To Love (10 page)

Did he love her enough to give her the one thing she wanted most? Did he love her enough to save her? Would he be selfish if he did? Or would he be selfish if he didn't?

"Okay," he said, his voice a pile of glass shards. Together they drowned in the pain.

She turned her wet face up to him. "Thank you. I love you." She relaxed in his arms, like a balloon losing air.

Her trembling ceased, and all that was left was their soft crying. This was it.

After she was gone, would he be able to hold on to her smell? How long would the good memories they'd woven together last in his mind before dissipating? He couldn't think of that now. He had her for a few moments longer.

"The shoebox," she said weakly, leaning close.

"Shoebox?" He furrowed his brow. "What..." His voice was barely audible too, tired and torn.

"It's in the shoe... shoebox." Her eyes shut.

Suddenly, it dawned on Shaun what she meant. He had agreed to help her die, and he didn't even know how his wife would leave this world. Would it be peaceful, or would it be in more agony than she had already endured? It seemed she already had the answers—she had already made plans, knowing this day would come. She’d known she would change his mind. She had probably been ready since the first time she'd asked him.

Shaun winced as he moved her in order to get out of bed. He refused to think or breathe. Or to feel anything that would dissuade him from helping the woman he loved most. It was all he wanted to do. Nothing else mattered.

With sluggish movements, he went to her suitcase, which he'd thought was filled with clothes. But it contained only one dress, which concealed a shoebox. Heavy-hearted, he lifted it. Whatever it held would be followed by unbearable repercussions. Relief for her. A lifetime of heartbreak for him.

The sane part of him told him to put the box back in the suitcase—or better yet, throw it away. But his hands, his heart, his mind all refused to listen.

Help your wife
, a little voice said.
Just concentrate on the now. Forget the future, forget the past, just do what you think is right for her now.

Breathing out a stream of air, he lifted the lid. He blinked at a syringe filled with something that must be deadly. She was a nurse, so it couldn't have been hard to get a hold of whatever medicine she needed. The trip to the hospital with her mother... She must have used the opportunity to steal it.

Carmen cried out in pain. Shaun shook his head and rushed back to her side, still carrying the box.

It didn't matter. She had gone the extra mile to get the syringe. She was that desperate. And he had promised to help her. He was part of the reason she was in this state. He had destroyed a part of her, and the cancer was working on the rest. The least he could do was to give her what she wanted.

Kelsey bent over the sink and sucked in a breath to fend off the nausea. Sweat beaded her forehead. Her makeup was running, but she didn’t care.

"Stop pretending to be fine, Kelsey. I think you should see a doctor. Those pains are not normal. What if the miscarriage damaged something?"

Kelsey turned to see Delia standing at the bathroom door, arms crossed. Delia had spent the weekend at Kelsey's apartment so they could go over the restaurant plans and discuss fabrics.

Kelsey inhaled again and picked up her toothbrush. "I'm fine. And I have no time for doctors right now. The renovations have to start today."

"I'm not asking you to take a whole day off. Just an hour or two to take care of your health."

"Don't worry. I have an appointment with my doctor for a checkup tomorrow anyway." She raised her toothbrush to her mouth. Was she imagining things or were her hands swollen?

"If you don't go, I'll drag you there myself." Delia returned to the bedroom.

Kelsey finished brushing her teeth and reapplied her makeup. Half an hour later, they were at the run-down building that would soon become her beautiful restaurant.

***

Kelsey walked to her car with a stack of folders. Delia followed her, heaving the rest. They'd just had an inspection done at the restaurant to make sure they could proceed with renovations.

Kelsey pulled her car door open and was just about to step behind the wheel when what felt like a hot knife stabbed her in the lower back and twisted itself. The folders fell out of her hands, and she dropped to her knees next to the car, clawing in the dirt with her fingers.

From a distance, she heard a scream and her name being called. The pain wouldn’t let her respond. She felt herself trembling uncontrollably, and then she tipped to the side. Her eyes closed.

***

When the ambulance arrived, Kelsey was awake, but seeing black spots. The knife in her back was still twisting.

On the way to the hospital, Kelsey did two things she already regretted. She'd thrown up in a plastic bag until she'd reached the point of dry heaving, and she'd attacked both Delia and one of the paramedics with words she didn't even know existed in her vocabulary. Delia for speaking a little too loud, and the paramedic for insisting she wait until they were at the hospital before she got pain medication.

By the time they entered the hospital building and she was wheeled into an examination room, she was drifting in and out of consciousness. But she was able to offer the medical staff the consent they needed to conduct any required tests just moments before she sank into the depths of unconsciousness.

When she awoke, she was attached to a machine that made whooshing and bumping noises. The pain in her back was dull. She blinked her blurry eyes until her vision cleared. Through the window, she saw it was dark outside. She must have been asleep for hours.

Her father, in a crumpled suit jacket and no tie, sat in the chair next to her bed, sleeping. He looked older than the last time she saw him.

“Daddy?” Her voice sounded alien to her own ears.

He opened his eyes and gave her a small smile. “Sweetheart, you’re awake.” He reached out to smooth her hair. “How are you feeling?”

“Confused. What’s wrong with me?” She ran her tongue over her parched lips.

Her father tensed, but before he answered, a doctor strode in, holding a clipboard under his arm.

“Miss O’Neil. I'm Doctor Smith. I’m glad to see you looking much better. Any more pain?” He smiled.

“Not much. Can you tell me what’s wrong with me? You ran some tests?”

The doctor’s smile vanished when he arrived at the foot of her bed. “We did.” He peered at his clipboard and then gazed at her. “You came in with severe back pain.”

She nodded. She remembered the pain all too well. Why had his smile suddenly vanished? And why was her father’s head bowed? What was going on?

"Well, that pain was triggered by kidney stones in both your kidneys. Rather than wait any longer for them to pass, we can have you scheduled for a procedure in a few hours."

Kelsey blew out a breath. She had heard of excruciating pain brought on by kidney stones. A pain that some compared to childbirth. But she also heard they could be removed with no major complications. "Of course, please have them removed as soon as possible."

The doctor jotted something on his clipboard. He cleared his throat. "There's something else, Miss O’Neil. We detected cysts in your kidneys." He paused, waiting for her to digest the information. "Further tests revealed that you have autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease."

Kelsey gripped the sheets at her sides. "Kidney disease? How is that possible?"

The doctor glanced at her father, who was still looking at the floor. She had never seen him look so helpless before, not even when he was sick. "The disease is hereditary,” the doctor said. “Passed on from parent to child. Unfortunately, it can go unnoticed for years, decades, even. Yours was confirmed after a talk with your father, who—"

"Dad?" Kelsey said, and her father finally looked up, his eyes brimming with pain.

"Two weeks before your mother died, she was diagnosed with ADPKD. We planned to have you screened but... When she died, I... I forgot. I’m so sorry." He grasped her hand. "I'll make it up to you. I promise you that.” He blinked furiously. “I'll make sure you get the best treatment there is."

Kelsey’s heart pounded, her blood boiling in her veins. How could he forget a thing like that? But she knew how. After her mother died, his business had taken priority over everything else in his life. Including her.

She wanted to lash out, but the remorse in his eyes made her restrain herself. He had changed since then. Why and how everything happened didn’t matter right now. She needed to find out what could be done. "Will I be okay? Am I going to die?"

"Over time, the cysts have replaced much of the mass of your kidneys. This, I’m afraid to say, has led to kidney failure."

She pinched the bridge of her nose as her head pounded. In her peripheral vision, she saw her father leave the room discreetly.

In a split second, her world stopped turning, and she was trapped. Trapped inside a body that didn’t feel like hers, a body that had let her down. A body she thought she knew.  

When she finally collected herself, she met the doctor’s gaze. "What options do I have?” She choked on her words. “Is there a way to get them to function normally again?"

The doctor shook his head. "You have end-stage renal disease. You need dialysis or a kidney transplant to stay alive. We can discuss your options in more detail after we remove the kidney stones."

Kelsey glanced at the whooshing machine she was hooked up to. "Am I on dialysis now?"

"Yes." The doctor moved toward the machine and touched some buttons just as her father walked back into the room, his eyes red-rimmed and his shoulders stooped.

"How long will it take for me to get a kidney transplant?"

"I cannot say for sure,” the doctor said. “You will be placed on the national kidney transplant waiting list."

"And hope for the best?" Kelsey wiped her eyes.

The doctor nodded but didn't respond. His eyes told her everything she needed to know.

Kelsey's father sat back down and took her hand. "I'll do anything it takes to find you a donor," he said, determination in his voice. "Anything. Dr. Smith, put her on that list immediately. You have to find my daughter a kidney." The thunder had returned to his voice, and Kelsey shuddered at the strength in his words. He was using the kind of tone he used with his employees.

"Of course. But first, I recommend we get your friends and family members tested." The doctor spoke to Kelsey instead of her father. "Just in case you’re lucky to find a match among them. I'm sorry I don't have better news for you, Ms. O'Neil."

Kelsey couldn't respond. Tears rolled down her cheeks. The brakes had been put on her life, just when she desperately wanted to get moving again.

Shaun was trying to write, but he let the Internet distract him. He had searched for Kelsey's address online a hundred times already, but it was fruitless. Even if she was the daughter of one of the richest men in the world, she kept her life private.

Three weeks in Saulery, and nothing. The search on the streets had failed as well. He’d even waited in his car for hours outside Glocal COM. She never showed up. He was starting to feel like a stalker, but he couldn't stop himself. Leaving without finding her was not an option. In the end, he addressed a letter to her and sent it to Glocal COM in the hopes it would be passed on to her. No reply yet.

"I think tomorrow I should stop by Glocal again," Shaun said to Garrett over lunch in one of the luxurious restaurants frequented by the rich and famous.

Garrett eyed him over the edge of the
Saulery Times.
"You've gone there three days in a row. You could attract attention."

Shaun shut down his computer. "There has got to be some other way. There has to be." Then he remembered something, a slice of a conversation he'd had with Kelsey. "I think there is." His face lit up and he reached for his phone. "I know another way."

"Something that won't get you arrested?"

"Yep. Hang on." Shaun pulled up a number on his cell phone and pressed it to his ear. "Hi, Brian. This is Shaun Brannon. Do you have a moment?"

"Shaun, great to hear from you. What can I do for you? You're not calling to ask for Kelsey's phone number again, are you? Like we said before, we can't..."

"No, no, Brian. I'm calling to ask about your sister's cafe. Kelsey once told me about it. I can't remember the name. I heard they serve the best hot chocolate in Saulery."

"You're in Saulery, then?" Brian paused and Shaun heard him whisper to someone. "Well, you should drop by. You won't find a café better than Caroline's. That's the name. Tell her hello for me."

Shaun grinned as he jotted down the name on the back of a receipt. "I will, Brian. I definitely will."

***

Caroline's was a small piece of Dreara in the city. Inside, few people occupied the round tables, which had white covers and wrought iron chairs, but the ambience was calm and friendly.

There was a murmur of voices, the occasional ding of a cash register, and a radio station playing in the background. The place was full of warmth, the kind that went under the skin.

"Welcome to Caroline's. Please take a seat," a fifty-something brunette with a dimple on her left cheek and warm green eyes greeted them. She looked just like Brian. She showed them to a table by the window. "I'll bring you the menus."

Shaun held up a hand before she turned away. "No need. We know what we want. Two mugs of your mint hot chocolate, please. And one glass of water."

The woman narrowed her laughing eyes. "That's interesting. We no longer offer mint hot chocolate. How do you know about it? I don't recall seeing you in here before. I never forget a face."

Perfect. She had just made things much easier for Shaun. "A friend of mine—her name is Kelsey—told me about it. It's a shame you don't offer it anymore. She said it was the best she'd ever had."

The woman's face brightened. "You know our Kelsey, then? Such a lovely girl. I haven't seen her in a while."

"When did she last come here?" Garrett asked as he rolled up the sleeves of his blue shirt. He clearly knew where the conversation was headed.

Caroline placed a finger on her lips and gazed up. Shaun's heart clenched.

"It has to be almost a month ago, the week she got back from Dreara. Have you ever been to Dreara? That's my hometown."

Shaun nodded with relief. "That's where I met Kelsey, actually. She was renting the cottage next door to mine."

"Aha." Caroline pulled up a chair. "You must be the young man my brother, Brian, mentioned was renting his second cottage. You are from the United States, aren't you?"

Shaun stretched out his hand for a shake. "That's me. Shaun. Very nice to meet you, Caroline."

"And you, Shaun.”

"Kelsey said a lot of great things about you. Oh, and Brian sends his greetings."

Caroline leaned in as though about to tell them a secret. "The mint hot chocolate was a temporary special, but for Kelsey and her friends, we are happy to make an exception."

"That's kind of you, Caroline."

After Caroline brought their hot chocolate, they talked a bit more about Kelsey, but they ended the conversation with no more information about where she lived. Caroline didn't seem to know.

Shaun wasn't about to quit, though. For the next few days he'd come to Caroline's to write, just in case luck was on his side. Today, though, he'd promised to accompany Garrett on a tour of Saulery. He'd enjoy the time with his brother, and then he'd find Kelsey. She had to be somewhere.