A Summer to Remember (30 page)

Then his manner changed from confident and serious to awkward, as if he wasn't comfortable with what he was about to say. More bad news? Did he suspect she had the most aggressive form of the disease?

“I don't mean to criticize your other doctors. I don't know them. I wasn't here. But…doctors are like any other professionals. Some are passionate about what they do. Some can't stand a problem they can't solve, so they don't quit until they do. Some see it as a job. They show up on time, put in some effort, but they don't really invest themselves in their patients' problems. And some are just calling it in.” His face flushed, he shrugged. “I'm just saying that in my opinion, MS should have been fully explored as a likely diagnosis a long time ago.”

Fia's shoulders slumped before she stiffened them. A diagnosis was good, even when it was bad. A diagnosis meant treatment, medication, knowledge, support, understanding. And if it couldn't be cured, maybe it could be managed decently. And with all the billions of dollars going into research, maybe a cure was around the corner. Maybe five years, ten, fifteen, they'd have a magic pill that would make her all better.

A lump swelled in her throat, and tears filled her eyes. She would not cry, not in front of the high school doctor boy and for damn sure not in front of Elliot. She'd wanted a diagnosis; now warrior girl had to deal with it.

Dr. Haruno laid his hand over hers. “It's not an easy thing to hear. But it's treatable, Fia. You'll have a normal lifespan. You can have children if you want them. The disease is important, and it always will be, but the treatments provide work-arounds. You can live a fairly normal life when you're in remission, and hopefully we can lessen the occurrence and severity of your relapses.”

So her good days were remissions, and the bad ones were relapses. See? She'd already learned something new about MS.

“Do you have any questions?”

Her smile was unsteady. “I need to go home and learn something so I can figure out what questions to even ask.”

He opened a cabinet door and pulled out a handful of pamphlets. “These will get you started, and of course there's tons of information on the Internet. Just remember, a lot of what's on there isn't true, so don't let any of it scare you before we talk again. So here's the plan: I'll get you scheduled for an MRI, a lumbar puncture, and an EMG as soon as they can work you in, then see you back here. We'll talk about medication, physical therapy, alternative therapies like yoga and acupuncture, and we'll figure out a plan for you. Sound good?”

“Yeah.” She had to force in a breath. “About as good as being told I probably have an incurable disease can sound.”

He stood, and so did she, stepping down from the table while he held her hand. “Remember what they say: Knowledge is power. Knowing what you're up against takes away most of the fear.”

She clenched the pamphlets in one hand. “Then I'd better go home and absorb a whole lot more knowledge. Thank you, Dr. Haruno.”

When he left, Elliot claimed the hand he'd held. There was such comfort in his fingers around hers. This was a hand she could hold forever…depending on what she learned.

“You ready to go home?” he asked in that husky voice she adored so much.

She squeezed her eyes shut to force back the tears, breathed deeply to clear her throat and lungs, then gave him a dismal smile. “Yup.” As they walked through the clinic, then out to the elevator, she asked, “What did you think of him?”

“I think he's one of those passionate people who don't rest until they solve every problem they come across.”

“Me, too.” Though the last doctor had fooled her. He'd jumped to attention and seemed all passionate and concerned once Jessy and Patricia had told him what they expected, but apparently he'd just gone through the motions. With her
life
.

She remained quiet until they'd left the building and crossed the lot to Elliot's truck. With a heavy sigh, she stood next to it, head tilted back, the sun warm on her face. The hardest thing about adjusting to Oklahoma had been the winters. Though her home state didn't hold many good memories for her outside of Scott, when it came to weather, she was definitely a bright-sunshine-and-sandy-beach girl. It healed what ailed her.

But not this time.

Elliot had opened the door and was waiting, a grim look replacing his usual Zen-ness. She glanced at the booklets, the words
multiple sclerosis
jumping out at her, then gazed into the distance. “All along, I've been nursing this secret hope that everything was going to be okay. That it was just some funky fluke, some mysterious ailment that would run its course and miraculously disappear.” Her voice quavered, but for the first time, she didn't try to hide it. “Even when I tried to prepare myself for the worst, there was always this optimistic little voice inside, whispering,
But maybe…just maybe…
”

The sun's warmth drained away, leaving her chilled and empty. “Now there's no more maybe.”

Elliot wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close, enfolding her in the security of his embrace. She wanted to stay there forever. Wanted to break down and sob and be weak and let the fear consume her, knowing he would keep her safe, that when she was done, he would put her back together again.

She didn't break. She couldn't. But she leaned against him, drew strength from him, absorbed heat and life and hope from him. She stayed there until everything inside her began to settle, until the need to fall apart passed, and then she lifted her head and smiled weakly at him. “I guess we should go home.”

“And learn things,” he said, then a hint of his usual demeanor cracked his solemn façade. “Knowledge is power.”

With his help—she didn't need it, just wanted it—she climbed into the truck, fastened her seat belt, and watched him walk around to the driver's door. If the two most important men in her life said it, then it must be true.

But she could barely resist the urge to point out to them that, sometimes, ignorance could be bliss.

The last time Marti had invited someone to her house for dinner had been more than eight years ago, before Joshua's last deployment, when he'd been there to man the grill and her only responsibility had been tossing a salad and taking bread from the oven. The guests had been Lucy and Mike Hart and another couple from the guys' squad, and they'd sat on the patio late into the night, filled with steaks and grilled potatoes, and laughed and drunk cheap wine and beer.

Idly she wondered what had happened to that other couple. The husband had deployed with Joshua and Mike; he'd survived the battle that killed them; and his wife had basically removed herself from Marti's and Lucy's lives. Sometimes people just didn't know what to say. Sometimes they found the widow too frightening a reminder of the danger their spouses were in. Some widows resented it, were hurt, but it had just made Marti appreciate the ones who stuck around, like the margarita girls, that much more.

“Is the table set?”

She glanced up from laying the last piece of silverware on the dining table and smirked. “Yes, Mom, it's done.”

Cadence, wearing an apron over her tee and shorts, placed her hands on her hips and tilted her head the way Eugenie always did when she was inspecting someone's work. “Did you use real napkins, not paper?”

“Yes.”

“Real plates, not foam?”

“Of course.”

“The good silver?”

“It's all good.” Passing her, Marti pinched her cheek on her way into the kitchen. “I can't believe you brought an apron from home with you.”

“I didn't. It's yours.”

“I have an apron?”

“I found it in the pantry.”

Marti widened her eyes. “I have a pantry?”

Cadence swatted her before returning to stir the sauce on the stove. When Marti had mentioned that she needed to talk to Dillon—the paper bearing the information she had for him crinkled in her hip pocket—it had been Cadence's idea to invite him for dinner.
But I can't cook,
Marti had reminded her, and Cadence had rolled her eyes.
I'll cook.
She knew only one dish—spaghetti and meat sauce—but it was very good. Add a loaf of garlic bread from the bakery, and
poof!
Dinner.

So Marti had called Dillon and invited him over. Cadence had been cooking, and Marti had been fluttering for the past hour.

I don't flutter,
her dignity insisted.

You do around Dillon,
her brain pointed out.

A typical female reaction to a hot guy.

Her brain and everything else snickered.

“Aunt Marti?” Cadence stirred the sauce, placed a lid over the stock pot of boiling water, then finished spreading garlic butter on thick slices of bread. “It's so sad about Mr. Smith's—Dillon's little girl. Where is she?”

Three glasses in hand, Marti froze in mid-turn from the cabinet. When two of the glasses clinked together, she realized her hands were less than steady and set them on the counter. “How do you know about her?”

Cadence compressed her lips for a moment before saying, “You're not the only one who knows how to Google.”

“Of course not,” she murmured, slowly placing one glass under the ice dispenser, pressing to start the flow of cubes. At any time, Jessy, Dalton, Noah, or their parents could type Dillon's name into any search engine and, on an idle whim, find out his greatest sorrow.

Life just wasn't fair.

The doorbell rang before she'd formulated an answer, and Cadence spun around, taking the glass from her. “You go answer and sit down and talk graciously until I call you for dinner. Go on, and don't disturb the chef.”

There were some people Marti just didn't argue with—when every part inside her laughed, she amended that: at least this one—so she went to the door. For an instant, she studied herself in the mirror near the door: new jeans snug and fitted, top equally so, hair sleekly pulled back. A sniff of her wrist showed her perfume was still detectable, and her smile…Yes, definitely in place.

When she opened the door, Dillon removed his hat, his fingers flexing carefully. Cowboy hats, Marti decided, were no different than any other clothes. The more expensive they were, the better care a person took with them.

Then she noticed the vase in his other hand. “They're beautiful, but you didn't have to bring flowers.”

“Good, because they're not for you. They're for the cook.”

Stepping back so he could pass, Marti deliberately took a long, slow breath so she could breathe in leather and cologne and fresh clothes and cowboy. “She prefers to be called chef. She already likes you, Dillon. Now she'll be so impressed, she'll think you can do no wrong.” Though she knew he could. She knew about Tina and Lilah.

But it was good to learn that people weren't infallible, that good people could make bad mistakes. And Cadence was a smart, compassionate, empathetic kid. She wouldn't rush to judgment. She probably wouldn't judge at all.

“What about you?” Dillon set the vase on the coffee table, laid his hat upside down on the hassock, then faced Marti. “Do you like me?”

The question caught her off guard. She could tease or make light of it, but a simple question deserved a simple answer, a truthful answer, and she tried pretty much always to tell the truth. “Yes, I do.”

Would he now say that he liked her, too? It would only be fair, after all, and she always liked hearing good things.

He didn't say anything, but a smile slowly spread across his face, starting with his mouth, easing upward into his eyes, and there was warmth and appreciation and pure simple pleasure that sent a shiver all the way to her toes.

And that was better by far than any words.

I
think it's a rule in most places that the chef doesn't have to do dishes.” Cadence looked at her aunt, brows raised, and Dillon suppressed a smile. He didn't blame her. When he was her age, he would have chosen shoveling manure over washing dishes.

Marti nodded. “I may not cook, but I am a whiz at doing dishes.”

“Good.” The girl's smile was big and just a little sly. “Then I'm going to go to my room,
close the door
, and look over my homework.” She stood, laid her napkin next to her plate, then pushed her chair back in place. She got a few feet away before pivoting back to pick up the vase. “Dillon, you're the first person who's ever given me flowers. Thank you.” She brushed a kiss to his cheek, then hustled from the room as if an angry bronc were on her heels.

His cheeks grew hot. He hadn't been kissed by a fourteen-year-old girl since he was a fourteen-year-old boy, and it hadn't been quite so sweet back then. He liked Cadence. Wished he had a niece like her. Wondered if his daughter might be like her.

“Her parents never told me she had an interest in matchmaking.” Marti showed no inclination to rise from the table and start clearing. Instead, she settled in, a cup of coffee in front of her, her pink polished nails tapping lightly on the china.

Dillon picked up his own coffee. “You ever wonder how they could leave her for a year?” Granted, it had been a hell of a lot longer than that since he'd seen Lilah, but that hadn't been his choice. Voluntarily picking up and moving halfway around the world…he just couldn't imagine it.

“It didn't surprise me. Nothing my family does surprises me anymore. I think…” She glanced toward the hall as if making sure Cadence's door was closed, then shrugged. “I understand Frank doing it, but Belinda…He doesn't need her in Dubai as much as Cadence needs her at home.” Then she smirked. “But I get to be the good relative for taking her in instead of making her go to boarding school.”

“That's what family does, isn't it? If Tina's family hadn't wanted Lilah, I have no doubt my parents or Dalton or even Noah would have taken her, even though they'd never known she existed.”

“When are you going to tell them she does exist?”

He stared past her at the wedding portrait on the wall. Like all wedding portraits, it was full of happiness and joy and hope and possibilities. She and Joshua had had it all…until he'd died.

There were some pictures of Dillon and Tina where they'd looked like they had it all, too. They'd loved each other, hated each other, fought like wild animals, made up like soul mates. She'd been his best friend and, on occasion, his worst enemy, because she'd known which buttons to push, which tender points to jab when she was pissed.

If she'd lived, though, he didn't know that they would still be together. Sometimes he'd imagined a quieter, more peaceful life, just him and Lilah, without all of Tina's passion and drama.

Marti was quiet and peaceful, happy with herself and contented with her life. There was passion inside, but it smoldered rather than flaring regularly into fireworks. She was too serene and self-possessed to have caught his attention when he was young and stupid, but now that he'd grown, learned, lost…

“Well?”

His gaze shifted back to her while he tried to recall her question. Oh, yeah. Telling. About Lilah. “I don't know. It doesn't seem fair to tell them about a granddaughter that they'll probably never get the chance to know because of me.”

“What if they find out about her some other way?”

“How?”

An air of discomfort came over Marti, unusual enough that it damn near shimmered in the air around her. After a moment, she stood, still holding her coffee. “Let's go outside.”

Walking behind a pretty woman was always a good place to be. He could admire her dancer's posture, her slender waist, the curvy sway of her hips, and keep it to himself, though he doubted she was entirely unaware. Some things a man just couldn't hide, and attraction to a woman like Marti was high on the list.

They sat at the old wooden table, her tucking her feet onto the oversized seat, him sliding a chair around to face her. It was a nice evening, warm enough to remember it was May, cool enough to remember that Oklahoma had gotten snow in May. Thanks to the lights of the city, there weren't many stars visible, though that didn't stop her from gazing at the sky for a moment before she met his gaze.

“They could find out the same way Cadence did. On the Internet.” Her shrug was delicate. “It's what people do, Dillon, out of interest, curiosity, boredom. They Google your name and find out everything ever made public about you.”

An ache stabbed through him, cold and sharp, that Cadence knew he'd killed his baby girl's mother.
She already likes you,
Marti had said earlier, so how disappointed in him had she been? Disappointing people was an old habit of his, but he didn't want to let down Cadence. She was a sweet kid.

Marti rested her hand on his. “She knew before you came over. Knew before she offered to cook dinner. She thinks it's sad, but she doesn't blame you.”

He held Marti's gaze a long time, reading no subterfuge in her face. Was it possible? Cadence's attitude toward him through dinner had been the same as usual. She'd exclaimed over the flowers, waited expectantly for his compliments on the food, then kissed his cheek. He never would have guessed she knew, based on her behavior.

“Your family will probably feel the same way,” Marti said, giving his hand a squeeze. “But it's got to be better coming from you than finding out online. And who knows? Maybe they will get a chance to meet Lilah.”

Releasing him—damn, he missed the contact before the sensation had time to fade—she pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and offered it. “I located your daughter. She's living in Colorado with her aunt Kayla. Here's the address, the phone number, and…”

His hand shaking, he took the paper and unfolded it. The information was written in a graceful hand across the top, and underneath it was a picture of a neat little house with a pink bicycle in the yard, pink flowers in the beds, and a puppy wearing a pink collar.

“I'm guessing Lilah's favorite color is pink,” Marti said quietly. “It's a mapping photo taken last summer. At the time they drove down the street and snapped the pictures, Lilah happened to be playing in the yard with her dog.” Her voice quavered to match the unsteadiness of his hands. “There's your daughter, Dillon.”

And there she was, sitting on the sidewalk, her legs spread wide. A half-dozen old metal jacks were spread across the concrete—he didn't know little kids even knew what jacks were—and a small rubber ball was captured bouncing in midair. Her dark blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail with loose strands framing the smile that split her face from ear to ear, and just looking at her broke his heart in two.

His daughter.

Lilah.

He tried to swipe at his eyes subtly, tried to disguise his sniff as a normal breath. His baby wasn't a baby anymore, five years old in the picture, taller and heavier and looking all grown up, but she was still her mama's daughter. Still her daddy's girl.

“Oh, my God…I can't believe…Durango, Colorado. I've rodeoed in Durango before. Tina liked it there.”

“Maybe that's why Kayla settled there with Tina's daughter.”

He swiped his eyes again. “What about the grandparents?”

“They live in Nebraska. Kayla has custody of Lilah. She works part-time and goes to school part-time at Fort Lewis College.”

Dillon studied the picture again, wishing it were bigger, brighter, billboard-sized with brilliant colors. His little girl, caught at random playing outside her house, looking so damn happy.

“All you have to do is call Kayla, Dillon. You've prepared yourself for the worst, thinking you'll never see Lilah again. Now you need to take a chance at the best. Call Kayla. Talk to her.”

His muscles twitched as if they craved immediate action—climbing in the truck, stopping at the ATM, and heading straight for Durango. He could just show up tomorrow, maybe have the same good fortune the mapping people had, and find Lilah outside playing. Ten, twelve hours' driving, no sleep, all this emotion roiling inside, he would probably look like a madman and scare both Lilah and her aunt half out of their minds.

He settled for standing up from the chair, walking stiffly to the edge of the patio, then back again. He didn't want to call. It was so easy to hang up on someone, to block their number, and put them out of your mind. But if he could show up, if Kayla could see that he was no threat, if Lilah remembered him and hadn't been too badly poisoned by her grandparents…

“I've got to think about this,” he said. “I've got to figure out what to say, how to say it, how to not scare her, to—to not screw up.” He looked at the picture again, then at Marti, who'd also stood in the last moment. Her smile was sweet, her gaze warm. He briefly considered asking if she would call Kayla for him, but no, that was something he had to do himself. Besides, there was something else he wanted to say to Marti.

He took a few steps until they were close enough to feel each other's breath, inhale each other's scents, absorb each other's heat. He raised one hand to her face, traced his fingers along her soft cheek. Leaning even closer, his mouth brushing her ear, he whispered, “I already liked you, Marti, but now I'm so impressed that I'm pretty damn sure you can do no wrong. Thank you.”

He might have left it there, but something about her being so close tempted him, drew his arms around her. Maybe it was the huge emptiness he'd lived with so long. Maybe it was the basic needs of a man for a woman. Maybe it was her arms twining around his neck, her body pressing against his, her mouth seeking out his.

Whatever reason, it was the best kiss, the best moment, of his life.

Elliot's eyes hurt, the muscles in his neck and shoulders were taut, and the hunger in his belly had surpassed his ability to concentrate on the computer screen anymore. Between them, their smart phones and Fia's laptop shared a history of searches that would do any brain doctor proud. And the doctor had been right: Knowledge was power. With each new article he read, with each new input of information, the knot that had lived in his gut since Saturday night had started shrinking. It wasn't completely gone, but it was easier to face an enemy he knew than one he didn't.

He rubbed his eyes before sprawling more comfortably and asking, “You hungry?”

Fia closed the lid of her laptop and stretched her arms over her head. “How'd you guess?”

“Your stomach's rumbling like a fully loaded eighteen-wheeler laboring up a mountainside.”

“You can hear—” Grabbing the pillow beside her, she threw it at his head. He ducked and let it sail on past to the floor, where Mouse pounced on it. “What are you hungry for?”

“Hm. Let's see. As I remember, you made a deal with me a couple nights ago that if I took care of Mouse, then you would take care of me. I kept my end of the bargain. I've just been waiting for you to feel good enough to keep yours.”

A flush tinged her cheeks pink before she stood and did another stretch, spreading her feet apart, bending from the waist until her palms touched the floor. The position muffled her voice since she wound up talking to the couch cushions instead of him. “That would have been an incredible night. It's too bad it got interrupted, because now, you know, all the anticipation is gone. We had that whole sexy-dancing-touching-music-holding-hero-cowboy thing going on.”

She began easing into an upright position, her movements slow, one inch at a time. He loved watching her move. He knew from experience it was easier to speed through an exercise than to glide at a snail's pace from position to position while keeping perfect form. Her form was very, very perfect.

It was hard to reconcile this grace with the
spasticity
—a new word he'd learned—that he'd seen Saturday night.

“To get that back, we'd have to start all over again, and given that you have to be at work at four a.m., I don't see that happening until at least Saturday. However…”

She crossed to his chair in a few steps and slid onto his lap, her head resting on his shoulder, her feet dangling in the air, as her hands snaked around his neck. “I might be able to do something on a lesser scale.” She kissed his jaw, his cheek, the rim of his ear, drawing a shudder and a groan from him before sweetly smiling. “After you feed me.”

“Where?” If she would reply,
In bed
, he would be more than happy to feed her, and to do his share in making a grander scale for her offering.

“There's an IHOP near the main gate. I like their coffee, and they're open all night. And…” She shifted her gaze away and ended her embrace. “We can talk. Unless you're too tired.”

He wished he could truthfully claim to be too tired, but he couldn't. Would he like a full eight hours' sleep tonight? Sure. Would he get it even if they didn't talk? Of course not. There was still dinner to eat, Mouse to feed and walk, Fia to make love to. Sleep was overrated anyway.

Talking was overrated sometimes, too. Especially the talk he was pretty sure she wanted to have. While reading tonight, she'd mumbled a comment or two about prospects
she
faced with MS, not them. She read articles about the progression of the disease, and the look on her face just about broke his heart. She'd started to read a few points aloud, scanned ahead, and said,
Never mind
, as if they were just too depressing to know.

He couldn't deny, a lot of it was damn depressing. But things could
always
be worse, so he was grateful for what they had.

“Get your shoes on, pretty girl.” Elliot boosted her to her feet, making sure she was steady before he rose, too. “I'll give Mouse a quick once-around the backyard.”