And they lived happily ever after. Abi allowed herself one final glimpse of the happily ever after she’d never have before closing the cover on her fairy-tale adventure.
A 75 percent chance of survival dropping to 25 percent depending on what Doc Martinez found when she cut open her head. Months of debilitating chemo and radiation therapy that would lay waste to her body and what remained of her mind. Years of physical, psychological, and neurological therapy and rehabilitation. Paralysis, memory loss, seizures, strokes, blindness, deafness, personality changes, cognitive function deterioration, and the kicker of potentially having to do it all over again in the future. Abi counted off the facts Doctor Olivia Williams had purposely ignored and cradled her kid sister’s face in her hands.
The plane’s engines filled the silence between them as they hurtled toward the destiny Abi had been both dreading and waiting for. Abi’s throat tightened and her chest constricted around her lungs until breathing became impossible as she eyed the woman who’d stood by her side through it all. How often had her sister sacrificed her own happiness to care for her? How long had Olivia put her life on hold to help her fight? How much pain and misery had Abi caused the only family she had left in the world? How many times had her baby sister ignored her pleas, threats, and tantrums to leave her the hell alone and shared the crippling fear and agony?
Abi rested her forehead on Olivia’s and closed her eyes. “Doris has already ruined the life of the most important person in my world. I’m not letting her do the same to the man I love.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The afternoon sun beat down on Ryder as he trudged through the sand and rock toward the Wishing Tree. Ten hours had passed since he’d staggered out of that damned hospital, and he still couldn’t shake the memory of her lying in that bed and shaking her head as the door clicked shut on his world.
He stopped in the shade cast by the canopy and wiped the sweat-soaked grime caked on his face with his sleeve before turning toward Wingarra. Sunlight shimmered off the Big House’s roof like a beacon in the distance. He should’ve gone straight home but the last thing he needed was reliving the nightmare all over again in front of his family. The hourly updates he’d phoned through had been hard enough. He didn’t need sympathy. He needed a good old-fashioned arse-kicking for stuffing everything up. But what the hell could he have done, taken her hostage?
He cursed into the silence and unleashed his bionic leg on a rock. The innocent victim of his rage tumbled across the crimson sand and crashed through a patch of scraggly scrub clinging to life in the heat. He unclenched his fists and sucked the scorching air into his lungs. He had an entire desert and what remained of his life to take his frustrations out. This wasn’t the time or the place for anger.
He followed the gnarled roots to the base of the trunk and drew in another eucalypt-scented breath as the Wishing Tree enveloped him. He still had no idea whether he believed in the magic of this ancient place, but for her he’d believe anything.
He reached into his pocket and withdrew the medals he’d pried loose from her unconscious fingers a lifetime ago. A chill skittered up his drenched back as the image of her lying crumpled in the dirt exploded in his mind. He’d been scared before, but nothing like that. Despite all his training and everything he’d endured, the thought of losing her had crippled him and shut down his brain. Even now he couldn’t remember carrying her limp body back home or the Royal Flying Doctor flight into Brisbane. He shook his head clear and carefully arranged the medals in his palm.
“She’s the most stubborn, frustrating, and maddening woman I’ve ever met.” He held them out to the Wishing Tree and lifted his gaze to the canopy. “If these aren’t enough to keep her safe, take whatever you need from me.”
He picked his way through the rubble toward the cave and his not-so-secret hiding place. If he’d known what a hardheaded pain in the arse she’d be when they first arrived, he’d have been more careful hiding his offering. But even his Special Forces’ paranoia hadn’t prepared him for the woman who’d invaded his world and captured his heart. Sinking to his knees before the pile of offerings, he found the one-eyed teddy bear smiling up at him from beneath the dented pot. As he carefully shifted the teddy bear aside, fine strands of golden hair tumbled free.
He’d been too exhausted and numb to bother trying to figure out what the hell she’d swapped for his medals, but he couldn’t stop grinning as her wig shimmered in the sunlight penetrating the canopy. He’d hated that fucking thing from the moment he’d seen it. Hated knowing she believed she had to disguise herself to be beautiful. His grin grew into a smile as he ran his fingers through the artificial locks. He’d screwed up everything else, but at least she now knew how gorgeous she really was.
Something hard and heavy hid beneath the fake hair as he eased her offering free, and he almost dropped the medals in his haste to unwrap the wig. Lady Gaga’s notebook burst to life in an explosion of sparkling light in his trembling hands. The book of secrets she’d gone to war to keep him from seeing. The wish list he’d been desperate to read. The book he’d hoped would give him the intel he needed to get her to spend her holiday with him. The chuckle spluttering from his mouth burned like acid. While he’d been focused on getting her to stay, she’d been terrified she’d never see another fucking Christmas. He welcomed the pain knifing through him. He deserved it.
He carefully laid the medals on the sand and covered them with the wig before repositioning the bear. He shoved to his feet and almost collapsed on his arse as his body surrendered to the same fog clouding his mind. Dragging in a breath, he cursed his weakness and ran shaking fingers over the rhinestones. If he wasn’t such a selfish, mercenary arsehole, he’d respect her wishes and return the damned thing to its hiding place. But he was already going to hell and the depth no longer mattered.
He slid the pornographic pen from the binding and slowly opened the cover. Things to do before I die. He grimaced as he traced the words. It wasn’t Abi’s handwriting, which meant Olivia’s morbid hospital humor had been responsible for the title.
He turned the page and studied the stick figures humping around the words, HAVE SEX, once again written in Olivia’s hand.
If he’d had anything left, he’d have smiled as he counted the seven huge ticks Abi had scrawled next to the wish. But with each tick the magnitude of what he’d lost crushed him until standing became a pure act of will.
Dozens of wishes greeted him when he turned the page. The Great Barrier Reef. Uluru. Hot-air ballooning. His throat tightened and his chest ached as he flipped through the book. Sydney Harbor Bridge. Dolphins. Koalas. Vegemite. Witchetty grubs. Page after page of unfulfilled adventures crossed out with a single line. The same wishes she’d been scribbling down the first time he’d plummeted into those eyes. The dreams he’d coerced her into sacrificing to spend more time with him, a delusional, selfish deadbeat living in the middle of fucking nowhere.
He unclenched his jaw and turned to face the life he’d dreamed of returning to for a decade and the people who’d given him the reason to keep breathing. The ocher dust, the clear blue sky, the crimson rock, the half-dead scrub, and the relentless sun glinting off the house that sheltered the most important people in his world. The magical home that now felt as empty and desolate as the surrounding desert without the woman who held his heart. He lowered his gaze to the notebook and turned the page.
Three words screamed back up at him.
Three simple words. One small tick.
One fulfilled wish that changed everything.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Abi sat up in bed as Olivia paced her hospital room like an obsessive-compulsive mother hen. Her sister hadn’t even been able to stand still during one of Doctor Martinez’s world-famous, no-bullshit, pre-op pep talks.
Olivia gnawed her bottom lip and glanced out into the corridor for the eighth time since Doc Martinez had disappeared to pray, check Facebook, slam down a shot, or do whatever brain surgeons di
d before cutting open someone’s skull and playing with the soft, squishy stuff inside.
Waiting ranked right up there with being an actual patient on Olivia’s shit list, but Abi had never seen her sister looking so worried, disheveled, and so un-Olivia-like.
A fresh surge of guilt washed through her. In the last three days, her sister had crossed the Pacific Ocean twice, racked up enough hours on her cell phone battling airline help desks and talking to doctors to warrant her own satellite, and endured the agony of wondering if her stubborn sister had finally bought the big one, all on a few stolen hours of sleep folded into an armchair or stuffed into an economy-class plane seat.
Abi sighed and jabbed a finger at her sister. “Jesus, will you relax? We made it. I told you they wouldn’t start the party without me.”
Olivia shot her a look that didn’t need verbalization and resumed her pacing.
How many more times would her kid sister have to live this nightmare? How much good karma did Olivia have to stockpile before life threw her something other than heartache, worry, and hard work?
Abi dropped her head onto her pillow and closed her eyes to block out the fluorescent lights beating down on her and the even harsher reality of what she was putting her sister through yet again.
Memories and sensations flooded her mind just like they’d done on the twenty-two-hour journey home. His sandpaper fingers engulfing her hand, his stubbled jaw tickling her cheek, his soft lips caressing hers, his arms crushing her to his chest, the complete and utter peace of lying beside him, his massive body crushing hers, him sliding inside her, claiming her.
The EKG’s chimes quickened like the needle on a polygraph until she was sure Doctor Martinez would burst into her room and zap her with a defibrillator. She flashed Olivia an apologetic smile and ordered herself to wander less X-rated memories.
The last few weeks had been filled with so many firsts and unforgettable moments she was spoiled for choice. Invariably, her mind rewound to a crowded luggage carousel on the other side of the world a lifetime ago.
She’d shared hundreds of leg-wobbling, underwear-incinerating kisses with him, but that had been their first real kiss, and holy hell what a kiss it’d been. She nibbled her lip and smiled as she remembered the growled words that had vibrated through her chest and settled low in her belly. Spend tonight with me.
A shadow crept across her skin. Like an approaching thunderstorm, reality’s dark clouds rolled through her and blocked out the excitement, joy, and sunshine Sergeant Ryder Aragung Harper had brought to her life.
She shook the darkness from her thoughts and focused on what lay ahead. This’d be her first extended bifrontal craniotomy, but Doc Martinez had cut her head open so many times she was probably contemplating sewing in zippers for the next time around. She could handle the surgery. Teasing her operating team while they busied themselves with saving her life added some excitement to an otherwise terrifying horror show, and what were another set of scars on a head that already looked like a patchwork quilt? Even the radiotherapy wasn’t that bad, apart from the annoying buzzing echoing inside her head. But it was the fucking chemo she loathed. Hour upon hour sitting helplessly while poison seeped into her bloodstream to destroy everything in its path wasn’t her idea of fun.
The crippling anxiety in the days leading up to chemo treatments was almost as bad as the aftereffects. Knowing how she’d come out of each session and still hoping for a miracle was as demoralizing as it was pointless. It never got any easier. The nausea, the vomiting, the diarrhea, the soul-crushing fatigue, and the pain of witnessing every second of the nightmare replayed on the faces of the people you loved most.
She smiled despite the ache in her chest and desolation flooding her churning belly. Doris may have ruined two lives, but the vindictive little bitch wasn’t getting her cowboy.
The scent of dust, wood, leather, and sweat drifted into her nostrils and filled her lungs. Too terrified to move and disturb the memory, she closed her eyes tighter and inhaled the rich, earthy cologne. If this was yet another cruel trick her ravaged brain played on her, she was reveling in the madness until the nurses wheeled her into the operating room.
Before she’d even come close to breathing her fill, the nauseating stench of hospital disinfectant combined with what smelled like stale diesel overwhelmed her.
She ground her teeth and opened her eyes to find a monstrous shadow looming above her. She sucked in breath to scream only to have her throat clamp shut. Her EKG fibrillated as her heart slammed against her rib cage and knocked itself out, while her mind short-circuited, attempted a reboot, then shut down completely.
She tried clearing the apparition from her vision, but with each shake of her head the silhouette grew clearer until her outback superhero stood before her in all his exhausted, disheveled, magnificent glory.
He wore the same threadbare black T-shirt and faded jeans he’d worn when he’d disappeared from her life a day and a half ago, and his hair churned about his head like an angry ocean of butterscotch caramel, but it was his eyes that held her hostage. A firestorm of crimson radiated from his stone-gray irises as he glared down at her like one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
“You’ve got ten minutes.”
Olivia’s voice sounded from the door. He nodded without shifting his gaze. Abi sucked in a breath in a futile attempt to rein in her racing heart and leaned around him to find her sister skulking out of the room and closing the door.
“You lied to me.” His voice rumbled through the room, but she hadn’t seen his lips move behind the thick bronze stubble covering his jaw.
Reality and Wonderland collided and exploded into flames as her EKG spiked. “You…you prom—”
He cut her off with a ferocious kiss that crushed her lips and squashed her glasses to her face before he eased just far enough away to glare at her. “I promised to let you go. I never promised not to come after you.”
She blinked, blinked again, but still couldn’t trust the images flooding her brain or the heat pulsing through her body. Had she had another seizure? Was Doris launching one last-ditch attack? Breath gushed in and out her gaping mouth as she traced the steel plates of his chest. “But, how?”
He stared back as she probed and prodded his torso. “In the cargo hold of a mate’s C-130.”
She had no idea what a C-130 was or how he’d made it across the Pacific so quickly, but by the state of his clothes and the diesel wafting off him, she didn’t want to know. She pressed her fingertips to his lips and squeezed the soft flesh.
He swatted her fingers away and leaned closer. “You lied to me.”
Lied to him? Her mind stuttered back to life. “I never—”
He slammed his mouth onto hers again before wrenching his lips away.
Dozens of starbursts reflected across his face as something hard and heavy thudded onto her chest. Ice water flooded her veins as her fingers traced the rhinestones and dog-eared corners of her notebook.
She sucked in a breath and clutched her traitorous bucket list like a shield. “It doesn’t change a—”
He silenced her with a kiss as all-consuming as the first.
“It changes everything.” He ignored her shaking head and nodded to the notebook. “Open it.”
She didn’t need to open it. She’d stared at those three simple words for an hour before ticking them off. She dropped her gaze to her notebook and fought for an escape. “Maybe…maybe I can visit you after the chemo—”
He redlined her EKG with another kiss before hammering his finger down onto her bucket list. “Open. The. God. Damned. Book.” He punctuated each word with a jab of his finger that buried the notebook deeper into her chest.
She considered pounding him with the damned thing and hitting the panic button hanging beside her IV, but her treacherous sister was probably running interference in the corridor, and nothing short of a drone strike was going to stop him now that he knew the truth.
She gritted her teeth
and peeled open the cover as her overloaded mind battled her aching heart for control of her will. She needed to think, but time, like her resolve, was being swept away by the warmth seeping into her frigid limbs.
HAVE SEX.
She paused and looked up only to have his scowl deepen. “Keep going.”
Her EKG screamed, her fingers trembled, and her mind raced as she slowly flipped through page after page of forgotten wishes until the three simple words that had betrayed her and given her warrior all the ammunition he needed glared back at her.
Fall in love.
She’d been bathing in sunshine and floating on rainbows while sitting on the floor of Jarrah’s apartment when she’d scribbled the words down almost two weeks ago. She’d just made love to an amazing man, she’d been about to set off on a great adventure, and for the first time in her life anything had seemed possible.
She’d been soaring even higher when she’d ticked the insane wish off a fortnight later. That day she’d finally admitted to herself she’d probably started falling in love with the terrifying monster looming over her somewhere west of Hawaii while stealing his gelato and simply tumbled more hopelessly in love with him with each magical moment they’d shared. Now the words only tightened her throat and twisted her gut.
Tears flooded her eyes as she braced her palm against his chest. “Please, you have to go. I can’t let Doris—”
He descended again but this time didn’t pull away. Instead, he deepened the kiss until all she could think of was wrapping her arms around him and never letting go. But even as she shook her head and tried pulling free, her fingers clung to his T-shirt.
He trailed his lips along her jaw until he reached her ear. “Keep going.”
She tried to release her grip, tried to push him away, but her fingers only sank deeper into his shirt.
Against All Odds (Outback Hearts) Page 27
