Slow Burn (44 page)

“Nice to meet you too. Sorry it’s in this fashion.”

“Nonsense. It’s Trisha, and don’t you go apologizing to me!” She furrows her brow just like Becks does, and it warms my heart. “I’ll let you go, but I wanted to come meet this girl my Becks here was telling me I had to make lasagna
for. I know if he’s sharing it, he must really like you.” She pulls me in tight and hugs me again, her mouth close to my ear when she speaks. “It’s okay to use my boy when you need strength. His back won’t break if you do, but his heart just might break if you don’t.”

She presses a kiss to my cheek as she steps back again, her hands sliding down my arms to grab my hands. She squeezes them as I accept the advice she’s just given me and realize how true it is.

“My Becks here is a good man…. I’m all for him ruining your lipstick, but if he ruins your mascara, you need to come let his mom know so I can put him back in his place.”

“Oh, Jesus, mother!” Becks barks out, cheeks flushing, and it’s rather adorable.

My grin spreads from ear to ear as I look at Trisha, her eyebrows raised to make sure that I’ve heard her request. I nod my head. “I will.” I laugh out.

“Now, go be with your friends. My boy is going to walk me out because I just wanted to meet the girl I’m making dinner for once you feel up to it. So nice to meet you.”

“You too.”

Trisha starts to walk away, Becks already beginning to scold her, when she stops and turns to look at me. “You wouldn’t happen to have a pair of pink flip-flops, would you?”

I look at her for a moment, my forehead scrunched up in confusion since she’s thrown me for a loop. “Yes, several. Why?”

Trisha’s grin spreads to megawatt proportions as Becks swears again. “Perfect. I just knew it!” she exclaims as he walks her toward the door. I can hear her voice chattering away excitedly the whole way there.

What the heck was that all about?

I turn around and take in the whole scene. My friends, my family, all of them are here to support me, and I feel truly blessed. I wander over to the table of food, only
slightly aware that I have only so many hours left I can eat before my presurgery food cutoff time.

I grab an appetizer from the table, making small talk with everyone, and accept a cocktail when it’s placed in my hand. When in Rome, right? I reach the end of the table and the laughter starts again when I see the cake. It’s the torso of a woman, with a matching bra and panty set, but it’s what’s written on the abdomen of frosting that cracks me up. “Save your bumps, check for lumps.”

“Funny, right?” Becks’s voice is in my ear as his arms slide around my waist and pull me back into him.

I close my eyes and accept his warmth and the calm that comes with his touch. “Thank you,” I whisper into the crook of his neck, my eyes squeezed close as I accept the risk he took throwing this party tonight.

“Well, Rylee helped a lot, so she deserves most of the credit, but we figured you were worth it,” he teases, pressing a kiss to my temple.

“A lot worth it!” Rylee’s voice is to my left. I turn, still in Becks’s arms, to face her and belt out a laugh to find her with a trayful of shot glasses filled to the hilt with amber liquid. “If this toast was needed at any time in our lives, it’s tonight,” she says with a gleam in her eye, referring to our salute, which has stuck with us through college parties, bad boyfriends, and all the things life has thrown at us.

I step out of Becks’s arms and help her place the tray on the table so nothing spills. When I turn to hand one to Becks, I notice that almost everyone in the room around us is double-fisting full shot glasses like the ones on the tray. I guess I was too absorbed in my boob voyage cake to notice.

Ry grabs a glass and hands me one. “You ready?”

I grin with a nod to her. “Ready as I’ll ever be.” And the look she gives me tells me that she knows I mean more than just slinging back shots.

“Okay, everyone! On the count of three. For my best friend, my sister from another mister … time to make cancer
your bitch.” The crowd around us hoots and hollers, me included as we all raise our first shot glass in the air. “One, two, three …”

“One for luck and one for courage!” The entire room erupts into a synchronized toast before falling silent as they toss back the first and then the second shot. Cheers erupt, followed by people swearing as the burn hits their throats.

And hell yes, it burns … but it also feels so good right now. All of this, all of them, because it means I’m alive. The thought causes more than my throat to burn as I blink back the tears that sting my eyes now as the entirety of the moment hits me.

I fall silent as I take it all in, my eyes watching everyone I love around me, and I don’t realize I’ve zoned out until Becks removes the empty shot glasses from my hands. “Sorry,” I tell him, startled at how lost in thought I was.

And I think he can see the emotion that’s running rampant within me because he steps up and brushes a soft kiss to my lips. “I think it’s time to step into the ring, Ms. Montgomery,” he murmurs, trying to break me from my funk by turning our bodies toward the inflatable boxing ring. “You need to get a little practice in…. Hit me with your best shot.”

“You’re on, Country.”

“I’m sure I can find one of those sexy ring girl outfits somewhere you can put on.”

I punch him in the shoulder at the comment and shake my head.

“You’re gonna have to hit me harder than that. You fight like a girl.”

“
Exactly
. Let’s hope so.”

I hug Rylee for the bazillionth time, assure her I’ll see her in the morning … well, later today, when I wake up from surgery, and shoo her and Colton out of the door of the warehouse.

I blow a breath out to collect myself and watch as Colton opens the door of the Range Rover for her before sliding in himself. Sammy puts the car in gear, and I follow the taillights out of the parking lot, empty at this god-awful hour of three in the morning.

I’m exhausted. Emotionally fulfilled but absolutely exhausted.

And I realize maybe this is exactly what Becks wanted. For me to be so tired that I couldn’t worry about what’s going to happen three hours from now because I was so busy being inundated with love.

How did he know this is exactly what I needed when I didn’t even know it myself?

I shake my head, not sure how I deserve this man after everything I put him through, but resolved that whatever comes next, I’m not giving him up without a fight.

“You’ve got a nasty right hook, you know….” His voice startles me. I didn’t realize that Becks had walked into the office. I thought he was still gathering all of the cards and gifts that friends had brought.

He flicks the switch, bathing the office into darkness as I turn toward him. He steps into the room, a light from the warehouse at his back causing shadows to fall on his face, and I can’t help but be brought back to a few weeks ago: He looked exactly the same the night of Rylee and Colton’s wedding.

And look where that got us.

I just stare at him, so many words running through my mind but none of them is quite right to express the sheer emotion that I feel for him. I thought the cancer diagnosis was going to rock my world, and it did—but not nearly as much as the man before me has.

“You tired?” he asks when I don’t respond to his comment.

“Yeah, but I’m just taking it all in. I can’t put into words what tonight meant to me. I didn’t think I wanted anyone to
know, and yet the love I felt … I’m just speechless, so thank you.”

He closes the few feet between us and reaches out to move a strand of hair off my face. “You know I’d do anything for you, right?”

The promise in his words and the look I can see in his shadowed eyes reinforces everything I feel about him. I lean forward and press my lips to his, the taste of him pushing back thoughts of where we’re headed next because right now it’s just Becks and I.

His hands slide up my torso, nerves humming to life from his touch, despite the fatigue. They move over to cup my breasts, causing bittersweet tears to sting my eyes as he leans down and brushes a reverent kiss on each of them through my shirt.

When he lifts his eyes back up to mine, I can see the emotion glistening there, can feel his love palpable and real as it reverberates in the space between us. “Sweet Haddie,” he murmurs as he leans forward to brush those devastating lips of his against mine again, “I love you.”

Every part of my being sighs at the words he doesn’t need to say because he shows me so handily those feelings in everything he does for me. “I love you too.” And when he leans back and looks in my eyes, I know he sees it reflected back at him.

He pulls me into his arms and just holds me tight. I memorize everything about him right now: the feeling of safety, the sense that everything is going to be okay. The little things I can hold on to later when I’m doubting my decisions for putting him through this. And then my mind recalls a lost promise.

“Hey, Country?”

“Mm-hmm?” he murmurs into the crown of my head.

“You said you’d do anything for me, right?”

“Yes,” he answers, drawing the word out as he tries to figure out where I’m going with this.

I look up at him, sure there’s a devilish smirk on my face. “You never fulfilled a certain three-day rule, you know.”

He raises his eyebrows at me, working his tongue in his cheek. “Which one might that be?” He feigns innocence.

“Well, you did call me, so …” I trail my finger down the bare skin at his throat, my teeth working my bottom lip and my body on high alert as it waits in anticipation for what I know he won’t deny me.

He looks over my shoulder at the wall behind me, his playful grin flashing his intent. “If you insist …” he groans at the same time he reaches out to me. Our hands and bodies collide in a frenzy of removing clothes and roaming mouths and unsated need.

“We have to be at the hospital soon,” he murmurs as he lifts me up so that my legs are around his hips and my back is against the wall.

“Time is precious, Daniels. Waste it wisely.”

1 year later

I
t’s
the same dream I’ve had on and off over the past year. I know it’s a dream, but I can never seem to shake it or the harsh reality it throws in my face like a bucket of ice water.

The cemetery is quiet despite the sound of her calling to me, pleading to be found. I search endlessly, trying to find her, but know I’m not going to. Unless you count my warm fingertips against her name etched in cold granite, just like the love she scored into my heart.

It’s an odd place, so peaceful yet so very cruel to rip away the ones you love. For her to be here this young after suffering so horribly is something I can’t think about much. She fought the fight no doubt, but that right hook of hers just wasn’t strong enough in the end.

I’m starting to run now, knowing she needs me to find her before it’s too late. Just one more touch, one more glance, one last kiss, before she disappears forever. This is my favorite and most hated part of the dream because I want her to be there and I don’t want her to. Such a no-win situation.

Fuck the person who said to love and lose is better than to not love at all.

How cruel is it to still love and know you’ll never see them again except for in dreams.

I see her blond hair blowing in the breeze on the other side of the tree where she always sits to wait for me. Our one last rendezvous, touch, kiss … memory. I reach out to touch that golden hair of hers and—

Rex’s bark pulls me from the dream just at the best part when I get to touch her. I groan out a curse, my body physically shaking from the realness of the reverie. No matter how many times I have it, the dream still rocks me to the core and causes me to think about what-ifs and what-could-have-beens.

My heart’s pounding still as I squeeze my eyes shut to guard them from the blinding sun and my damn mother and her no-blinds-at-the-farmhouse policy. I reach out to the space beside me, and when I find it empty, I sit up immediately.

It’s one thing to have the dream and believe the whole time I’m in its confines that it’s real, but it’s another to wake up and the immediate reminder how it’s not real isn’t in her spot. When I can’t physically reach out and touch her to reaffirm that she’s here and whole, the riot of emotions the dream causes doesn’t fade as quickly.

I scrub my hands over my face, trying to scrape the dream from my memory. The constant reminder of how goddamn lucky I am. I shove up out of the bed, my mind wondering if my plans for later today are what’s dredged the dream back up when I haven’t had it for several weeks.

On my way to the hallway, I slide open the top dresser drawer and feel in there to make sure it’s safe and sound. My hand connects with the sharp edges of the square container, and I breathe a bit easier, all the while my nerves hum.

I make my way into the bathroom, take care of business, and brush my teeth before shuffling down the hallway
toward the first indulgence I plan on having this morning, coffee.

There will be many more indulgences today but of the noncaffeine variety.

I turn the corner into the kitchen and déjà vu of our first time here hits me. So many things have changed over the past year, but at the same time, so much has stayed the same.

She still steals my breath with her courage, her fiery spirit, her unyielding love, her beauty inside and out.

Haddie stands at the window, her athletic body, thinner now as she tries to gain back the muscle she’s lost with treatment, haloed by the morning sunlight. Her hair is short, the regrowth finally long enough to be cut and styled for the first time last week. She was so excited by the fact, but I watch as her fingers play absently with it at the nape of her neck and know she’s still unsure, regardless of how sexy she is, rocking the pixie cut.

I remember her laughter as I told her that, lucky me, I get to take a new woman to bed with me every couple months as the hairstyles change. I’ll say anything to ease the lines of worry from her face.