Chasing the Runaway Bride (Bliss Series Book 3)

by Michelle Jo Quinn

The car slowed to a halt in front of a low brick building, and all thoughts of Danny and Alex filtered out of my head like gray smoke. My heart leapt into my throat, gagging me. I grabbed the door handle and squeezed it, and waited for my entire body calm down.

  “Let’s go, Chastity. We haven’t got all day.” My mother climbed out of the car, rushed to the other side and helped my father into a wheelchair.

  With my jaw clenched, I held off the bark I was ready to release at my mother. I wasn’t here for her. I was here for Daddy. Quietly, I followed them into the oncology wing.

  How could a life depend on clear liquid trickling from a bag into a catheter?

  For my benefit, Daddy’s oncologist explained the procedure. The doctor fiddled with his glasses and averted his eyes when I asked if it would cure my father.

  “We’ll hope for the best,” he replied, clicking his pen on my father’s chart.

  “What the fuck does that mean?” I shouted, garnering a warning look from my mother.

  If my mind had been functioning properly, I would have done my research. I would have read more about the drugs my father was to receive. I would have familiarized myself with the benefits, the rates of survival under such treatment, and the possible side effects. Instead, I’d wasted my time reminiscing with Danny, going on a picnic with him, and flirting with him, even though he was someone I barely knew, and wasn’t sure if I wanted to know at all.

  Mom profusely apologized on my behalf as she walked the good doctor out of Daddy’s room.

  I watched everything, and I held his hand when they flushed out the port in his chest. I told him I loved him as they administered the first dosage through the tube.

  “Does it hurt?” I asked Daddy when the nurses left.

  “No, Nugget.” The seconds ticked on before he answered. “Not now that you’re here.” And he had just enough energy to lift our intertwined hands and press a kiss on my knuckles.

  Afterward, we did nothing but sit and listen to the monitors and the movements outside his room. I didn’t bother checking on my mother.

  I didn’t remember falling asleep. It might have been after Daddy closed his eyes. But when I woke, he was gone. Standing, I rolled my shoulders and called out to him. The room was dark except for the light seeping out from underneath the bathroom door. When I neared it, I heard shuffling.

  When I opened the door, I found my mother on the floor rubbing my father’s back as he bent over the porcelain, throwing up his guts. The only sound I could make was a shaky gasp, but it was enough to capture my mother’s attention. My knees weakened, and I held onto the doorjamb for support.

  “Go back out, Chastity. You don’t need to be here,” she ordered in a quiet, firm tone, without looking directly at me.

  Daddy hurled again and again until he was too weak to continue, and he collapsed into my mother’s arms. Mom held him and cooed sweet nothings into his ear. I didn’t know I was crying until I brushed my cheek and felt wetness.

  Nurses came into the room, pushed me aside, and left me leaning, useless and helpless, against the wall, as people helped my mother lift Daddy off the floor and back onto the bed. My knees buckled when he puked again all over his hospital gown. Everyone who came into the room had something to do, while I sobbed like a lost child on the sidelines.

  Mom came to me, and squeezed my right arm. “We need to step out of the room so the nurses can clean up your father and change his clothes.” I shook my head. She had to drag me out. Mom sat me on a chair in one of the visitors’ rooms and left. When she came back, she held a cup against my lips.

  “Drink this.”

  I did. Ice-cold water flowed down my throat and hit my aching chest.

  “This is all my fault. I should have listened to your father.” Mom tilted the cup back to my lips. My gaze flitted up to her face. For once, Mom wasn’t all put together. Her hair was combed back but it wasn’t done neatly. There was a dark smudge of makeup under her left eye, and she hadn’t bothered re-applying her lipstick. “He didn’t want you to see him this way.”

  “What happened?” My voice sounded strange even to my own ears.

  “It’s a side effect of the chemo. He didn’t have it too bad the first time. They’ve given him anti-nausea pills. Hopefully, it will take effect soon and he can get some rest.” Mom sighed, and swept my hair off my face.

  She forced me to drink more. I squeezed my hands together to stop my fingers from shaking, and crossed my ankles to keep my legs from bouncing. “How are you so calm?”

  Mom produced a tissue from her pocket and wiped my face. A memory of how she’d done the same thing when I was little popped into my mind. Her forehead smoothed. Her lips pursed and parted a smidgen. “I’ve been through this with your father before, and I won’t lie…it never gets easier.” She had a faraway look in her eyes.

  A nurse came to let us know they had finished helping my father, and that he was asking for us. When I moved to get up, Mom reached for my hand.

  “Go see him, but I don’t think you should stay the night. The nausea pills might not work, and what you saw…it might become worse. I’ve booked us a hotel for the next few days. Randy can take you there so you can get some sleep. I’ve also bought you some clothes.”

  “I’m not leaving Daddy.”

  Mom nodded. “I understand—” and for once, I believed her “—but your father will want you to leave. He would rather you remember him healthy and happy, and not like...” She pressed her lips together and covered her mouth with the back of her hand. Her shoulders rose and fell as she took cleansing breaths.

  “Okay, Mom. I’ll go if he asks.”

  He did ask. His voice was hoarse and tired when he suggested I got some rest for the night. Daddy said exactly what Mom had told me. Mom handed me a key card for the suite she’d booked us and rang Randy to have the car ready to meet me downstairs. I kissed my parents goodnight, and like a good daughter, I obeyed.

  When I got to the hotel suite, I crashed onto the bed. I rummaged through my purse for my phone, and dialed a number I thought I’d long forgotten.

  After a few rings, a voicemail message played.

  Tears overflowed and sobs filled the dark room. I couldn’t breathe. “I need you,” was all I could say over the phone.

  Much of my days were filled with waiting. Waiting for the sun to push through the space between the closed curtains. Waiting for Nica to call me first thing in the morning and ask how I was feeling, if I was ready to face the day. Waiting for my father’s treatment to take effect so he could be better, be stronger, be himself once again.

  The morning after Daddy’s first treatment, I woke up with a throbbing headache from lack of sleep and the stubborn, salty tears which had poured out of me. My phone had startled me awake. I’d picked it up and grumbled a response to Nica, and then I’d lost my shit.

  Then a knock had come at the door, so I’d ended the call with her. The man on outside announced that my breakfast orders were ready. Mom had thought of everything, even a breakfast I couldn’t stomach. She’d picked up clothes for me, all my size, all white or black, nothing pink. An olive branch in the form of denim and cotton shirts. She’d also bought me bathroom crap, which I’d need if I ever decided to shower.

  I couldn’t get myself to think of myself, until the third day, when Nica threatened she would unleash her crazy pregnant hormones on me if I didn’t take care of myself.

  Pain and sorrow were natural reactions to what I was going through. Nica understood. She’d gone through it too, but at a much younger age. Nica’s father had passed away when she was five. All she remembered were his big brown eyes when he smiled and his fondness for life.

  After poking at the various pastries on the cart, I sneered at them and went for the coffee. Coffee was my lifeline. It would help to have a bottle of Irish liquor, too, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had anything alcoholic and feared it would just upset my stomach. There was no need for me to make myself voluntarily sick wh
en Daddy was suffering in his hospital bed.

  I would arrive at the hospital over-caffeinated, jumpy and snarling. Mom would hand me a glass of iced water before I relieved her for the morning. She never came to sleep in the hotel with me. I never argued that she should. It made Daddy happy to see her first thing in the morning, and that joy extended when I traipsed in with a newspaper or a book in hand. Daddy and I chatted about everything except our lives. Sometimes, I would read him hilarious posts I’d find on Twitter. This was our routine.

  On the third night, Danny called to say he would be over for a visit the next day, and asked if I wanted him to bring me anything from my bedroom. I declined, profusely and politely. I didn’t want him touching my stuff or going through my things.

  He also asked me out to dinner. I replied with a yes, but only because I had said no to him picking up my things, and it would be a much better time than dawdling in the hotel, waiting for the sleeping pills one of the doctors had prescribed me to kick in.

  When Danny came, he brought my Mom and me lunch. He sat with Daddy and they talked college football. As Daddy was reminiscing about his college varsity games, I was able to observe the little changes in him since the chemo had started. His eyes were sunk deeper.. There were sores around his mouth. He had trouble getting food down and had lost more weight. He looked frail.

  But he smiled and laughed. He kissed my Mom before she left and again when she returned, even if she’d only gone for a quick bite to eat or a cup of coffee.

  After Danny’s visit, he excused himself and said he would pick me up later from the hotel. Both my parents were obviously pleased, though neither one commented on it.

  “I’m going to grab some coffee.” I stretched, grabbing the edge of the seat and pushing myself up.

  “You just had coffee. You should eat.” Mom waved in the direction of some packaged food on a side table.

  “I’m not really hungry,” I told her. “I just need a little boost. The sleep meds make me lethargic.” It was the truth, but I didn’t want more coffee. I needed to find a bathroom I could use. If I told them that, Daddy would just get me to use his private bathroom. Hell no, I was not going to sit and pee on the toilet he’d have his head in later on.

  I walked around the hospital to look for a clean, unoccupied bathroom, and somehow ended up in the gift shop, where I found a blue teddy bear on a shelf. It resembled something I’d had when I was little. With a thought of giving it to Daddy, hoping he would remember, I purchased it. Not rushing, I walked around some more before heading back to his room, and ended up in one of the family waiting rooms.

  Danny saw me before I could turn around. “Hannah,” he called before he slowly unwrapped his arms from Tiana.

  I was stuck, staring at Tiana’s tear-soaked eyes. There was only one explanation why she was here—Sky.

  I ignored Danny as he walked toward me, but he halted midstride while I made my way to Tiana. She hid her sobs behind her hand and shook her head.

  “Is Sky okay?” I asked as I closed the gap between us. My arms flew around her when she hiccupped and sobbed. I looked to Danny for answers, but he’d sat down, his hands buried in his hair. He was as distraught as she was. There was no denying the closeness between these two. It was written thickly in the air between them.

  I waited until her sobs quieted and led her to a chair beside Danny. It was like instinct for him, or maybe a habit, to reach for her, hold her tight and kiss the top of her head. Tiana still couldn’t talk, and so Danny did,

  “We came to have Sky tested.”

  “For what?”

  “Huntington’s.” The word sounded ominous coming out of Danny.

  I tried to squeak out a word, but what was there to say? There were more questions to ask, even though I posited what the answers were. How did I not see the connection before? Sky’s eyes might be the same color as his mom’s, but the shape was distinctly Danny. Sky had a darker skin tone, but apart from that, he was Danny as a kid. I’d seen the photos numerous times when Abigail was still alive. She had been fond of telling me stories about little Danny. It was a shame Abigail never met her grandson.

  “We asked for genetic testing, because he’d been showing signs and symptoms.”

  “What was the result?”

  “Negative.” The answer came from Tiana, her voice flat and small.

  “But that’s good, isn’t it?” It was. Sky could live a normal life, free of the disease, but why was Tiana in tears? They couldn’t be tears of joy. I recognized them as similar to what I’d been doing these past few nights.

  “It is.” Danny freed Tiana from his embrace, and kissed her hand, like a man who loved a woman and sought her support.

  This was what I had missed before. These two were together, or they had been once, long enough to have a child together. And long enough to have stayed good friends.

  Danny hung his head. “Sky’s tests were negative, but mine were not.”

  He tilted his head and stared me squarely in the eye. I couldn’t even begin to list the myriad of emotions in them. Danny had Huntington’s disease, a condition which caused his mother’s eventual death. How long would Danny have? Ten? Fifteen? Thirty years?

  I averted my gaze. I didn’t know what his eyes were telling me, but the rest of his actions spoke volumes. He might try and deny it, but whatever he had felt for Tiana before was still there. And she was there for him. His disease would be a battle they would have to face together. I was only a witness to what would eventually happen. I had no doubt in my mind she would be by his side the entire time. I only wished he knew.

  “Where’s Sky?”

  “He’s not here. We only came to get the results. He’s with a sitter,” Tiana explained.

  The three of us sat there, staring at the light blue wall under the flickering fluorescent light. At some point, Mom called my cell phone and I made my exit. What could I offer Danny at this point?

  “Call me later,” I said. “Call me anytime.”

  I hugged them both, one at a time, then together. They’d figure it out. They didn’t need me there.

  I took the bear out of the white plastic bag, handed it to Tiana and asked her to give it to Sky, her little boy, their son.

  Since my dinner with Danny was cancelled, and I didn’t have the heart to tell my Mom without spilling my guts about his condition and his relationship with Tiana, I went to a bar by myself near the hotel.

  It wasn’t much of a place, and I counted about twenty people in attendance—people with nothing better to do on a beautiful, summer night. The bartender eyed me as I chose a stool and ordered a lager and chicken wings. I picked at the wings and sipped the lager. Much like the twenty or so bar patrons, I had nowhere else to go, nothing to do and no one to see.

  My cellphone rang in my jacket the moment I finished my drink and I let it go straight to voicemail. It might be Danny calling, as I’d asked him to, but I couldn’t get myself to answer. In any case, he needed to sort things out with Tiana. He should talk to her, not me.

  My phone bleeped, announcing a voicemail had been left. Good. I’d check it later.

  When I paid for my drinks and barely-touched food, my phone rang again, and I slipped it out of my pocket and wondered about the unregistered number. I hadn’t asked where Danny was staying, if he was sticking around tonight. Otherwise, the hotel name would show up on my phone. I hit answer, but I was too late, and whoever the caller was would get my voicemail again.

  And again, my phone bleeped. Another voicemail.

  When I returned to my hotel room, my first stop was the bathroom. It had a large jet tub, and after the shocking news today, I could use a bath. I turned on the faucets and poured bath salts and oils into the tub. By the time I was out of the water, I’d smell like the entire Bath and Bodyworks store. With my clothes off, replaced by a robe, I set the pajamas my Mom had bought for me on the bed. Nica would be proud of my preparedness.

  I checked the two voicemails while I waited fo
r the bath to get full enough for me to get into, and received a shock that rocked my entire body. My mind numbed. My extremities tingled. The world around me ceased to exist.

  Hi... It’s me... It’s Alex...

  He sounded distant. He was distant. Nica had informed me that he’d returned to France with his half-sister, Cara. But my god, hearing his gravelly voice—the smooth, sexy mixture of accents that were unique to Alex—was enough for my stomach to flip and my heart to lurch, simultaneously.

  I didn’t mean to take this long to ring you back...

  The pulsating of my blood in my head minimized the clarity of his message. I held onto the phone before it slipped off my hand and landed into the water.

  I haven’t been using my mobile and the reception out in the field is staticky at best. I would have rung you right away, after you called and left the message...

  I called him? I left him a message? What did I say?

  You can call me again. A pause. A hesitation. If you want to. I’d like to hear from you, know how you’re doing. Another long pause, followed by a deep, heavy sigh. I want to say that I—

  He what? What? I stared at my phone when the robotic female voice told me I’d gotten to the end of his message.

  “No!” I shook it like it would continue Alex’s message, force the rest of his words to come. Then the robotic voice let me know another voicemail was waiting for me.

  Alex had called me twice that night. Five minutes apart, and left two voicemails. I held my breath as I listened to the next one.

  It’s me again. He chuckled without mirth. I got cut off. Just call me, Chase. Whenever. Don’t worry about the time difference. I will answer. I will be here...whenever you need me. Just call me.

  There was a bit of a shuffle, a sigh then static before I heard End of messages.

  It had taken him five minutes to call again. What did he do in those five minutes? Did he pace, wherever he was, like I was doing now in my hotel room? Did he feel like his heart was ripped out of his chest when he heard my outgoing message? Or did it speed up when he began talking, knowing I would be listening to it?