Dread claimed Declan’s gut, filling him fully. “Define ‘fairly soon’.”
“It’s very hard to say,” she reiterated. “But if the damage is extensive…six weeks. Maybe eight.”
Christ, what a fool he’d been to have hope. “I understand.”
“The silver lining is that if the scans show damage of that nature, I can move you up the UNOS list,” Dr. Gupta said. “But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, okay? Scans first. Did you want me to page your wife?”
“No.” Declan’s heart slammed, but of this, he was certain.
He could deal with his hope being crushed; hell, from his sister to the Air Force, he had losing hope down to a fucking science. But he could not—would not—kill the pure, sweet hope that lit Tess’s face every time she insisted this trial would work.
She found her truest self-worth in being able to help others be well. Declan would rather die than take that from her.
“No,” he repeated more softly. “Please don’t tell Tess anything about this. I don’t want ta worry her.”
Dr. Gupta frowned. “Legally, I can’t tell your wife anything you don’t want me to about your health. But as your doctor, I’d like to strongly recommend that you talk to someone about all of this. We have a great team of therapists who are specifically trained to provide counseling to patients who are experiencing serious health issues. I’m going to leave this here”—she reached out to take a business card from a holder on the counter—“in case you want to give someone a call. I’ll have a nurse come back and admit you for those scans.”
“Thanks,” Declan said.
The door had barely closed before he’d tossed the business card into the trash.
Nine hours later, the dread that had bloomed in Declan’s stomach had taken up permanent residence. Gupta had reviewed the results of both his ultrasound and his CT scan, spending an excruciating amount of time examining every angle and aspect before delivering the news that he had about eight weeks, at best, before his kidney functions would dip low enough to make dialysis a necessity. As promised, she’d put him on daily insulin, and the self-administration tutorial had sucked worse than anything in Declan’s recent memory. But even though he knew Tess was far more capable in that regard than he’d ever be, having her administer the injections would involve actually telling her that Gupta’s trial wasn’t working. And as much as he knew he should do exactly that, when she’d texted him to ask how the appointment had gone, he’d been powerless to text back anything other than “great.”
He couldn’t crush her. Not when they were a week away from leaving for this wedding she’d agreed to attend to show her mother once and for all that she was good enough, on her own terms. That she was truly, deeply happy.
And Tess deserved to be that happy, if only for another week. Putting off telling her what Gupta had said wouldn’t change the ultimate outcome. The insulin should keep him on the level until he started dialysis, and anyway, he’d have no choice but to tell her as soon as they got back from her cousin’s wedding. He had an appointment to have an insulin pump placed the day after they returned. Yeah, the device would mean less needle sticks in the long run, but hiding the thing from Tess—especially since it would be attached at his hip, literally—would be impossible.
Until he had no choice but to tell her the truth and smash her hope, he’d make the very best of his stolen time with her.
The sound of a key in the front door lock grabbed Declan out of his thoughts, depositing him back to the condo with just enough time for him to tack on his poker face.
“I am a terrible person,” Tess said by way of greeting as she tossed her keys into the dish on the table by her front door.
One corner of Declan’s mouth kicked up into an involuntary smile—Christ, she was so pretty—as he looked at her from his spot on the couch. “As someone who quite likes you, I’m inclined to disagree.” Getting up, he moved to the door, taking Jackson from her arms and leaning in to place a sort-of chaste kiss on her lips. “But I’ll humor you. Why is it that you think you’re terrible?”
“Well, let’s see.” Lowering Jackson’s diaper bag, she brought up one hand to start counting. “I missed your appointment completely. I didn’t even get a chance to call Gupta for an update because the ED was that slammed today. I totally missed dinner—please tell me you already ate?”
Declan nodded. “Sorry, but I had to. Blood sugar, and all.” The insulin was throwing him way the fuck off kilter. The last thing he needed was for the monitor on his arm to go off and make a hash of things.
Tess exhaled loudly, relief on her face. “Okay, whew. Kelsey gave Jackson a quick dinner in childcare while I finished up in the ED, so at least you’re both set. Thank God for their extended hours. Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. Reasons why I’m terrible.” She frowned, her voice going soft. “I had to send a patient to palliative care today after her second round of chemo didn’t work, so…”
“I’m sorry,” Declan said, his gut jabbing at the look of pure sadness on her face. He gestured her over to the couch, setting Jackson down close by with a few toys. “But that doesn’t make you a terrible person.”
“I couldn’t help her,” Tess countered, but Declan shook his head, not budging.
“She was unwell long before you saw her.”
“I know.” Tess knotted her fingers together, dropping her chin to stare at them. “But I was the person who had to tell her, definitively, that she’s going to die soon. And even though my brain knows that sometimes, despite all efforts, patients die, it still makes me feel terrible.”
Declan’s chest tightened, and he covered his unease by shifting to hand Jackson a new toy. “You care an awful lot about your patients, even when you don’t know them so well.”
“That’s kind of the point of my job,” she said with a half-sassy smile Declan had long ago pegged as a defense mechanism. “You know, the whole helping-people, caregiving thing?”
“I do know,” he said quietly. “But it clearly upsets you when a patient gets sick or dies. Wouldn’t it be easier not to care so much?”
Tess huffed out a laugh that was part irony, part something else he couldn’t name, but it sliced through him regardless. “Would it be easier? Of course. And sometimes I wish I could. Charlie, Jonah, Connor—God, even Nat, who is the most compassionate person I know—all of them know how to compartmentalize and cope when their best efforts fail. But, for me, it’s not like a light switch. I don’t know how to not go all in with my feelings. I’m always going to be that caregiver who feels it all, one hundred and ten percent, because it’s the only thing I’m really, really good at. So, when I fail, and a patient gets sick or dies…”
“You take it personally,” Declan said, his throat threatening to lock over the words.
Nodding, Tess snuggled in at his side. “Because it is. I might not be a great person all the time. Too brash, too sharp around the edges, too much. But I am a really, really great doctor. In fact”—she leaned her head on his shoulder, her voice dropping to a whisper—“it is the greatest thing about me, by far.”
“No, love. It’s not.” He shifted to place a hand over the front of her blouse. “The greatest thing about you is this heart of yours, you see.”
“Is that so?” Tess asked. Her teasing tone would’ve covered her doubt for anyone other than him, but he heard it as loud and clear as if she’d shouted it from the roof of the hospital.
And he meant to smash it, once and for all. “That’s so. Your heart cared enough to save me when the odds were for shite, remember? I’m rather fond of it.”
“Oh,” she breathed. “Well, I’m rather fond of your heart, too.” After a beat, she laughed softly and pulled back. “But enough squishy feelings. Tell me how your appointment with Gupta went.”
“It was grand,” Declan said, the lie leaving a bitter aftertaste as it slipped past his lips.
“That’s it? Grand?” Tess teased.
He hung on to his smil
e, but only just. “Guess my kidney finally got the message to start behavin’. She was pleased with my labs.”
“So, no insulin.”
Christ, the hope in her eyes was so bright. “No,” Declan said, and Tess’s huge smile took away most of the sting of the lie.
“God, I’m so relieved. You must be, too. Did she want me to follow up with her, or—”
“She didn’t mention it, no,” Declan said, and at least this was true. “The trial is working, just as you said it would. There’s nothing ta worry about other than carrying on.”
A spark moved through Tess’s eyes, bourbon-brown and so beautiful. “Carrying on, huh? I like the sound of that.”
His hands were on her in an instant, tugging her close. “Do you, now?” He kept his kiss short, but put all the suggestion he could into it, and ah, he’d never, ever get enough of Tess’s sexy sighs. “Well, then. What do you say we give the lad a bath and get him into bed so we can carry on as much as you like?”
“I say bring on bedtime,” Tess laughed.
And as Declan watched her scoop up Jackson and head down the hallway, he knew that even in his lie, he’d told a kernel of truth.
Tess might not have been able to save his life by getting him into this trial, but her heart had saved him, just the same. Against all the odds that had been stacked to the ceiling, Declan had fallen in love with her.
And even though he knew it would come crashing down in the end, he was going to hold on to that love, perfect and fierce and exactly like this, for just a little while longer.
26
Tess tossed a tube of travel toothpaste into her cosmetics bag, wondering where in the blue hell her week had gone. Okay, so she’d worked three doubles in addition to her four regular ten-hour shifts, which meant she’d pretty much ate, slept, and breathed all things ED. But between having to make up lost time from her bout with the flu and pre-emptively balancing out the three days she’d taken off for Elizabeth’s wedding, she’d been left with damn little choice. She’d spent what little free time she’d had with Jackson and Declan, although she’d seen far less of both of them than she’d liked. That particular pot was about to get a little sweeter, though.
Or, at least it would, as soon as she got her frigging suitcase to the back of her SUV.
Taking one last survey of her bathroom, Tess zipped her cosmetics bag and took it to her bedroom. The resort where they were headed might be tucked way up in the southern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains, but it was about as luxurious as things got. If she’d forgotten something, they’d likely have a replacement, or at least be able to get one.
Plus, what Tess really needed in order to survive this weekend wasn’t a thing. It was a person.
As long as Declan had her back, nothing her mother said or did mattered. As long as he stood by her, Tess was invincible.
“You ready?” Declan asked from the doorway, delivering her back to the here and now with that sexy Irish brogue.
“I’m as ready as I’m going to get,” she replied, willing the heat from her face. Zipping her suitcase and tugging it to the floor, she continued, “There’s a tiny part of me that still thinks this is insane, you know.”
Declan took the suitcase handle and ushered her down the hall to the family room, where Jackson sat in his ExerSaucer, babbling away to the lion and elephant and zebra toys decorating the thing. “It’s not insane that you’re happy, or that you want your mother to see that happiness firsthand.”
“I know. It’s just…” She thought of her mother’s holier-than-thou ways and shuddered. “You’ll see what I mean when we get there. Suffice it to say, you’re a very brave man.”
An odd expression flickered across his handsome face, there and then gone before Tess could nail down the emotion that had accompanied it. “Did you want ta get on the road, then?”
“Yeah, now that Jackson’s had an early lunch, our timing should be perfect. Hopefully he’ll sleep for at least half of the trip. Right, mister?” Tess aimed the last part at her son, who baby-grinned back at her.
“Da! Da da da da da da da da!” he cried gleefully, making her laugh.
“Oh, really? Tell me again,” she said, bending down to lift him out of the ExerSaucer.
But he squealed in displeasure, turning away from her grasp and toward Declan, thrusting his little arms up into the air. “Da! Da! Da da da da…”
Tess’s heart did a triple backflip, her eyes flying wide. “Is he…oh, my God, I think he’s trying to say your name.”
Declan stood completely still, looking as shocked as Tess felt. “What?”
“Declan,” she said, pointing to him even as she kept her eyes on Jackson. “Declan?”
“Da da da da,” Jackson replied, bouncing up and down as he reached for Declan again.
“Okay, lad. I’m right here,” Declan said, his emotion-rough voice making Tess’s own throat go tight. Picking Jackson up, he turned toward Tess. “Do you want ta take him downstairs?”
“No,” she replied, certain. “He wants you.” Jackson illustrated her point by laying his head against Declan’s shoulder and rubbing his eyes. “He must be ready for that nap.”
Declan nodded, his grasp on Jackson steady. “Right. Then let’s be off.”
Tess turned toward the door, sure of one thing. She didn’t have to worry about playing the part of a blissfully-in-love couple who had been so far gone for each other that they’d gotten married on a whim.
Because the feeling taking over her chest right now was very, very real, and she didn’t want to ever let it go.
Declan blinked and tried like mad to place his surroundings. The small, timeworn house where he stood looked so much like the place where he’d grown up, his mam cooking all their holiday dinners on that tiny, make-do stove and his sister always playfully giving out that she had to share a bathroom with him. But it wasn’t his fault, he’d always point out, that she was five years older than him, and that nineteen-year-old girls required far too much time in the jacks, putting on makeup and doing whatever they did to get ready to go out. He’d always felt awkward around everyone but his mam and Saoirse, who had landed a job at a fancy hotel in Dublin, working under some pastry chef she’d sworn was famous, but that Dec had never heard of. Too tall, too skinny, too painfully shy, yet none of those things mattered to Saoirse, who had always looked after him in school.
Now, he was in the kitchen, sitting at the table as she made a spiced apple cake. “I’ve got ta get it just so,” she said, measuring the ingredients with near-medical precision. “Chef Byrne won’t have less.”
“Tastes good ta me,” Declan said, savoring the spicy flavors of nutmeg and allspice in the batch she’d pulled from the finicky oven an hour ago.
His sister came over from the counter to ruffle his hair, a move she knew he hated, but that he always let her get away with. “Aw, thanks a million. It’s just so hard, tryin’ ta impress all these folks. Nearly all the guests are from these glamorous places like New York or London or LA. You should hear how they butcher my name!”
“You could wear directions with your name tag,” Declan suggested around a mouthful of cake. “‘It’s SURR-shah.’”
“They should get it right. Dublin’s just as good as any other city. Better, in fact.” She stood taller, her long black braid falling across the back of her chef’s jacket as she set her shoulders smartly. “One day, I’ll be the best pastry chef in Ireland, and they’ll all know my name, and exactly how to say it.”
“Ah, but you’ve got a lot of fire in you,” came their mother’s voice from the doorway, and Declan’s belly clenched with dread, the faraway part of his brain that knew this was a dream also knowing what would come next.
Saoirse’s jaw tightened into a frown, as it had all too often lately when their mam was around. “What’s so wrong with a bit of fire?”
Without answering, their mam walked all the way into the kitchen. “I’ve got wonderful news for the two of you. Mr. O’Malley’s r
elocatin’ to the branch of the firm based in Los Angeles, and he’s offered ta take me with him.”
Both Declan and Saoirse went completely still, until his sister finally managed, “What?”
“It’s a grand offer, with a promotion and a raise. We’ll be able ta live well.”
“We live well now,” Saoirse argued, but Mam shook her head.
“We’re crammed in here, livin’ on a shoestring,” she said, waving her hand around the tiny rental house, and Declan had to admit she wasn’t wrong. “Plus, there are good schools in LA, and plenty of restaurants, too. I thought you’d be excited to go.”
Saoirse made a noise her mother would classify as rude. “Excited? To be uprooted from home ta move so far away? You’re mad. I’ve a life here in Ireland. We all do. It’s home.”
Declan watched the excitement that had colored his mam’s eyes dim. “We can have a life in the U.S. All three of us.”
“You can go and bollocks if you think I’m goin’ to the States!” Saoirse cried. “It took everything I had ta get that job at the hotel.”
“Come now. You’ve only been there a year,” Mam said.
“A year I’ll have wasted! Seniority is everything in the culinary world. I’d have ta start over in the States with nothin’. I won’t do it!”
Shock collided with the unease and fear in the pit of Declan’s belly. “Saoirse, maybe you should just listen—”
“Of course you’d side with her!” his sister snapped, her voice uncharacteristically harsh. But her emotion was not only clear, it was rising. “Always tryin’ ta keep yer head down and keep the peace, no matter the cost. But perhaps now is the perfect time ta get mad.” Spinning back toward their mother, she asked, “Did you think for one second about askin’ us what we want before decidin’ to uproot us entirely? How movin’ to another country would change our lives?”
Beyond Just Us (Remington Medical Book 4): A Single Parent Marriage of Convenience Romance Page 23
