Risk of a Lifetime (Mills & Boon Medical) (12 page)

He shook his head. ‘Not if I’m at work. Marnie can’t manage the hill with his wheelchair. I’ll talk to her tomorrow. And we need to move the playhouse for you. She reminded me about it after you went back to your sandcastle.’

‘Really? Oh, Ed, I thought it was just an idle suggestion, or I would have thanked them.’

‘Of course it wasn’t idle. You’re welcome to it. You can have it as soon as you like.’

She frowned. ‘I don’t know how, though. Even in bits it won’t go in my car.’

‘No probs. Grumps has got a trailer it’ll go in, and a car with a tow hitch. If it’ll go through the side gate, we don’t even have to take it apart. Measure it, let me know. Here.’

He picked up a breadstick and leant over the table, holding the end out to her. She bit it, and he turned it round, closed his lips around it and bit off the end. The end that had touched her lips. Just like the ice-cream cone that had sent her into meltdown earlier in the day. And then he turned it back to her, his eyes curiously intent. She parted her lips to take it, and felt the tension in the garden ramp up to a whole new level.

The time for small talk was over.

* * *

What
was
it about him?

Not technique, although he was certainly no slouch in that department, but he didn’t even have to touch her and she was on fire. Just a glance—not even that. The mere thought was enough to take her to the edge.

She’d never been so in tune with another person in her life, and yet there was so little she knew about him. Maybe she didn’t need to know any more? Although there were things she
did
know, which he hadn’t told her. Things they needed to discuss?

‘OK?’

The word was a low rumble against her ear, and she shifted her head against his shoulder, tilting it back so she could meet his eyes. They were languid, but even now in the background was a latent heat. She tried not to smile.

‘Actually, no. That was rubbish.’

He chuckled and tilted her head a little more and kissed her. ‘Liar,’ he growled softly.

‘Mmm.’ She smiled against his lips, and then rested her head back on his shoulder and gave a quiet sigh.

‘What is it?’

How to say it? She ran her fingers over his chest, feeling the definition of his muscles under the sprinkling of dark hair. He was fit. Strong. Powerful. And articulate, his acute intelligence and razor wit an important part of who he was. But for how long?

She propped herself up on one elbow so she could read him better, because she knew her next words were going to have repercussions, but they had to be said.

Carefully, her voice soft and non-confrontational, she said quietly, ‘How long has your grandfather had Huntington’s disease?’

* * *

Every cell in his body froze.

Damn.

‘Did Marnie tell you?’

‘No. I’m a doctor, Ed. I looked at him. One glance was enough.’

Of course it was. She wasn’t stupid. He turned his head, staring blankly across the room, and swallowed hard.

‘Ed? Talk to me.’

‘There’s nothing to say.’

‘Isn’t there? Or is it just that you don’t want to say it?’

He turned back to her again, knowing he was angry, knowing she’d read it in his eyes, but she held her ground and touched his face with gentle fingers.

‘Have you inherited the gene from your grandfather?’

Trust her to go for the bloody jugular.

‘No.’ Not from his grandfather.

‘So it’s not because of the threat of HD that you don’t want kids, don’t want to get married, don’t want a relationship worth diddly-squat?’

His heart pounded. Should he lie to her? It was none of her damn business, and he could tell her that, or lie, or just refuse to discuss it. But for some reason that he simply couldn’t fathom, he
wanted
to talk to her.

Could he trust her with the truth?

Yes. She had no axe to grind, no interest in a permanent relationship, no desire to get involved ever again with a man in that way. She’d said as much already, told him in words of one syllable that she’d move heaven and earth to protect her girls, and that meant not exposing them to risk of any sort.

And he was a risk.

He was an unexploded bomb, and the clock was ticking. What he didn’t know was if it would ever detonate or if it was just a dummy.

‘It’s not that simple,’ he said eventually.

Her voice was gentle. ‘I didn’t for a moment think it would be.’

‘No. I mean, it’s
really
not that simple. I don’t know how much you know about HD.’

‘Some. I know it’s inherited, and I know it’s not gender linked, so either sex can develop it. I know you can have genetic counselling and screening and it’s a long and involved process. I know the age of onset tends to decrease as it goes down the generations, and I know what it does to the body and the mind as it destroys part of the brain, and the destructive impact the threat of it has on families.’

He nodded. He lived with that threat every day of his life. Destructive? She had no idea.

‘And I know it’s a mutation of the huntingtin gene on one of the chromosomes,’ she added. ‘That’s all I can remember.’

He nodded. ‘OK. Well, everyone has the gene, but what causes the disease is when that gene mutates. Think of a string of beads, all different colours, and every bead is a different gene that gives us different characteristics like hair colour and so on. With HD, it’s like having several beads of the same colour in a row, and the more you have, the more likely you are to get the symptoms. And when it’s handed down, because it’s not the most stable gene when it’s copied, it can be inclined to mutate and expand so you get more beads, as it were. It almost never decreases. The average is about eighteen. Under twenty six, you’re fine. That’s normal. Over forty, you’ll definitely develop symptoms at some point in your life if you live long enough, and the higher the number, the longer the string of identical beads, if you like, the earlier the onset of the symptoms. Still with me?’

She nodded, and he continued, ‘My grandfather has forty-two, which is why he only got it nine years ago, and he’s the first person in his family to develop it, but he didn’t pass it on.’

Her brows tugged together in a little frown. ‘So—your father didn’t inherit the gene?’

‘Yes, but not from Grumps. He only has thirty-four repeats, and, as I said, it doesn’t tend to decrease over the generations. So they looked at Marnie, and found she’d got thirty-four repeats, too, so it came from her.’

‘Marnie?’ She sounded shocked. ‘So—will she..?’ She trailed off, and he shook his head.

‘No. Between twenty-six and forty is a grey area, with the risk increasing as the number rises. You’re safe right up to the mid-thirties, and after that the risk increases, but even if you’re safe yourself, when you pass it on the gene can expand. So Marnie herself is safe.’

‘She’ll never develop the symptoms?’

‘No, and nor will my father, not if he lives to be a hundred, but the gene is unstable when it’s handed down the male line. That’s when it’s most likely to expand, and if it expands enough, you cop it.’

He could feel her eyes on him, the intense concentration of her gaze, the comfort of her touch as her hand lay against his pounding heart, the thumb moving slowly, rhythmically, soothing him.

‘And?’ she asked softly.

She wasn’t going to give up, was she? But she might as well know it all. Know the truth, know why he was so determined never to have a family of his own.

‘I don’t know,’ he told her, his voice raw, and he felt the slight intake of her breath in the shift of her ribs against his side. ‘I had the counselling, we all did. That was after Grumps was diagnosed and my father’s repeats didn’t match and they’d traced it to Marnie. We all went for the counselling and testing, and my brother and aunt are fine. My aunt wanted to know if she’d handed it on, and so did my brother, because his wife was pregnant with their second child.’

‘And you?’ she coaxed, when he hesitated.

‘I took the test, but when it came to it I realised I didn’t want to know the result. I don’t know if I have it, how many repeats I have, if it’s expanded at all from my father to me, or not enough to make me certain of developing it at any point in the future. I wouldn’t let them tell me that. I just know there’s a fifty-fifty chance I’ve inherited it, and if I have, even if it hasn’t expanded, even if
I’m
safe, I can never take the risk of handing it on to future generations, which is why I’ve decided never to have children, because I’m not handing this damn disease on to ruin any more lives. It stops with me. And that’s not negotiable.’

She was silent for so long that he turned his head to look at her. Her eyes were trained on him, and tears shimmered in their clouded blue depths. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said softly. ‘That must have been such a tough decision to make.’

‘Not really. It doesn’t honestly make very much difference to me. My brother’s in the clear, he’s got three kids, so the family name won’t die out, my parents have grandchildren so that box is ticked—and that’s me off the hook as far as the whole happy-ever-after thing goes. I don’t want to have to watch some poor woman buckle under the strain like Marnie is. I couldn’t do that to anyone, never mind someone I loved as much as Grumps loved Marnie. He’d be devastated if he understood the impact this is having on her, but he had no idea it was on the cards until it was too late, and now his emotions are skewed and he doesn’t care or even realise.

‘But it’s not too late for me, because there’s nobody in my life to get hurt by my decision, and there never will be. This way I can do what I want, live my life how I choose—’

‘Can you, though?’ she asked, and although her voice was still gentle, her question wasn’t and it went right to the heart of the argument his brother had used on him time and time again. ‘Can you really? Surely you’re just denying yourself the potential opportunity to have a lifetime of happiness in a loving relationship on the strength of a mere possibility—is that really what you choose, or are you just running from the truth?’

Damn. He couldn’t take this. The room was closing in on him, the insidious fear that had been a part of his life for nine years now rising up and choking him.

‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore,’ he said, and, throwing back the covers, he got out of bed, picked up his clothes and left the room.

* * *

Annie lay there in the tangle of bedding and stared at the empty doorway until it blurred.

She’d convinced herself today that he’d got the gene, that he was going to disintegrate like his grandfather, and when she’d realised he didn’t necessarily have it, she’d expected to feel relief, but all she felt was the crushing weight of uncertainty.

How could he live like that, with so many unknowns? Well, only one, really. Would he or wouldn’t he die slowly by inches like his grandfather? And put like that, if the answer should turn out to be yes, why
would
he want to know, so it was hanging over him for the rest of his life? Not hanging over her, because she wasn’t involved—was she?

Oh, hell.

She dropped back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling while tears trickled slowly out of the corners of her eyes and leaked down into her hair.

‘Damn!’ she whispered. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’

And then she sniffed hard, swiped the tears off her temples with an impatient hand, pulled on her clothes and followed him. The last thing he needed was a pity party going on in his bedroom and, anyway, this wasn’t about her, it was about him.

She found him in the garden, sitting in the gathering dark on the swing seat, a glass of wine in his hand. She walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder, but he didn’t move, and after a moment she went across to the table, picking up her empty glass.

‘Any more in the bottle?’

The ice bucket was on the ground at his feet. He pushed it towards her, and she poured half a glass with a hand that was far from steady. Well, she’d known all day that this was on the cards, so she had no business being shocked, but the thought of it hanging over him, this young, fit man, so strong, so vital, so
alive
? It shocked her. To the core.

She sat down next to him, and the swing creaked and swayed a little before it came to rest.

Her voice was soft in the darkness. ‘Will you ever find out?’

‘No. If I’m getting it, it’ll find me, and until then, I’m not going to borrow trouble.’

‘And what do your family say?’

‘They think I’m in the clear. Well, my brother knows I haven’t found out, but nobody else.’

‘You lied to them, in other words?’

‘Not exactly. I told them I hadn’t had a positive result.’

‘And do they believe you?’

He shrugged. ‘Dad does. He heaved a sigh of relief and went back to work. Business resumed.’

‘And your mother?’

‘Her, too.’

‘And Marnie?’

The silence was telling, and she held her nerve and waited him out. After several tense seconds, he let out a sigh.

‘I told her she’d never have to see me go through it. And that’s not a lie, but she knows it’s also not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but I’ve never been able to lie to her, and whenever I tell her I’m OK and she won’t ever have to see me like him, she says, “If you say so.” And I can tell from her eyes that she doesn’t believe a word of it.

‘And that’s the hardest bit,’ he said, his voice fracturing momentarily. ‘Lying to her. Knowing she wants me to find out the truth and set her mind at rest, so she knows she hasn’t inadvertently handed me a death sentence. But I don’t want to know, and it’s my right not to know. If it was going to be, no, I don’t have the gene, then of course I’d want to know. If it was going to be, yes, but it’s not mutated any further, then it would be wise to know so that I didn’t have children. But if I have it, and it’s mutated, and I’ll develop it at some point down the line, then I really, really don’t want to know.

‘I don’t want to live my life watching and waiting, worried every time I drop something or trip over or can’t remember someone’s name, and once the result is delivered, once the words are said, they can’t be unsaid.’