Jordan by Susan Kearney

spying several blue boxes, she snagged one and held it up. “How about mac and cheese?”
    The kids cheered. Vi helped Haven replace the bookcase, then lifted the little boy onto her hip. “All right. Now, who wants
     to help me cook?”
    Jordan knew children went hungry. But to feel the gnawing pain in Vivianne’s empty stomach had him angry and frustrated, and
     puzzled at this new connection between them. They hadn’t made love. So what was going on? Had he been wrong about the Staff
     causing them to share memories?
    Whatever was happening, it was too late for him to stop caring about her.
    He placed his fingers on her pulse. Still weak.
    “Come on, Vi. You’re a fighter.
Fight.
” He smoothed back a reddish lock from her forehead, massaged her arms and fingers with his hands, rubbed her calves with
     his toes. He’d give the
Draco’
s plumbing another five minutes to warm up, then he’d take her under a hot shower.
    “Vi?” He breathed warm air onto her face. She remained still. Deathly still. He cupped her jaw and stroked her cheek. “We
     need you with us. Wake up.”
    Her eyelids fluttered and stilled.
    “Vi? Please. Open those pretty eyes for me.”
    Her lids fluttered again.
    “Come back to me, Vi,” he murmured. “You can do this. Open those clever green eyes. Look at me. Just open your eyes and look
     at me.”
    Ever so slowly, she woke up.
    Finally.
    But although her eyes were open, at first she didn’t seem to see him.
    “You’re safe.” He gathered her against his chest, inhaled her scent.
    But then she pulled back, focused. Frowned. “Where the hell did you go?”
    He was so happy to see that she was all right, he threw back his head and laughed. Then he reached for her again.
    She pummeled his shoulder with her fist. “It’s not funny.”
    Jordan couldn’t have been more pleased when his shoulder hurt. It meant she had strength. It meant she would live to fight
     with him some more.
    “How do you feel?” he asked, sitting up and tucking the blanket back around her.
    She craned her neck to look out the cabin’s portal.
    “Thanks to you, the cubes are gone,” he said, rubbing her forearms through the blanket. “Your plan worked. They left, and
     the energy came back on.”
    “Everyone’s okay?” she asked.
    “Yes.” He pointed to her feet where he’d wrapped the dog in part of her blanket. “Even George. He wouldn’t leave, so I figured
     you might as well get the benefit of his body heat.”
    “Here, boy.” She wriggled her fingers and the dog crawled up the blankets to lick her hand, then plopped onto her chest and
     peered right into her face. “I’m okay. But George is heavy.” She slid him to one side but kept him cuddled against her hip.
    Her eyes fluttered closed again and she slept. Relieved, Jordan eased back beside her and slept with her. When she wakened
     a second time a few hours later, their legs were twined, one of his arms resting intimately on her hip.
    He got up and fed her some hot broth. Again they slept, and this time when she woke up, her strength had returned.
    But tension arced between them. It didn’t take telepathic powers to know she was still furious with him for abandoning her
     and the bridge.
    He took the chair next to the bed. “I left to protect the Staff. If it had gotten too cold, the power might not have come
     back on.”
    She locked gazes with him. “So how did you keep it warm?”
    “I removed it from the
Draco’
s housing, retracted it, and placed it inside my shirt.”
    “So you could have returned to the bridge?” she challenged him.
    “Yes. But I feared the cold would slow me down. So I stayed in the engine compartment, waiting for the moment when you’d need
     me to place the Staff back into the housing.” And he’d prayed that the Staff’s power wouldn’t drop so low that he’d be forced
     back into owl form, unable to help her when she needed him.
    She stared at him, her eyes swirling green pools of