Destiny Kills (19 page)

I closed my eyes, but really, he wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. “Can you arrange his release, then?”

“I’ll call as soon as we finish up here.”

“Thanks for looking after him, Doc.”

“There’s few enough of us left in this world, my girl. We have no choice but to look after each other.” He paused, and I heard papers shuffling. “I’ll get Mike to look after all the official stuff.”

“Thanks.”

I hung up the phone and turned around. Trae’s arms went around me, and for a moment I allowed myself to melt into his embrace, to sink deep in the sense of strength and resolve that was so much a part of this man’s makeup.

“He’s in a nursing home in Lubec,” I said softly. My face was pressed against his chest, and the beat of his heart was a rhythm that seemed to flow from his skin to mine, making it seem in that brief moment we weren’t two but one.

His lips brushed the top of my head, a feather-light kiss that sent heat shivering through every nerve ending, making me tingle.

“You want to leave right away?”

“I have to,” I said, and pulled away from his arms. The day felt suddenly colder. “But there’s a car in the trees at the driveway entrance, and I think they’re Marsten’s men. We need to deal with them on the off chance they pick up the tracker signal as we pass.”

“They’re not a problem at the moment. I knocked them out and tied them up when I first got here. The car is pretty unnoticeable, so we should have some lee-way before anyone realizes they’re missing.”

“Good. We’ll need it.”

He raised a hand and gently brushed the hair from my cheek. “Why is time so important?”

“Because as I said, Dad is dying, and he wants to do it here, not in some nursing home.”

Understanding dawned in his eyes. “A sunrise cremation?”

I nodded even as tears filled my eyes again. I ducked my gaze away from his, and reached down to grab the comforter. “We’ll need this to wrap him in. He’d like that.”

Trae raised an eyebrow but didn’t question me. I dug the keys out of my pocket and handed them to him. “You drive, I’ll direct.”

We left the house and made our way back to the car. It didn’t take us that long to drive to Lubec, but I had to stop and ask for directions to Twin Pines, because I had no idea where it was. The town had grown since I’d last seen it.

Two massive red pines marked the entrance to the nursing home. We drove in through the wrought-iron gates and followed the curved driveway through the mix of pines and elms until the main buildings came into view. They were an L-shaped and double-story brick affair, surround by lush gardens and yet more elms. Very pretty. Trae stopped the car in the parking area to the left of the building, and I climbed out.

My gaze went automatically to the windows, and I wondered which room was Dad’s.

“Ready?” Trae said.

My gaze jumped to his. “Part of me is afraid.”

“That’s only natural.” He held out his hand. I grabbed the comforter from the car, then walked around and twined my fingers through his. “Come on, let’s go.”

He gave my fingers a slight squeeze, and suddenly I was glad that he was here with me. His presence gave me strength and helped bolster my courage to face what this disease had done to my dad.

We followed the concrete path up to the main reception area. Trae opened the door and ushered me through. A pretty blonde at the reception desk looked up and smiled as we entered.

“Welcome to Twin Pines,” she said cheerfully. “How may we help you?”

“I’m here to see Rian McCree.” I stopped near the desk and shoved my hands in my pockets so that nobody could see just how badly they were shaking.

“You’d be Destiny, then? Doctor Jones has been expecting you. He said to go straight up, and he’ll join you as soon as he finishes his rounds.”

“Thanks. What room is Dad in?”

“He’s in the left wing, subacute care. Just take the elevator to the next floor, then follow the left corridor along to room two twenty-five.”

“Thanks,” I repeated.

Trae cupped my elbow, gently guiding me across to the elevators. He pressed the up button, then reached down and twined his fingers back through mine. “You okay?”

I nodded. I couldn’t speak. My throat was too dry.

The elevator doors dinged open. I pressed the button for the next floor and the doors slid shut. The elevator rose smoothly. I guess it would have to in a nursing home.

We got out on the second floor and followed the long left corridor through a double set of swing doors and into an area that was obviously subacute care. The rooms were more sterile than homey, and the sharp smell of antiseptic stung the air.

My stomach was churning so hard as we neared the room I thought I was going to be physically sick. Trae squeezed my hand, and it was his presence more than my own courage that got me through the door.

The frail man on the hospital bed was not the man I remembered. His good arm, visible outside the sheet, was pale and emaciated, and the body under the sheet looked much the same. He had no feet, just heavily wrapped stumps that the sheet only half covered. And the smell . . . Even under the harshness of the antiseptic, I could smell the rot. They hadn’t stopped the gangrene, despite taking his feet.

I stopped, but he must have heard me, because he opened his eyes and looked at me. His face was pale, gaunt, filled with lines that started from his eyes and ran down his cheeks to his chin, until it seemed his skin was little more than a network of deeply drawn trenches. His once-golden hair was white and scraggly, curling around his ears and straggling across his bony forehead.

But his sudden smile was the smile I remembered, filled with warmth and caring and love, even if the body behind it was puckered and sunken.

“Desi,” he whispered, his blue eyes bright with relief and love. “I knew you’d come.”

I bit back a sob and half ran across the room, taking his hand in mine and holding it up to my cheek. “I’m sorry, Dad. Sorry that I ran off, sorry that I wasn’t here when you needed—”

“Hush,” he interrupted. “None of that’s important now.”

But it
was
important. Important because while I didn’t regret the reason I left him, the fact was I hadn’t achieved most of the things that I’d set out to do and, as a result, wasn’t here when he needed me.

I kissed his fingers, then said, “I found her, Dad. She’s alive, and she sends her love.”

He closed his eyes. “I knew. I always knew.”

“I couldn’t free her. But she wanted me to come here, wanted me to tell you—”I hesitated, took a deep, quivering breath. “That she will meet you on the forever plains very, very soon.”

He smiled, and it was a good smile, a happy smile. A smile that said he could finally die a contented man. “It’ll be wonderful to see her, after all these years apart.”

“She’ll be there, Dad. It won’t be long now.” I hesitated, and looked around at Trae. “Dad, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. Trae Wilson. He and his brother helped me get here.”

“Then I owe you a debt, young man.”

“There’s no need to feel indebted.” The graveness in Trae’s voice was at odds with the sudden mischievousness in his blue eyes as he looked at me and added, “It was my pleasure. Honestly.”

And mine,
I thought with a wry smile. Even if he was sometimes one of the most infuriating men I’d ever met.

I squeezed my dad’s hand, and looked around as a man walked into the room. He was tall, slender, and had a wildness about his eyes that wasn’t quite human. “Doctor Jones?”

He nodded and walked over to the bed, his white coat flapping back and almost looking like wings. He picked up the clipboard at the end of the bed, and scrawled something onto it.

“It’s all been arranged,” he said. “Your dad has been released into your care for the night. I’ll come out after my shift is over and check on him. If death doesn’t come tonight, we’ll extend the home care until it does.”

My vision blurred with tears again. I blinked and looked back at my dad. He was still smiling.

“I’ve called some nurses in, and we’ll get him into a wheelchair for you.” The doctor glanced at Trae. “If you’d like, you can bring the car around to the main doors.”

Trae nodded, touched my back lightly, then left.

“Will anyone question events?”

“There is a private cemetery and crematorium on the grounds, and it is not unusual for the families of residents to make use of the facilities, even if the death occurs during leave. We’ll have a small memorial service. There will be no questions about his death, trust me.”

I did trust him. Like Doc Macy, this man exuded a confidence and a warmth that made it almost impossible to do otherwise.

The nurses came in, and Dad was bundled into a wheelchair. He made no sound, but the pain of his injuries filled the air nevertheless. I had to bite my lip against the urge to tell them to stop, that they were hurting him.

Because
everything
was hurting him. Even the mere act of breathing.

Once he was settled in the chair and all his tubes and bags were sorted, I stepped forward and wrapped the comforter around his legs. He touched it lightly and his face lit up. “Ah, I remember when you made me this. Took you weeks.”

“Months,” I corrected. “You thought I was doing homework, but I was stitching this.”

He chuckled. “I remember being afraid to wash it.”

“My stitching isn’t
that
bad.”

“It is, my girl, it is.”

I grinned and bent down, dropping a kiss on his cheek. “I missed you.”

He touched my cheek lightly. “And I you. We are not designed to be solitary creatures, unfortunately.”

“No,” I agreed, and wondered how he’d found the strength to cope all these years. At least I’d had company, and a reason to keep on fighting. My dad only ever had a stubborn belief that we
would
return.

One of the nurses stepped behind the wheelchair and began rolling my dad toward the door. I walked beside him, my fingers lightly twined in his. As we rolled into the elevator, the trembling in his fingers grew. I knew it was excitement. The knowledge that he would soon be home and free to die as he’d wished. In the open, under the stars, so that the power of dawn would caress his body and guide him on to the afterworld.

And though the thought had tears flooding my eyes again, I could wish for nothing else. It was what he wanted, what he’d been holding on for. After all my years away from him, I could do nothing less than give him his last wishes in his final moments on this earth.

Doctor Jones held open the front door and the nurse wheeled him into the outside air. Dad raised his face to the sky then breathed deep. His pale skin seemed to flood with color and he sighed. It had to be hard for a man of sunshine and heat to be cooped up inside endlessly, unable to even raise a fingertip to the caress of day. It might not be as deadly as being restrained from water and wave was for me, but it couldn’t have been pleasant. And it was something he shouldn’t have had to face.

I bit my lip, and wished I could bite down the guilt as easily.

Trae climbed out of the car and opened the rear door. The doctor and two nurses struggled to get Dad into the car and comfortable. He didn’t complain. Just smiled his happy-to-be-free smile.

Once he was in and buckled up, Doc Jones came over and gave me his best “doctor” smile. “He should be comfortable for the next twelve hours.”

“We both know he won’t last twelve hours.”

“I didn’t think he’d last as long as he has. Your father is a man of amazing strength.”

“Yeah, he is.”

I shook the doctor’s hand, then climbed into the backseat beside my dad. I took his hand in mine, not saying anything—not needing to say anything. Touch was enough for now.

Trae drove us back to our house, but again parked in the trees—though closer to the house than before.

“What’s going on?” Dad said. “This isn’t our place.”

“One of the trees came down over the driveway,” I said. “We have to walk a bit.”

“Then take me straight to the beach, not the house. I want to feel the sun for a while. Let it heat my bones.”

I nodded and scrambled out of the car before he could hear the sob that careened up my throat. Trae caught my hand before I could move around the back of the car, and pulled me toward him. “You’re amazing,” he said softly, and dropped a sweet kiss on my lips.

I resisted the desire to melt into his arms and allow the warmth of him to chase away the ache in my heart. Dad had waited long enough for this, and even the few minutes a brief hug would have taken from him just wasn’t fair.

“I’ll get him out and carry him,” Trae said. “It’ll be easier. Can you carry the chair?”

He reached back into the car and popped the trunk, then moved around to Dad. I dragged the wheelchair out, hooking the awkward thing with my arms and carrying it in front of me.

I led the way through the trees, holding back branches and crushing aside bushes that got in the way. The wind had picked up, sighing through the pines and rustling the dying leaves of the various as-pen. The chill of night was already in the air, but it didn’t seem to matter to Dad. His smile grew the nearer we got to the water and the sunshine. When we finally broke free of the trees, he laughed. It was such a carefree, joyous sound, it brought a smile to my lips.

We walked along the sand until we neared the house, then I set up the chair. Trae placed Dad in it carefully, then attached the bags to their spots on either side of the arms.

“I’ll go check out that tree problem,” Trae said, as he stood. “You want me to collect anything to eat on the way back?”

“I’m not sure what’s in the house, but yeah, if you can find something.”

He kissed me again, soft and lingering, then left. I watched him walk up the beach and disappear into the trees, then returned my attention to my dad.

“You like that one, don’t you?” he said.

I smiled. “
That
one is a whole lot of trouble.”

“The good ones always are.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, once again allowing the sunlight to caress his skin. “Tell me about your mom, Desi. Tell me what happened.”