The kitchen provided a bright, comfortable haven for their vigil. They sat before the fire, sewing and sipping tea, while the storm rumbled in from the gulf. When the wind increased, Mrs. Givens closed the French doors on the kitchen’s west side. Soon, blowing rain spattered against the panes.
Suddenly Mrs. Givens cried out. Celia followed the woman’s horrified gaze and saw Noah standing in the opening of the east French doors. The whiteness of his eyes glimmered wildly in the lamplight, and a dark bundle was slung across his shoulders. He moved quickly into the kitchen and dumped his burden onto the kitchen table.
As Noah turned back the corner of his canvas bundle, the flickering light of the fire revealed Cameron’s unconscious form.
Her heart pounding with fear, Celia rushed to him. “Is he dead?”
She felt for a pulse at his neck and almost collapsed with relief when she felt the strength of its beat beneath her fingers.
“He’s alive, but mighty sick,” Noah said. “I had to range farther than usual to find grass. On my way back, I spotted Mr. Alex’s boat floating in the channel with its sails luffing in the wind. Mr. Alex was lying in the bottom of the boat, too sick to move.”
Celia placed her wrist against Cameron’s forehead. “He’s burning with fever. We can’t leave him here. Carry him to his bed, please, Noah. Mrs. Givens, bring extra blankets.”
The housekeeper stood in the far corner of the kitchen, her eyes wide with fright. She hadn’t moved since Noah had carried in Cameron. “Is he going to die?”
“Not if I can help it,” Celia vowed. “We should send Noah for a doctor.”
“No!” Mrs. Givens response was immediate and forceful. “Mr. Alexander would rather die—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Celia said in disbelief. “He has a raging fever, and it could be anything from West Nile virus to pneumonia or malaria. Without a doctor and a medical lab, we won’t know how to treat him.”
“I have aspirin,” Mrs. Givens insisted, “and my herbs, but no doctors. Isn’t that right, Noah?”
Sadness etched the man’s ebony features. “She’s right, Miss Celia. Mr. Alex don’t want nobody knowing where he’s at.”
Disgusted by their refusal to send for help, Celia shook her head. “Then I’ll have to care for him as best I can. Just bring me what I need.”
Noah lifted Cameron tenderly in his strong arms, and Celia followed them up the stairs. She jerked back the covers on Cameron’s bed, and Noah laid him on the fresh sheets, then tugged off his boots while she removed his rain-sodden clothes. Cameron shivered with the fever, and she pulled the covers quickly over his naked body.
“Is he gonna be all right, Miss Celia?”
“If I can keep him cool and comfortable, he will be.”
Her words were brave, but she had no idea how to treat his unknown illness. Silently she promised Cameron that she’d keep him alive if only by the strength of her will.
Mrs. Givens appeared at the door with an armload of blankets and a bucket of water. She set them on the dresser, then gathered up Cameron’s discarded clothes.
Celia poured cool water into a basin and bathed Cameron’s face.
His eyes fluttered open, and he gazed at her. “Clarissa? My head hurts.”
In his delirium, he was calling for his dead wife, not Celia.
“No, it’s me, Celia. You’re going to be fine. Just try to sleep.”
She felt his burning forehead and turned to Mrs. Givens. “Did you bring the aspirin?”
With a stricken expression, the housekeeper turned and clattered down the stairs. Noah, too, had disappeared, but Celia didn’t have time to think of either of them. She was too terrified for the life of the man before her. After turning back the covers, she placed her ear against Cameron’s chest. His lungs sounded clear, so perhaps he didn’t have pneumonia. What she needed was a broad-spectrum antibiotic, but even if she could convince Noah to go in search of one, he’d have little success without a prescription.
Perspiration already soaked the sheets where Cameron lay, and a thin stream of blood trickled from his nose. He pulled himself up weakly on his elbows, then retched with dry heaves into the bucket she’d set beside the bed. Celia wiped his mouth with a damp cloth and tucked the blankets around him once again.
“Get out of here, Celia,” he muttered in a voice so weak she had to lean toward him to hear it. “If I’m contagious—”
“Shh, just go to sleep.”
She pushed his damp hair back from his forehead, noting again the jagged white scar at his hairline. She bathed his face and hands with cool water and wished for ice.
“My head, the pain—” His words ended in a quiet moan, and his suffering stabbed at her heart.
“Aspirin will help. Mrs. Givens is bringing it.”
His face, as white as his pillow, contorted with pain, and nausea racked his body. Cameron’s survival was in her hands, and she wished for a hospital with doctors and pharmacies, but as intransigent as Mrs. Givens and Noah had been about sending for help, she might as well have wished for the moon.
For the next three days and nights, Celia didn’t know if Cameron would live or die. He remained unaware of what was happening to him and around him, his body blazed with fever, and he seemed to hang precariously between life and death. She couldn’t leave his side. Oblivious to the passage of time and the vagaries of the weather, she attempted to lower his fever with cool compresses. Several times a day, with Mrs. Givens’s help, she changed his sweat-soaked sheets and ladled into him aspirin mixed in fruit juice laced with salt and sugar, her own version of Gatorade, to fight against the fever and dehydration.
And she prayed as she’d never prayed before.
On the second day, in an attempt to make him cooler and more comfortable, she took Mrs. Givens’s dress shears and cut his hair, tangled and matted from perspiration, trimming it close to his scalp. Noah lifted Cameron’s head and shoulders while she cut. When she pulled from under him the towel that had caught the severed locks of golden hair, she slipped one of the curls into the pocket of her skirt before handing the towel to Noah to dispose of the clippings. She told herself it was a remembrance to take with her when she left the island and tried not to think that the lock might be all she’d have left of Cameron if the fever claimed him.
He didn’t lose consciousness again, but remained too ill to care what was done to him.
Noah shook his head at the close-cropped hair lying against the pillow. “If Mr. Alex lives, you gonna have a lot of explaining to do.”
“If he survives, I’ll be happy to try.”
“What you reckon he’s got, Miss Celia?”
“Whatever it is, it’s bad.” She fought back tears, afraid if she began crying, she couldn’t stop.
Noah left, and Celia remained at her vigil, catching only the briefest of catnaps in the chair beside his bed, afraid to sleep at all lest he stop breathing while she slumbered.
Cameron slept uneasily, often muttering in his sleep. She was dozing after cutting his hair, when his voice woke her.
“I love you.” His words were slurred, and she could barely understand them.
“I will love you forever.” He thrashed his head from side to side, as if in pain.
Celia leaned over him, but his eyes were closed, and he was dreaming. She smoothed his pillow and placed a fresh compress on his forehead.
Whipping his head back and forth upon the pillow, he sent the compress flying. “Clarissa, no!”
Had he had the strength, his voice would have screamed the words, but in his weakened state, his strongest effort produced only a guttural groan.
Disheartened, Celia returned to her chair, wondering how she could compete with a ghost for his affection. Cameron had claimed that he loved her, but Clarissa had been dead for eight years. If he still loved his wife so completely that he called for her in his suffering, what stock could Celia place in his claim of love for her?
“Don’t leave me!”
“I’m here, Cameron.”
But she didn’t know if he called to Clarissa or her.
The third day dawned, his body still burned with fever, and he couldn’t keep down the liquids Celia fed him by the spoonful. She despaired for his survival, questioning how a strong man like Cameron could endure, for he seemed to shrivel before her, his once powerful body only a slight mound beneath the covers. His formerly tanned skin stretched tight and pale like a death’s head over his high cheekbones, and his breath came in tortured gasps.
In desperation, Celia doubled the aspirin dosage, stripped the covers off his naked form, and stood for hours, cooling him with a large fan Noah had woven from palmetto leaves. She was ready to do battle with God himself to keep Cameron alive.
The fever finally broke.
Well-acquainted with every square inch, every beloved muscle and curve of him, she bathed him and tugged a soft linen nightshirt over him. For the first time in days, the grip of fear lessened on her heart. He seemed better, but terribly weak. After replacing his sheets with fresh ones, she turned the lamp low in the dresser. She left Noah with him and went downstairs for her first meal in three days.
When Celia entered the kitchen, Mrs. Givens glanced up with fear in her eyes, as if expecting the worst.
“I think he’s going to be all right,” Celia said.
“Praise God,” the housekeeper said with a sob, not attempting to hide her tears of relief. “I feared he would die for certain.”
Mrs. Givens scrubbed tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand and filled Celia a plate from dishes warming on the stove.
She managed only a few bites of the delicious fish stew before fatigue overcame her, and she laid her head on the table.
“Get yourself up to bed,” Mrs. Givens ordered. “I’ll sit the night with Mr. Alexander. You haven’t slept for days.”
Celia was too exhausted to argue. She stumbled up the stairs, checked to see that Cameron was sleeping peacefully, then, fully clothed, fell across the bed in her own room.
CELIA AWOKE TO THE CRIES of seagulls. After a quick wash and a change of clothes, she went next door to find Cameron propped against a bank of pillows with Noah shaving the four-day stubble from his pale face.
His forehead was cool when she laid her wrist against it, but before she could pull away, he grasped her hand and placed his lips against her wrist.
The tender gesture caught her by surprise, and her heart soared with hope that Cameron had changed his mind about sending her away. “You’re feeling better?”
“Thanks to you.” His gaze held a warmth that seeped inside her like a blessing. “Noah told me you watched over me for three solid days.”
“It was the least I could do. You took me into your home when I was shipwrecked.”
“But sheltering you didn’t place my life in danger. You took a great risk in caring for me. You may have caught whatever I had.” He studied her with a worried gaze, as if searching for signs of illness.
“I’m fine.” The emotion in his eyes made her long to tell him how much she loved him, but she remembered his last words to her before his illness, his insistence that she leave Solitaire. Cameron’s life had been spared, but her future remained a question.
“You must be hungry,” she said. “I’ll bring you a tray.”
In the kitchen, Mrs. Givens was preparing Cameron’s breakfast. She looked up at Celia’s arrival, her eyes swimming with tears. “I can’t thank you enough for the care you’ve given Mr. Alexander.”
“We’re lucky Noah found Cameron when he did and brought him home—”
Celia’s voice broke. She thought of Solitaire as home and of Noah and Mrs. Givens as the only family she had. As for Cameron, she considered him the other half of herself and didn’t want to face the prospect of life without him.
Minutes later, her emotions more composed, she carried up a tray with broth, dry toast and weak tea.
Noah was putting away the shaving cup and razor. “He’s all yours, Miss Celia.”
Noah left, and Celia placed the tray across Cameron’s lap. While he ate, she related the story of how Noah had found him and brought him home. She took comfort in the intimacy of the moment with Cameron, weak but mending, sharing with her the details of the household over breakfast.
When he finished, she removed the tray, plumped his pillows and smoothed his covers. Before she could move away, he reached for her hands and pulled her down beside him on the bed.
“I’ve been thinking of you ever since I awoke this morning,” he said, “and of the wonderful care you’ve given me.”
She ran her fingers across the ragged tufts of his hair. Her clumsy attempts at a haircut and his lack of color made him look like a punk rocker.
“I love you, Cameron. If you had died of fever—”
He placed his fingers against her lips. “You mustn’t speak of loving me. What I have to say is difficult enough already.”
A look of terrible desolation filled his eyes, and she knew what he was going to say. Knowing what was coming, however, didn’t diminish the pain.
“As soon as I am strong enough,” he said, “I’ll sail you to Key West as I promised.”
Chapter Nine
Cameron knew how close he’d come to dying and doubted he’d have survived without Celia’s devoted care. With a rueful smile, he ran his fingers over his shorn head. She’d stopped at nothing in her attempts to keep him comfortable, even whacking off his hair. After the initial shock of seeing himself in the mirror and shrugging off comparisons to Billy Idol, he had to admit he liked the look and feel of his new haircut. He’d assured her he appreciated her efforts.
The depth of her feeling for him—matching his own—made sticking to his decision to take her to Key West all the harder. But it had to be done. He had no choice. If she loved him as she professed, she would keep his location secret, thus insuring his safety. And her removal from the island and his presence would guarantee her own.
She had pleaded again to stay, but he had held firm. The confused look in her eyes told him she couldn’t reconcile his declaration of love for her with his decision to send her away, but he couldn’t explain. If she knew his secrets, her love might turn to loathing, an attitude he couldn’t face. Losing her was torment enough.
Before he could undertake the trip to Key West, however, he had to regain his strength. His weakened state reinforced how close he’d come to dying. He didn’t know what he’d contracted—encephalitis, yellow or dengue fever, malaria or some virulent strain of flu—but he watched Celia closely, fearful she might develop symptoms of the disease he’d had. As time passed and she remained healthy, his worries receded, and his days were filled with bittersweet happiness at the knowledge that they’d be the last he’d spend with her.
As if sharing his wish to wring every moment of happiness from the little time they had left together, Celia was at his side every waking moment, reading aloud to him until he was strong enough to leave his bed. She supported him when he took his first wobbly steps to the veranda, where they sat and watched the everchanging face of the gulf and sky. The next day, they walked downstairs, and the day after that, as far as the dunes.
His strength grew each day, and by the fourth day, they walked to the beach, where Noah had constructed a Seminole chickee of cypress poles and palm fronds to protect them from the sun. Noah spread a rug across the sand beneath the shade and brought chairs and a table from the house, creating an outdoor living room.
Although the pace of their days was languid and peaceful, for Cameron they passed in a fast forward mode, rushing him nearer to the day of Celia’s departure. Ten days after his fever had broken, in the late afternoon he sat in his large armchair with his feet on a hassock. During the first days of his recovery, he’d dozed often, but as his strength rallied, he’d read and made notations in his journal or at times simply smoked his pipe and gazed at the shifting seascape. No matter what he did, he was constantly aware of Celia at his
side. He reveled in the melodic lilt of her voice when she read to him, the brilliance of her smile, and the special scent of her carried on the breeze.
That afternoon, she sat with her head uncovered, her magnificent auburn hair ruffled by the wind, her tanned bare feet thrust before her, and she managed to look elegant and delectable even in Mrs. Givens’s oversize hand-me-downs.
“After living in London, coming here must have taken quite an adjustment,” she said.
He puffed on his pipe and watched a great blue heron fly along the surf. As always, when he spoke of the past, he chose his words carefully lest he divulge too much. “From the day my father died, my life was a headlong rush of activity. I had to learn the mining business as I was running it, and the operation of the farms and other interests as well. I’d rise at four o’clock each morning, leave for the office, and often not return until midnight.”
“But you were such a young man. What did you do for fun?”
“There was no fun. I hated the mines and the office, but I had an overwhelming desire to please my father—even though he was long dead—by managing the business as he would have.”
“Leaving all that behind must have lifted a terrible burden from your shoulders.”
“Only an exchange.”
“An exchange?”
“Of one burden for another.”
She paused, as if waiting for him to explain what burden he had accepted in fleeing to his island, but he couldn’t divulge more.
“At least it’s peaceful here,” she finally said, “away from the bustle of the city and the pressures of your office.”
He wondered if the misery he felt showed. “Peace comes from the heart. I have no peace.”
Her gaze searched his face, but he could offer no further explanation.
Unable to withstand her empathetic scrutiny, he turned his attention back to the water. He looked up and down the beach, but could find no sign of the pelicans, herons and gulls that usually flocked toward the shore as the sun began to set. “That’s odd. The birds have disappeared.”
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