Chapter 23: The Empty Chair

Marcella's POV

I woke at seven with the lamp still burning and a man's arm across my waist.

For one second I forgot everything.

Then I felt the weight of him, warm and heavy and asleep, with his face pressed into the pillow beside mine.

He had stayed.

I lay still and looked at him.

In sleep his mouth was soft and the line between his brows was gone.

He looked like the man I had first seen at a hospital window, three and a half years ago.

I did not wake him.

I got up quietly and made coffee instead, in my robe, in my own kitchen.

The pot was still gurgling when someone began to pound on the door.

"Marcy! I brought soup, and I'm not leaving until you tell me you're alive!"

"Mara..."

She came in with a pot in both arms, and stopped.

Scott stood in the bedroom doorway in his trousers and nothing else.

His hair was on end, and he looked alarmed.

Mara looked at him, and then at me, and then at the ceiling.

"Ellery," she said.

"Mara."

"I told you what I'd do."

"You said a stent."

"I did say a stent." She put the soup on the counter. "But you stayed past midnight, so I'll give you a day."

"Thank you."

"One day. And put a shirt on. I'm a doctor, not a saint."

He retreated, red to the ears.

Mara turned to me with the widest grin I had seen on her in years.

"You're glowing," she whispered.

"I'm not."

"You're radiating. Eleanor's going to find out in an hour."

"Eleanor's been planning this since the hospital room," I said.

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