Beach Lane (8 page)

“Because you think you know me so well,” she retorted. “But not this time, Mack. This is all about you and what’s right for your future.”

“It’ll take me a little longer to pull everything together, but I’ll at least talk to Laila before I throw in the towel. I promise.”

“I can’t ask for more than that.” She met his gaze. “You know, I think I might be able to eat that piece of pie, after all.”

He watched as she dug into the warm apple pie with melting vanilla ice cream on top, then shook his head. “And here I thought you’d leave at least a bite or two for me,” he teased.

“Get your own,” she said. “This piece is all mine.”

Mack felt strangely relieved by her sudden burst of appetite. And yet the fact that he felt that way said way too much about just how worried he was about her.

Spending the afternoon with Mack, while a bit stressful, had been just the distraction Susie had needed. She’d almost forgotten about the ultrasound results. When she stopped back in the office, though, there was a message on her desk, taken by her father, to call Dr. Kinnear’s office.

She could feel her father’s gaze on her as she read it.

“What’s that about, Suze?” he asked, worry creasing his brow. “Why is the doctor’s office calling you?”

“Nothing to be concerned about, Dad. They just want me to schedule an appointment.”

He stepped out of his office and crossed to her desk, then perched on the chair beside it. “I’ve been married to your mother a lot of years, you know. When it’s time for her to make an appointment, she gets a notice in the mail.”

“And she probably does it right away,” Susie suggested. “I didn’t. Thus the phone call.”

“You’re lying to me,” her father said bluntly. “Don’t even try. You’re not that good at it. I grew up playing poker with your uncles. I learned to spot the signs of a bluff years ago.”

Though she refused to meet his gaze, Susie felt her eyes brimming with tears. “I can’t talk about it, Dad. Not right now.”

He stood up and suddenly she was in his arms, her head buried on his shoulder. She let the sobs come, soaking his shirt, while he murmured soothing words to her.

“I can let you cry, sweetie, but I can’t help unless you talk to me,” he said. “Would you rather I get your mother over here? Does this have something to do with why the two of you have been huddled together so much recently?”

“Don’t call Mom. I’m okay,” she said, though she clung to his hand. “Could you just sit here with me while I make the call? Then we can talk, okay?”

He nodded. “Whatever you need.”

Her hand shook as she dialed the number. “Is Dr. Kinnear available?” she asked. “I think he has my test results.”

“He’s with a patient, but I know he wants to speak to you right away,” the nurse said. “I’ll get him. Just sit tight, okay?”

Susie nodded, then realized the woman couldn’t see her. “Sure,” she managed to murmur.

As she waited, she avoided looking at her father’s face. She knew how frantic he must be. She was probably scaring him to death.

Then the doctor was on the line.

“It’s as I suspected, Susie. There’s a mass of some kind. Could just be a cyst. We could do an MRI that might tell us more, but I’d rather go straight for a biopsy. It’ll be more definitive, and we’re probably going to have to do it eventually anyway.”

“I see,” she said, hearing the words, knowing what they meant, but somehow unable to process all of the implications. “You’re pretty sure it’s cancer, aren’t you? That’s why you want to jump ahead.”

“I didn’t say that,” he said, his tone deliberately calm and soothing. “I’m just trying to cut out an intermediate step that will only give you longer to worry about this. We can get the biopsy scheduled by next week, more than likely. Getting you in for an MRI could take a lot longer. And, like I said, you’d most likely wind up in an O.R. down the road, anyway. Do you want to come in and talk about this? I’ll have Jane fit you in this afternoon, if you like.”

“No, that’s okay,” she said dully. “Go ahead and schedule the biopsy. What you said makes total sense. I want answers sooner rather than later.” She drew in a deep breath. “What’s actually going to happen? If the biopsy results are bad, will you do surgery right then and there?”

“Probably not. We like to do it that way with breast cancer, but with this we like to think about all the treatment options depending on what we find, then schedule the surgery. We’ll want to get a surgical oncologist involved, as well. I have someone I usually recommend, if that’s okay. I’ll work with him on the scheduling.”

“That’s fine,” she said, feeling mostly numb. All she could sense was her father’s reassuring grip on her hand. It had tightened as he listened. She knew he must be devastated by what he was hearing.

“Jane will call you when she has a time for the biopsy.”

“Thank you.”

“Susie, I know it sounds impossible, but try not to worry,” the doctor said, doing his best to reassure her. “Approach this one step at a time, okay?”

“I’m doing the best I can,” she told him. And that was true. It was just that at the moment, her best wasn’t very good. She felt as if her head were about to explode, and her pulse was racing a mile a minute.

When she’d hung up, she couldn’t seem to bring herself to meet her father’s gaze.

“Suze, what is it? What’s the biopsy for?” His voice hitched. “Is it breast cancer?”

She shook her head. “Worse. It’s possible that I have ovarian cancer,” she said in a choked voice. “I might never have kids, Dad.” Then it hit that not having children was far from the worst-case scenario. “I…” She blinked back fresh tears. “I could die.”

Her father sucked in a shocked breath, but he didn’t let go of her hand. “That is
not
going to happen. Do you hear me? It’s not. Whatever it takes, wherever we have to go for the best treatment, that’s what we’ll do. There are specialists at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Call Dr. Kinnear back and tell him that’s where you’re going. I insist on your seeing the best.”

She almost smiled at the force behind his words. “Do you know you sounded exactly like Uncle Mick then, as if you could command the world to do your bidding. I’m okay with Dr. Kinnear and the oncologist he’s recommending, at least for now, Dad. I’d like to be with someone I know, okay?”

“Whatever you need, Suze,” he said with obvious reluctance, then muttered, “I wish to God you and your mother had told me about this sooner.”

“So you could do what? Worry with us?”

“Exactly.” He frowned. “Does Mack know?”

“No one knows besides Mom and now you. I want it to stay that way,” she said emphatically. “You know how our family is. They’ll hover. I don’t think I could take that right now.”

“Okay, I get why you might not want to drag the whole family into this, but you need to tell Mack.”

“No,” she repeated.

“Aw, Suze, come on,” he coaxed. “The man would want to know.”

“Dad, you know the kind of guy Mack is. He keeps things light and casual. This is anything but that.”

“He loves you,” Jeff said adamantly. “Anyone can see that. He’s going to be furious if he finds out about this later. He’d want to be with you, right by your side.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Susie said, wishing she could believe in Mack’s devotion as fervently as her father did. “I don’t want to put him to the test, especially now when he has so much else on his mind. Once I know how this is going to turn out, I’ll tell him. That’s soon enough.”

Her father looked disappointed by her response. “I think you’re making a mistake—not just for Mack, but for yourself. You need him in your corner, possibly even more than you need your mother and me.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Let’s face it, honey, that man can give you a reason to fight. He can give you the will to live, no matter how dark things appear.”

Susie shook her head. “No, I won’t put that kind of pressure on him. I don’t want him with me out of pity, or as some kind of cheerleader.”

“I’m not suggesting you have to marry him. Just let him be there for you the way I know he’d want to be there. Shutting him out is the kind of behavior that he might never be able to forgive.”

There was a tone in his voice that rattled her. “Why do you think that?”

“Because your mom almost didn’t tell me what was going on with her after Matthew was born. When she finally had to fill me in because of the problems she had with Luke’s delivery, well, it tore me up inside thinking of her going through that all alone, making the decisions about our future without any input from me.”

“What did you do?”

“I’m ashamed to say I walked out,” he admitted. “It was only for a couple of days, but I had to wrap my head around the fact that your mother could keep something so important from me. In the end I realized she’d done it, at least in part, to protect me, but that didn’t seem to matter. It took me a while to trust in what we had again. Mack could feel the same way, that’s all I’m saying.”

He met her gaze, gave her a weary smile. “Just think about what I’m telling you, okay? Think about how you felt when he kept his job loss from you. Don’t wait too long to bring Mack into the loop on this.”

“I’ll think about it,” she whispered, shaken. “I promise.”

But though her father had raised a lot of very valid points, she was almost as scared of talking to Mack as she was of facing the biopsy next week.

What if she was right? What if go-with-the-flow Mack couldn’t handle the kind of devastating news she might be facing? She thought she knew him better than that, better than he knew himself, but right now being wrong wasn’t a chance she was willing to take.

8

M
ack’s blog had been up and running for a couple of weeks when his old boss called.

“Hey, pal, I saw the blog. It’s good to see you’re still writing,” Don Richmond said. “One of the guys in the sports department told me about it. Based on the comments flowing in, it looks as if you still have your knack for stirring up controversy.”

“Just trying to keep my finger on the pulse of the sports world,” Mack said.

“So, are you making any money at this or are you still actively looking for another job?”

“I’ve sent out a couple of feelers, heard from a few papers, but I have some other things I’m following up on in the meantime.”

“Such as?”

Mack wasn’t ready to share his idea for starting a newspaper with anyone outside his immediate circle of friends. “I’ll fill you in if it works out.”

“Does that mean you’d still be open to another suggestion?” Don probed.

Mack knew it would be foolish not to be open to anything and everything right now. “Why? Do you have a lead on a job?”

“It’s not a job. More of a freelance assignment.”

“That might be a real possibility,” Mack said, thinking of the income it would provide while he was waiting to see if he could pull together the newspaper. “What’s the deal?”

“I had a call from a publisher the other day,” Don explained. “They’re looking for someone to ghostwrite a book for a sports figure. They want someone who knows the sports world and can spin a good story. The book’s about someone big, though they don’t want me to mention the name. They’ll pay a sizable flat-fee advance. You’d be perfect for the job. Are you interested? If so, I’ll pass your name along. I didn’t want to do that without discussing it with you first.”

“I’d be writing anonymously, basically putting this person’s words down on paper?” Mack asked.

“That’s the way I understand it.”

Mack hesitated. He recalled a friend spending months on one of those deals, only to have the book pulled because the athlete in question balked at the last minute. “What if the person’s not being candid and I know it? Or what if I write the book and the guy won’t okay it?”

“All things you’d need to discuss with the publisher,” Don told him. “It’s worth a conversation. You could fly up to New York next week and sit down with the editor, then meet the celebrity to see if it’s a comfortable fit.”

“Any idea what kind of money they’re talking about?”

Don named a figure that would fatten his bank account nicely and would allow him to remain here in Chesapeake Shores while he wrote. Or at least he thought it would.

“Would I need to relocate?”

“I’m sure you’d have to spend some time with this guy, and he’s not local, but I imagine you could do the bulk of the writing anyplace you wanted to.”

“What’s the timetable?”

“The way I understand it, they’re hoping to jump on a current news situation. That’s one reason they were looking for a journalist who’s used to writing under deadline pressure.”

The idea was intriguing and lucrative enough that Mack knew he couldn’t possibly dismiss it out of hand. “Sure, tell the publisher I’m interested,” he said.

It didn’t mean he had to forgo the whole newspaper thing, especially if this project required a tight turnaround. It would just give him something to do while that plan came together, assuming it did. He told himself it was smart to hedge his bets, since getting financing for the newspaper was far from a sure thing.

But later, as he made the arrangements to fly up to New York for the meetings, he couldn’t help wondering if Susie would see the opportunity as he did, as a means to an end, rather than as the first step to moving on to an entirely new life.

That evening, as Susie helped Mack decorate the small Christmas tree they’d bought for his apartment, she listened as he explained his upcoming trip to New York.

“I see,” she said eventually, her heart sinking. “It sounds like a terrific possibility.”

Mack frowned. “You don’t sound all that thrilled about it. I wouldn’t be moving away, Susie. If anything, this could be a way to stay right here and build an entirely different career.”

She shrugged. “I guess I’d let myself get too excited about the whole newspaper thing,” she said. It had been a surefire way to keep him close.

“Is that it, or are you worried that once I’m off traveling or whatever for the book, I might find someplace I like better than Chesapeake Shores?” Mack asked perceptively.

“Maybe so,” she admitted. “Do you want to write this book, Mack? If you do, then that’s all that really matters.”

“Frankly, I see it as a way to get an infusion of cash that would tide me over until I see how this newspaper thing comes together, or even
if
it does. If it opens the door to other book deals, that might be good, but that’s not how I’m looking at it. It’s a onetime thing.”

“The newspaper will never fly if you’re not a hundred percent committed to it,” Susie argued. “Laila will see right away if your time’s going to be too scattered. She’ll never approve a loan then.”

“You probably have a point,” Mack conceded. “But it’s a couple of days in New York. I’ll know more by the time I come back. Then I can make an informed decision.”

Susie didn’t want him to guess there were other reasons she didn’t want him out of town right now. She forced a smile. “Right. Just a couple of days. When will you go?”

“Day after tomorrow,” he said.

It was a struggle not to reveal her dismay. “Good,” she said with forced cheer. “Then you’ll know something by the end of the week.”

“More than likely.” He studied her intently. “Susie, am I missing something? You’re saying all the right words, but I can tell you’re not wildly enthused about any of this. Is it the book? The trip? The timing?”

“Don’t be silly,” she said, faking a smile she hoped Mack wouldn’t be able to see through. She’d had enough practice at fooling him over the years, at not letting him see what was really going on inside her. He’d probably hurt her inadvertently a hundred different ways and never had a clue. She intended to keep it that way.

She looked up from the strand of lights she’d been clutching so tightly they’d marked her palm and forced a smile. “I can’t wait to hear how it goes and who this mystery athlete is. Any ideas?”

“Not a one,” he confessed. “Don wouldn’t even give me a hint.”

“Not even about the sport?”

“Nope. Not even that.”

She grinned, and this time it was genuine. “What if it’s some obscure women’s lacrosse player?” she teased. “Are you up on all the details about the lacrosse world? Or a swimmer? Maybe you’ll get to hang out in a pool all day, till your skin withers up like a prune.”

He laughed. “Given the advance they were talking about, I doubt it’s anybody obscure, no matter the sport. And I’m going to be less of a journalist and more of a writer on this one. I think my job’s going to be to write this person’s story, not investigate all their deep, dark secrets.”

“What fun will that be?”

Mack’s expression wavered. “Not much, to be honest,” he admitted with candor.

“Then why even consider it?” she asked before she could stop herself from once again questioning his decision.

“It’s a financial choice, Susie. I can’t afford to turn my back on any options right now. And who knows, like I said before, it could open doors for me to other book projects.”

“You’ve never mentioned wanting to write a book.”

“Frankly, I’d never even thought about it, but now seems like a good time to look at everything before I decide what I want for the future.”

“I suppose,” she said.

He regarded her curiously. “There it is again, that sense I’m getting that you are really not okay with any of this.”

“You’re imagining things,” she insisted, then stood up and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Look, let’s leave the tree for now. I need to run, anyway. I have an early appointment in the morning and you probably have things you need to do to get ready for your trip. I’ll see you when you get back.”

She thought she’d injected just the right, breezy note into her voice, but Mack latched on to her arm and held her in place, a frown creasing his brow. He stood up, then leveled a look into her eyes that had her glancing away.

“What about tomorrow, before I go?” he asked.

“I’m busy,” she told him. “I might not have time to get together.”

His frown deepened, proving just how badly she was handling this. She was stirring his suspicions rather than allaying them.

“Busy doing what?” he asked, his skeptical tone proving her point.

“I have appointments all day,” she said. It was true as far as it went. She was doing a pre-op test, then going from that to outpatient surgery so they could do the biopsy.

“Want to have dinner tomorrow night?”

“Sorry, I can’t make it,” she said. “We’ll do it when you get back, okay?”

Mack nodded slowly. “Sure, if that works for you.”

“Have a safe trip,” she said, relieved that he’d stopped pressing her about tomorrow. “Call me from New York if you get a chance. Otherwise, I’ll see you Friday.”

“I’ll call,” he said.

Though his expression was still perplexed, he actually let her go this time. Only after she was outside and was sure his door was closed did Susie release the breath it seemed she’d been holding ever since they’d started discussing this whole book thing.

And then she cried.

She’d wanted so badly for Mack to be by her side when she walked into the hospital for the biopsy, but how could she possibly blame him for not being there when she hadn’t had the gumption to tell him? He would have postponed the trip to New York. A few days would hardly have mattered. She was sure of that, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask it of him, even though she could hear her father’s words echoing in her head that she was making a mistake.

Come on, she chided herself. She’d handled most of the crises of her life totally on her own, or with her parents’ backup. This would be no different, she told herself bracingly. Her mother would be with her. So would her father, Gram, her brothers, if she decided to tell them. Right now she didn’t think she would. It would only increase the chances of Mack finding out, and she didn’t want anything to spoil this business trip for him. She might not be happy about it, but it
was
a fantastic opportunity. He needed to be focused and at the top of his game, not worrying about her biopsy and the potentially devastating results.

There would be time to fill him in on his return. Maybe by then she’d have real news, rather than conjecture and speculation. Maybe it would even be good news.

For just a minute she let herself bask in that possibility, that the news would be good and all this fear would be behind her.

And whether Mack got this book deal or went ahead with the plan for the paper, they’d both be able to look toward a brighter future.

One thing for sure, if the news
was
good, she didn’t intend to waste another minute where Mack was concerned. They’d lost enough time already. She was going to fight for what she wanted. If she blew it, if things simply didn’t happen between them, well, so be it. At least she would have gone down fighting, instead of sitting on the sidelines hoping for something that was never meant to be.

When Mack got back from New York, he was bursting with excitement about the book deal. Everything had clicked into place. He already knew the football player, whose long career was winding down amid a scandal over a DUI accident in which a pedestrian had been killed. The victim’s family had been paid a huge sum of money, and the charges had been reduced. The athlete had been suspended from play by the league, which meant instead of leaving the game in a blaze of glory, he was going out with a whimper.

His hope was that this book would clear his name and allow him to move forward with all of the charitable goals he and his wife hoped to meet with their foundation.

“We won’t be able to ignore the controversy,” Mack told Brock Hunt. “If we do, if people think this book is just blowing smoke, it won’t accomplish what you want.”

“He’s probably right,” Brock’s agent agreed. “Deal with it head-on.”

Next to Brock, his publicist rolled her eyes. “Now you’re on board,” she said sarcastically. “I’ve been telling him to be straight with the media from the beginning.”

The agent didn’t look remotely chagrined. “Now the real scoop will sell books.”

Mary Long scowled at him. “You are such a sleaze.”

“But I know how to work an angle,” the man retorted.

“Oh, quit squabbling, you two,” Brock’s wife snapped. “For once, let’s just do the right thing.” Kelly Hunt turned to her husband. “It’s time for the truth to come out.”

Mack studied the soon-to-retire quarterback. “What is the truth?”

Brock hesitated, looking miserable. “I hate saving myself by taking someone else down.”

“What kind of friend would have let you take a fall for him in the first place?” Kelly asked reasonably, then turned to Mack and blurted, “Coop Mitchell was driving the car that night. That’s the truth.”

Mack stared at her. “That wasn’t in any of the police reports. I read them when the incident happened. His name wasn’t even mentioned as being at the scene.”

“Because he’s the team’s bright young hope, Brock told him to take off. Coop was long gone by the time the police arrived. At that hour of the morning, there were no witnesses. Brock stuck around to deal with the situation.”

“Who paid off the family?” Mack asked. “The speculation was that Brock did.”

“It was the team,” Brock admitted. “They knew the truth. Coop told them. He wanted to turn himself in, but they said they’d come up with a way to get me off.” He shrugged. “And they did. The story should end right there. I don’t need redemption.”

“You do if you want anyone to contribute to this foundation of yours,” Mary said. “You and Kelly are doing good things, Brock. The foundation isn’t just your legacy. It’s providing hope for a lot of kids and their families.”

“The truth needs to be in the book,” Mack said forcefully. “If you can’t agree to that, I’m out.”