120 days... (31 page)

Evan

Sam waited until Ethan had gone down to the main house before she slowly made her way upstairs to the bedroom in the back of the house. Before they had officially moved in together, it had been an empty room. After she found out she was pregnant, she started sneaking items into the room and organizing them into containers. She tried to look at this as good planning. Her attitude was still positive; they were both going to make it, but she needed to be ready for the worst. Plus she could focus on other things as their child grew up and she’d already have each holiday covered.

Stopping by the first one, she ran her hand over the label, Thanksgiving
.
At that point, she had been tired, but still feeling well. Good enough in fact she still went down to the office every day and would participate in the less strenuous events.

They had a traditional huge meal gathered around the large table in the rec center and gave thanks that they were able to spend time with each other, share food and laughter. Thumbing through the pictures she’d taken, she swore she could smell the turkey and stuffing from that day. After Halloween, it was her next favorite holiday. She loved all the food and always ate more than she should have.

Putting the pictures down, she picked up the first of eighteen USB drives and looked at the date on it, next Thanksgiving. She wanted to make a video their child could watch every year until they were eighteen. Since nothing was guaranteed and she didn’t know how weak she would become, she decided to record the videos sooner rather than later.

Ethan had started making small changes around the resort during her pregnancy. All were good ideas, and he did them in such a way that the transition was smooth.

Making sure everything was in perfect order, she put the lid back on and went onto the next one, Christmas
.
The smell of peppermint wafted up as she opened the lid. Inside were eighteen Christmas ornaments for their child along with a letter on the wonder and meaning of Christmas for when they needed to be reminded of it.

Her fingers played with the heart necklace around her neck Ethan had surprised her with for Christmas. It had three diamonds in it, one for each of them. She’d cried then, just as she cried at that moment. Her emotions were overwhelming her a lot, and she spent a bunch of time crying.

Moving to the next box, she smiled. New Year’s
.
Every year they always celebrated with New York City, since most of their guests couldn’t make it to midnight. This year as the ball started to drop, she’d grabbed on to Ethan and kissed him as if her life depended on it. She wanted the kiss to carry over from one year to the next. She thought it was best to end one year together as another began.

They had found out the day before they were having a girl, and everything was looking good with her. Sam broke down and sobbed, so thankful she was healthy. So far. They had started trying to figure out names, but couldn’t agree on anything, in fact, they still couldn’t.

For this container, she decided her daughter should have a new life lesson for the start of every year. Something she wished she had known growing up, or had found out earlier in her life.

Sam also included the fantasy football trophy in this container, she wanted her daughter to know, even though football was considered a sport for men, that didn’t mean you couldn’t love it and kick the boys’ asses. Which was what she did. They’d continued the league through the rest of the season, and Sam had won the most weeks.

With the New Year came a new project Ethan was working on, something secret he was keeping from her along with the improvements on the property. She was spending more and more time with the guests or alone. They wouldn’t let her do much of anything, and she was feeling trapped.

Growing up, Sam had always made homemade cards for her parents. She did the same for her daughter for Valentine’s Day
.
She wanted to make sure her daughter never doubted how much she was loved, so made a card for each year, telling her exactly how much she meant to her, how she was more important than anything else.

All the stories and movies she’d watched growing up about the prince coming and whisking the girl off on a romantic date finally came true. Ethan had taken her down into the city where he had an appointment at a day spa set up for her. She spent all day being completely pampered. When she was done, they made sure her hair and make-up were perfect to go with the new outfit he had bought for her. The evening was spent having a romantic dinner overlooking the lights. She could feel their daughter move in her belly as Ethan held her in his arms.

Ethan still spent many hours working and doing research. If there was something out there she could take or do that would help her and not harm the baby, he was tracking down information on it. He was relentless in his pursuit of knowledge and keeping the resort running.

Since they were both of Irish heritage, they made sure everyone celebrated St. Patrick’s Day
.
Corn beef hash, green beer and bad accents were heavy that day, as was her belly. Sam was more tired than she’d ever been. She knew why, it wasn’t only the pregnancy. Cancer was growing in her. At that point, she was praying almost hourly to slow the growth of it. If it could be held under a certain size, she’d be able to deliver her daughter and then have the cancer taken care of. They could still both survive.

Sam made eighteen trinkets, little things from different cultures that were said to bring luck to a person. Her child, her daughter was her miracle. She wanted her to have all the good luck, more than anyone else.

Ethan was checking on her all the time now. They both knew the further along she was the more things that could go wrong. He only left her for short periods of time. Even when a guest was dying, he wouldn’t stay away long before he was back making sure she was okay.

Working on all of the holiday containers while he was away became harder and harder. For Memorial Day, she found stories of regular people who went above and beyond for their country, and ended up paying the ultimate price, their life for America’s freedom. Sam wanted her daughter to know that men, and women, paid a high price for everything she had, and to never take that for granted. Even though Evan hadn’t died serving this country, she still put something of his in there, a little history on her uncle.

She found old books written by the Founding Fathers for the Fourth of July. To understand what we are as a country, she wanted her daughter to know how it all started. For Labor Day, she added more books. These were books which were written for or by the people who had dreams, who followed them with all their heart, so their work was their passion and not a job.

The Halloween container, was actually two. When they were putting all the decorations away last year, she held out her favorite ones, and put a note in there as to why they were her favorites, along with the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe and a dozen of her favorite horror movies.

Turning, she faced the longest wall in the room. Before her were eighteen containers, one for each of the birthday’s her daughter would have. She’d tried hard to figure out what she would want for each year and think of something that wouldn’t be obsolete by the time her daughter got to open it. The hardest thing was making sure her daughter knew Sam loved her. She hoped with everything she was doing by putting these containers together, their daughter would know she did everything she could to make memories for her. She wanted her daughter to know she loved her and would never regret any decision she made in deciding to have her. This was the only thing Sam could think of to leave her that would continue to show how much she loved her.

Sam was dozing on the couch when Ethan came through the door a little later. As always, he stopped in his tracks and looked at her. His heart sank. She didn’t look good; there was no denying it. The doctors said they couldn’t believe how well their daughter was doing considering how bad Sam was. The cancer was growing faster than anyone had estimated. Their goal was to try to make it to thirty-six weeks and perform a C-section, and after the child was born, they’d do whatever they needed to do inside Sam to remove the cancer they could, before sewing her up again.

There was no hiding the look in the staffs’ eyes when they were in the office to see the doctors every week. They didn’t think there was any hope. There were nights when Ethan didn’t have any either. He kept that from Sam. She didn’t need his worries and heartbreak on top of everything else she was worried about. She didn’t think he knew about the back room, but he did. He let her do what she felt she needed to do in order to get through every day and prepare for every possible outcome. Thankfully, she wasn’t there the first time he’d found it, because he’d lost it seeing all of those containers lined up, labeled with the holidays. Then he opened one and started crying all over again. She amazed him with her strength, gathering all that for their daughter, while all the while fighting for both of their lives.

Quietly, Ethan went into the kitchen and prepared a snack for them. He found that if they ate together, she’d eat more. Between the baby and the cancer, there wasn’t much left of her. She was too skinny, and he hated to admit it, almost grey looking. He’d been at the resort too long. He knew what that color meant and it almost shattered him.

He had some news for her and he hoped it would settle her mind for the future of the resort. He put the tray of food down on the table and looked over at her, smiling when he saw her eyes were open and looking at him. “Good morning, beautiful, did you have a good nap?”

“It seems all naps are good now. It would be nice if they could be a bit longer. I know it’s good for us.”

“Yes, it is, and so is this. Here, let me help you up.” Once she was sitting up, he placed the tray next to her on the couch. “Now eat. Did you do anything special while I was gone?”

“No, I did a little reading, and daydreaming. You?”

“As a matter of fact, I finally have some good news to share with you.”

“What?”

“Remember how we talked about the gold mine months ago?”

She waved her hand at him and picked up a strawberry. “That’s a myth.”

“It isn’t.”

Pausing with the berry almost to her lips, she blinked her large eyes at him. “Excuse me? It isn’t?”

He smiled and shook his head. “I’ve found it.”

“No way.” She shook her head.

“Oh, yes, since we talked about it I’ve been doing research and hired geologists to come out, and what do you know, we ended up finding it.”

“Where is it?” She sat up straighter and set the berry down.

“Pretty much right under our noses. Going back through the historical records, we discovered the old building we turned into a gym was one of the first buildings here, and there was a crawl space hidden, way back in the corner. It was so dark I always missed it, not like I spent a lot of time down there, but yeah, there it was, the entrance to the mine.”

“It’s been here all the time?”

“Sure has, and here’s the kicker. There’s still a lot of gold down there. In fact, there is so much you’re going to have more money than I do, a lot more.” He smiled at her. “Do you know what that means?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea. I can’t wrap my head around that much money.”

“It means Last Resort is going to go on for a very long time. Hell, you could buy all the surrounding properties and expand and still not worry. You could even open up other resorts throughout the country, world even.”

“There can’t be that much down there.”

“There is. Of course, there are no guarantees as to how far the veins of gold goes, but just with the little bit that’s exposed, and the going rate, you’re seriously set.”

“Well, that’s good . . .” She leaned back and stared off. “All these years, it’s been right here. Oh! What about the tunnels? You always hear stories about tunnels collapsing and swallowing buildings, could that happen here? Should we map them out and make sure there aren’t any buildings above them?”

“That’s the thing, it’s a small tunnel, a few feet wide and about six foot tall, and maybe each section goes out twenty feet from the gym. They were very surprised it was so small considering the stories on how much gold was pulled out of there, but once they got down there and saw exactly what everything looked like, they were very excited.”