Disappointed that she hadn’t been called back, she took the clipboard with the papers on it and returned to her seat, trying her best to answer the questions on it through the blur of tears that made it hard to read anything. Her hands shook so badly her writing turned out to be more of a scribble, but she managed through it and went to return the forms when they said she could see Chris.
As she followed the nurse through the em
ergency corridor
, she asked, “Is he okay?”
“Yes, everything’s fine. We gave him some medicine, so he’s asleep but he’s stable,” she answered with a sympathetic smile. “We’ll know more when the test results come back.”
Nodding, Caitlyn thanked her and entered the small room the nurse pointed to.
The nurse closed the door and Caitlyn turned her attention to Chris who was, indeed, asleep while an IV p
umped fluid into his arm and a
machine monitored his heart. R
eminding herself that the nurse said he was okay now, she gathered enough strength to pull up a chair next to his bed.
She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I love you, Chris. I don’t want to spend my life without you. I know everything happened so fast, what with you being from another planet and all, but you filled a void in my life no one
else
can.” Sighing, she brushed the hair from his eyes and caressed his cheek. “Please don’t leave me
.”
Another tear trickled down her cheek so she brushed it away. A knock at the door caught her attention. After she called out for the person to enter, the door opened and Mark indicated that he wanted to talk to her outside the room. With a nod, she stood up and kissed Chris on the forehead.
“I’ll be right back,” she told him.
When she left the room, Mark closed the door and led her outside the building where they could talk in private. She didn’t expect him to act so serious, and this worried her. Was he about to give her bad news?
“Do you want to sit?” He motioned to a bench.
She shook her head and crossed her arms to get ready f
or whatever he had to say. “No. I’m fine standing.”
“Okay. How much do you kn
ow about the bonding that occurred
when you became Chris’ life mate?”
Taking a deep breath, she thought over everything Chris had told her. “Well, uh, it’s permanent. It allows him to know when I’m ovulating, which is why I got pregnant right away. It ensures fidelity since anyone who touches me or Chris with sexual intent will get burned.” She shrugged. “That’s all I really know about it.”
“It also makes some men from our world emotionally vulnerable to the woman they’ve bonded with. I
f we don’t feel loved, the life-
mate bond
can be severed, and if that happens, we die of a broken heart. This is why I didn’t request a life mate when I came here. I
needed to
be sure the woman
I picked
wanted to be with me before establishing a bond with her. Chris chose to have his life mate selected for him.”
“I don’t understand. Why would feeling unloved have anything to do with his heart attack? We’ve been getting along great, and I told him this morning I loved him.”
“Did you have a fight?”
“No. Everything’s been wonderful. Well, except for my mom, but that has nothing to do with Chris.”
“Tell me about your mom.
”
She rubbed her forehead. “She’s pulling the same stunt she used to pull when I was married to Randy. She arranged for a wedding behind my back, and when I told her I didn’t want it, she called Chris up to give him one of her sob stories.”
“Could one of these sob stories imply you didn’t love him because you didn’t want to have a wedding?”
Her jaw dropped. “I wouldn’t put it past
her to sink that low. Are you telling me he believe
d
her?”
“I was at the wedding rehearsal today, and a rumor was going around you married Chris because you got pregnant.”
She rolled her eyes. “I can’t help it if babies grow faster in the womb on your planet than on mine.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt you got pregnant after the bonding took place. Once we have sex with a woman, we’re bonded to her for life, and that bond marries the couple into a permanent relationship. But your family doesn’t kn
ow this, so your mom was
trying to convince everyone there that this was a renewal of your wedding vows and that you and Chris had eloped to Las Vegas six months ago without telling anyone. She was horrified the rumor
about your marrying Chris because you were pregnant
even started, but I know who started it. It was someone named Andy.”
Caitlyn groaned. “Andy was my brother-in-law. He wanted to be with me, b
ut I picked his brother instead
and he’s been making snide remarks about me ever since.”
“Well, Andy implied that you might divorce Chris someday.”
Heat rose to her cheeks as her anger resurfaced. “What?”
“I told Chris to talk to you and get that all resolved.”
“He didn’t have time. When I came home, he was on the phone with my meddling mother, and I had to hang up on her. Then I found out he spent $35,000 on a wedding ring a
nd necklace my mother picked out, and…” She gasped. “Oh no.”
“‘
Oh no
’
what?”
“Chris kept saying he wanted a wedding
, but I thought it was because he wanted to please my mom.”
“Your mother made weddings sound very important at the rehearsal. According to her, it guarantees you love Chris.”
That was why he was arguing with her over having the wedding. She groaned. “I suppose
when I told him we
were returning the ring and necklace, he took that to mean I didn’t love him?”
“Chris is more sensitive than some men on our world, so I would assume he took that the wrong way. I don’t blame you for returning $35,000 worth of jewelry. I knew he was picking out a wedding ring, but I thought he wouldn’t go higher than a couple months’ worth of salary.
”
“I wouldn’t have wanted it because my mother picked it out. I already know she’s the one who talked him into that outrageous price. It’s because Lexie’s fiancé spent $30,000 on her ring, earrings, and necklace.”
“Yeah, about that. How serious are things with Lexie and her fiancé?”
Caitlyn shrugged. “I think she’s marrying him to make our mom happy. I was the big screw up because I married someone like Randy who was a DJ, so my mom instilled how important it was to marry a man who’d be a better provider. You see why my mom has to be stopped
? She’s impossible. And no matter how much I tried to stand up to her in the past, it didn’t work because Randy would take her side.” Running her fingers through her hair, she asked, “You don’t think Chris will do the same thing Randy did, do you?”
“Not if he knows how much it’ll mean to you that he doesn’t.”
She hoped he was right because Randy didn’t listen to how important it was to her that he side with her.
“He will, Caitlyn. He wants nothing more than to see you happy, and your mom doesn’t make you happy.”
“No, she doesn’t.” Taking a deep breath, she wiped the rest of the tears from her eyes. “Is there anything else I need to know about
Chris so he doesn’t have another heart attack or some other health issue?”
“Just assure him you love him when you have an argument.”
She chuckled. “You haven’t had fights with a woman, have you?”
He shook his head.
“When you do, you’ll understand when you’re in the heat of the moment, you don’t feel like saying ‘I love you’.
Chris needs to know that fighting is normal. It doesn’t mean you don’t love someone; it just means they are annoying you at the moment.”
Mark laughed. “I guess I’ll learn that
when I get a life mate.”
“You want to see if he’s awake?”
“For a moment, but he’ll need to be alone with you so he can feel secure in your bond again.”
Nodding, she led him back inside the building and to Chris’ room. When she opened the door, he opened his eyes. Relieved to see that he was awake, she ran over to him and held his hand.
Chris’ eyebrows furrowed. “Where am I?”
“In a hospital,” she said. “I called Mark to find out what was happening to you. You scared me, Chris. I thought I was going to lose you.”
“You
did?” he asked her, squeezing her hand.
Mark walked over to them and tapped Chris’ chest. “Next time you feel any discomfort there, you have to talk to Caitlyn. You can’t keep your feelings to yourself
, okay?”
“Okay,” Chris replied.
“I’ll leave so
the
two
of you
can talk.”
“Thanks, Mark,” she called after him as he closed the door behind him. She sat down and rubbed Chris’ arm. “Why didn’t you tell me you could have a heart attack if you don’t feel loved?”
Chris shrugged. “I thought it wasn’t possible. I heard stories from my world, but I thought the stories were exaggerated because it didn’t seem physically possible
that emotions could lead to a fatality
.”
“If there’s something bothering you, you have to tell me, okay?”
“Your mom said not to tell you about the wedding because it was supposed to be a surprise. She said it would make you happy, and I wanted to make you happy.”
Sighing, she kissed his hand. “Chris, my mother’s surprises don’t make me happy. They never did. She used to manipulate Randy into surprising me, and it caused a lot of problems between us.”
“You had problems with Randy?”
“Of course, I did. Every couple has their problems, but that doesn’t mean they stop loving each other. I love you, Chris. Nothing’s going to make me stop loving you. I’m sorry you thought I stopped loving you earlier tonight.”
He swallowed and said, “I heard some women fall out of love with their husbands and thought when you didn’t want to have a wedding, you didn’t love me enough to say vows with me in front of your family and friends. Then you didn’t want my ring and necklace.”
“It wasn’t the wedding or the jewelry I was opposed to. It was my mother’s wedding and her jewelry I didn’t want. Do you understand the difference?”
“I think so. I told her she should let you pick out your own dress. I’m guessing you wouldn’t have wanted the one she picked for you?”
“No.” Rolling her eyes, she could only imagine what kind of
dress her mother would pick for her. “She knows her tastes aren’t like mine, and yet she keeps imposing her will on me. I don’t want her to run our lives.”
“I don’t want that either.”
“So you understand why we can’t go through with the wedding and why I can’t keep the jewelry?”
“Yes.”
Sensing, his hesitation, she asked, “What is it?”
“I want a wedding, and I want to give you jewelry, at least a ring. You had those things with Randy. Don’t you want them with me?”
For the first time, his desire to wear jeans, t-shirts, and a goatee made sense to her. “Chris, are you worried that I loved Randy more than I love you?”
“You chose to marry him. With me, it just happened to
you.”
Unable to stop her wry grin, she said, “Yeah, but what a way for it to happen.”
His lips turned up into a smile and he chuckled. “You were so beautiful in that diner.”
“You know, if you had asked me out, I would have said yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You were one of the nicest men I
’d ever met. You didn’t need a hormone to convince me to be with you. Well, I wouldn’t have had sex with you like I did, but I would have gone out with you.”
His smile widened so she leaned forward and kissed him.
“We’ll have a wedding, and when we return my mom’s ring and necklace, I want you to pick
out what you’d like me to wear
.”
“I’d like that, Caitlyn.”
“I don’t want my mother to be a part of it
, though. I want to let her know that she can’t keep meddling in our lives. She won’t like it when she finds out, but I need you to be united with me on this. Maybe knowing we will do things our
own way without her opinion
will get her to stop controlling our lives.”
“I won’t let her talk me into anything else.
”
At that point, Randy would hesitate, but Chris didn’t and that made her hopeful that this time her mother wouldn’t come between them. “Thank you, Chris.”
The door opened and the doctor walked in. Still holding Chris’ hand, she turned her attention to the doctor who offered a smile. “How are you feeling?” he asked Chris.
“Great,” Chris said, running his thumb over the back of her hand
.