Нора Робертс: Year One

“I think so.” Mildly embarrassed, he covered with a wink and a joke. “Too much haggis.”

She laughed obligingly, unaware she’d be just as violently ill in less than seventy-two hours.

He walked back to Angie, eased by her to the window seat.

“Are you okay, baby?”

“Yeah, yeah. I think so now.”

After a critical study, she rubbed a hand over his. “Your color’s better. How about some tea?”

“Maybe. Yeah.”

He sipped tea, found his appetite stirred enough to try a little of the chicken and rice that was on the menu. An hour before landing, he had another bout of coughing, vomiting, and diarrhea, but judged it milder than before.

He leaned on Angie to get him through customs, passport security, and to handle pushing the baggage cart out to where the driver from their car service waited.

“Good to see you! Let me take that, Mr. Mac.”

“Thanks, Amid.”

“How was your trip?”

“It was wonderful,” Angie said as they wove through the crowds at Kennedy. “But Ross isn’t feeling very well. He picked up a bug along the way.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. We’ll get you home, quick as we can.”

For Ross the trip home passed in the blur of fatigue: through the airport to the car, loading the luggage, the airport traffic, the drive to Brooklyn and the pretty house where they’d raised two children.

Once again he let Angie handle the details, appreciating her arm around his waist as she took some of his weight while guiding him upstairs.

“Straight to bed with you.”

“I’m not going to argue, but I want a shower first. I feel … I need a shower.”

She helped him undress, which struck him with a wave of tenderness. He leaned his head against her breast. “What would I do without you?”

“Just try to find out.”

The shower felt like heaven, made him believe absolutely he’d gotten through the worst. When he came out and saw she’d turned down the bed and set a bottle of water, a glass of ginger ale, and his phone all on the bedside table, his eyes actually stung with tears of gratitude.

She hit the remote to lower the shades on the windows. “Drink some of that water, or the ginger ale, so you don’t get dehydrated. And if you’re not better in the morning, it’s to the doctor with you, mister.”

“Already better,” he claimed, but obeyed, downing some ginger ale before sliding blissfully into bed.

She tucked and fussed, laid a hand on his brow. “You’re definitely running a fever. I’m going to get the thermometer.”

“Later,” he said. “Give me a couple hours down first.”

“I’ll be right downstairs.”

He closed his eyes, sighed. “Just need a little sleep in my own bed.”

She went downstairs, got some chicken, along with a carcass she’d bagged, out of the freezer, and began the task of running it under cool water to speed up the defrosting. She’d make a big pot of chicken soup, her cure for everything. She could use some herself, as she was dog-tired and had already sneaked a couple of meds behind Ross’s back for her own sore throat.

No need to worry him when he was feeling so low. Besides, she’d always had a tougher constitution than Ross, and would probably kick it before it took serious hold.

While she worked she put her phone on speaker and called her daughter, Katie. They chatted happily while Angie ran the cold water and made herself some tea.

“Is Dad around? I want to say hi.”

“He’s sleeping. He came down with something on New Year’s.”

“Oh no!”

“Don’t worry. I’m making chicken soup. He’ll be fine by Saturday when we come to dinner. We can’t wait to see you and Tony. Oh, Katie, I got the most adorable little outfits for the babies! Okay, a few adorable little outfits. Wait until you see. But I’ve got to go.” Talking was playing hell with her sore throat. “We’ll see you in a couple days. Now don’t come by here, Katie, and I mean it. Your dad’s probably contagious.”

“Tell him I hope he feels better, and to call me when he wakes up.”

“I will. Love you, sweetie.”

“Love you back.”

Angie switched on the kitchen TV for company, decided a glass of wine might do her more good than the tea. Into the pot with the chicken, the carcass, then a quick run upstairs to look in on her husband. Reassured, since he was snoring lightly, she went back down to peel potatoes and carrots, chop celery.

She concentrated on the task, let the bright chatter of the TV wash over her, and stubbornly ignored the headache beginning to brew behind her eyes.

If Ross felt better—and that fever he had went down—she’d let him move from the bedroom to the family room. And by God, she’d get into her own pajamas because she felt fairly crappy herself, and they’d snuggle up, eat chicken soup, and watch TV.

She went through the process of making the soup on automatic, disposing of the carcass now that it had done its work, cutting the chicken meat into generous chunks, adding the vegetables, herbs, spices, and her own chicken stock.

She turned it on low, went back upstairs, looked in on Ross again. Not wanting to disturb him, but wanting to stay close, she went into what had been her daughter’s room and now served as a room for visiting grandchildren. Then dashed to the guest bath to vomit up the pasta she’d had on the plane.

“Damn it, Ross, what did you catch?”

She got the thermometer, turned it on, put the tip in her ear. And when it beeped stared at the readout in dismay: 101.3.

“That settles it, chicken soup on trays in bed for both of us.”

But for the moment, she took a couple of Advil, went down to pour herself a glass of ginger ale over ice. After sneaking quietly into their bedroom, she pulled out a sweatshirt and a pair of flannel pants—adding thick socks because she felt chills coming on. Back in the second bedroom she changed, lay down on the bed, pulled around her the pretty throw that had been folded at the foot of the bed, and almost immediately fell asleep.

And into dreams about black lightning and black birds, a river that ran with bubbling red water.

She woke with a jolt, her throat on fire, her head pounding. Had she heard a cry, a shout? Even as she fumbled to untangle herself from the throw, she heard a thud .

“Ross!” The room spun when she leaped up. Hissing out an oath, she raced to the bedroom, let out her own cry.

He was on the floor by the bed, convulsing. A pool of vomit, another of watery excrement, and she could see the blood in both.

“Oh God, God.” She ran to him, tried to turn him on his side—weren’t you supposed to do that? She didn’t know, not for sure. She grabbed his phone off the nightstand, hit nine-one-one.

“I need an ambulance. I need help. God.” She rattled off the address. “My husband, my husband. He’s having a seizure. He’s burning up, just burning up. He’s vomited. There’s blood in it.”

“Help’s on the way, ma’am.”

“Hurry. Please hurry.”

CHAPTER TWO

Jonah Vorhies, a thirty-three-year-old paramedic, smelled the soup cooking and turned off the burner before he and his partner, Patti Ann, rolled MacLeod out of the house and loaded him into the ambulance.

His partner jumped in the front, hit the sirens as he stayed in the back, working to stabilize the patient while the wife looked on.

And held on, Jonah thought. No hysterics. He could almost hear her willing her husband to wake up.

But Jonah knew death when he saw it. Sometimes he could feel it. He tried not to—it could get in the way of the work—tried to block out that knowing . Like, sometimes he knew that some guy who brushed by him on the street had cancer. Or some kid running by would fall off his bike that very afternoon and end up with a greenstick fracture of his right wrist.