A Summer to Remember (29 page)

Damn it, he knew she trusted him. Knew a woman who'd been raised the way she was didn't let just anyone into her life. Knew she'd been as attracted to him from the start, knew she'd been hurt, knew she was wary.

He knew she loved him. Knew her heart had recognized its tiny missing piece in his heart, just the way his heart had recognized its missing piece in hers.

Hell, he wasn't even really disappointed. He just couldn't put his finger on what he
was
.

But he had time to figure it out.
They
had time.

Fia finished the toast and delicately wiped her fingers on the tissue. “I know you're angry—”

“I'm not angry,” he interrupted a little too angrily to be effective.

“And I don't blame you. I never wanted to hurt you. I never thought…things happened so quickly…you're just so freaking special…” Her smile was unsteady, and as she looked away, the light glistened in her eyes.

Or were those tears?
Aw, man, don't cry. I can't handle crying.

Her gaze came back to him. Definitely tears. “So now you know everything, and I can quit worrying, and you can start over. Move on. Find someone else.”

His eyes widened, and his jaw damn near hit the floor. “Move on? Find someone else? You're dumping me
now?
Are you
serious?
”

She flinched at either the tone or the volume of his voice, but she managed to maintain some level of calm. “Elliot, I'm sick. I don't know whether I'm going to get better or get worse or if I'll even be alive a year from now. I don't have a future to share with you!”

Forgetting his hair was in a ponytail, he raked his fingers through it, snagging the band and yanking loose a half-dozen hairs in the process. He'd never met a woman who literally drove him to pull out his hair in frustration, but this one was doing a pretty good job of it. “That's bullshit, and you know it, Fia. Remember what you told me? Life happens in an instant. No one's guaranteed anything beyond this moment. The future can mean fifty years or twenty years from now, but it can also mean next month or next week or tomorrow.
Everyone
has a future. Maybe not as long as they'd like, but we all have one.”

Yep, definitely tears. First one, then another, slid down her cheeks, catching at the corners of her mouth. That weakness he'd always had for a crying woman surfaced with a need to wrap his arms around her, stroke her hair, and swear to her on all that was holy that everything would be all right.

But he didn't know that for a fact. That big uncertainty was still gnawing in his gut, growing slowly but steadily, and he still didn't know what it was.

“You want kids, Elliot?”

The abrupt change of subject gave the uncertainty a big growth spike. His impulse was to blurt out,
Hell, yeah
, but good sense clamped his jaw shut first, giving him time to choose his words carefully. “I would love to have kids. But you know, there are a lot of people that just doesn't happen for. It wouldn't be the end of my life.” Just the end of a few dreams.

“I can't have kids.”

His gut clenched, and the tightness spread upward through his chest and into his throat before he realized what she was really saying. She would be open to both marriage and kids, she'd told him, so in this case,
can't
didn't actually mean
can't
. “You mean you won't.”

“You saw me last night. Imagine if I were thirty-six weeks' pregnant and that happened. What if I had a baby and fell while holding her? What if she choked and I was too dopey with my medications to help her?” A plea for understanding rang in her voice. “How could I take care of a baby when I can't even take care of myself?”

“They're called babysitters. Nannies.”

“You work at a bakery. I do office work for the gym. You think we could afford babysitters or nannies?”

“They're also called grandmothers.”

“Really? Well, I've been out of those for twenty years.” Her forehead wrinkled, her look disbelieving. “Your parents live in Arizona. They've got lives there. You think they'd just pack up and move to Oklahoma to be full-time caregivers because their son's girlfriend is a crappy mess who can't be trusted with an infant?”

“It's called considering your options.” Elliot shrugged. Honestly, he had no idea what his parents would think. Vicky and Mitchell wanted more grandbabies, no denying that, but enough to uproot themselves again and start over in another new state?

Probably. His dad's immediate family had all lived on the ranch for the convenience of the work, but he had other relatives who'd moved from here to there to help out an ailing grandmother, a mama with a new baby and three kids under five, a cousin who'd relocated permanently to keep her uncle from having to go into a nursing home. The Rosses cared about family; Fia had picked up on that right away.

She paced the room, then stopped at the window, one hip leaning against the sill. “If you were any kind of ordinary guy, last night would have scared you off.”

“If I were any kind of ordinary guy, you wouldn't have brought me home with you last night.” He mimicked her position at the other side of the window, but while she kept her gaze fixed outside, he kept his on hers.

“You didn't sign up for this.”

“I don't remember signing anything. I asked you for a drink. You asked me for a burger. I invited myself to your house to cook. You dragged me into bed—”

“Not that quickly, and you weren't exactly resisting.” The memories softened the sadness on her face, sent a good deal of it fleeing. Those memories could brighten his day, too, from drab and dreary to blinding sunshine, flowers, and rainbows. Damn near every memory of her had that effect on him.

“You can't make a commitment, Elliot. Because I blindsided you with my monster, you never had a chance to back off. You lacked valuable information that most likely would have led you to avoid intimacy with me. Now I can't let you commit to me until we find out what's wrong and what the prognosis is.”

His snort told her what he thought of that. “You can't
let
me? Aw, darlin', do you even
know
me?”

He stepped toward her, and she stepped back. “I know you'd never force yourself into a situation where you're not wanted.”

“True.” He moved again, and so did she. “So you're saying you don't want me.”

Heat flushed her face, and her gaze shifted away. She couldn't look him in the eye and lie. “That's what I'm saying.”

The last step put her back to the wall, the bed table wedging her in. He didn't crowd her, but he didn't leave her room to escape, either. “Then you have to say it.”

“S-say it?”

“‘I don't want you, Elliot. I don't want to spend time with you. I don't want to make love with you. I don't like your hair or your body or your dog or your cooking or even your bread. I don't like or want anything about you.'”

He fully believed she was capable of lying for someone else's good, but not today. Her mouth opened, and a few breathy sounds even made it out, but she couldn't say the words. Maybe it was pride; maybe her dignity didn't want to put herself in the position of telling blatant untruths. Whatever the reason, when her jaw closed, it stayed closed.

Leaning forward, he kissed her, then teasingly rubbed his jaw against hers. She gasped at the stubble and pushed him back. Sometime in those last moments, she'd surrendered, at least for the time being. He could see it in the faint hope in her eyes. “You do that again, I'll have new rashes to show the doctor tomorrow.”

“The new neurologist?”

She nodded.

“Can I go with you?”

She hesitated before giving half a nod. “My appointment's at three thirty. You should already be off.”

“I'll definitely be off.” An easy promise to make when his bosses were her best friends. “Do you feel up to some real lunch now? Maybe egg salad sandwiches?”

He was walking away when she caught his arm. The hope was gone, sadness back in its place. “This isn't over. When I find out what's wrong, you'll be free to go. I won't let you stay if it's bad.”

Another spike of uncertainty ripped through his gut. But he gently patted her hand where it rested. “Yeah, you'd better be looking for some middle ground there, Sofia. I'm not so easy to get rid of.”

Leaving her to think about that, he left the bedroom, hooked on Mouse's leash, and took her outside for a go around the yard. “Fia's not the only one who needs to do some thinking, pup,” he murmured. “I need to figure out what that big mess of something in my stomach is and get rid of it.”

Fia had never been so nervous going to a doctor's appointment. She'd worn a flowery, flowy dress and her favorite flip-flops and put on makeup—when she spent so much time at home, she grabbed whatever excuse she could find to pretty up—and knowing she looked good helped her confidence a little.

But confidence wasn't the problem this afternoon. It was fear, a word she hated with a passion, that gnawed at her. Fear that the little hope flaring inside would soon die. Fear of expecting too much from the new doctor. Of being disappointed yet again or, worse, of hearing news so bad that she had no choice but to send Elliot away.

You didn't have much luck with that yesterday.

Covering her grimace at Scott's droll comment, she shifted awkwardly on the exam table. She'd never told a guy it was over and gotten a response like Elliot's before. He was crazy for not taking the chance to run like hell.

He
is
crazy. About you.

It was a lovely thought that sent all sorts of sweet, warm feelings through her, quivering her nerves and shivering everything else. But…

Aw, hell, she hated that word with a passion, too.

It was nearing five o'clock when the doctor came in. All doctors ran late, she'd learned, though sometimes it seemed military doctors ran later. He was a slight, nice-looking guy, his black hair cut high and tight, his glasses reminding her of Harry Potter. He looked about as old as Harry in the first movie, way too young to be a board-certified neurologist. Had he graduated medical school at the same time he finished Hogwarts?

He extended his right hand. “I'm Dr. Haruno. You're Sofia?”

“Fia, please. And this is Elliot.”

After they exchanged handshakes, he sat on the wheeled stool and adjusted his glasses. “I apologize for being late. I just got here last week, and I've been trying to go over all my patient records on the run. It's a good thing we've gone digital because a print copy might weigh more than you.”

She smiled faintly. Her health record before all this began had been minimal: patient healthy, blood work and Pap smears normal. Hardly even enough to qualify for a file.

“They've tested you every which way, haven't they?”

She nodded grimly, hoping he wouldn't want to redo the tests looking for different results. She'd been taken enough electroencephalograms, slid into enough MRI chambers, and had enough blood tests and lumbar punctures to last a lifetime.

“I won't repeat all the tests, but I noticed that it's been a while since your last MRI and lumbar puncture, and I'd like to see how things look now. I also didn't find any record of an electromyogram, which you should have had back in the beginning. It's a test that records the electrical activity of muscles. It's not too bad. They'll ask you to wear loose shorts and a T-shirt, or they'll put you in a gown, then poke a few needles in you and zap them with current. Does that sound like something you could put up with?”

Fia glanced at Elliot, swiftly looking away before she made eye contact. “I can give it my best shot.”

“Okay then.” The doctor's owlish gaze met Elliot's before fixing on hers. “According to his notes, your previous doctor discussed the possibility of MS with you.”

“Yeah, but he ruled it out.” She'd been grateful for that, since she knew just two details about multiple sclerosis, and they both scared the crap out of her: It was a disease that attacked the central nervous system, which she needed for, well,
everything
, and it had no cure. When the last doc had taken MS off the table, she'd thanked God.

Was Dr. Haruno putting it back up for consideration?

Still avoiding looking into Elliot's face, she swiped her damp palms on her dress. That big tight feeling in the pit of her stomach was familiar, anxiety and fear and nausea and hope and dread, a combination she'd tolerated every time she'd thought the staff was going to tell her something important.

Wheels squeaking, Dr. Haruno rolled the stool to the cabinet, where he could have back support. “Generally speaking, multiple sclerosis isn't really something you rule out. There's no definitive test that says yes, you have it or no, you don't, though researchers are working on that. Usually, the way you diagnose MS is by ruling out everything else with the same or similar symptoms.”

Elliot leaned forward in his chair. “Are you saying that pretty much everything else has been ruled out?”

“Like I said, I want to dig deeper into her records and make sure I haven't overlooked anything. But given what I've seen so far, I'm thinking that's what we're looking at here.”

“Why didn't any of the other doctors think that?” It was Elliot speaking again because Fia was fixated on the turmoil in her stomach that was rising into her chest, tightening her throat, and swirling up into her brain. This appointment day had been just like every other appointment day. Was it really possible it was going to turn out to be totally different? Was she actually going to get a diagnosis after so many months of praying and hoping? And did it have to be a diagnosis that was so damn scary?

Dr. Haruno's expression remained solemn. “MS can be difficult to diagnose because the symptoms vary widely from patient to patient. There's a term in medicine, the Great Imitator, that refers to a number of systemic diseases that have nonspecific symptoms, symptoms that can be found in numerous other conditions. MS is one of the Great Imitators.”