Read All The King's Horses: A Tale Of Eternal Love Online
Authors: Alethea Downs
“Kent,” she said breathlessly, “Talitha’s watching.”
Kent glanced over at his daughter. “You don’t mind Daddy kissing Mummy do you?”
She vigorously shook her head. “Daddy kisses Mummy because he loves her.”
“Love is good isn’t it?”
She nodded her head, “yes, Daddy.”
He turned his attention back to his wife. “It seems we have her approval.” Then bowing his head he kissed her some more.
Kent felt his stomach somersault. Whose bright idea was it to go to Disneyland? Might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but it involved air travel didn’t it?
Talitha’s tiny hand found its way into his. “It’s alright, Daddy,” she whispered, “I’ll take care of you.”
“I hope you will, Pumpkin,” he said shakily, “I sincerely hope you will.”
That same tiny hand was there again when they landed in the United States, and he had to admit that it did have a certain calming effect.
He was an entirely different man when he walked through the gates of the greatest fun park on earth though. “Wow…so here we are,” he said excitedly. He turned to Jack. “We’ll have to keep a close eye on Talitha. If we lose sight of her we’ll never find her again.”
“Don’t worry I’ll have my eyes trained on my little princess the entire time.”
“It was quite possibly the happiest time of Kent’s life. He watched his wife and daughter as they whirled around in a tea cup with their hair flying out behind them and laughing like they didn’t have a care in the world. He watched Christy closely. She was sensationally good looking. He could hardly believe she was his. It actually hurt him to look at her.
A hard lump formed in his chest and began to tighten until it constricted his breathing. It was that fear coming back, the fear that cancer was going to rob her from him. He closed his eyes and concentrated on shaking it loose. He wouldn’t let it spoil this trip. She was alive right now, and she was his. He would hang on to that because it was a reality.
She staggered over to him at the end of her ride laughing and in high spirits. “You really should have a go, Darling; it’s a lot of fun.”
“I was having much more fun admiring a green-eyed beauty,” he said, smiling at her enthusiasm. “She was so gorgeous I couldn’t take my eyes off her.”
“You have always said the sweetest things to me. I hope you never stop.”
“What makes you think I was talking about you?”
She snuggled into him. “I know you too well, Kent London. You are so soppy over me, and I love you for it.”
He looked over her shoulder at Jack and Talitha spinning away from them in a tea cup. “We did the right thing coming here didn’t we?”
“Yes, thanks to you we did. None of us will ever forget this trip.”
“With the business doing so well now I think we can expect a lot more good times like this. The four of us can travel the world together.”
“The self- made man,” she said, looking up at him. “You are quite impressive, Mr. London.”
“No,” he corrected her, “not self-made. You made me what I am today. I would have been nothing without you.”
“I think you’re giving me too much credit.”
“Am I?” He looked surprised by her comment. “It was you who saved me from losing the Bonnie Lass, you who brought laughter into my dull and dreary life, and have loved me like no one ever has. It is you who gave me that little girl over there, and you who makes my heart beat faster every time I look at you.”
“That’s quite a list,” she said softly. “But how about this one?” she reached up and ran her fingers through his dark hair. “It’s you who saved my life when I was determined to throw it away. It was you who took away my feeling of hopelessness. It was you who took me into your heart and made me feel secure. It was you who fulfilled my desire for a baby. It is you who fill me with longing for your touch. And it is you who have made me feel complete.”
“Okay, you win,” he said, the corner of his mouth turning up in a cheeky grin. “I have been much better for you than you have been for me.”
She couldn’t help but smile at him. “If we weren’t in public the things I would do to you.”
“Hold that thought for tonight.” He bent forward and kissed her.
“Daddy kissing Mummy again, Papa.”
“I know, Princess, it’s disgusting, and in broad daylight too.”
“We didn’t see you two sneaking up on us,” Christy said, as she and Kent broke off their embrace. “But who can blame us? We’re in Disneyland and this is a place that brings out the love in everyone.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Kent said to Talitha, “how about we go and find Mickey Mouse?”
“Yay…but don’t do your Mickey Mouse voice, Daddy, because you’re too dumb at it.”
Kent lowered his eyebrows at Christy. “Oh you’ve trained her well haven’t you, Mrs. London. But don’t you worry, I’ll get you back, even if it takes me till the end of the holiday I’ll get you back.”
♥
“Do you mind if I don’t go with you today?” Christy was watching Kent dressing from where she lay curled up in bed.
“Are you getting bored with Disneyland?”
“No…I just don’t fell so well.”
He finished buttoning his shirt before going over and placing his palm on her forehead. “No temperature. Is it your stomach that’s troubling you?”
“No, I’m just feeling a bit run down that’s all. I think the last few days have worn me out with all the walking and rides we’ve done.”
One eyebrow shot up. “You’re not pregnant are you?”
She smiled weakly. “I wish.”
“Talitha will be disappointed you’re not with us.”
“She’ll be okay once she gets there and you and Daddy take her on some rides.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
“I just need to catch up on some sleep.”
He kissed her gently on the forehead. “Okay, I’ll see you late afternoon then.”
Christy waited until she heard them leave before untangling her legs from the sheets and sitting on the edge of the bed. She felt a little light-headed, dizzy even, like her blood pressure had plummeted. She gave herself a few minutes to get used to sitting upright before attempting to stand. An overwhelming wave of fatigue swept over her and so she quickly sat down again. This wasn’t normal. She hadn’t felt like this before. She must be coming down with something. She hoped the rest of the family wouldn’t catch it because whatever it was it wasn’t pleasant.
She tried to stand again, a little better this time. She made it out to the kitchen and made a cup of coffee. Maybe it was the delayed effects of jetlag making its presence felt. At any rate, the coffee was sure helping, and she was beginning to feel human again.
She hoped Jack and Kent wouldn’t be worrying about her. She wanted them to have a good time, and they wouldn’t if their thoughts were continually on her.
It was funny how Kent had immediately thought she was pregnant. She wondered if that meant he had been thinking a lot about it recently. She couldn’t blame him if he was; it had never been far from her thoughts these past few months either. What she wouldn’t give to be able to present him with a little boy. But they both knew it was too risky.
She made herself another cup. She was definitely starting to feel better. Maybe she should have gone with the others after all.
She was going to need to take better care of herself. Kent had revealed his traveling plans to her last night, and if she wasn’t careful she would end up throwing a spanner in the works. The Grand Canyon was next on the list and then it was off to Paris for a few weeks. They even had to squeeze in ten days in Spain and Portugal before it was back to New Zealand to see how the charter boat business was doing.
She knew he was doing it all for her. He wanted to make her happy and thought that traveling the world would achieve that, and although it was nice seeing sights she had never seen before she didn’t have the heart to tell him all she really wanted was him.
She cast her mind back to before they were married. Back to the time she had first gone to see him in his little tin shack out at the farm. Even though she was a little shocked to see what he was living in, if he had asked her to marry him and live in that shack she wouldn’t have hesitated to say yes. Kent was the one person she would sacrifice everything for. Just being with him and knowing he loved her was all she needed to make her happy.
She realized many a woman would scoff at that and call her naïve. But then they had never experienced the love that Kent London had to offer. They were welcome to their boring little relationships that consisted of the latest ‘must- haves’ that their friends and neighbours deemed indispensable, and their pride in their husband’s bank balance rather than delight at how he still made their heart flutter when he entered the room. She would live anywhere, go anywhere, and do anything to be with Kent.
When he walked in the door that afternoon she could see the strain he had been under. He had obviously been worrying all day.
“I’m sorry, Sweetheart,” were the first words he said. “I should never have left you alone when you were feeling so unwell.”
“I’m feeling so much better now,” she assured him. “I hope Talitha has had a wonderful time?”
“Yes she did.” His eyes were still betraying his concern.
“I really am feeling much better, Kent. I think it was just a little touch of exhaustion.”
He seemed to relax. “You will tell me if you start feeling sick again won’t you? It’s no trouble to get you to a doctor, and I’d feel a whole lot better if an expert was on the case.”
“Of course,” she studied his face like she had so many times before. He really was incredibly handsome. It amazed her that someone as good looking as he was possessed all those wonderful traits that had brought such happiness to her life. Such a man should not exist, and she had never known such a man to exist, except in Kent London.
Christy had enjoyed their time away but she was glad to be home. Disneyland had been all she had hoped it would be, the Grand Canyon superb, and Spain and Portugal and outstanding experience. But she was tired, very tired. There had been a lot of air travel involved, much to Kent’s disgust, and it had taken its toll on her.
Kent had been on her case to go to the doctor as soon as they had arrived back in Paihia, and so she had dutifully gone along with his request. It had been several months since she had last submitted a to a blood test due to being away on holiday, but now the results from her latest one had just come through.
“It’s not good news I’m afraid,” her doctor said, as Christy and Kent sat shell-shocked on the other side of the desk from her. “The cancer cells have shown up in much greater numbers in your blood.”
It was Kent who found his voice first. “Does that mean that the leukemia is on the move again?”
“A much higher count does usually indicate that,” she confirmed. “However, I don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily.” She shuffled a few papers on her desk. “Come back next week and we’ll take another blood sample. That should give us a better idea what we’re up against.”
“She doesn’t want to alarm us unnecessarily,” Kent repeated as he and Christy walked solemnly back to the car. “She must be a couple of cards short of a deck if she thinks she hasn’t done that already.”
“The higher cell count must have been why I was feeling so exhausted on holiday.”
“I knew we should have got you to a doctor when we were in the States. I should have insisted on it.”
“What good would it have done? They wouldn’t have told us anything we haven’t just been told, and there’s nothing much they could have done for me.” She sighed. “If the leukemia is going is gaining the upper hand then there’s nothing anyone can do.”
“Don’t talk like that,” he snapped, and because it was uncharacteristic of him she took a step back and looked at him through startled eyes.
“There must be something we can do. Some natural therapy we can try.” He looked so desperate that she didn’t want to destroy what little hope he had by telling him it was a waste of time, that there were no remedies except FK14B that could save her.
“Blast that drug company,” he said with venom. “We only needed a few months more and you would have been cured.”
“There’s no point on dwelling on that now,” she said quietly. “That’s a door that’s been firmly closed to us.”
“You’ll have to take it as easy as possible from now on,” Kent said, taking her gently by the arm as if she were an invalid and guiding her to the car.
“I don’t want you to wrap me in cotton wool, Kent,” she said firmly. “I want to live life to the full, and I can’t do that if you place a lot of restrictions on me.”
“I’m not trying to place restrictions on you, Sweetheart. I’m just trying to protect you. I know you’ll try to do much more than you’re able to do simply because you don’t want to put anyone out.”
She had to concede he had a point there. It was ingrained in her nature to be a bit of a martyr. She had always preferred that to the knowledge she was creating problems for somebody.
He saw the breakthrough he needed in the expression on her face. “You will take things a little easier from now on, won’t you?”
“Yes, Darling, I will.”
He wrapped his strong arms around her and clung to her tight. “God willing we will beat this thing,” he said with determination. “There are millions of people the world over who have beaten cancer.”
She didn’t have the heart to tell him there were many millions more who hadn’t.
♥
The blood tests the following week showed no improvement. The leukemia was definitely on the move, and she had no way of knowing how long it would be before she got really bad. It might be months, or it could be years. She prayed it would be the latter. She wanted as much quality time with her husband and daughter as possible.
Her plans for a second baby were out of the question now, and that made her sad. Not just for her sake but for Kent and Talitha’s also. Kent would never get the son she had longed to give him, and Talitha would live her life through without the support of a sibling. Christy knew what that was like, and wished it could be otherwise for her little girl, but fate had dealt her a savage hand, a hand she had no control over.
Kent hadn’t said anything when Christy’s doctor read out the blood test results. He had stared straight ahead, stony faced, the muscle in his jaw slightly twitching as he clenched his teeth tightly together.
Christy knew he was scared, even though he acted as if everything was going to work out alright. He was permanently on edge, which wasn’t natural for him. He had always been so in control, but now he was facing something that no amount of money could possibly replace.
Jack had got tears in his eyes when she told him. He had pinned his hopes on the first blood test being a mistake, and had talked himself into believing the second would put everything back to rights. The truth had shattered his happy illusion, and now that he could see the writing on the wall his defenses came down.
Talitha was too little to be told. But Christy sensed she knew something was up by the way she was much quieter than usual. Maybe she had picked up on the mood amongst the adult members of the household and adjusted her behavior accordingly.
Christy didn’t want to die, not now, not when she finally had everything she wanted.
She wasn’t sure how she would react when the time drew near to die. Maybe the fear would grab a hold on her, or maybe she would feel calmness about the process that would put her mind at rest. She didn’t know, all she knew was she wanted to go on living because there was so much love in her life.
Kent hadn’t been taking the news lying down however. He had immediately searched the internet for every touted cancer cure he could find. Everything from apricot pits to barley grass to coffee enemas was researched. She shuddered at the thought of that last one, and could only hope he wasn’t going to insist she try it.
She listened politely every time he excitedly told her of a new ‘cure’ he had come across, if it gave him hope then who was she to destroy that?
She was determined to live what remained of her life to the fullest. After all, she may have several years left, and she could pack a lot of living into a few years. There were still things she wanted to do, and places she wanted to visit, and she knew all she had to do was to tell Kent and he would make it happen for her.
She thought back to the time Kent had taken her swimming with the dolphins. She hadn’t felt so alive and excited in years as she did that day, and it was Kent who had brought that out in her. She wanted to feel that way again; she wanted to experience new things with the man she loved beside her.
♥
Kent hadn’t been near the Bonnie Lass in over three weeks. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about the sea or the business any more; it was simply that Christy filled his thoughts from the moment he opened his eyes until well after he closed them at night. Everything else seemed insignificant compared to what was going on with his wife.
She was definitely not her usual self. Before they had left for Disneyland she had been full of beans, nothing seemed to slow her down. But they hadn’t been in the States for more than a few days when she started to get tired. Maybe it was the grueling air travel that had hastened the leukemia along, he wasn’t sure. But it pained him to see her get weary so quickly, and she wasn’t able to do all the things she loved to do so easily any more, especially playing with Talitha.
Kent had been in touch with Don Nelson in the vain hope he may have got his hands on some FK14B before it was all destroyed. But Don assured him he hadn’t. The drug company had been so swift to shut them down and so thorough in their destruction of everything in the lab that he had been unable to save anything.
Kent had asked him if there was anything else in the pipeline. Maybe a new drug that could be manufactured at a profit margin the drug company would be happy with?
Don was sorry to tell him there wasn’t. In fact, he had been taken off cancer research and reassigned to working on a cure for baldness. The company felt there was money to be made in that.
Kent had felt the fury well up after he had ended his phone call with Don. Where had this world gone so wrong that a cure for baldness was given priority over one for cancer?
What disgusted him the most was the cancer cure was right there, right at their fingertips. He knew it for a fact; his wife had been getting better on FK14B. If she had used it long enough the leukemia would have been completely routed. How many countless millions were going to die cruel and needless deaths because a miracle drug had been deemed too expensive to be profitable?
A special place in hell must be reserved for those who coldly destroyed the only chance at life for so many people simply because a successful cure wasn’t financially lucrative enough to satisfy their greed.
Kent was relieved that Christy seemed determined to box on. She wasn’t letting the leukemia have it all its own way. He had feared for a while that she may become so despondent she might try to repeat what she had attempted that morning he had first met her. She had assured him she wouldn’t, but that hadn’t stopped him from watching her like a hawk for the first few weeks until he was satisfied she wanted to fight.
Kent had noticed that Jack had gone into shutdown mode. His usual fun loving nature had all but disappeared, and now he barely spoke, other than to Talitha whom he still doted on, albeit less energetically than he did before.
Jack always had the capacity to be blunt at times, (Christy had insisted that it hadn’t always been the case, that the death of her mother had made him so) but since the return of the leukemia he had been grumpier than Kent had ever seen him, and he avoided conversation with the old man as much as possible for fear of ‘setting’ him off.
It was understandable Kent supposed that Jack would change, he had seen more than his share of tragedy in his life and must be feeling that this latest development was one kick in the guts too many. No parent ever expected to outlive their child, and the fact that father and daughter shared such a close bond made what he was going through so much more devastating.