Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters Collection (39 page)

CHAPTER TEN

��BRIAN, CAN YOU STAY and color with me?”

Tessa came to a jarring halt out in the hallway just outside of Jilly’s room, the mere mention of Brian’s name sending her insides into an emotional tailspin.

She’d gotten back from her trip almost a week ago, and she hadn’t been able to return Brian’s call yet. What could she say to the man who now knew that her future would be an instant replay of the nightmares in his past?

To be honest, she’d
almost
called him back during the trip after hearing his message. About a thousand times. But it had taken only a single glance at Connor’s face to know that he’d talked to Brian. One single glance to know just what he thought about his brother going through that nightmare again.

She couldn’t blame him.

So here she was, hiding, and seemingly unable to drag herself away from the chance to see Brian. When he turned to smile his adoring, thousand-watt smile at Jilly, Tessa felt the air in her lungs vanish. And just like that, the longstanding fortress she’d managed to resurrect around her heart over the past week and a half crumbled.

Tessa had first brought Brian to meet Jilly a few weeks back. And of course, Jilly had him wrapped around her little finger within the first five minutes.

Impressively, Jilly had sweet-talked him into volunteering to build a birdhouse for her by minute six. A quick peek at the far window revealed that he had in fact finished the birdhouse for Jilly. And it was beautiful.

He was such a good man.

Her head resting against the door, her heart scattered all over the place, Tessa just stood there in the hall and watched Brian grab the crayon bucket and sit with Jilly.

“So what are we going to color today, Angel-face?”

“I got a new coloring book last week. See?”

“
Flintstones
?” he chuckled, his eyes softening. “Let me guess, Tessa got this one for you.”

Tessa nearly fell apart right then and there. Those teal blue eyes of his had looked as filled with pain as hers did when she looked in the mirror lately.

Jilly beamed. “We watched it on TV once. It’s so
funny
! The people drive their cars with their feet and they have birds in their cameras.” She shook her head to herself with a giggling sigh as she started coloring in Pebbles.

Brian’s voice shifted into what Tessa liked to call his ‘super dad mode’ as he picked up a purple crayon to start coloring in Dino. “Say, do you think this Dino dinosaur and Barney are related? They’re both purple. Maybe they’re cousins or something.”

Tessa bit her lip as she listened in. Once, she’d watched Brian incite the most outlandish conversation with his colleague’s three-year-old son in the supermarket check-out line. It had gone on for at least five minutes.

“Dino and Barney can’t be cousins!” Jilly gaped at him as if he were the silliest person alive. “Dino is from the
olden
days. Barney is from right-now times.”

After visibly smothering a smile when she said ‘olden days,’ he continued on with impressively straight-faced stamina. “Get out! We still have dinosaurs in right-now times? Are they purple like Barney? Are they friendly? Where do they
live
?”

Jilly splayed both her hands over her eyes and fell back against the bed dramatically. “Oh my goodness, you make me tired.”

Brian tipped his head back and chortled over that one as he leaned over and pulled her into a gentle hug. “You are just the cutest thing in the world, Angel-face.”

The entire verbal volleyball match was the tipping point for Tessa. She had to get out of there. Her heart couldn’t take much more.

Just as she turned to leave, however, Jilly’s gaze swung over in her direction.

“
Tessa!
Look, Brian. Tessa’s here!”

Brian’s head shot up and he stared at her for a raw second as if he just couldn’t help it. Then he came over quickly to explain, “I was just dropping off Jilly’s birdhouse.” He lowered his voice. “I wasn’t trying to corner you or anything, I swear. I know you said you’d call me back when you’re ready to talk…”

The trailing pause killed her. Because honestly, she didn’t think she’d ever be ready.

“I’ll go,” he said softly.

Tessa backed up a step. “No, no. You stay. I can go.”

“Why can’t you
both
stay?” asked Jilly, brows furrowed with all the candidness of a six-year-old.

Why indeed.

“I wanted to show you guys what I did in art class this week.”

Brian looked over at Tessa with a silent ‘
It’s your call
.’

“Sure, Jilly-bean,” replied Tessa. “Of course we’ll both stay and look at what you made.”

“Yaay!”

Not long after, the tension had dissipated considerably, thanks largely to Jilly’s hilarious works of art, which Tessa was pinning up for her on the ‘masterpiece clothes line’ while Brian and Jilly were busy discussing the finer aspects of art like a pair of hardcore aficionados.

“You kidding?” he was telling Jilly. “You can do way more things with watercolor painting than finger painting.”

“Nuh-uh!”

“Uh-huh,” he mimicked with a grin. “Skylar and I used to do all sorts of cool watercolor projects. Hell, she still—”

Jilly gasped. “You cursed!”

Brian froze and shot Tessa a stricken look.

Even though humor was the last thing she was feeling, Tessa managed to chuckle. “Jilly’s yanking your chain. Her mom swears worse than a gold-toothed rapper”

Jilly’s little legs flutter-kicked under the blanket as she giggled with delight. “I got you! I got you!” she sang out between laughing screeches when Brian got his tickle-monster claws up and started faking left and going right.

“Ah, so
this
is where all the cackling is coming from,” teased Nurse Liv as she entered the room to do a routine check and update Jilly’s charts. “Sorry to break up the party, but I’ve got to get this little girl ready for her PT session.”

Brian got out of her way and joined Tessa by the activity shelf to help clean up.

“Oh! I almost forgot,” Jilly bubbled from across the room. “I’m gonna get to go in the pool again today.”

“Yep.” Liv got a comb and started braiding Jilly’s hair. “According to your physical therapist, you’re getting to be quite the little mermaid, sweetie.”

“I might even be able to go in with just the floaties at the next pool party.” Jilly did a little wiggly dance and then called out around Liv, “I asked my mommy if she could get grown-up floaties for you, Tessa. That way you can come in the water too this time.”

Brian turned a questioning gaze her way as Jilly asked Liv what sort of game booths the nurses would be doing at this next party.

“Floaties?” he asked quietly, but not at all meanly.

Tessa responded with a shrugging smile. “I never got the chance to learn how to swim.”

His mouth turned down at the corners as empathy warmed his gaze, and she just knew he was about to say something undoubtedly sweet…so she broke the connection and cut him off at the pass. “So how are things going with Skylar? She hasn’t skyped me since last week, but she sounded pretty upbeat when she did.”

“She’s been doing a lot better, actually,” he replied, looking thrown by the conversational one-eighty, though he covered it up well. “Those visits you recommended have really helped. She’s been flat-out inspired by those kids and she’s starting to get passionate about a lot of the projects. Just yesterday, she asked if there were things she could do to help out.”

“That’s fantastic.” Tessa felt herself smiling her first real smile of the day. “I’m glad.”

He took a step closer and his eyes ran over her face slowly, as if cherishing each detail. “I’ve missed you so much, Tessa. Could we just—”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my having HD sooner,” she blurted out quietly, lowering her voice so Liv and Jilly couldn’t overhear. “It’s not exactly something I advertise…but I should’ve told you. Before we…”

What? Had sex?

Became more than flinger and flingee?

He sighed raggedly. “Honestly, I understand why you didn’t, but I really wish you would’ve, sweetheart. You don’t always have to take on the weight of the world alone, you know.”

Oh yes, she did. She’d crumble like her mom had if she didn’t.

“You may not have had the support system you needed then, but you have it now.” He reached for her hand. “Please, let’s talk about this.”

No. She couldn’t.

She couldn’t allow him to be that guy. The one who could very easily become everything she’d never dreamed possible for her life. The one who
would
be and do all that and more, even though he’d already gone through this once before.

She simply couldn’t allow it.

Because he was already the man she loved so much, she was willing to walk away.

Backing up a step, she tried to put it all into words. “Brian, I just don’t think—”

Liv’s voice interrupted her thoughts, “Okay, Jilly, you can visit with Tessa and Brian for another ten minutes and then I’ll be back to get you changed, you hear?”

When she saw Liv’s crystalline gaze slide covertly over to Brian again while Jilly called him over to show him the recent swim strokes she’d learned, Tessa felt a knife blade of jealousy slash through her. Followed by a harsh dose of reality.

That’s the kind of woman who’d be perfect for Brian.

Watching as Liv headed back over to the computer at the nurse’s station, Tessa cataloged all the stark differences between them. Though they were the same age, Liv was chic and classy, and she always had it together. Tessa was none of these things.

In the looks department, ironically, Liv was a pretty remarkable cross between Beth and Abby. Meanwhile, Tessa looked like a cross between a modern hippy and an urban gypsy. Proudly. But still.

Glancing up at her reflection on the wall opposite her, Tessa noted all the contrasts like a glaring pro and con list. With her candy apple red-tipped hair this week and her
Popeye the Sailor Man
shirt, she was no match for Liv.

Echoes of her conversation with her mom reverberated in her brain.
He deserves better.

Yep, Liv would most definitely be that ‘better.’

Tessa came to a decision then, her feet already carrying her across the room before she lost her nerve…or her lunch.

“Brian, you stay. I need to get to a meeting.” She blew Jilly a giant kiss. “See you in a few days, Jilly-bean. I’ll bring a new video game for us next time, okay?”

Avoiding Brian’s intense gaze, Tessa gave him a quick, friendly wave as well and left the room. As she headed to the nurse’s station, she felt a thousand needles piercing her heart with each step she took. Which was nothing compared to the almost unbearable nausea that hit her when she started chatting up Liv…about Brian.

And still, when she left shortly after and heard Liv call out to Brian as he was leaving Jilly’s room, somehow Tessa found the strength to keep on walking.

OF ALL THE INFURIATING…

Tessa had actually set him up on a date with
another woman
.

Unbelievable.

Instead of letting him prove to her that her having the HD gene wouldn’t affect their relationship, she’d gone and convinced Nurse Liv to ask him out.

It didn’t matter that he knew she was trying to do what she thought was best for him.

He was still pissed.

Because if she’d just pick up her damn phone and call him, she’d know that her conclusions on the situation were just plain wrong. The fact that he’d gone through all this once before with Beth wasn’t sending him screaming in the other direction from Tessa. Maybe some would run, but not him. He’d never go back and erase his time with Beth and Skylar, regardless of how difficult the latter half of their marriage had been. Absolutely not. Everyone reduced his marriage to Beth to her last years, her toughest ones, but he chose to remember all the others. None of the horrible challenges her disease put them both through could or would ever negate the good of their shared life together.

The same would hold true with Tessa. Of that, he had no doubt. It didn’t matter if her HD symptoms started tomorrow; he wouldn’t choose
not
to be with her for that reason. Never. Moreover, the thought of Tessa going through this
without him
one day made him…rabid. Alpha protectiveness was a mild description of what feelings that inspired.

Now, if Brian weren’t having the world’s most awkward conversation with Liv at the moment, it was very likely he’d be chucking his brilliant let-Tessa-come-to-him plan in lieu of heading to Tessa’s apartment right now and banging down the door so he could—

What? He sighed. What could he do? Tell her that her feelings were unwarranted, that her methods of dealing with all of this were just plain crazy?

That wouldn’t help his cause one bit.

He just couldn’t believe that
this
was Tessa’s big solution. To set him up with Liv—who was amazingly still talking. He smiled at her, and she smiled back, ecstatic. Okay, so she was pretty and very nice—reminded him a bit of Beth, in fact. Was that what it was? He tried to see her from Tessa’s eyes, to see whatever it was that she thought was better for him than she’d ever be. Liv was beautiful, yes. Seemingly uncomplicated so far, sure. And…well,
normal
.

After spending all this time with Tessa, he wasn’t sure what ‘normal’ was anymore, or if that was even what he wanted. Used to be. But now...

He knew what he had to do.

Preparing himself to head into completely unchartered territory, he put his hand on Liv’s shoulder to put an end to her nervous rambling and asked, “Do you want to get out here? Maybe grab a bite at a quiet restaurant where we can talk?”

Liv smiled—not a rainbow-eyed smile, but a sweet, pretty smile nonetheless.

“I’d like that.”

Here goes nothing.

CHAPTER ELEVEN