Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 140965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 705(@200wpm)___ 564(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 705(@200wpm)___ 564(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
He felt her head move. She was nodding, but she still didn’t look at him. Exhaustion. Fatigue. Whatever you want to call it. I can barely lift my arms up. It came on fast. And my body hurts, all my muscles. I’ve never felt like this before.
She’d never been sick. Shylah didn’t get viruses. His heart skipped a beat and then began pounding. She wasn’t supposed to get sick. Trap had said they were both infected, but they were fighting it off. She wasn’t supposed to get sick. He hadn’t allowed himself to think of that possibility. He tightened his arms around her as if that would save her. It didn’t matter that he knew they’d both been infected. He wasn’t prepared for her to get sick.
“All right, sweetheart. Let’s get back to the house. We were up all night and traveling back and forth, all those miles separating us from the MSS village … It’s tiring. Isn’t that what you keep saying to me?”
She nodded her head, still very close to his chest, close enough that he felt the deep breath she took. He knew the moment she got herself together. He knew Shylah Cosmos was the woman for him. In the absolute worst of circumstances, she would stand. He let her step away, but he reached for her hand.
“I think we should get married.”
She tilted her head to look up at him, but her mouth curved into that smile that always teased every one of his senses. Amusement. She could feel it and give him that same sense of playfulness and joy that she seemed to have in abundance. “I think you’re a little crazy, Draden.”
“It makes sense.”
“It makes no sense. Why would we get married?”
“Because when I die, I want to go out as your husband.” He’d put the idea out there because he knew she’d smile, but once he voiced it, he found he wanted to marry her.
She walked in silence for a few minutes, not shooting him down, but clearly giving it some thought. “Do you think we have time for that? We’re in Indonesia. Even if we got married, would it be legal?”
He grinned at her. “We’re going to be dead before it matters, but I think yes. I’ve heard it can be done.”
“We’re not really thinking of doing this, are we?” She looked up at his face as they walked.
Draden pulled her under his shoulder, needing to feel as if he were protecting her. He loved looking down at her face. Shylah was back to being herself, that woman who accepted who and what she was as well as who and what he was. She saw him, that man who kept himself isolated, so separate from the rest of the world. She saw him for what he was, and she liked him anyway. Not only liked him but was falling hard for him. He felt it each time he connected with her mind to mind.
To keep her from thinking about dying, he was willing to talk marriage and everything else in between. “Why not? We can do whatever the hell we want to do.” Now that they were both symptomatic, he doubted they had more than a day or two at most, but they could plan. And dream. They had to have something to take their mind off the ugly way they were going to go.
He realized he really did want to die her husband. If they had one day or one hour, it didn’t matter. He wanted that time with her as the man in her life.
She shook her head, her eyes still bright from tears, but she was grinning as she glanced down at the path. “I should say yes and then if we both survived, you’d be stuck.”
He nudged her with his hip. “So would you. Be stuck, I mean, with me. And I’m a much bigger pain in the ass than you are.”
“That would depend entirely on who you ask. If you consult Whitney, he would tell you, without a doubt, that I am.”
He liked the smugness in her voice. Shylah was getting back to her normal self. She was so much like Nonny, she could have been her daughter. “I can imagine you with me in the swamp, helping to raise our sons, shotgun right at your side, everywhere you go.”
“Daughters.”
“Baby. Really? I’m a manly man and I have manly sperm, the kind that only throws sons. Way, way too much testosterone for the female children. You’re going to have to let that dream go.”
“I have my heart set on daughters, so you’re going to have to tone down the male craziness and get the feminine vibe going.”
“I don’t want to crush your heart, sweetheart, but, aside from the fact that it would be impossible for a man like me to do that, it’s just plain not happening. I’d kill any idiot who was dumb enough to try to date a daughter of mine.”