Dr. Sheffield started to chuckle.
“I’m going to go get a bathroom break in and we’ll get started, okay?” he said.
I was already nodding my head.
“Candy,” I said. “It wants to know if your family has a history of cancer.”
She stopped dancing abruptly.
“My mom died of breast cancer,” she said. “Sometimes I still dream about her and that night that she passed away. I went to bed and had a dream that she’d said goodbye. When I woke up, she was dead.”
I felt my heart sink.
“Candy…”
“I also had a dream that she turned into a zombie the next night, and I had to chop her head off and burn the body.” She paused. “I had to call Sam and Dean off of Supernatural. They comforted me later… together.”
I was shaking my head in amusement as I moved back to the questionnaire, not wanting to broach the subject of her mom again so I didn’t have to see her sad.
“Have you been experiencing any problems relating to the pain?” I continued.
“I gagged the other day when…”
I closed my eyes and hoped that she wouldn’t finish that sentence seeing as the nurse had walked into the room.
“All right, ladies and gentlemen.” The nurse snickered. “Everybody ready?”
I handed the nurse the questionnaire.
“This is everything that I could do on my own while she was drugged,” I laughed, slightly embarrassed.
“You did better than most,” she said. “There are some husbands that come in here that’ve been married to their wives for fifty years that still can’t do what you did.”
Feeling slightly mollified with that statement, I stood up and then kissed Candy on the head.
When I went to pull away, she latched her fingers onto my hand and said, “Don’t leave.”
I smiled softly down at her, then looked at the nurse.
“You can stay until she’s under,” she said.
I stood next to Candy’s chair as the nurse started an IV then began the sedation process.
Right before Candy was about to close her eyes, they popped back open and she whispered, “I’ll never let go, Jack.”
I blinked.
“Titanic?” I guessed.
She batted her eyelashes.
“Rose was such a bitch,” she said. “If we had hit an iceberg on the Titanic, I wouldn’t have been dumb. I’d have shared the fuck out of that piece of wood. There was so much room for both of them on there.”
I agreed.
Yet I didn’t say anything aloud.
“I’d share that with you for my entire life if I had to.” She paused. “I’d even pee on you to help you keep warm.”
With that her eyes drifted closed, and I looked over at the nurse and the doctor that were silently chuckling away.
“You wouldn’t believe the number of things we hear,” she said. “Your girl is one of the funniest, though.”
I let Candy’s limp hand go, watching it fall to the chair beside her with a dull thud.
My heart skipped a beat at witnessing the movement.
“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever heard?” I wondered, backing slowly out of the room.
“There was this one time that a woman sat with her husband who was waking up from anesthesia after having his wisdom teeth removed,” she said. “He confessed to cheating on his wife for the last six months and having a baby on the way.”
I winced.
“That’s fucking awful.” I paused. “Sorry for my colorful language.”
She waved it away.
“My husband was a Marine. My son’s a Marine. I was a Marine,” she said. “Trust me when I say that I’m used to it.”
I finally made it to the doorway.
“She’ll be okay,” the doctor promised. “Go get yourself some coffee and a Danish. We just had Waitr deliver it.”
I sat there for two hours while I waited for her to get finished.
The nurse had come out about twenty minutes in saying that Candy had a tooth that needed a root canal. After Candy had given her permission, and I had confirmed that permission, they’d started working.
Now, an hour and forty minutes later, the nurse was leading me back to Candy.
Candy who was blinking her eyes rapidly, and I couldn’t help the small laugh that slipped free of my lips when I got my first good look at her.
She was slumped over in her chair, staring at me as I walked toward her.
“What are you doing?” I wondered curiously.
“When I blink rapidly like this, it’s like I’m in a disco.” She jerked her chin as if she was listening to something in her head.
Then she started wiggling.
“Dance with the tree.”
I blinked, looking around in confusion.
“What tree?” I wondered.
She gasped in outrage.
“You’ve never seen The Lorax?” she cried.
I had a feeling that I’d just committed the ultimate sin.
“When we have babies,” she said, sounding confident and sure that we would. “I’m going to make you sit down and watch everything with us. There won’t be one single Disney song that you won’t know by heart.”
Then she proceeded to sing every single Disney song that she knew. Starting with “Let it Go” from Frozen and ending with “You’ve Got A Friend in Me” from Toy Story.
“I cried when Bambi’s mom died,” she told me. “I also cried when your mom died. I was in my hospital room, and I cried, and cried, and cried. I was so mad that she’d never get to meet your children.”
I was sad about that, too.
But honestly, at the time, her not seeing my children hadn’t been on my mind.
Her not being there for the children that were still children was.
“I made a voodoo doll of your dad,” she informed me. “I’m not sure how that works when the man’s dead. But I made one anyway. I burned it.” She paused. “A few years ago, after I watched a Supernatural episode, I considered digging his bones up and burning them. You know, just in case.”
My lips twitched at that.
“What would you have done if you’d gotten caught?” I asked curiously.
“I would’ve lied my ass off,” she said. “And ran.”
“From the cops?” I asked.
She tried to scratch her nose, but she couldn’t quite make her finger touch her nose.
“Am I close?” she asked, an entire foot off from her nose.
In fact, she was closer to her breast than she was her nose.
I grabbed her wrist and guided her finger to her nose.
When she finally got to it with her finger, she did the weirdest sound and said, “Ohhh, I bet this is what cats feel like when you scratch them behind the ears.”
She wasn’t even scratching her nose.
She was touching it.
I moved her finger away, then took over the chore myself.
She started to purr.
Or gargle.
Or whatever the fuck it was that she was supposed to be doing.
“I want to hire you for a job,” she said. “It’s going to be long hours. You’ll have to be willing to work from sun up to sun down. And lift a hundred and forty-seven and a half pounds.” She paused. “But you’ll have to forget that I weigh a hundred and forty-seven pounds. I’m going to make you sign a non-disclosure agreement that states you can’t remember it, okay?”
I closed my eyes and would’ve laughed had she not continued.
“In fact, I think it might be safer for you to just forget it now,” she amended. “Also, when we get married, I want you to never mention my weight. Not ever. Not even when I gain fifty-seven pounds when I’m pregnant with your babies.”
“We’re moving kind of fast, aren’t we?” I challenged her.
“Maybe!” she cried out. “But it’s
fucking awesome!”
The nurse came in with her discharge papers, as well as a list of things that she needed to do.
“She’s a hoot,” the nurse said. “Normally we only get the lively ones like this when we do the extractions.”
I grinned and helped Candy out of the chair.
Her legs went out from under her the moment that she stood completely.
“Whoa!” she said as I swooped down and caught her up into my arms. “That was fun! Best ride ever!”
Chuckling softly, I carried her out to my truck, all the while she petted me like one would a showroom cat.
“One day,” she said. “I want to do this when I’m old and wrinkly. Do you think your chest hair will turn white, too?”
“I imagine it will,” I admitted. “There’s a lot of talk about our future here, Candy Ray Sunshine. Does this mean I can ask you to marry me now?”
Honestly, the idea of asking her to marry me hadn’t really crossed my mind again until the last couple of days. I hadn’t really thought that she and I were at that point—at least from her end of things. I thought that she might have a lot of things that she needed to work through before she’d be ready.
But color me surprised that she was actually talking about this.
I knew it’d likely be different when she wasn’t high on pain meds and anesthesia, but for now, it was nice to know where her heart lay.
“You can ask me, sure.” She laid her head on my chest. “It doesn’t mean I’ll say yes.”
Chuckling, the nurse opened the door for us and waved us out.
“I’ll be back to pay the bill,” I said.
She waved it off.
“We’re going to bill you,” she promised. “Don’t worry.”
And since I was the one who’d filled out her address for billing, I would be the one getting the bill and not her.
Aces.
“Come on, Sleeping Beauty,” I murmured low so that only she could hear. “Let’s get you home.”
“My home, or your home?” she asked sleepily, sounding like she was talking around a mouthful of cotton.
Which, she was.
I looked at her.
“How long do you have to keep that cotton in your mouth?” I wondered. “And my home. So I can keep a better eye on you.”
She smiled.
“I kept biting my lip, so they put the cotton in my mouth until I can feel my tongue,” she said slowly, enunciating each word with the utmost precision. “Do you want me to live with you?”
Did I?
Hell yes.
Was I going to talk to her about this while she was high on drugs? No.
“Did they give you any medication?” I asked curiously. “Stuff for pain?”
She rubbed her face on my shirt, inhaling deeply.
“I love the way you smell,” she murmured. “Like sunshine and Tide Pods.”
My lips twitched. “Pain, baby?”
She shook her head. “No. Apparently I’m all A-okay now. I can return to my normal activities as soon as I can feel my face.” She paused. “Like, if you were fucking my mouth right now, I probably wouldn’t feel it. And would drool everywhere to boot. But in a couple of hours…I’m totally down.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped me as I fed her into my truck.
She kept me laughing all the way home.
After we got into the driveway, she was asleep with her head resting against the center console of the truck.
And instead of bringing her in, I left the truck running and parked it near the barn where I could see Ace and Darby working on shoeing the horses.
Careful to be as quiet as possible, I got out, closed the door, then walked toward them.
“Need some help?” I asked.
“Nice of you to show up,” Darby snarked. “I had to run fences with Ace today and miss one of my classes.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“You’re almost done. The classes are just a formality at this point. Something in which you told us not even two nights ago,” I said. “And I’m sorry, but Candy had to have surgery. I don’t really give a fuck whether you were sad or not that you missed a class.”
Ace, who had a horse’s hoof between his knees, looked up at me with sweat dripping down his face.
“Surgery?” he asked.
Darby walked over to the truck and looked inside, staring at Candy who was still hopefully sleeping. My guess, he wanted to check and make sure that she was all right.
The kid was a softy.
“Yes, surgery,” I confirmed. “That toothache she had last night turned into something more serious today. I walked into her house with her crying so hard that she could barely breathe. When I called the dentist, he told me to take her to the oral surgeon. The oral surgeon took one look at her, asked her a few questions, and knew right off the bat what it was that she had.”
“What was it?” Darby asked, sounding concerned.
“She had to have a root canal,” I answered. “And before you talk to her or anything, make sure you’re aware that she doesn’t do well when she’s on pain meds. She can say some pretty crazy stuff.”
The door popped open to my truck, and I nearly groaned.
“Bannnkkkkkssssss!” Candy yelled, sounding panicked. “Where are you?”
I felt my lips twitch as I hurried to the passenger door.
“I’m right here,” I said. “Easy now. I just let you stay in the truck because you were sleeping.”
She turned her face this way and that.
“I can’t see you!” she all but cried.
I caught her face in my hands and tried not to laugh.
Darby didn’t have the same compunction.
“That’s because your eyes are closed, silly,” Darby chuckled.
Candy popped one eye open.
“Oh.” She licked her lips, then closed the eye again. “Why are you scowling at me?”
I forced her eyelid open again with my thumb.
“Because my brother’s laughing at you,” I told her. “I don’t want you thinking he’s making fun of you.”
“He’s not.” She yawned and one of the puffs of cotton fell out and onto her leg.
She picked it up and shoved it back in.
Then did the process three more times as she yawned away.
“I’m so tired.” She yawned again, keeping her hand over her mouth to keep the cotton from falling again. “Take me to your bed or lose me forever.”
Then, before I could answer her, she said, “Now you say, ‘show me the way home, honey.’”
“That’ll be the day,” she said, launching herself into my arms.
I caught her before she could fall to the ground, then carried her inside like a child.
“Did you know ‘that’ll be the day’ was from John Wayne’s movie, The Searchers,” she asked. “Daddy and I used to watch it all the time. Did you know that?”
“Did I know that you used to watch it all the time, or that it was from a John Wayne movie?” I asked as I carried her through the house.
Luckily I didn’t meet anybody else, and when I finally laid her onto the bed, she was instantly out.
I watched her for a second, hair splayed out all over my pillow, and wondered if there was a more beautiful sight.
I swallowed hard, looking at her for a few more long seconds, before once again joining my brothers out at the barn.
And all the while, my mind stayed on the woman in my bed.
Chapter 20
I don’t mean to brag, but that 9 mile run I scheduled today? I finished it in 2.3.
-Text from Candy to Banks
Candy
I woke up that afternoon feeling weird.
Not bad weird, but definitely not normal.
I looked at my beside table to see that it was after three in the afternoon.
I shifted on the bed, finding Banks on his bac
k in the bed next to me.
He had his eyes pointed at the television screen, and he was grinning at something.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
Why did I sound like I had a mouthful of cotton?
“Because you do have a mouthful of cotton,” Banks said, sitting up and giving me a paper towel.
I frowned.
“What…” I said, confused.
“Pull the cotton out and put it in the towel,” he ordered. “Let’s see if the bleeding has stopped.”
I pulled it out, one by one, surprised to find that I had three pieces in there.
How did I not choke on this stuff? I could’ve died!
“You didn’t choke on it because you’re not a child.” He laughed. “You would’ve woken up had you come close to choking.”
“Why am I bleeding?” I wondered, sounding just as confused as I felt.
“The root canal you had to have made your mouth go numb,” he answered. “You kept biting your lip, so they put the cotton in there to prevent you from doing it. Though, you got yourself pretty good on each side. It’s going to be sore for a few days.”
I groaned, hating that.
I was fairly good with pain. That wasn’t the problem—a person had to be good with pain when they couldn’t take painkillers because they made you loopy. The problem was that I had a lot of stuff to do this weekend, and food to consume. I was actually more upset about the fact that I wouldn’t be able to down my fried cheese sticks than I was about the sores.
That was when it hit me.
I sat up in a panic, my body becoming exposed because the blanket I had covering me was practically thrown to the floor in my haste to sit up.
“Banks!” I cried out. “You’re supposed to be riding on a bull in tight pants in an hour!”
Banks chuckled.
“I know,” he said. “But I called and canceled. They know I’m not coming.”
I was already shaking my head. “But you were so excited!”
He laughed. “I was excited because I was going to be there with you, and I was going to get to introduce you to their fair food. I wasn’t excited because I was getting to go.”
I deflated slightly, no longer near as worried.
“Then we’ll go in the morning?” I asked curiously.
He smiled. “Yes. If you’re up for it.”
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