Life Happens (17 page)

D
ean had known before he pulled out of the hospital parking lot that he wouldn’t be returning to the island tonight. He’d kept his eyes on the street, the horrors of the day buried in his gut, and a single thought in his mind.

Mya.

He hadn’t considered the possibility that she wouldn’t be alone. Her friends, Claire and, what was the other one’s name—Susan or something like that—had taken one look at him and cleared out, so that now it was just him and Mya in a dimly lit room. There was no question, spoken or otherwise, no answer except the one in her eyes as she came to him, her arms going around him, his arms going around her, their lips finding the one thing they both needed.

He’d kissed her often this past week, and every time was an indulgence. This was different. It began full-blown, raw and savage, hard and searching, and so reckless he felt her tremble. Their bodies melded, thighs, bellies, chests, mouths. Desperate for more, they wound up in her bedroom. The place didn’t matter. They didn’t talk. They
barely thought. What they did had nothing to do with discovery, almost nothing to do with giving pleasure or receiving it. Seams tore, buttons popped. That didn’t matter, either.

He wanted her. Hell, he’d always wanted her. Tonight wasn’t about wanting. It was about having. It was about taking. It must have been the same for her, because she took, too, every bit as demanding as he. Her bare thighs braced against his, her breasts cushioned against his chest, her nipples hard. He was harder.

Mya gasped, responsive and impatient. She was in the center of a whirlwind, a spinning frenzy of giving up control and simply feeling, experiencing, being. There was no time to explore, to arouse, to savor. It was as if Dean understood that doing so would have driven her stark raving mad. The adolescent love she’d known for the boy he’d been, with all its sweetness and sentimentality had turned into something smarter, hotter, riskier. “I’m afraid,” she whispered.

“Not of me.”

She hadn’t considered that. But no, she wasn’t afraid of Dean. She was afraid of… She gasped as he made them one, and she didn’t finish the thought that had had something to do with Elle.

He was rough. But not too rough. He was a driving force, when a driving force was exactly what she craved. He didn’t whisper words of love. And neither did she. Her
passion was strong. His was stronger. She fell apart, and still she craved more. More is what he gave her. And more is what she gave him. More open-mouth kisses, more recklessness, more savage abandonment, more passion, more everything. He took it, and gave it all back to her, until she was holding on for dear life. And he was holding on to her.

What they did was too intense to be called making love. They didn’t speak of the future. Neither wanted to think about the future. What they did had nothing to do with the future anyway. It had everything to do with this moment. It had everything to do with sex. What they did was their damnedest to tangle the sheets and burn up the shower and the living-room floor and burn off the fear in the pits of their stomachs and in the backs of their minds.

What they did had everything to do with a kind of love at the very core of human nature, the kind of love everyone craved and sought and few experienced. Neither said it out loud. They’d never said, “I do.” But they did love each other, and they were committed to each other, and had been since they were kids. Elle’s conception nearly twenty years ago had forced them to bypass the rest of their childhoods. Her return had brought them back together in a way they couldn’t have done on their own.

Eventually, they stilled. It wasn’t that they were sated. They were spent. And together, they finally slept.

In the middle of the night, she woke up to discover the
cat asleep at her feet and Dean’s side of the bed empty. She found him standing at Kaylie’s crib in a wan shaft of moonlight, watching the baby sleep, as if by guarding her, he could guard Elle.

“God, Mya.”

“I know.” Taking his hand, she led him back to bed. They came together all over again. This time it was poignant, not savage, slow, not frenzied, a gentle joining of two lost souls finally together again.

Afterward, Dean covered them both. They’d made love when they were still teenagers. Then they’d had to hide, sneak, steal moments for their passion. They’d never spent an entire night together. Until now. Turning her on her side, her back to him, he fit his body close to hers. There was so much he wanted to say to her. He’d always had trouble with words. Touching her tonight had filled in the spaces inside him where words never seemed enough. She’d never asked for words. Once upon a time, she’d wanted
his
word, and that was completely different.

“Mya?” he whispered, ready to give her the one thing, the only thing she’d ever required of him. “I won’t let you down this time.”

The wind sighed and the house creaked. She must have been asleep.

Out of the darkness, she whispered, “I won’t take this lying down.”

“I can try, but I have to warn you I’m pretty much spent.”

She swatted him.

And he sobered, for he realized she was referring to Elle. “What are we going to do?”

“We need to go public with our story, with Elle’s plight. Somebody, somewhere
has
to match our daughter’s bone marrow. We’ll take it to the press, to the tabloids, to television if necessary. We’ll take it to the moon if we have to.”

“We’ll find the perfect match, Mya. We have to.”

And once again, finally, in that darkest hour before dawn, they both found the oblivion of sleep.

Two days later Dean’s and Mya’s and Elle’s pictures were on the front page of the “Living” section of the Portland Daily. Suzette’s sister worked at the paper, but she hadn’t needed to pull strings or call in favors. This was exactly the kind of story the media loved to sensationalize and bring to its readers.

Wire services picked up the pulse of their story. Within three more days, the paparazzi arrived on Mya’s doorstep and at Brynn’s and on the island. Mya and Dean and Millie and all the Lakers talked to them. They talked to everybody. If it meant finding a match for Elle, they would talk to the devil himself.

Dean and Mya were coming out of the hospital a week
after Elle’s treatment began when yet another cluster of reporters descended upon them, one of them sticking a microphone in Mya’s face.

“How is your daughter?”

“Do you refer to her as your daughter?”

“I understand you gave her up for adoption shortly after her birth.”

“Do you regret that decision?”

Mya looked from one reporter to the next, and in a deadpan voice, she said, “I’ll tell you what. Go get tested. It only requires a little poke and a tiny bit of blood work. If you match her bone marrow, I’ll answer your question. In fact, I’ll give you enough for an entire book.”

“Is that a bribe?”

Dean took over from there. “It’s a promise. Elle needs you. She needs one perfect match. I’m begging you. We’re begging you. Please be tested.”

The entire clip was aired that very night. Everyone cheered for the stunning woman with the short blond hair and spitfire personality and the dark-haired man with the fierce blue eyes. By the next day, people everywhere were lining up to be tested.

Which was what Mya was telling Elle as she lay in the hospital bed, hooked to a machine that delivered the chemicals into her bloodstream. Mya tried so hard to be positive. It was Aristotle who’d said, “Hope is a waking dream.”

Few people could argue with Aristotle. But then, Aristotle probably hadn’t held his child while her slight body was racked with shivers, or while her stomach turned inside out, while she moaned and tried so valiantly to be strong.

Dr. Andrews had said the treatment would be aggressive. In her worst, most violently ill moments Mya was terrified the chemicals would kill Elle if the cancer didn’t. The antinausea drugs didn’t help. Dean, Mya and Millie took turns staying with Elle and Kaylie. They answered the telephone and drove and sometimes they ate and even slept.

Days passed. Elle was so sick she didn’t even cry when her hair started falling out. Mya cried. She cried in the middle of the night and on the way to and from the hospital. She cried every time Dean’s mother called. But she never cried in front of Elle.

Holding an ice chip to her daughter’s dry lips, she wished it was her. Dean was her rock. Nearly two weeks after treatment began, he stood on one side of Elle’s hospital bed, Mya on the other. Elle lay on her side, her face resting on her bent arm. She held so utterly still, as if not moving might relieve her horrible nausea.

Witnessing Elle’s pain had etched lines beside Dean’s mouth. He’d never been good in the face of helplessness. If he cried, Mya’s heart would break.

Letting another ice chip melt into Elle’s parted lips, Mya said, “You aren’t going to believe who called today.”

Elle didn’t move, but Mya knew she was listening.

“Who?” Dean asked for her.

“The people at
Good Morning America.
”

“No shit?”

Mya figured Elle couldn’t have said it better herself. “Your Grandma Millie took the call. Evidently, Katie wants us to be guests on the show next Friday.”

“What did your mother say?” Dean asked.

In a voice barely loud enough to hear, Elle said, “She probably told Katie’s people to call her people.”

Mya’s gaze flew to Dean’s. She’d been wrong. It wasn’t him crying that had the power to break her heart. It was Dean, struggling not to that did it.

Three days in a row, a single flower was delivered to Elle’s hospital room. Each time, the accompanying card contained only one word. The first day it had been hierarchy. The second was coxswain. Today, it was penurious.

Certain Elle was being stalked, Millicent said, “Who could be doing this? I’m calling the police.”

Elle stirred only enough to whisper, “Don’t. I know who they’re from.”

She didn’t share the knowledge, but it was the only time Mya had seen Elle smile since treatment began.

Dean, Mya and her mother were taking turns dividing
their time between Kaylie and Elle. School was out, and Claire and Suzette had taken over responsibilities at Brynn’s. Grady was handling the Laker Construction renovation project on the island. Everyone was doing everything they could. Mya didn’t know how to thank them, and yet she feared everything everyone was doing wouldn’t be enough.

She and Dean had gone to New York last week. They’d told their story on live television. Viewer response was overwhelmingly supportive. Cards, flowers, letters and gifts poured in. Sylvia had set up a Web site to handle the overflow.

And yet no match had been found.

Yet, she told herself. No match had been found yet.

Dean went home with Mya every night. Together, they cared for Kaylie and Elle. They spoke with the medical staff. Mya organized bone marrow donor rallies. Elle remained in the hospital. Every day, she grew weaker. And every night Mya and Dean became more terrified. Mya didn’t know who was winning, the chemicals or the cancer. And when night was darkest, she stared at the ceiling, dread filling her soul, for she didn’t see how Elle would last until a match was found.

The door to Elle’s hospital room was closed when Mya and Dean stepped off the elevator. Hoping to cheer Elle,
and to restore at least a small portion of her fighting spirit, Mya had brought Kaylie with her today.

They weren’t the only ones visiting. Elle’s family from Pennsylvania was here. Call her selfish, but Mya was glad she had the baby to hold, for it gave her something to do with her hands other than scratching Elle’s stepmother’s eyes out.

Dean and Mya hadn’t known the Fletchers were coming. They’d arrived before Mya, Dean or Millie usually got here. Evidently, Elle had seen her father and stepmother both briefly, then had asked to speak to her father alone.

Roberta Fletcher was both petite and pretty, or she would have been if her smile hadn’t been as fake as her devotion to her stepdaughter. Evidently the reporter interviewing her liked saccharine, for he seemed to hang on her every word. While her mother blabbered on, the little girl meandered to Kaylie.

“Hi Kaylie,” Lauren said. “Remember me? I’m your aunt.” Perhaps nine or ten, the child giggled, as if she thought it sounded pretty preposterous.

Setting Kaylie on the floor to play with Lauren, Dean and Mya paced. What was happening in that hospital room? Why had Elle needed to see her other father precisely now?

Whatever was said was private. It must have been very emotional, for Richard Fletcher was wiping his eyes as he left Elle’s room. With his graying hair and tweed suit, he
looked more like a college English professor than an attorney.

His little boy, Trevor, ran to him. Looking up at his father as if at a mountain, the child said, “Daddy, is Ellie going to die?”

Everyone gasped. Even Brunhilde.

He picked up his son. His gaze going to Mya and Dean, he said, “Not if we can help it.”

The two men each sized up the other. And the local news team captured it on film. Shoving a microphone in Richard’s face, a reporter said, “We’re all rooting for your daughter. How is this affecting the rest of your family?”

While he lowered the boy to the floor, Roberta swooped into the limelight. “We’ve all been so worried. Her father and I have tried to shield Lauren and Trevor from the horror of what poor Elle is facing. But I know they’re as worried as we are about their big sister. Poor thing. Bless her heart, you know?”

Mya could have puked.

Perhaps the reporter was savvier than she’d given him credit for, for without missing a beat, he said, “I understand people everywhere are being tested as potential bone marrow donors. Have you been tested, Mrs. Fletcher?”

Mya bit her lip when Brunhilde, er, Roberta paled. Richard let his wife stammer for another moment before saying, “The children and I have been tested. It was a long shot, we knew, but sadly we don’t match, either.” He
looked directly into the camera. “We have to find a match. Please. I challenge every adoptive parent watching to be tested. For my daughter’s sake, I’m begging.”