Love Is More Than Skin Deep (A Hidden Hearts Novel Book 4)

by Mary Crawford

  “You need to —” Mark starts to interrupt.

  I plow right through his words and continue speaking. I need to get my story out and tell him about how I feel before I can’t. “But now…now I can’t even stand to look at my body in the mirror. The health nurse is supposed to come by and check things out. I can’t even bring myself to show her my skin. I’m afraid of what she’s going to say— and I don’t feel strong enough to look. She might just pack up the hospital bed that Tristan so generously rented for me and make me go back to the hospital. When I told her my symptoms, she wasn’t real pleased with how some of my incisions seemed to be healing. I swear, I’ve been very compliant with Dr Charleston’s instructions. I’ve tried the best I can. I am so scared.”

  Mark gently gathers my hand in his own and kisses the back of my knuckles as he declares, “Immokalee, I am so sorry. If I could take the fear from you, I would.”

  His simple straightforward declaration makes me smile through my tears. “You know, I’m not prone to believe the promises of other people. I’m pretty self-reliant, but I honestly believe you would if it was in your power. You’ve done so much for me, it’s absolutely incredible. I am so grateful that you and Ketki are in my life.”

  “We are at that, aren’t we — but I guess the question is what role do you want us to play in your life?”

  For a moment I’m completely stunned into silence. Although, for the life of me I can’t understand why. I should’ve expected this from Mark. He is the kind of person who tackles every problem head-on. If he doesn’t understand something he will ask you a million questions until he knows the answer —Ketki definitely gets that skill from him. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that he would transfer that skill over to his personal life as well. I smile as a thought occurs to me: it certainly isn’t one of those fluffy, light romantic scenes from the romance books that Jade and Rogue got me to pass the time since my surgery. Nothing at all flowery and ethereal about this. This is purely a fact-finding mission. Facts. If I examine the facts, there is only one conclusion that I can draw. Mark looks almost stoic as he waits for me to process his question — stoic — but with a tinge of worry, if that is possible.

  Smiling at him, I gently squeeze his hand as I announce, “Well, that’s the easiest question I’m likely to answer all day. If you’re willing to have me with all of my problems and drama in your life, I’d like to be part of yours.”

  Mark seems a little shell-shocked by my answer. I can’t say I blame him. I have been a little erratic in my approach. That’s a bit of an understatement. I have given him more faulty starts than a yo-yo on an elementary school playground.

  He drops my hand for a moment and steps back. “I’m probably going to kick myself for this in a minute. Unfortunately, it’s just part of who I am. I need to make sure you understand where I’m coming from here, okay? It’s not because of who you are — I hope you understand that — ”

  “Mark — remember, I’m a math major. Do you think I’m going to criticize you for analyzing a situation?” I interrupt, with more than a hint of amusement. “Although, your timing sucks.”

  Finally, he seems to relax a little and smile as he responds, “Right. I knew there was a reason we get along so well. I just want to make sure that you know that Ketki and I are a package deal. I figure you do, but I thought that I had that understanding with someone once before and it didn’t turn out that way, so I just want to make sure I’m clear.”

  Mark usually does a pretty good job of masking his emotions. I’m sure it’s a skill he has learned over time as an attorney. I don’t suppose you can let the jury see every thought that crosses your mind. Still, I can see the open anxiety on his face. It must be hard to have to live your life so shielded from everyone. I know that he tries really hard to protect Ketki from emotional extremes because it impacts her behavior. But he seems to feel like he has to keep things under wraps everywhere.

  I would love to be able to hop up and give him a huge hug to let him know how much I want to be in his life and in his arms. You know what? The heck with it. I’m not going to let a little melanoma take this moment away from me. I have to stop and untangle myself from all the pillows and ice packs I’d been using to prop myself up and ice myself down to help control swelling.

  Mark is watching my gyrations with concern. When he sees me trying to launch myself from the somewhat awkward chaise lounge, he dives toward me to offer me his hand to support me. “Shelby...what are you doing?” he asks with alarm, as he keeps me upright.

  I’m not sure if it’s the emotional intensity of the situation, my pain medication or just the lingering effects of the surgery, but I’m feeling quite unstable. He seems to sense this and pulls me closer and tucks me under his chin. After I take a couple of steadying breaths, I step back.

  “I just wanted to be able to answer you properly,” I admit. “It may not have occurred to you, but we are having a ‘moment’ here and I need to make my intentions clear.”

  Mark’s eyebrows raise to an impressive height, but he says nothing.

  “I know that we’re still getting to know each other, but there are a few things that are crystal clear about you. One of them is that you are a man of precise intention and integrity. You don’t leave very many things open for misinterpretation. You’ve made it clear through every word, action and interaction that you care very much about my well-being. I can’t ask for much more than that in a partner. Even so, I get so much more than that with you. I get to see you interact beautifully with your daughter and nurture her into a beautiful thriving human being. It’s not often that someone gets to see love in motion, but that’s what I get to see between you and Ketki.”

  Mark swallows hard and draws in a deep breath.

  “That’s the second thing I know without a doubt. You guys are like peanut butter and jam. I would never dream of asking one of you to be present in my life without the other. It would just be wrong. The two of you belong together. I know you’re a package deal. I wouldn't have it any other way. Anybody that thinks it could be otherwise, has never watched the two of you together.”

  Mark clears his throat roughly and shuffles his feet before he asks, his voice breaking with emotion, “Shelby, I hate to — ”

  I place my finger over his lips before I interject, “Stop! I can almost guess what you’re going to ask me. So you can just stop. I might be a special education teacher, but if you remember correctly, when I first ran into you, you were hanging around without Ketki. I didn’t even know about Ketki yet.”

  “Yeah? So?” he asks cautiously. “What does that mean for us?”

  “In case you didn’t notice, I was wildly attracted to you before I knew you were a hot dad. I liked you just fine on your own, without Ketki.”

  “No, I didn’t actually notice. I was too busy making a fool out of myself.”

  I stand on my tiptoes and brush a kiss across Mark’s lips as I whisper, “I think the two of us have been playing that game.”

  I feel like I’m going to throw up. I can’t believe I’m back in the same spot of uncertainty again. I thought that’s why I’ve gone through this twice already. “Did they give you any more information about why they wanted to see me?” I probe as I push the delicate pieces of crêpe around my plate. I’m sure that if I actually had an appetite, that this would be delicious. Unfortunately, food tastes disgusting right now and the very idea of it seems repulsive to me.

  Mark silently observes my behavior for a few moments before he offers me his plate of buttermilk pancakes. “Want to trade?”

  His calm demeanor is driving me crazy. How can he just sit there eating breakfast when our whole lives may be blowing up in our face? I take a deep breath as I respond, trying desperately to stay sweet, although I feel anything but. "No, no thanks. I'm not hungry this morning.”

  "You need to eat." Mark chastises. “The doctor said that it was important for you to keep your weight up to be able to fight off everything."

 
"Look, I said I wasn't hungry, okay?" I snap. "I’ve got way too much to think about to worry about whether I'm packing on calories."

  Mark sighs, but says nothing.

  “I don't understand what they could possibly need to talk to me about. I thought we had all the best people there helping us. The person was beyond vague on the phone. It was just some mumbo-jumbo about proper protocol being breached and records being compromised, but not to be overly concerned because it was something that they've dealt with many times before. What kind of Psychobabble is that? It all seems pretty crazy to me. What if my parents had it right all along?” I ask, my voice breaking with emotion.

  Mark slides around the circular vinyl booth until he's sitting right next to me. He puts his arm around me and tucks me in next to his shoulder before he asks, "Shelby, what's going on? You've had scary visits to Dr. Charleston before and you never seemed quite this unnerved."

  "I don't know. It felt like they were lying to me about something.” I reply, shivering at the memory. “I guess this is starting to feel a lot like my childhood.”

  "What do you mean?" Mark asks as he pours me some tea and doctors it with honey.

  "Growing up, it seems like my whole life was one big pursuit around how to make my brother better — at least that's how it started out before my parents discovered Reverend Pratchett. At first, we were a relatively normal family. We started traveling from a revival service to revival service and church to church, so that pastors could pray for him to make him better. Most of the legitimate pastors could see that there was something seriously wrong with Owen and urged my parents to take him to the hospital.” I answer as I fiddle with the teacup.

  Mark reaches out to gently still my hands.

  “I was too little to understand why my dad wasn’t able to maintain a job and so they didn't have health insurance and they were too paranoid to believe in signing up for government assistance, even basic needs. Over time, the more reputable pastors began to fall away and we began to travel farther and farther away and seek out people on the fringe that would tell my parents exactly what they wanted to hear. Some of this stuff was so outrageous that even as a child I could tell that it was certainly not true, but other things I never actually knew whether they were true or false."

  "That must've been terribly confusing for you," Mark comments.

  "Oh, you've no idea!" I exclaim, "Savannah and I were just kids, but we started feeling like it was our responsibility to protect our parents from themselves. It was not only confusing, it was scary. I remember as soon as I learned what money was, I started hiding some of it away because my parents felt like 'God' was telling them to give these people all of our money that we managed to scrape together for food.”

  Mark grits his teeth and shakes his head as he stirs his coffee.

  “I understand that the Bible says not to be boastful about money, but being able to pay for milk, eggs and a few Cheerios is not the same as lusting after money. For some reason my parents didn't understand that. In every new town we went to in search of some miracle cure for my brother, they were subjected to a new round of fleecing. It was absolutely insane."

  "Why didn't anyone else from your town say anything?" Mark inquires, his body language alert with curiosity. "Wasn't it pretty obvious your brother wasn't doing very well?"

  I feel the blood drain out of my face as dozens of moments flood my memory like a deranged kaleidoscope. I can't help but let out a dry laugh as I respond, "Obvious? Oh yeah. Sad? It didn't get much sadder. Sometimes horrific. I remember him looking so frail that it looked as if you could see through his skin. At one point, I used to pray to myself that some well-meaning adult would stop and ask questions. I would get my hopes up if someone would stop and ask for the time. Sadly, there weren't any heroes in our story. It was as if no one could actually see us. We needed a village of heroes, but what we got was a world of disinterested bystanders.

  "Damn Shelby, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring all that up," Mark admits as he tucks his jacket around my shoulders when he sees me shiver.

  "Mark, it's not just you. It's this whole situation. It's going from one specialist to another and having them promise things that are turning out not to be true. It just makes me feel like I did when we were young going from one church to the next. It just feels the same and I'm beginning to wonder if anybody knows what they're talking about. What if this melanoma isn't even curable? What if I’ve just let it go on too long?"

  "Shelby, there are so many factors with cancer that it's hard for anybody to give you an answer with any degree of certainty. It depends on your environment, your genetics and plain old luck. Do you even know anything about your family's history with cancer?"

  I throw up my hands in frustration and am again reminded what's already happened to me as one of my deeper incisions on my back pulls uncomfortably and sends a long twinge of pain through my side and under my arm.

  "I don't really know anything about my family. The things I used to know about them were seen through the eyes of a twelve-year-old. It probably wasn't correct information even then," I reply sadly shaking my head. "For all I know, my whole family could be dead. I could be the last person to get cancer instead of the first person."

  "That's a lot of guessing to do based on a single phone call. Maybe the news isn't quite as bad as you're anticipating. All we can do is deal with what comes," Mark tries to reassure me.

  "Logically, I know you're probably right, but I'm beyond logic. Right now, I'm scared spitless. I'm sorry to break it to you, but you're just going to have to deal with me being a basket case. You know what really sucks about this? Ketki comes home from camp today and I was looking forward to spending time with her. Now I'm going to be in a weird headspace and she is totally going to pick up on that."

  Mark sighs deeply as he says, "We've got bigger problems than that. I just got word from Susan that she’s heard from her sources in the courtroom that the judge is about to order a change of venue in my trial. At this point, we're not sure where, but it could very likely be in Ocala, which would be about an hour away.”

  "Wow, that's gonna throw a wrinkle in things," I remark softly.

  Mark looks at me with a raised eyebrow as he responds, "You think? The daughter of mine is not big on change to her routine. I'm not really sure how to handle this. Since it's summer break, I could take her with me. She'd have to stay at the hotel while I was in trial. If the judge has taken the extraordinary step to move the trial after we've already started selecting the jury, it's likely he's going to sequester everyone, even though Ocala is only less than an hour away from Gainesville. Ketki would probably be okay with that as long as she had Internet access. As a dad, I don't think I'm okay with that. I guess I could ask my sister to watch her."

  A giggle escapes me as I see the sour expression on his face. "Something tells me that's not your favorite option either —"

  Mark scrapes his hand down his face as he answers, “Let me put it this way. I love my sister very much, but my daughter and I don't love soap operas nearly as much as Leoti does. Whenever she watches Ketki, I always have to hear about the huge sacrifice Ketki made to stay with her. I used to brush off Ketki's complaints, but about three years ago, I got the stomach flu and I had to stay with my sister for a couple days. Let's just say that I am a lot more sympathetic about Ketki's complaints after that experience."

  "I completely understand. My foster mom was a complete soap opera addict. She even watched a television channel that was dedicated to nothing but soap operas. She had all of the characters from four or five of them completely memorized and seemed to think they were real. I had never watched television before so it was a novel and somewhat scary experience for me." A thought occurs to me as I see the stress lines on his face. "Do you need to go and deal with this? I can go to this appointment by myself. I've been on my own for a long time. You didn't need to take the whole morning off just to be with me."

  "Immokalee, I did need to do that. It's been
a while since I've been in a relationship, but I'm pretty sure this is how it's done. I would feel like a colossal jerk if I was just sitting around in my office waiting for a ruling from the judge that may or may not even come down today, while you were getting critical news about your future. I've got law clerks, associates and partners to help me do that. I've only got one you, and I choose to be here with you. Is that a problem?"

  Something about that awkward statement touches my heart and I tear up before I respond, "No, I don't have a problem with it. I'm just not used to being anyone's first priority."

  "Well, get used to it because that's the way you deserve to be treated, Shelby."

  "I hope you feel the same when I offer to watch Ketki for you while you're in trial —" I counter.

  "Are you sure you're up to it? My daughter can be a handful," Mark warns.

  "I'm all about the package deal, remember?" I reply with a watery smile. "Besides, I happen to think your daughter is all kinds of cool all on her own. She's good for my outlook on life."

  “LITTLESON, YOU FOUND YOURSELF A GEM of a woman at my tattoo shop,” Marcus comments as he tightens the screws on the bunk-bed that we’re putting together at Shelby’s little cottage. “Maybe I should start a little dating service.”

  I throw my head back and laugh as I reply, “Didn’t you get yourself in a little bind with a dating service? I’m surprised Rogue still talks to you at all after what you pulled. I know if you did that to my sister, she would put you on her do-not-call list forever.”