Page 40 of Dearly Departed

“I know,” Catherine huffs, her cheeks flushing a deeper red. “I know you love me. You don’t have to be so weird about it. You can just love me instead of feeling bad about it and keeping it a secret. Because I’m so in love with you. I don’t care if you feel guilty. I’m in love with you. I love you.”

I don’t kiss her. My mouth tastes dryly horrible, and I don’t entirely trust my balance. I do gather her in again.

“I’m sorry for…” Catherine’s voice is fairly clear in my mind, but my own voice is a blank. “Anything I said. How long was I sleeping?”

“Like, part of a day. You were awake the rest of the time. It was so scary.”

Catherine keeps her face in my shoulder, so I can only feel her tense up.

“What did I say, kitten? I probably didn’t mean it, whatever it was. I’m sorry I scared you.”

“You didn’t. The—the fever scared me. And we should put more stuff on your scratches.”

“They don’t hurt.”

“I don’t care! We have to put the cream on. That could be the only thing protecting you from the wilderness.”

“We’re not touching the wilderness.”

“You never know.” Catherine lifts her head, then, and looks me in the eyes. “You were sick for—it felt like a million years. We have no idea what Raymond Harris was doing all that time. He could be waiting outside the door right now.”

“I’ll check.”

Catherine lunges, pinning me down on the bed. “Don’t. Move.”

She’s a beautiful, menacing thing, deadly serious, determined. Catherine might even be dangerous. I’ve been absent, in some kind of dream world, and it would be fitting if she discovered she had claws in the interval.

And behind that ferocity—the one lighting her eyes and turning her mouth into a flawless scowl— I can feel her fear. She’s pushed it down deep, hidden it as much as she can, but it’s still trembling, still making her heart race, just there, just under the surface.

“I’m not going anywhere.” I stroke her hair back from her face. She had it in a bun, I think. Most of it’s come loose from the elastic, and it falls like a curtain. When I tuck it behind her ear, more sunlight kisses her cheek. “I won’t, kitten. I’m staying here. With you. I love you.”

It catches her off-guard despite our very recent discussion. Catherine’s smile is huge and bright and uninhibited, wrinkling her nose and almost—almost—creating a dimple.

I love her. I’m so fucking in love with her. I’m not confident in my ability to walk across the cabin without losing my balance and falling over, but I’m absolutely confident that I’d do it for her. I’d try until I was successful. I’d have to be dead to stop trying.

She leans down and nuzzles my cheek with her nose, then follows it with a sweet, soft kiss.

I love that, too.

Catherine lays her head on my shoulder and we stay like that, quiet together, for some amount of time. It’s more than I thought we’d have when the plane was going down and less than I want.

It’s less than forever.

It’s always going to be less than forever as long as we’re on this island, but I have just survived another ordeal, and I can’t think that far ahead yet.

Catherine sighs. “Maybe…”

“What is it, kitten?”

“Maybe you should look out the window. Just in case.”

I kiss the top of her head. “All right. Help me up.”

“I should come in with you.” Catherine keeps her arm around my waist while we stand at the window, looking out. There’s nobody there. I haven’t heard any other scratching sounds. We seem to be alone in the clearing. “You were, like, really sick. I don’t want you to fall and crack your head open.”

“There’s not enough room to crack my head open in that shower. Or fall, for that matter.”

“I should stand outside, then.”