Nine Lives - Danielle Steel Page 0,84

wouldn’t mind. He had always wanted her to be happy. She would always love him, and still did, but she knew that this was where she was meant to be now. For some reason, Paul had come back to her, and he had survived the impossible. She knew that her place was with him, and so did he.

“Try to sleep for a while,” she said gently.

“Sit next to me.” He still looked like an old man and some of the burns on his face were still bright red, but he looked more like himself again, just older.

She sat next to him until he fell asleep, and then she tiptoed out of the room to put some of her things away and tidy up the house. She had left it a mess when she ran out to fly to him. She stood, gazing out the window, and smiled. The man with nine lives had come back to her. It was going to be a very good Christmas after all, for all three of them.

Chapter 15

Maggie took care of Paul on her own for the first few days. She stood in the shower with him to make sure he didn’t fall, and gently bathed his burns and injuries. She massaged his hands and feet as the nurses had shown her how to, and soon he was walking almost normally.

Jeff and Helen came to visit him, and gave him a hero’s welcome, and Paul and Aden both cried when Aden came home. Aden helped Paul to the shower and down the stairs, and drove him into town so he could buy a few things. Paul told Aden what it had been like, buried, thinking about both of them. He admitted that it had been a foolish thing to do and he wouldn’t do it again.

One night while Paul was sleeping, Aden and Maggie decorated the house with the colored lights as they always did. Paul had tears in his eyes when he woke up in the night, and saw it from the window. The next day, he watched them decorate the Christmas tree. He told her he’d never had one as a boy. He felt like an orphan who had been deposited in a family, and he couldn’t believe how lucky he was to be alive and there with them.

Maggie prepared their traditional Christmas dinner, and for the rest of the week, Paul and Aden watched sports on TV, when Aden wasn’t out with his friends. Maggie played Christmas carols. Paul wanted to go out, but the streets were icy, and she was afraid he’d fall. He let her keep him home and enjoyed it.

Aden left on the morning of New Year’s Eve, to go skiing in Vermont as he had the year before. Paul looked at her after he left. The house seemed empty without him. Paul seemed more like himself again. It had been a month since they found him, and he felt ready to reenter his world. Being in Lake Forest with Maggie was like being in a cocoon. He was ready to spread his wings and fly. She could see that he was getting restless.

“What do you say we get out of here for a few weeks, and spend some time on the Lady Luck?” Paul suggested. “She’s sitting there in Antigua, and the crew has nothing to do. I could use some warm weather.” And they had told him that swimming would be good for his feet. They were almost back to normal, but he hadn’t regained full feeling yet, and he knew he needed to. He wanted to get back in shape.

“Do you feel up to the trip?” she asked him, and he laughed.

“I may look a hundred years old, but I’m not a hundred yet.” He called the captain and his pilot and arranged for them to be picked up the next day. All he had to do was grab a phone and make magic happen. He had been helpless for the last month, but he no longer was. He was like a sleeping lion coming awake. “I can’t believe what good care you’ve taken of me, Maggie,” he said, and kissed her as they lay in her bed that night. She had cared for him like a baby, and nursed him back to life. It was a cozy way to spend New Year’s Eve, and she didn’t mind. On the boat, he would have his crew to help him. He was getting antsy