioning, her senses were sharply acute and her whole body shuddered as she breathed in his warm, musky scent. She could feel the familiar arousal taking over her body.
She wanted Sean to hold her.
‘Hold me close, Sean,’ she begged huskily, shivering as she told him in a low, unsteady voice, ‘I was dreaming that you wer
en’t here... And everything seems so muddled. I can’t seem to think straight...’
‘You’ve had a bad virus and a high fever,’ Sean told her quietly, deliberately using the past tense so that he didn’t frighten her.
‘I think I must have been suffering from delusions.’ Kate tried to laugh, but her smile disappeared as her whole body shuddered violently. ‘It was so frightening, Sean,’ she whispered. ‘I dreamt that I was in a house looking for you but you weren’t there.’
Emotional tears filled her eyes and Sean listened helplessly. Fever burned in her face and glazed her eyes. She made a small movement towards him and Sean began to draw back. But it was too late. Kate was already nestling trustingly into him.
Sombrely Sean looked down at her. His throat felt tight and he was acutely conscious that this should not be happening. Right now his role was that of nurse and guardian—but how could he explain that to her in her present confused and feverish condition? Would she even understand what he was trying to say? Somehow Sean doubted it. And, as though to confirm his thoughts, he felt her move, saw that his slight hesitation had made her focus on him, her anxious gaze searching his face.
‘Sean?’ she questioned as she reached out and curled her fingers onto the polished skin of his shoulder.
And then, before he could stop her, she moved closer to him and pressed her face against his chest.
Eagerly Kate snuggled closer to the security of Sean’s body. Just breathing in the familiar scent of him was immediately reassuring and calming. Calming? When had anything to do with being close to Sean had a calming effect on her? Kate smiled inwardly at herself. Calm was certainly not the way she was feeling right now, with her heart hammering and her body feeling so ridiculously weak. Weak, maybe, but also acutely and erotically aware of Sean. And her physical longing was heightened by the intensity of her aching, emotional need to be close to him.
It was as though her dream had left her with a vulnerability that only Sean’s intimate closeness could repair, Kate acknowledged vaguely. Dismissing her thoughts, she nuzzled into the warmth of his chest, tasting it with absorbed delight. And then, whilst Sean was still grappling with his own shock, she moved her head and placed her lips against his flesh, openly luxuriating in the pleasure of slowly and languorously caressing him.