Desmond thanked Doctor Chen for his good work, and hurried home to be with Rebecca. As he keyed the card reader outside his door, a wave of weakness. .h.i.t him. He clutched the door frame, and staggered inside.

The room seemed wavy and out of focus. He blinked his eyes, but it didn't help. He rubbed his hand across his face. When he brought it away, it was damp. His face was covered in sweat.

His curse was in full force. He was sharing her death.

"No!" he croaked. He would not lose her now. Not when they were so close.

He made his way to the bedroom and threw open the door. Rebecca lay under a mound of bedding, her face streaked with sweat. She moaned softly and twitched at the covers, her head rolling from side to side in mute denial of her sickness.

He had to lower her fever. Now. He couldn't wait to get her to the hospital.

The room spun about him. He swayed, but stayed on his feet. His weakness didn't matter. He had to save Rebecca.

Stumbling into the bathroom, he caught the edge of the sink to keep from falling. He fumbled with the cold water tap, finally twisting it open, and drenched a towel in the tepid water. Letting the water run until it turned glacial, he filled a cup then gulped it down. His parched throat cried out for more, and he drained three cups before filling one for Rebecca.

The cold and the moisture braced him, and he returned to her steady on his feet. Kneeling beside thebed, so that his body heat would not add to her discomfort, he bathed her face and torso with the wet towel. Rebecca's restless thrashing stilled somewhat, and he lifted her up enough to wet her lips with the cup of water. Even in her fevered state, she recognized what he was doing, and reached for the cup with both hands.

Swallowing the water in greedy gulps, she continued to suck at the cup even after she'd drained it dry.

He pulled it away, easily overwhelming her feeble resistance, and placed a corner of the towel over her lips instead. She sucked the moisture from the already warm towel, and he hurried back to the bathroom to get a fresh towel and a full gla.s.s of water.

When he returned, not half a minute later, she was writhing on the bed. Her breath came in short pants, punctuated by growling moans. He rushed to her side, placing a hand on her forehead to discover how high her fever had risen.

Struggling to hold her head still, he ended up winding his arm around her neck in a half-nelson. Pinning her in place, he retrieved the cup he'd set down and lifted it to her lips. She stopped fighting long enough to swallow all the water, and he took advantage of the pause to throw the new towel around her. Her blistering heat scorched it in seconds.

His efforts weren't enough. Her fever was still climbing faster than he could offset it. He needed a faster way to cool her.

The tub! Disentangling himself from her, he ran back to the bathroom, this time throwing wide the spigot in the tub, filling it with a cascade of lukewarm water. He turned back to the bedroom, and stopped in horror.

Rebecca had pushed herself into a seated position, cringing against the headboard, as she stared around her with wild-eyed terror. Her hands moved in a blur before her face, swatting and swiping at something only she could see. With a cry, she began desperately clawing at her arms and chest.

He raced toward her, frantic to stop her before she injured herself. Before he'd crossed half the room, she suddenly stopped, her eyes growing wide as she stared at a spot a few feet above the foot of the bed. A beatific smile spread across her face, a chilling contrast to her flushed skin and sweat-matted hair.

"Daddy," she breathed. "You came for me."

"No!" Desmond bellowed, as if he could enforce his will by sheer volume alone. Grabbing Rebecca around the waist, he hauled her towards the bathroom.

She pounded his shoulders and kicked his shins, but he barely felt it. No bodily harm could match the searing pain slicing through his heart. He pulled her toward the bathroom by instinct alone, his vision blackening as his ears filled with the beating wings of a thousand birds.

"No. Let me go," she whimpered. "Let me go. I have to go. Daddy!"

He plunged her into the water, heedless of the shock to her system.

"Never! You aren't cursed. You will not die!"

Her eyes rolled back in her head and she sagged limp in his arms. He pulled her body from the tub, frantic to find a heartbeat. Her heart raced within her chest, but she showed no other sign of life.

Kneeling on the slick tile beside her body, Desmond captured her hands between his. He was losing her. He wasn't good enough. He couldn't save her. She was going to die, and it would all be his fault, not because he had cursed her, but because he'd waited too long to get help bringing her fever down.

The black emptiness of an eternity without her yawned before him, an endless existence with no hope of life.

And then her fingers tightened on his hand.

He dared to open his eyes. The harsh scarlet streaking her face had faded to a soft rose, and her chest rose and fell evenly. Her mouth was closed, although a faint smile tilted at the corners, and her eyelashes rested lightly against her cheeks in normal slumber.

He squeezed his eyes shut and took a breath so deep, he thought it would shatter his chest. "I love you," he breathed.

Careful not to jostle her, he slid his arms beneath her and lifted her up. She mumbled in her sleep, and curved toward his chest, nestling her head against his shoulder. He'd never seen or felt anything so wonderful. Placing her reverently onto the bed, he sat at her side and watched her sleep. Her fever hadn't completely abated, and he continued to bathe her with tepid water. But she'd survived the worst of it. She would live. All she needed now was time.

He laughed. Time. She had all she needed, now.

VOICES AT THE door, and the sound of a keycard in the lock, broke his concentration. Gillian was home from her picnic. She mustn't be allowed to see Rebecca like this. Not so soon after losing her mother.

He grabbed his robe and threw it on. He reached the door just as it opened.

"Daddy!" Gillian squealed and launched herself at him. He caught her, crushing her to him in a tighter-than-usual embrace, and let her cascade of happy thoughts wash over him. His wife and his daughter. He had them both. And after coming so close to losing both of them, the sudden rush of joy staggered him.

He could even restore his friendship with Philippe. After all, Rebecca's reaction to learning Desmond was cursed had been the exact opposite of Philippe's prediction. Philippe had never been one to stand on pride, though. He'd admit he was wrong. The future had never seemed brighter.

Desmond struggled to maintain his composure, and act normally.

"Did you have a nice picnic, sweetheart?"

"We had fun! We went outside in the sun, and sat on warm rocks, and picked flowers, and fed squirrels." A montage of thought-pictures accompanied her words.

"And did you enjoy it, Mrs. Waters?"

"We had a lovely time. How was your wedding?" She tried not to look at his bathrobe and obvious exhaustion, drawing the natural conclusion.

"Wonderful. Rebecca looked radiant. Unfortunately, she also came down with something while we were in Las Vegas. She's been running a pretty high fever the last few hours."

"Nothing serious, I hope."

He didn't answer. How could he? Instead, he asked, "Would you mind watching Gillian one more day?"

"But Daddy," Gillian started to protest.

"You're only just getting well again. I'm not taking any chances with you."

"But I live here. Make her leave."

"Sweetheart, Rebecca lives here, too, now."

As if on cue, the door to his bedroom opened and Rebecca walked out, wrapped sarong-style in a sheet.

"Is there anything to eat in this house? I'm starved," she croaked.

"Rebecca," he whispered, hardly daring to believe she was really there. Her chestnut hair hung in bedraggled, sweat-soaked strands around her pinched and drawn face. But her fever had broken. She'd never looked lovelier. And now that she'd pa.s.sed the critical point, the neukocytes in her blood stream would be healing her with as much speed as they'd previously made her ill.

"Mrs. Lacroix, I'm glad you're feeling better." Mrs. Waters bustled past him into the kitchen. "You just tell me what you want, now, and I'll bring you in a tray. Some nice soup, perhaps? A sandwich?"

"That sounds great. Maybe two sandwiches. I'm really hungry."

Gillian poked Desmond's shoulder. "I wanna help."

"You want to help make a sandwich for Rebecca?" He didn't think he'd understood her correctly, but Gillian nodded. Thought-pictures of when she'd been sick, and the people she'd cared about had tended her, flashed through his mind. Mixed in were dim memories of her mother's illness, when Gillian had been an infant.

He set her down with a light kiss on her forehead. His family. It was more than he'd dared to hope for, more than he'd ever believed. And because of Rebecca, he had it all.

"Go ahead and help Mrs. Waters. Rebecca will like that."

Gillian laughed and pelted into the kitchen.

"Why will I like that?" Rebecca asked, arching her eyebrow. "First of all, because you're starving." He walked across the room, feasting his eyes on her. He'd been so afraid of losing her. Now that she was here to stay, he didn't think he'd ever be able to get enough of her. Lifting her into his arms, he carried her back into their room. "Second, because even though you're getting better, you still need rest, and I'm putting you to bed."

He laid her gently on the bed, then fluffed the pillows behind her head. Going over to the dresser, he picked up a hair brush, then came back and sat beside her. As he smoothed the brush through her hair, she closed her eyes and sighed in contentment.

"Any other reasons?"

"Yes." He leaned down and touched her lips with a kiss. "Because I'm putting you to bed, and you don't need that much rest."

She laughed, and wound her arms around his neck.

"You're right. I think I'll like that very much."

Jennifer Dunne JENNIFER DUNNE wrote her first "book" at the age of four, telling the story of a lost little girl and a helpful elephant. She was all set for a career in the literary arts, to begin in that far off misty future after kindergarten a" then she discovered a book about "the new math" on the coffee table, and fell in love with numbers instead. After getting a degree in math, followed by a masters awarded for teaching a computer how to take relationship building into account for negotiations, she joined IBM and devoted herself to doing neat things with computers, all the time continuing to write romance stories as a way of balancing so much logical brain activity. Much to her surprise, and despite everything her mother had always warned her about, people were actually willing to pay her for these stories.

Combining her love of science with her love of romance, Jennifer became the driving force behind the Science Fiction Romance newsletter, tirelessly working to promote books mixing these elements, and the two-term president of RWA's Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal chapter. Her first book, the science fiction romance RAVEN'S HEART, won the EPPIE Award for best science fiction original ebook.

Visit Jennifer's website at: www.jenniferdunne.com