Page 79 of Dream Lake

“And you said yes?” Alex asked Emma.

She nodded. “I suppose I thought if I could never have Tom, it didn’t matter whom I married. And Gus wrote lovely letters. But then his plane was shot down. It reminded me so much of losing Tom. When I found out that Gus had survived, I was very relieved. He had a head wound… they operated to remove shrapnel… and he was sent back to the States on medical discharge. After he left the hospital, I married him. But there were problems.”

“What kind of problems?”

“It had to do with the head wound. It changed his personality… flattened it, somehow. He was still intelligent, but his emotions were gone. He was indifferent to everything. Like a robot. His family said he wasn’t the same man.”

“I’ve heard of that happening with some brain injuries,” Alex said.

“He never got better. He never really cared about anything. Even our son.” Blinking like an exhausted child, Emma pulled her hands from Alex’s and settled back against the sofa. “It was a mistake. Poor Gus. I need to rest now.”

“May I help you to your room?” Alex asked.

She shook her head. “I like it here.”

He stood and reached down to lift her feet to the ottoman.

“Alex,” Emma said as he rearranged the throw blanket and drew it up to her shoulders.

“Yes?”

“Let him help you,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “For his sake.”

Alex shook his head, slightly mystified.

The ghost looked shaken. “My God, Emma.”

Hearing the sound of a car pulling into the carport, Alex went outside. It was Zoë, back from the grocery store. She hopped out of the car and opened the back, reaching for a pair of canvas bags filled with groceries.

“I’ll get those,” Alex said, walking toward her.

Zoë started at the sound of his voice and looked at him in surprise. “Hi,” she exclaimed brightly. She looked stressed as hell, her face pale, her eyes tired. “How was the wedding?”

“It was fine.” He took the bags from her. “How are you?”

“Great,” she said, too quickly.

Alex set the bags down and turned Zoë to face him. She was standing a step above him, all fast-breathing tension and locked muscles. “I heard that Emma was a handful this weekend,” he said bluntly.

Zoë avoided his gaze. “Oh, we had a rough patch. But it’s fine now.”

Alex discovered that he couldn’t stand it when she put up a front for him. He settled his hands at her hips. “Talk to me.”

Zoë stared at him, looking flustered. In the silence, he brought her against him slowly. She took an anxious breath, her composure unraveling. Wrapping his arms around her, he surrounded her with all his warmth and strength. She fit against him perfectly, her head tucked into the crook of his neck and shoulder.

He slid his hand into her hair and sifted lightly through the blond curls. “What did Emma do to your computer?”

Zoë’s voice was compressed against his shoulder. “She zoomed the screen out so far that the icons are ginormous and I can’t close the magnifier. And somehow she made copies of the task bar so there are at least eight of them, and I can’t make them go away. And to top it all off, she somehow managed to turn the entire screen upside down.”

“I can fix that stuff,” he said.

“I thought Sam was the computer genius.”

“Trust me on this: don’t ever let Sam near your computer. By the time he leaves, he’s changed all your passwords, illegally hooked you up to the Department of Defense grid, and Bluetooth-enabled everything in your house until you can’t use your toaster because it’s not discoverable.” He felt the shape of Zoë’s smile against his neck. Smoothing her hair back, he murmured near her ear, “You don’t need a genius. You just need a guy who can do some troubleshooting.”

“You’re hired,” she said, her face still hidden.

He pressed his lips to her hair. “What else can I do?”

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