Unforgettable (Always Book 2)

by Lexxie Couper

  I walked back to Tanner’s room, numb. My hand was on the doorknob, when I caught myself. The last thing anyone in there needed was to see me shell-shocked like this. Closing my eyes, I counted to ten. I pulled in a deep breath, let it go, and did it again.

  By the time I pushed the door open, I was the picture of complete calm. I was okay. I was good. I was gravy. I was chillaxed.

  What I found surprised me. Tanner was asleep, hugging his sock puppet koala.

  Amanda was brushing his head with her fingertips. Chase was slumped in the seat against the wall, staring at her phone, her teeth worrying her bottom lip.

  And in the chair next to her sat Caden, his head resting on her shoulder, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling with slow, deep breaths.

  Amanda turned her head to smile at me. “He fell asleep within the second,” she whispered. I didn’t know if she meant Tanner or Caden.

  I looked at my son. Parker’s words ate at me. Big, gnashing bites that ripped at me like teeth through flesh.

  “Bren?”

  I raised my eyes to Amanda.

  “You look like you’re about to fall over. Why don’t you go to the gardens? You’re a sun god, Osmond, and you’re denying yourself. Go meditate in the sun for a while. I’ll come get you when I need you.”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s okay.”

  Her answering chuckle was soft. “That wasn’t a suggestion. Go.”

  I did as she asked. As much as I wanted to stay there with her, I went. If I didn’t, I think I would have unraveled. Riskier options. How does one come to terms with an option described that way?

  It took me a few minutes to find the garden. It was beautiful, calm. Tall gum trees stood watch over lush green topiaries shaped into various animal forms. Two topiary elephants bathed in a pond, the water spurting up from their leafy trunks flowing back into the pond in a constant trickling sound. Flowerbeds dotted the area, full of bright, colorful blooms.

  Stopping at a bench seat painted the most vivid sea-blue, I dropped onto it rested my elbows on my knees, dropped my head and stared at the pebbled ground between my feet.

  I didn’t know what else to do.

  I sat that way, letting the sun bake into my back. I stayed there, not moving, considering all possible outcomes.

  Caden’s test results come back and he’s a match. The transplant goes well. Tanner is declared cancer-free. Amanda and I get married. We have more children. At least two. A girl and another boy. Or maybe twin girls? I open a personal training business here in San Diego. We visit Australia every winter. Our children grow to be healthy, happy adults. We see them every week for Sunday dinner . . .

  Caden’s test results come back negative. Parker transplants Robby Aames’ bone marrow into Tanner. Tanner’s body accepts it, after some serious medical help. He goes into full remission. Robby spends hours with Amanda as Tanner heals. Finally, he asks her out to dinner. She says . . .

  Caden’s test results come back negative. Parker transplants Robby’s bone marrow into Tanner. Tanner’s body rejects it. He dies of complications. Amanda shuts down, emotionally, and no matter what I do, she never . . .

  Tanner dies. No matter what Caden’s results are, Tanner dies. And I forget what it’s like to feel anything ever again . . .

  “Bren?”

  At the gentle sensation of being nudged, I opened my eyes, squinting up at the blue sky. Why was I on my back? Why was I outside?

  “Bren?”

  I blinked, rolling my head, my roaring, fuzzy head, and looked at Amanda, squatting beside me, her eyes red, her cheeks wet, her bottom lip shaking. Shaking. She was shaking. All over. Shaking and crying and sobbing my name.

  “Bren,” she rasped, her hands on my arm. “Oh God, Bren . . .”

  I sat up. My heart smashed into my throat. My stomach turned. No. Oh God, no.

  “Have the . . .” I closed my hands over her shoulders and held her. “Have the results come back?”

  Amanda nodded, fresh tears slipping from her eyes, down her cheeks.

  I sucked in a ragged breath. And another. And another. “And?” I asked, even as I didn’t want to know. Even as I wanted to go back to sleep and stay there. Stay there and never wake—

  “He’s a match, Bren,” Amanda cried. “Your cousin, Caden. His blood test . . . the initial one . . . it shows him being a match.”

  Epilogue

  Gravy.

  AKA the Epilogue

  Apparently Americans don’t do the whole Hip hip Hooray! thing at the end of singing Happy Birthday. So as a consequence, I looked bloody stupid shouting Hip hip at the top of my lungs in the park, and almost everyone at the party looking at me like I’d grown an extra head.

  Thankfully Caden saved me, yelling out Hooray after the unexpected silence. Why he hadn’t yelled it straight away I’m not sure. Jetlag maybe? Or maybe it had something to do with Chase. They were sitting near each other, pretending not to notice the other was there. At least, Chase was pretending. Caden may have been asleep for most of it. He had, after all, only arrived in San Diego an hour earlier. Melbourne to LA on the red-eye, and Chase had collected him from LAX. I’d told him a month ago it wasn’t necessary for him to fly over for Tanner’s second birthday but he’d insisted on coming.

  “Try keeping me away,” he’d laughed during our Skype conversation. “That kid’s got a piece of me in him. We’re bone marrow brothers now.”

  I’d snorted, even as a rush of gratitude choked me.

  “Which means,” he’d continued, a stern expression creasing his eyebrows, “I’ll be expecting a present as well, okay? I could really do with a new car. Or maybe a –”

  I’d ended the conversation with a laugh, turned to Amanda where she sat on the floor of my office, the blueprints for my personal trainer business scattered around her as she built a Duplo tower with Tanner. “He’s coming.”

  She’d grinned up at me. “Excellent.”

  “Chase may disagree with you on that,” I’d said.

  Amanda had laughed and turned back to Tanner. “Aunty Chase doesn’t fool anyone, does she, tough guy?”

  “Nope,” Tanner had agreed, pressing a bright red block onto of the tower.

  On that day, he’d been cancer-free for four months.

  Two months after the successful transplant, Parker had called us to his office and told us it was time to take Tanner home.

  Home.

  He’d explained we had a long road ahead of us, daily visits to the hospital, ongoing treatment, regular blood tests, and Tanner was restricted in the things he could do, but we were allowed to go home. Together. All three of us under the one roof.

  Today, on his second birthday, he’d been cancer-free for five months.

  Today, we were celebrating not just his birthday, but the fact he was well enough to come to a park and play.

  Today, we were celebrating just how much a fighter he was.

  Today, we were celebrating life.

  “Hooray!” he yelled, grinning up at Caden from where he stood on the park bench. He wore a T-shirt with the words Suck It Cancer printed on the front. A party hat sat at an angle on top of his head, partially covering a messy crop of blond hair that Amanda had spiked into a short Mohawk. “Hooray!”

  I grinned at him. I don’t have to tell you I’d never been happier, do I?

  Around us, the guests of his party laughed. Parker Waters shouted out his own hooray, as did Heather, who’d arrived two days ago and hadn’t stopped being – to use her own words – “the bestest honorary aunty ever”. Maci and Raph joined in the hoorays, along with my mum and dad (who, I have to say, hadn’t stopped spoiling Tanner since the first time they met him).

  Jacqueline’s hooray was one of the loudest there.

  I’d like to say Charles joined in with equal enthusiasm, but I can’t. Maybe next year? Or maybe he’d finally forgive his daughter when Tanner turned twenty-one? Maybe then, we’d get a hooray from him?

  Maybe?
<
br />   I wasn’t holding my breath. I wasn’t holding a grudge either. As I’d learned all too painfully, life is too fragile to hold a grudge.

  Tanner may be in full remission, but the battle wasn’t won. When it came to the long-term outlook for a kid who’s had leukemia, well . . . let me just say, we were planning on celebrating Tanner’s life every damn day.

  A warm arm slid around my waist and I glanced down at Amanda, a sense of concentrated joy flooding through me. She smiled, the signs of stress and tired worry I’d found in her face six months ago now gone. “Everything okay?”

  I slid my own arms around her and smiled back. “More than okay.” I dropped a quick kiss on her lips. “Everything is gravy.”

  “Gravy,” she murmured, turning back to our son.

  I did the same, watching as he leaned over the Optimus Prime cake on the table and blew out the two candles on it.

  “Hooray,” I whispered as I hugged Amanda closer to my side. As I held my wife, and our son laughed and lived.

  Lived.

  If that’s not a reason for shouting hooray I don’t know what is.

  Hooray.

  Hip hip hooray.

  Thank you for reading

  Writing Unforgettable was hard. Harrowing. I’d joking promised the real Brendon I’d make him the hero of his own book if he’d stop making me do burpees. But of course, I wanted to put his fictional counterpart through hell, and that when Tanner and his situation came to life in my head.

  Researching childhood leukaemia was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done as a writer. Being the mother of two young, healthy daughters, every day learning about leukaemia tore me apart. And then, when I started writing about Tanner… I put myself in Brendon’s emotional shoes all the way through writing this. And at the end of every day, I hugged my daughters longer than normal.

  I hope you enjoyed Unforgettable, and will join me for the third book in the Always series, Undeniable. Chase and Caden are in for a hell of a romance…plus there’s a dog called Doofus I promise you’ll fall in love with.

  If you enjoyed Unforgettable, follow me on Bookbub for pre-order, sales, and new-release alerts, sign-up for my newsletter, the Lexxicon. You’ll receive a free copy of my (erotic) paranormal short story, The Cavern, plus never miss out on exciting announcements and giveaways!

  Leukaemia

  More information can be found about leukaemia at:

  https://www.leukaemia.org.au (Leukaemia Foundation Australia)

  https://www.allbloodcancers.org (Leukemia Research Foundation)

  More Romance From Lexxie Couper…

  The Always Series

  Unconditional

  Unforgettable

  Undeniable

  The Outback Skies Series

  Bound to You

  Breathless for You

  Burn for You

  Bare for You

  Better with You

  The Heart of Fame Series

  Love’s Rhythm

  Muscle for Hire

  Guarded Desires

  Steady Beat

  Lead Me On

  Blame it on the Bass

  Getting Played

  Blackthorne

  See the full book list…

  First Chapter Preview: Undeniable

  Always, Book Three

  It was all background noise, until he made her stop and listen.

  Undeniable

  (Always, Book Three)

  Available Here

  Chase

  Caden O’Dae could bite me.

  Not literally of course. The proximity of the annoying Australian’s mouth to any area of my body was an essential part of the problem I faced.

  No, he could bite me because, no matter how hard he tried, I refused to fall for him. It was not happening. Didn’t matter how cute he was, with his blue eyes, sexy Aussie accent, ridiculously endearing passionate need to care for wounded animals, beard that made me want to . . .

  Wait. What? Where was I going with this?

  Ah, that’s right. Me not falling for Caden or his shtick.

  For one, I didn’t do the romance thing any more. I’d learned my lesson last year and frankly, it was a lesson learned well.

  For another, I’m defective, and defective people like me don’t make for good “romantic” entanglements, no matter what the movies tell you (learned in part from that lesson I already mentioned).

  So, yeah, there we go. Didn’t matter what Caden O’Dae did, me and him were not going to happening.

  Once you’ve had your heart ripped out and stomped on, once you’ve had your defect thrown in your face as the reason for the decimation of your heart and any Happy Ever After you’d planned, you know it’s just better to be that girl. You know the one? The prickly, stand-offish, sarcastic girl who never dates and spends her time scoffing at the ridiculousness of the world. I’m that girl, with the added bonus of being defective.

  The thing is, I’m okay with the defective bit. I was born that way.

  I overheard my father call me that when I was twelve. I’m using the term heard in an ironic way, of course, given the reason I’m faulty. I have profound sensorineural hearing loss in my left ear and moderate conductive hearing loss in the other. Or to put it more simply, I’m completely deaf in one ear and can hardly hear with the other. The “officially” recognized term is Hard of Hearing.

  I was born with the profoundly deaf ear, thanks to a serious case of being premature and Mom being rushed into an emergency C-section that almost went horribly wrong. The almost-but-not-quite-working ear came about thanks to some nasty, nasty reoccurring ear infections as a result of being premature. Essentially, my pressing need to get into this world earlier than planned kind of fucked me over somewhat. Go figure.

  Sometimes I wear a hearing aid in the ear that almost works, but it irritates the hell out of me, and frankly, the second people see it pity fills their eyes. Have you ever been looked at with pity? Yeah. Not fun.

  My hearing, or lack thereof, also means I tend to tilt my head a little to the left when people talk, so that I can pick up their voices, even as I watch their lips move. I also get annoyed when people don’t look directly at me when they’re speaking, which – what with the hypnotizing power of cells phones and the seeming inability of the average person to exist for more than five seconds without looking at one – happens more often than you realize. We really are, as a species, becoming enslaved by the ubiquitous devices.

  I’m amazing at reading lips. Amazing. I can also sign, and do so whenever I want to swear or tell my sister something I’d rather not share with the world when we’re with company, but I don’t rely on it for communication. Because the moment someone realizes you’re deaf, they treat you differently.

  That sucks.

  It’s never stopped me or slowed me down, my defect. It’s never really bothered me. Sure, going to the movies is a pain (it’s just too damn loud for me, which is also ironic when you think about it), and getting treated like I’m sub-human and intellectually deficient, or fragile and helpless, has a way of bringing out the bitch in me if I’m not careful, but it’s never stopped me from living the life I want to.

  Most times, I should point out, I’m not careful. That helps deal with the people who treat me like I’m less than them. Keeps them at arm’s length. Keeps them wondering. Keeps them on guard. When people are on guard enough they tend to eventually move away from you.

  I’m good with that.

  Essentially, I don’t do people. I don’t do relationships. I definitely don’t do romance. Not any more. There’s nothing romantic about someone whispering sweet nothings in your ear when you can’t hear them. They get antsy when you don’t whisper something back. (I’m not good with whispering. Unfortunately, it’s a volume thing I’ve never gotten the hang of.)

  The few times I tried to do romance when I was a teenager ended with the intended recipient of my affections giving up and finding themselves a date with someone who didn’t
have to wear a hearing aid in one ear; who didn’t ask them to repeat themselves when they whispered said sweet nothings in said ear. Who didn’t get irritated in crowds and parties, and snarky with people trying to communicate with her when she couldn’t decipher what they were saying.

  The one time I got really serious about romance, the only time I sincerely believed the person I was with loved me for everything I was, including the faulty hearing, ended up with me sobbing ugly tears in my closet and dropping out of college.

  Apparently, dating me is hard and, according to Professor Douchebag, an inconvenience. Have you ever been told you’re an inconvenience, not just by a stranger who doesn’t like how long you’re taking to order your coffee at Starbucks, but by someone who you’ve given your heart to? Have you been told an integral part of what makes you you is an inconvenience? It freaking rips your emotions to shreds and makes you feel like shit. As a result, I stopped dating.

  No dating. No falling in love. No decimated heart. It was a win-win for everyone concerned, right? I just needed Caden O’Dae to get with the program and stop being so . . . so . . .

  Damn it.

  Why had I agreed to pick him up from the airport again? I knew what he was going to do – see me through the crowd, grin, wave, weave his way toward me with an emotion in his eyes I didn’t want to acknowledge, even as my tummy tightened at the sight of it.

  Every time I’d collected him from LAX to date, my tummy told me my body liked the way he looked, and the way he looked at me. Every time I told my tummy to tell my body to get a grip. Every time, my body refused to comply.