When I arrived back in town, my first stop was where I knew Willa would be. By the time I got there, it was only five minutes before closing at Bean There. I parked the car in front of the coffee shop and sat looking inside the window for several seconds, unable to move. My heart raced at the speed of a bullet to the point that I felt light-headed.
Although desperate to see her, hold her, I was afraid. If keeping my past a secret ruined this relationship, I didn’t know how I’d handle it. I needed Willa as part of my life. If I could explain how right I felt when I was with her, I would. Words escaped me. I was high on emotion, high on the sense she was the one for me. If I lost her due to my own stupidity, I would have no one to blame but myself.
When I could no longer stand to wait, I climbed out of the car and walked into the café. Happily, it was empty. Willa was busy putting what was left of the baked goods away for the night. When the bell above the door dinged, she glanced up and froze.
Immediately my name was on her lips. “Sean.”
Neither of us moved for a few moments. I stood just inside the door and she remained on the far side of the counter. And then Willa raced around to the other side and leaped into my embrace. As soon as she was in my arms and I could hug her, I experienced my first sense of having arrived home.
“You’re back,” she cried, her arms around my neck, squeezing as if she never intended to let me go.
I was certain I felt moisture against my neck. Willa was crying.
“I came here first. I had to see you.”
Leaning back, her hands cupped my face and her watery smile was my undoing. It was either kiss her or die. My mouth fused with hers and we kissed until we were both breathless. It seemed impossible to get enough of each other in a single exchange.
When we broke apart, she stroked my jaw with her hand and said, “Bandit didn’t do well without you. The poor dog has abandonment issues.”
Her gaze was holding mine as if she was actually talking about herself, not Bandit. It was selfish of me, but I had to know. “What about you?”
She answered with a weak smile and lowered her eyes as though she’d rather avoid the question. “I never knew twenty-three days could take so long.”
Grinning, I kissed her again. “Me, either.”
She slid down my front. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. This was what I needed, what I’d craved, being with Willa, holding and kissing her. It felt as if I could breathe again.
“I know we need to talk,” I told her, unwilling to let her go, “and I promise we will.”
She swallowed hard and nodded. “We need to. Not today, though. You’re exhausted. Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” I agreed. My mind had been composing what I wanted to say for the last three weeks. I hoped it would be enough to convince her that the cocky, self-absorbed idiot I’d once been was no more. With everything in me, I prayed she hadn’t gone on an Internet search and found pictures of me with Nikki.
“How was Bolivia? Did you get what you needed?” she asked, leading me to a table where we could sit and talk.
“I believe I did. I took about ten thousand photographs.”
“Ten thousand?”
I would need to go through, sort, and analyze which ones would tell the story that I hoped would convey the lives of these herders. The project would demand countless hours in front of the computer. As tempting as it was to linger with Willa, I needed to collect Bandit, unpack, and get to work as soon as possible.
She must have read my mind. “How about I bring you dinner tomorrow night? You can tell me about Bolivia and show me some of the photos, and we can talk.”
That was a perfect solution. I hadn’t eaten a decent meal in weeks. “Yes. Please.”
“What time should I plan to arrive?”
“Any time you want.” I craved her company, regretted every moment we were apart, and was eager to settle matters between us.
* * *
—
By the time Bandit and I arrived home, I was bone weary and exhausted. I unloaded the car, unpacked my equipment, and tossed every piece of clothing from my backpack into the washing machine. When I finished, I was shaking with fatigue and nearly passed out in the shower.
“Okay, bed now.” I didn’t know who I was looking to convince. Nothing appealed to me more than a solid ten hours of sleep. Not food. Not work, which I was eager to start. Nothing.
In the morning I woke with a monster headache, barely able to lift my head from the pillow. Standing next to the bed, Bandit rested his chin on the mattress, looking to me to feed him and let him outside.
“I don’t feel so great,” I managed to say. Overtaken by chills, I shivered and pulled the blankets over my shoulders as I curled into a tight ball. I must have returned to sleep, because Bandit’s bark woke me.
With effort I managed to let him out to do his business. I poured food into his dish and literally fell back into bed. My head pounded like someone had taken a jackhammer to it. Aspirin didn’t put a dent in the constant, persistent ache. In all the travel I’d done over the years, I’d never returned from a trip feeling worse.
Lingering in bed, I forced myself to get up and get dressed around four, knowing Willa would arrive sometime soon. The chills wouldn’t leave me. I walked around the house with a blanket tucked around my shoulders, cold and sweating buckets at the same time.
Willa arrived at four-forty-five. She took one look at me and her face instantly clouded with concern. “You’re sick,” she said.
“Looks that way.” By all that was right, I should have warned her. It was selfish of me. My need to see her, to settle any differences between us, had overridden my common sense. “I should have called.”
Taking the casserole dish into the kitchen, she looked at me and frowned. “I’m glad you didn’t. Let me help you; you need to be in bed.”
“Will you join me?”
“Very funny,” she said, taking charge. “Where do you keep your thermometer?”
Dizzy now, I stumbled into the bedroom. “Don’t have one.”
“Sean!”
She made it sound like I didn’t keep toilet paper on hand. For all the traveling I’d done over the years, I had never needed one. I was young and healthy, and I wasn’t foolish. I never drank water that wasn’t bottled or hadn’t been purified. I’d taken care of my shots and was careful of the food I ate.
Willa helped me into bed and pulled the covers over me. She started to leave.
“Don’t go.” I sounded like a big baby, but I couldn’t help it.
“I’ll be back, and if you aren’t better by morning, I’m taking you in to see the doctor.”
“I’ll be better.” I hoped this wasn’t a case of wishful thinking.
I heard the front door close, and although I’d slept a good majority of the day, I felt myself drifting off again. It seemed like only minutes before Willa returned. I was in a fetal position. Chills wracked my body and my sheets were soaked.
Willa stayed with me. She wiped my face with a damp cloth, got me to drink some fluid, and freaked out when the thermometer showed my fever registered at one hundred and three.
“I need to get you to the clinic,” she said, pulling back the covers, attempting to get me out of bed.
My head ached and my body felt like I’d been run over by a snowplow. “Tomorrow.” The local clinic was closed and the closest one outside of Oceanside was Aberdeen. No way was I interested in leaving my bed and traveling to another town. Not with what I could only assume was a migraine and a high fever. What I needed most was rest and Willa watching over me.
“I don’t understand it,” Willa said, pacing my bedroom. “You seemed fine when I first saw you.”
I didn’t understand it, either. I would have talked more if I’d had the energy. It took everything I had in me to function
when my entire body screamed with pain. The headache was the worst.
“If this is your way of getting out of us talking, then you’re going to extremes,” she said, wiping down my face. The rag felt cool and my eyes drifted closed. Willa stayed at my side, forcing liquids down my throat. She was on the phone and I didn’t know who she was talking to until I heard her mention Harper’s name.
When she finished, she placed her hand on my forehead. “I’m staying the night.”
“This isn’t exactly the way I planned to lure you to my bed,” I mused, and must have said the words out loud, because Willa laughed.
* * *
—
During the night, Willa woke me every few hours. She took my temperature and forced me to drink some ugly-tasting fluid. My head continued to pound, and I doubted I slept more than a few hours. I was cold and sweating and unable to understand how that could happen at the same time.
First thing in the morning, she bundled me up and drove me to the clinic to see Dr. Annie. I’d been to a foreign country. I’d eaten the food, such as it was. The obvious conclusion was that I’d picked up a bug. Tests were run and I was given a prescription to kill whatever had infected me.
The office visit and following tests felt like they took half the day. I was weak and eager to get back home and in bed. Willa drove me, changed my sheets, and tucked me in. Again, she fed me broth and stayed at my side.
Knowing I was keeping her away from Bean There weighed heavily on me. As hard as it was to admit, I needed her. My temperature hovered at about one hundred and three for two more days, even with the antibiotics. Normally by now I would have checked in with my parents.
On the third morning, Willa called Dr. Annie. “This is something more, something worse,” she said. “His fever hasn’t gone down and he isn’t getting any better. Something is terribly wrong.” She sounded desperate and her voice wobbled with emotion. I realized she was afraid. Her fear fueled my own. Could I be dying? I’d never been this sick before, and I had to wonder.
Lost in my thoughts, I was unable to hear the rest of the conversation. The next thing I knew, Willa got me out of bed and into her car, explaining that we were headed to Aberdeen.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Dr. Annie called a friend of hers who’s an infectious disease doctor. She’s agreed to see you right away.”
By this time, I was willing to do anything to end this constant pain and misery. If antibiotics weren’t helping, I had to wonder what would.
On the ride into Aberdeen, Willa kept muttering to herself. “I should have followed my instinct that first night,” she said angrily.
“I’m sorry, Willa.” I hated that she had to see me like this. Frankly, I didn’t know what I would have done without her.
“I’m not mad at you, Sean. I’m furious with myself. You’re much too sick for this to be a minor infection. And you’re not showing the symptoms of some easily killed normal bug. This is far and away more than that.”
“Maybe not. I—”
“I’m no dummy,” she said, cutting me off. “Do you even know how many hours I spent in the hospital with Harper? Of course you don’t. From what I learned when she was sick with leukemia, I could be a consultant to the medical team.”
If I’d had the wherewithal to respond I would have. When we arrived in Aberdeen, Willa shepherded me into the medical offices. As soon as she gave the receptionist my name, we were ushered into the exam room.
The infectious disease doctor gave me a thorough examination and drew my blood. I answered a hundred or more questions and she put me on a ten-day course of Cipro with warnings that this was a powerful drug that often came with dangerous side effects. While we still didn’t have any answers, whatever bug I’d picked up wasn’t something that could be handled with a Z-Pak.
This was serious.
Willa was silent on the way home. I’d infringed on her long enough. It was time to call in family. My chest tightened and I reached for my phone.
“Who are you calling?” she asked, as we neared Oceanside.
“My parents.”
“Good idea. Do you want me to talk to them?” she asked, when she noticed how violently my hand shook.
“Maybe that would be best.”
Willa got me into the house. After spending nearly four days in bed, it was the last place I wanted to go. “Let me sit up for a bit,” I said, when she tried to steer me back into the bedroom.
“Okay.” She set me down in the chair and brought an afghan to tuck around me before bringing me a cup of warm chicken broth. I was about to explain what I wanted her to say to my parents when the phone rang.
Caller ID said it was the Oceanside Clinic. I answered and put the phone on speaker.
“Sean, this is Dr. Annie Keaton. The test results came back from the stool samples we took.”
“Is it a parasite?” I asked.
“No, Sean, you have typhoid.”
CHAPTER 13
Willa
The news that Sean was dealing with typhoid fever was a shock and at the same time a relief. I’d felt something similar when we learned Harper had leukemia. First the shock, followed by a sense that at least we knew what we faced and could prepare for the battle.
What I didn’t know was how serious this news was. Typhoid fever was nothing to fool around with. Dr. Morgan, the infectious disease doctor, recognized within a short amount of time that this wasn’t your normal, run-of-the-mill infection. She’d prescribed Cipro with caution, explaining how powerful this drug was.
As he asked me to do, I contacted Sean’s parents and spoke to his father. Within twelve hours of our conversation his parents were on a flight from Phoenix, where they are retired, to Seattle. I was with Sean the morning they arrived.
His mother burst into the house like a freight train shooting into a tunnel, nearly bowling me over in order to get to her son. “Sean Patrick O’Malley…typhoid fever,” she cried.
Sean groaned and laid his head back against the overstuffed chair where he sat. “Mom, please, I’m fine.”
Sean looked at me and I read the apology in his eyes. I understood better than he realized. Had it been my mother she would have reacted the same.
His father followed close behind, carting in two suitcases. “Patrick O’Malley,” he introduced himself as he scooted past me.
“I’m Willa. Willa Lakey.”
As if she recognized my name, his mother whirled around. “You’re Willa?”
With a laser focus, she looked straight through me. I would have been uncomfortable if the stare hadn’t been followed with a slow, easy smile that softened her tight features.
“You’re Willa,” she repeated, and then, without a word, gathered me into her arms and hugged me as if I was long-lost family. “I’m Joanna and I am happy to meet you. So happy.”
“Mom. Dad—” Sean wasn’t allowed to finish.
Joanna’s worried face returned as she looked to me. “What’s his temperature? When was the last time he ate? What do I need to watch for? Shouldn’t he be hospitalized?” The questions came at me all at once, with no room for response.
“Mom,” Sean protested. “Give Willa a chance to breathe, will you?”
“Perhaps ask one question at a time,” his father inserted when he returned from setting the luggage in the spare bedroom.
“Sean might not look so great, but he’ll survive, won’t you, son?”
“I’ll live to worry you another day,” Sean assured his mother.
“Why didn’t you call us sooner?” she demanded, as if offended. “Your father and I would have come immediately.”
“I know—”
“Willa, we owe you,” his father said.
“I was happy to be here.”
“Can everyone kindly sit down,” Sean bar
ked, waving his hand toward the sofa. “It’s hurting my neck to look up.”
“He must be feeling better,” Joanna said to her husband, and then turned to me and added, “Sean never was a good patient. You must have the patience of a saint to put up with him.”
“He’s been too sick to put up much of a fuss,” I said, glancing toward Sean, who rolled his eyes at his parents. I sat on the ottoman next to him and he reached for my hand. His smile was indulgent and appreciative at the same time. He seemed to be telling me how grateful he was that I’d spent the last four days looking after him, and asking me to forgive his parents, particularly his mother, for rushing in like a herd of stampeding buffalo.
“Sean’s temperature is down to a hundred and one,” I said, answering the most important questions. “And he ate some scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast, which is the first solid food he’s been able to tolerate.”
“You should have let us know sooner,” his mother bemoaned.
Sean’s hand tightened around mine. “Willa was here, and Mom, really, I was too sick. I don’t know what I would have done without Willa. She stepped in and took care of me.”
“Thank God.” His mother still didn’t look happy with him.
“I didn’t want you flying in until we knew what was wrong,” he added. “Now we do and I’m grateful you’re here.”
“Sean told us you have your own business,” his father said, relaxing on the sofa. One leg was balanced across his knee and his arm rested on the back of the sofa and cupped his wife’s shoulder.
I could see he was the calm one in the family, a good balance for his mother, who was in mama-bear mode.
It took me a moment to realize his parents were waiting for me to answer. “Yes, I have a small coffee shop on Main Street.”
“She bakes, too,” Sean threw in.
“Ah yes, I’ve heard rumors about your cinnamon rolls,” Patrick said, and his eyes brightened.
A Walk Along the Beach Page 10
