Always Emily. Mary Sullivan
curator, Salem had helped to design the building and had turned it into one of the best museums in the state, and as beautiful as Emily remembered.
A crystal in a sea of green, three stories of glass and brushed steel with a polished wooden column running up the center that housed the elevator and washrooms, it shone like an oasis in the desert of her life.
The hallowed beauty of both the woods and the building had given her peace over the years.
Small spotlights on the first floor highlighted the artwork on a full-size teepee in the foyer. The architect had created a twenty-foot ceiling to accommodate it. Her breath caught in her throat. Lord, the place was gorgeous, glowing from within.
Since it was Saturday and the museum was closed for the evening, the public areas were dark.
On the third floor, a single yellow light shone in Salem’s office. Why was he here on a Saturday night? He should be home with his family. Or maybe a better question was why he wasn’t at her father’s birthday party. He was a friend of the family. He and her father had buckets of respect for each other. She should have noticed that he wasn’t at the house when she’d arrived.
Salem is here. The hell with his order to stay away. She needed him.
So close and yet so far away. She needed Salem, his calming energy and his quiet efficiency. Salem could handle anything thrown at him, and Emily was running on empty. She needed a friend.
She had to get up there, to him, if only her shaky legs would cooperate. He might be upset with her, but could he really turn a sick person away? She planned to take advantage of his innate decency.
First, though, she had to hide the prayer book.
A good forty yards from the back door of the Heritage Center, she dug a hole at the edge of the woods then placed the plastic-wrapped relic reverently in its new burial site.
“Just for now,” she whispered as though it were alive. “Until I figure out what to do with you. I’ll get you home somehow.”
She covered the package with soil and leaves and branches, and lastly, a large rock she pushed and pulled into place until her arms burned. Glancing around, she tried to memorize her position so she would know where to dig when she came back to retrieve it, but the rain, dusk and her fever messed with her eyesight. What if she made a mistake and wasn’t able to find it again? She would never forgive herself. She hung the trowel from the remainder of a broken tree branch where it sat against the trunk of the tree, above the new grave to mark the spot. No one would notice it here.
There. She’d done as much as she could tonight.
Her breath whooshing in and out of her, she leaned against the tree for a moment to regain enough strength to get into the Cathedral and up those stairs to Salem.
She managed to make it to the building and stepped out of the rain that was coming down harder now. If nothing had changed in the years she’d been gone, she should be able to avoid banging into display cases and follow that sole yellow lamp shining on the third floor.
Beside the door, she found the felt slippers that all visitors donned to protect the glass floors and stairs from grit and dirt. She slid her old hiking boots into the oversize slippers.
When she pressed the elevator button, nothing happened. Shut down for the night, she guessed.
She climbed the stairs gingerly, but her headache still worsened with every step.
The second floor, she knew, housed displays of gorgeous beaded and quilled moccasins as well as artifacts the Jordan land had yielded to both professional and student archaeologists.
At the moment she didn’t care. She’d spent too much time in the past and not enough paying attention to the present, to her self slipping away from her so slowly and subtly she’d been stripped bare without knowing it, left skinned and vulnerable with nowhere to turn but here.
So dizzy her stomach roiled, she clung to the banister. Her hands shook again, this time more from greed than illness.
I want...
She wasn’t sure what.
She knew only that she was exhausted with the struggle to keep herself in one piece.
She forced one foot in front of the other. On the second-floor landing, she stopped to catch her breath, like an old woman on her last legs, so close to finally achieving...what?
On the landing on the third floor, she stopped and stared at Salem through glass walls.
He bent over his desk, over a book, his attention focused and disciplined, as was his way. His dark straight hair hung in a braid down the center of his back.
This close to him, peace enveloped her. It settled over her with the softness of a flannel blanket. She watched him. This, he, was exactly who she needed. She wanted to lay her head and her troubles on his broad chest.
When she swayed, it alerted him to her presence.
His jaw fell, his expression equal parts shock and anger. She knew she’d flitted into and out of his life too many times. Oh, Salem, I’m home. For good.
He stood, dropping the book onto the desk.
His simple male beauty stunned her. Why had she stayed away when perfection had been here all along?
He came to the door. “Emily?” His deepening frown reminded her of their argument.
When are you going to stop running, Emily?
Now, she thought. I’m not going anywhere anymore. Honest.
She felt herself slipping, falling.
“Emily!” He caught her before she hit the floor, his arms strong and dependable and oh so welcome.
“Salem,” she whispered. “I’m sick.”
Salem lifted her and carried her off. Her head fell against his solid shoulder. She didn’t know where he took her. It didn’t matter.
She’d made it home.
* * *
EMILY. LIKE FIREWORKS, or shooting stars, Emily was here one moment, but gone the next. What was she doing here now?
God or the devil or both had a wicked sense of humor. Why did they keep sending her back to him? It messed with the balance he strived so hard for in his life.
He’d told her to stay away. After first asking her to stay here with you. After nearly asking her to marry you.
A moment of temporary insanity, of wanting life to go my way, even briefly. Of needing an end to the loneliness.
That night in the moonlight, Emily had looked like heaven.
He loved his daughters and respected the daylights out of his father, but missed having a woman around. Worse, he missed Emily. He’d married one woman while he’d wanted another, and had spent his married life suppressing his desire and trying to be a good husband. He had paid a price, and the currency had been longing, yearning and too much time spent alone.
He’d spent his married years tamping his emotions into a hard brick of denial, constantly controlling everything he said to his wife, and everything he did with Emily.
Then Annie had died.
That night last year, he’d gotten this crazy thought. There had been a long period of mourning, out of respect for the mother of his children. That time had passed. Now he and Emily could be together.
He had thought she would return his feelings and want to be with him, but despite telling her how he felt, she’d left anyway.
He’d blurted his heart’s desire. Thank the Lord, she’d said no. He’d dodged a bullet.
In his smarter moments, he knew it would never work between them. Emily loved adventure.
Salem glanced longingly at the book he’d been studying. Reason, intellect and