The Love Series Complete Box Set (154 page)

“She’s here!” Melanie squeals as Lucy’s car rolls into the driveway. When she gets inside, everyone pretends to be busy doing something else—not wanting to make a big deal out of her just arriving home from work. The excitement is so overwhelming I’m surprised Lucy hasn’t picked up on it.

After saying hello to Melanie, Maddy and Reid, and kissing baby Braden to pieces, she comes over to me to let me know that she’s just going to get changed before dinner. She’s oddly quiet, letting me know that something’s off.

Standing next to me in the kitchen as I put the finishing touches on the meal, Linda leans over, noticing the cool demeanor of Lucy’s greeting. “Work’s been crazy lately. Maybe she just had a bad day.” Linda’s suggestion does little to make me feel as if her stressful day is truly the culprit of her stilted mood.

Leaving Linda in charge of a few last details, I walk upstairs, passing by Melanie and Maddy as they ogle over the baby while Reid watches on. “Hey,” I call into our room, but she’s not in there.

I find her sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, holding her head in her hands. I crouch in front of her and pull her hands away from her cheeks only to find tears there. “Hey, love. What’s wrong?”

Her intake of breath is shaky and sharp and the pained look that flits across her face scares the shit out of me. When she says, “I found a lump in my breast,” I swear the ground just swallows me up.

Shaking my head, as if it will shake away what I just heard, the reality of her words is just not settling in. All I can manage is a quiet and repetitive, “No . . . no . . . no.”

Then resolve sets in. I’ve dedicated my life and career to saving strangers; there’s no way in hell I won’t save the one person who means the most to me. “Talk to me, love. What happened? When did you find it? Have you been to the doctor?”

“I found it last week.” Her admission catches me way off guard.

“Last week,” I gulp down my shock. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Oh, Evan.” Her voice wobbles. “I didn’t want to scare you. I was so scared myself that I just . . . I don’t know. I should have told you, but I just wanted to see what it was first before I worried you.”

I pull her hands up to my lips, pressing a gentle kiss there as I stare at her bright blue eyes. “You are
never
a burden,” I assure her. “Now, tell me the rest.”

Over the next twenty minutes, she fills me in on all of the details. She found it in the shower one day and didn’t make a big deal of it at first, trying her best to remain calm until the doctor could see her. It turns out that while I was out with the girls picking out an engagement ring, she was off at the doctor, by herself, finding out that she has to have surgery in the coming weeks to have the lump removed and tested for cancer because the initial biopsy was inconclusive.

Part of me is angrier than fuck that she did all of this without me, out of some misplaced need to protect. But I fight back that part and be the man who I know she needs right now. One who stand by her choices and listen to her concerns.

In the few minutes of silence that follow, I hold onto this woman who I love more than anything else in my life, more afraid than ever that I’ll lose her. “It’s okay, love. We’ll figure it all out. I’m right here by your side and so is everyone else.” After a brief pause, I pull away from her and search her face. “Do you want to tell them now, or should I send everyone home, let this digest a little.”

“I want to tell them now; they need to know.” Her words carry more resolve than they did previously, and I know it’s because she wants to appear brave and unafraid, knowing full well that everyone else will feel exactly the opposite. Knowing that she only lets herself be weak and vulnerable when she’s in my arms, makes my heart break even more.

“I’ll be right next to you.” She stands and hugs me tightly, pulling strength from me, I’m sure. We lace our fingers together and walk down the stairs.

Melanie sees us first and her face falls immediately. “Mom? What’s wrong?” Her words are merely above a whisper, but they’re enough to catch Maddy, Linda and Reid’s attention. With all eyes on us, Lucy walks into the living room and asks everyone to sit down.

“Momma, is everything okay?” Maddy asks as she holds Braden tightly to her chest. Lucy leans down and kisses the baby’s head before cradling him in her own arms. Smiling down at the bright and innocent face of her grandson, she wipes away a final tear.

When she says, “I might have breast cancer,” all of the oxygen is sucked out of the room with everyone’s collective and shocked gasp.

“Oh, come here, Melly Belly.” Lucy cradles Braden in one arm as she pulls Melanie into a tight hug with the other. Tears spring to her eyes. “It’ll all be okay, somehow.” Maddy moves next to them and they all wrap their arms around each other, the baby cuddled in between all three of them. Linda curls around Melanie, completing the group hug. I can see Reid vibrate with anger. Having just lost his own mother less than a year ago, I can imagine his pain is still raw, still too new to register the possibility of losing Lucy, the only other woman who has loved him as a mother should.

I stand beside him and clap a hand to his shoulder as we stand behind the huddled-together women. He drops a hand to Maddy’s shoulder and I drop one to Lucy’s. So much goes unsaid in those few moments when we stand there holding each other. But the overwhelming feeling of family, of love and of determination flows through each and every one of us.

Dinner passes quickly and all too quietly, and just around the time I had hoped to get down on one knee and begin celebrating, everyone else is so emotionally drained that they head home for the night.

“I think I’m going to go take a nice hot bath.” Lucy stands from the table where she, Melanie and I are sitting. After putting her mug in the dishwasher, she kisses Melanie’s forehead and says goodnight. She pats my shoulder as she walks past me, and even though I want to follow her to make sure she’s all right, I know she needs some time to herself.

“Hey, you okay over there?” I ask Melanie after Lucy is up the stairs. If she’s anything like her mother, she’s obviously an ace at hiding what’s really going on in her head.

Shrugging her shoulders lamely, she doesn’t say anything at first, but I see the pain in her eyes. “Come here, Melanie. It’ll be okay.” I slide my chair next to hers and pull her into a hug, draping my arm over her shoulders. Her outburst of emotion blasts into me full force and she lets go of everything she must have been holding back.

Through the anguished sounds of her sobbing, she mumbles against my shoulder, “I’m so afraid to lose her. I can’t even think about it . . .” Her words are swallowed by her fears.

“Shh, I know. I can’t lose her either, and we’re not going to. She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever known. We’ll all pull through this together as a family.” I let her cry and cry as I bite back my own tears.

After she calms down, wipes the tears away and takes a few deep, unsteady breaths, she looks over to me with such a lost look. “Are you still going to ask her to marry you?” she asks through her quieting sobs.

“Of course I am,” the resolute words instantly fall from my lips without a second thought. “No matter what happens, I want to marry her. Asking her tonight just wasn’t in the cards, but I promise you, I will ask her.”

“She doesn’t deserve this, you know?” She searches the ceiling as if some kind of divine intervention will just be dangling there. I reach for her hand and squeeze it gently.

“No, Melanie, she most certainly doesn’t. But she’s got us to take care of her and that’s exactly what we’ll do. Speaking of,” I tip my head toward the stairs as I get up from the table, “I’m going to go check on her now. Make sure she’s okay.”

Melanie nods and smiles weakly at me as I leave the room, lost to her own private thoughts about how to best deal with this bombshell.

By the time I get to our room, Lucy’s already out of the tub, sitting on the edge of the bed in one of my T-shirts and her pink fluffy robe. Her face looks exhausted, her eyes puffy from all the crying. She curls into my arms before my ass even hits the mattress.

“I’m so scared. I just . . . I mean . . . what if, what if . . .” she chokes out past her tears.

“Shh . . . shh.” I try to calm her but she rips herself out of my arms.

Standing in front of me, her fists balled tightly at her sides, she’s vibrating with anger. “Why is life so fucking unfair, huh?” She throws her arms up in the air, flippantly huffing her frustrations to the ceiling. “Who the fuck decides how much pain one person gets in their lifetime?” She starts pacing the room frantically. Her sudden rage takes me by surprise, so much so I just don’t know what to do right away. So I just listen and let her get everything out.

“What have I ever done wrong? What did I ever do to deserve this on top of everything else? Or Chloe for that matter. What on Earth did that poor, sweet girl ever do wrong? Hell, she didn’t even get to live long enough to do anything wrong!” Her voice is near screaming, and in between her bursts of anger, I hear Melanie jogging up the stairs.

“And Jimmy,” she grabs his bottle of cologne from the dresser where she still keeps it, even after all these years. “Why is it fair that he was taken from me . . . from Melanie . . . why?” Her voice cracks with the yell as she hurls the bottle clear across the room. Melanie cracks the door open slightly, just as the bottle collides with the wall, smashing into hundreds of tiny shards. We both watch on, not exactly sure how to handle Lucy’s breakdown. Though completely understanding of it, neither of us knows how to react to it.

When the silence becomes too much, Lucy collapses to the floor. Shaking, sobbing and heaving through her pain, I kneel before her and wrap my arms around her. All too willingly, she curls her arms around me and continues crying. “I−I’m . . . s−so s-orry . . .” Her words are broken up by shorts gasps of breath as her sobs get stuck in her throat. Melanie falls to the floor with us and wraps her arms around Lucy from behind. “It’s okay, Mom. Everything’s going to be okay. And even if it’s not, we’ve got each other to figure out how to make it be okay in the end.”

Lucy chuffs out a small laugh against my t-shirt. “How’d you get to be so smart?” Lucy shifts so she’s sitting cross-legged in between Melanie and me. We exchange a brief look, before Melanie says, “I guess it’s just one of those things I picked up from you over the years. I love you, Mom, and we are going to beat this. All of us. Together. As a family, right, Evan?”

“Without a doubt.” I’ve never said anything with more conviction. I know in the deepest recesses of what I thought was a broken heart, I will never be anything but a part of this family.

“God, look what I did. I’m sorry. I should clean . . .” She moves to stand up, but I beat her to it.

“I’ll get it.” I cover her shaking hands with mine.

Lucy walks Melanie to her room while I clean up the mess. Just as I’m done vacuuming up the last shard of glass from the rug, Lucy comes back into the room.

“I shouldn’t have done that.”

I walk over to her and we sink into the large armchair in the corner of the room. “It’s okay to be angry. You don’t have to be so. . . . so. . . . so ‘Lucy’ all the time.”

She quirks an eyebrow at me, wordlessly asking me to explain what it means exactly to be “Lucy.”

“I mean that you’re always so calm and in control, so strong and determined. It’s okay to be upset and weak, to need someone else to be strong for you.” I press my lips against her silky hair. “I’m here to be that strength for you. Just let me.”

With her arms wrapped so tightly around me, it actually becomes difficult to breathe. Against the thin cotton of my shirt, she mumbles, “but what if this is all the time we get?”

I peel her away from my body, holding her shoulder in a firm grasp. “Listen to me, Lucy. There is no way in
hell
that this is all the time you get, that
we
get. We are going to beat this thing and we don’t even know what we’re up against here. It could still be nothing.” I pull her back to my chest and rock her back and forth, repeating my last words over and over in my head, a silent prayer offered up to a God I stopped believing in long ago.

The next morning, I wake up before Lucy. Well, it’s not really waking up if you didn’t sleep at all. She’s still curled in a ball at my side, so I carefully slide my arm out from underneath her, kissing the top of her head lightly as I get out of bed.

Melanie’s still asleep and the house is peaceful and quiet. It’s just me and my own thoughts − the ones I’ve been struggling with all night. As the sun rises up through the amber-colored horizon, my anger battles with my sadness. Fists clenched at my sides, I feel like I could punch a hole through the fucking wall.

“Why Lucy?” I mumble through gritted teeth to no one in particular. Leaning up against the frame of the bay window, I try my best to gather my thoughts, to reign in my anger, but I’m still left with the soul-crushing fear that I’m going to lose her.

“Please, please don’t take her from me,” I whisper to the heavens, hopeful that
someone
is listening to me. Lucy finds solace in speaking to the rising sun, using those quiet moments before her day begins to greet Jimmy. I can see the draw, the desire to find answers in these moments of quiet.