by Violet Duke
Abby pulled up a chair next to Skylar’s bed and held her good hand. “Is the finger bothering you? Do you need us to call the doctor?”
“What’s the point?” she bit out in harsh, broken whisper. “It’s not like I’m going to need it.”
A sad look of understanding washed over Abby’s expression, and she shut her eyes for a brief second before directing a calm, stern look at Skylar. “Of course you need your ring finger, silly. Where else is your future groom going to place your wedding ring?”
Skylar’s body stiffened and Brian felt rage at the universe start to boil in his veins. His daughter thought she didn’t need her ring finger because she thought she’d die before she ever got a chance to get married. His hands fisted when he saw the tears running down Skylar’s cheeks, and he barely checked the impulse to punch a hole through the wall.
“I’m never going to be able to get married, and we all know it,” cried Skylar into her pillow.
Brian saw instant tears fill Abby’s eyes a second before she blinked them back. “Honey? Are you under the misguided impression that your seizure last night was something like the ones your mother used to have?”
Skylar stilled for a second and then peeked up from her pillow slowly, almost as if she were afraid to look. To hope. “Wasn’t it?”
The sheer fear infused in those two words was enough to make Brian want to bawl like a baby. His daughter did not deserve to be going through this.
“Kiddo, there was nothing in the tests that showed your seizure was at all connected to a Huntington’s symptom. Yours was labeled unexplained, so it could very well just have been a seizure caused by growth spurts during adolescence because of how it affects cortisol levels and blood sugar.”
All completely factual truths.
“Really?” Skylar sat up. “We learned about blood sugar in health class. The doctors wouldn’t tell me anything last night. Not really. So you mean it could be because I skipped lunch yesterday?” Skylar sat up even more, hope brimming in her eyes.
“That could actually have a lot to do with it,” agreed Abby. “Seizures have also been linked to gluten, being overtired or stressed, and—brace yourself, babe—video games.”
The look of alarm on Skylar’s face would have made Brian laugh if he weren’t so busy worrying over her.
Abby patted Skylar’s hand reassuringly. “But since you didn’t play any video games yesterday, we can safely rule that one out.”
Christ, the woman was incredible. She actually had his daughter close to smiling already.
Skylar sighed with relief before she ventured quietly, “So you guys are sure that this seizure wasn’t a Huntington’s seizure?”
Thank God she didn’t know the mechanics of the disease well enough. “Nope,” answered Brian answering the question she worded, not the one she asked. And he made sure to fill his voice with all the confidence he didn’t feel when he added, “Abby’s right. I talked to the doctors and though it’s not common, apparently, it’s not all that rare for kids your age to get unexplained seizures. The doctors aren’t even considering testing you for HD, kiddo. They said we shouldn’t even be thinking of it as a possibility.” This, again, was all true, in some shape and form.
The first hint of a smile he’d seen all morning lit Skylar’s face then. “Ohmigosh, I totally thought—” She shook her head and closed her eyes, falling back against the hospital bed with a look of utter relief settling across her expression.
Abby glanced up at Brian and nodded in a ‘hooray-we-did-it’ sort of way.
Brian wanted to grab her and kiss her and never let go of her. He’d never had this before. Taking care of Beth had been a singular mission for him. There had been no one fighting the disease alongside him, not really, not like this. No one to cheer her on, cheer him up. No one to assist him when he was too broken down to fight at a hundred percent. He didn’t have a doubt in his mind that Abby loved Skylar the way he did, and would fight just as hard as he would if that wretched disease sank its claws into his little girl.
That’s when it hit him.
Did he really want to put Abby through this? The unbelievable heartache that he’d already had to go through once in his life…the unbearable pain and loss that a part of him already feared was going to become a reality? He knew he didn’t want that, not for Abby.
And yet he couldn’t bear the thought of giving her up, either.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AFTER WHAT HAPPENED between them the night of the prom, after being a flirty, kiss-stealing, sexy-as-all-hell hot thorn in her side for weeks, Brian had cooled down and scaled back completely the past few days. In fact, they’d barely spoken yesterday.
At first, Abby figured it was normal with Skylar just getting out of the hospital and all. But when Brian then canceled their Valentine date last night with barely an explanation, an hour before she got a text from Skylar asking why she wasn’t doing something special with her dad for V-Day, Abby knew exactly what was going on.
Brian was being a self-sacrificing, impossible-not-to-want-to-hug stubborn ass.
Which is exactly why Abby showed up at his doorstep on Valentine’s Eve with bags of groceries in both hands, and a mulish you’re-not-getting-rid-of-me-that-easily look on her face.
“Abby!” came the excited squeals from the nosy-twins, Skylar and Becky, as soon as Brian opened the door. She slid her foot past the door jamb just in case he got any funny ideas.
A ghost of a smile twitched across his lips. “I told you I had to watch the girls tonight so Becky’s parents could have an evening out.”
“I know you did. And I accepted your unasked invitation to come over and help.” She bustled right past him and headed to the kitchen. “You ladies want to make Valentine cookies after you’re done with dinner?” When the chorus of yipping and clapping stopped, Abby dropped the bags and went back over to give Brian a kiss. “There’s nothing in the rules that says we can’t spend Valentine’s as a family. So you may as well just give in and let me fix that meatloaf I smell cooking in the oven.”
“Hey,” pouted Brian, wounded. “Meatloaf happens to be one of the dishes I cook well, thank you very much.”
Ha. Got him. “If you say so,” she deliberately provoked.
She took a step back toward the kitchen just as she felt one of his massive arms circle around her waist and tug her back against his chest. “I’ve missed you,” he whispered in her ear.
Melting into his arms, she replied softly, “Serves you right for trying to cut me out of your life.” Turning, she looked him square in the eye. “You haven’t been able to scare me off all these years.” She arched an eyebrow and tossed out loud enough for the pair of ears she knew were straining to eavesdrop on their conversation, “Do you really think you’re going to shake me now? Now that you’ve gotten in the habit of taking your shirt off around me all the time?”
Seriously, there was nothing cuter in the world than a big burly man blushing.
“How did you—”
He swung his eyes over to Skylar, who was now whistling and looking at a crack in the ceiling with utter fascination. “You little rat. Did you bother to tell her that the whole thing was your idea…or that you got the idea from your mother?”
At Abby’s surprised look, Brian ran over to give Skylar a noogie, which of course led to an all-out pillow fight war with the two girls ganging up on him. Abby just chuckled from the sidelines and watched as after two minutes and a few hundred screeching laughs, Brian emerged victorious with two flailing twelve-year olds held out at arm’s length, trying to bulldoze past his hands via their foreheads. “How long have you known what I’ve been up to?” he asked her curiously, affectionately ruffling the girls’ hair when they both eventually gave up and dropped to the ground to catch their breath.
“Let’s see,” said Abby. “You had that weird exchange with Skylar before you washed my car that one Sunday…” She tapped her finger on her mouth. “I’d say I knew about thirty seconds aft
er that, and then confirmed it on Monday afternoon when I interrogated Skylar before my tutoring sessions.”
Skylar shot her hands up in the air like a helpless victim. “Dad, she came packing that day! S’mores brownies! She was totally ruthless! She didn’t play fair at all.”
Brian chuckled and shook his head, coming back to join her in the kitchen while the girls returned to playing their video game on the couch. “So every time after that day, when I took off my shirt?” he questioned quietly.
“I gave a silent thank-you for your efforts.” She spread a slow, roaming glance over his chest. “And the view.”
“And here I thought I was being so slick.”
Laughing, Abby shook her head. “Nope, Skylar’s right. You’ve got absolutely no game.”
His fragile male ego now completely offended, he lunged for her, presumably to give her a noogie as well, but she slipped through his arms and tossed back with a coyote grin, “So glad you had your middle school daughter to help you out with that.”
Then, wisely, she ran.
The girls paused their game to hoot and cheer her on as he chased her around the living room.
“You’ve turned my own flesh and blood against me,” he complained, nearly catching the tail of her tshirt on her last rabbit scamper right past him.
“Maybe if you made better meatloaf, you’d have more allies,” she taunted, showing no signs of weakness even though she knew he was quickly closing her into a corner.
He launched into an airborne tackle at the precise moment she turned and spun out of his grasp. With a loud oomph, he landed on his stomach on the floor, to the resounding hollers of the girls, jumping up and down on the couch.
“I knew it was a mistake to show you that spin-out move,” he muttered, rolling onto his back and rubbing his chest. “You did it better than some of my varsity boys.”
She offered him a hand up. “That’s because I had a good coach.” When he hopped up and whisked her into his arms to demand the kiss he’d been chasing, she whispered, “And if Becky’s folks can return the sleepover favor, maybe you can show me a few more moves tomorrow night as well.”
His voice dropped a full sexy octave lower, and took on the most decadent growl. “Skylar’s right, you don’t play fair at all.”
“It’ll do you a world of good to remember that from now on.”
“IT’S YOUR FAULT the girls stayed up as late as they did, you know,” declared Brian as he returned to the living room after checking one final time to make sure the girls were indeed asleep and not just faking it like the last two times. “You sugared them up with cookies right before bed.”
“Excuse me?” Abby, waved a soapy spatula at him from the sink. “Who’s the one who begged me to make homemade frosting and then insisted we frost every last cookie? Talk about sugaring them up.”
Brian grinned. “Again your fault. You shouldn’t make such good frosting.”
Wrapping his arms around her middle, Brian cradled her in close. “Thanks for coming over tonight. I’m sorry I canceled our Valentine date.”
“Ready to talk about it?” she asked quietly.
He held her tighter. “I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.”
Abby remained silent as she rinsed her hands and shut the water off. He grabbed the kitchen towel and wiped her hands idly, letting his mouth ramble off everything his brain was trying not to think about. “What if it’s true, Abby? What if Skylar has juvenile HD like Beth did? She has a 50% chance of having it, and she’s showing symptoms already.”
“We don’t know that, Brian. Remember the literature. We can’t jump to that conclusion based on one unexplained seizure.”
“But what if?” he pressed on. “It broke my heart to hear her saying she didn’t need her ring finger because she’d be dead before she ever got to get married. Everything that normal kids can look forward to—dating, prom, college…she may never get to do any of that either.”
“The doctors showed us those videos of all those kids who did get to do all of those things—”
“Don’t, Abby. Don’t try to cheer me up right now. I need to face the real possibility that Skylar might already have JHD.” Hot tears burned in his eyes. “That I may have to bury my daughter sometime in the next decade, right next to my wife.”
Abby spun around and clutched his face. “You listen here, Brian. I get that you’re trying to be realistic and prepare yourself but I raised that little girl right alongside you. I refuse to let myself imagine her being taken from us. Who knows what they may find in the next decade, what clinical trials are being developed right now that could help her, save her? So even if the worst possible fate does become a reality, I’m not going to give up hoping, believing.”
“I can’t ask you to go through that, Abby,” he whispered raggedly. “It’ll consume your whole life. Trust me, I know. You deserve better; you deserve to start a family and have a happily ever after…not…this.”
Her voice gentled. “Brian, you two already are my life.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying. The little girl you love will stop remembering you. Are you ready for that? Because it’s one of the worst feelings in the world. All those years with Beth when she looked at me like I was a total stranger… I wouldn’t wish that life for you.”
“Stop it, Brian.”
But he was too far gone, he was sinking in a sea of despair he’d never allowed himself to wallow in throughout Beth’s entire battle with Huntington’s. And now he didn’t know how to come out of it. “You don’t want to be with me, Abby. I barely kept it together after Beth died. If Skylar…” He dropped his head into his hands and repeated, “You don’t want to be with me.”
“Enough!”
Startled, he blinked and stared back at the woman he loved so much it hurt, loved so much he was willing to lose forever if it meant sparing her the agony of what Skylar’s future might hold.
“Brian, I’m going to say this once more so pay attention. If Skylar does have JHD, you and I will take care of her, just like we always have. We’re going to get through this as a family. I’m not leaving either of you so you can just quit trying to scare me away. It’s not working and frankly, all it’s doing is pissing me off.” She gripped his hands in a deathlock. “Remember what you said to me weeks ago? You and I are always going to be a part of each other’s lives, no matter what. I love you and I love Skylar. You’re not getting rid of me. Period.”
She wrapped her hands around his neck. “Now, if you need to break down for a while, I completely understand. You’ve earned it. But don’t expect me to join you. I’ll be here loving and taking care of our little girl. When you’re ready—”
He covered her mouth with hers in a fierce kiss. God, how had he ever managed to live without this woman? He needed her like he needed air to breathe. “I love you so much, Abby.”
“I love you too, Brian. I swear to you, I’m not going anywhere.”
“ARE YOU SURE you don’t want to go out to a restaurant to celebrate our belated Valentine’s date?” asked Brian for the tenth time as he kissed her hello at the door.
Abby inwardly sighed before deepening the kiss…to try and get her message across for the tenth time.
“Because we can probably get a reservation easy—”
She cut him off with another kiss. The man could be so dense sometimes.
He grinned. “Are you just going to keep kissing me every time I bring up going out? Because I can keep doing this all night if that’s the case.”
So. Dense.
She studied him for a second and then stepped back into the living room, slowly pulling up and off her shirt as she retreated.
That got his attention.
“Interesting,” she said, smiling at his mouth agape expression. “You’re right. This whole no-shirt thing is pretty effective.”
“Effective?” he parroted thickly. “Effective for what?”
“Seducing you.”
He swallowed
so hard she could hear it from where she stood.
“So the reason you didn’t want to go out tonight…”
“Was because I wanted to stay in.”
“Oh.” His eyes kept straying above and below her neck, as if completely confused as to where to land permanently.
“Unless you don’t want to?” she asked, now a bit unsure. Maybe the six year celibacy thing was something he wanted to ease out of.
This time it was Brian who attacked her with a kiss. “Bed or couch? You have about ten seconds to decide honey because at this rate, it’ll end up being right here on the floor.”
He burrowed his lips against her neck, scorching hot kisses down her throat before picking her up by the waist and bringing her whole body flush against his. She locked her legs around him and arched her back, watching, fascinated as his eyes darkened sharply to a deep sea blue.
“Damn. Floor it is,” he gave in gruffly, dropping to his knees.
Smiling, she fell back against the carpet and gently rocked her hips against his.
Once...twice...
He growled and dipped his head down to the valley between her breasts, slowly, hungrily curling his tongue over first one hard nipple, and then the other. She gasped, arched this time involuntarily as she felt the edges of his teeth close tight over her nipple.
Unable to take another second without feeling his skin against hers, she dragged his shirt up to reveal those magnificent abs of his, the impressive eight-pack that, before now, had always been firmly in the look-but-don’t-touch zones of his body. He quickly tore his shirt off and returned, lavishing the same intense attention on her with tongue and teeth.
“I can’t go slow anymore, sweetheart.”
When she felt him begin mapping a path down her body, she regained her senses. “No, wait.” She pushed him back until she could scramble onto her knees. Then she kept on pushing until he was the one flat on his back. Gazing into his eyes, she slowly skated a hand across his taut belly...
“I believe we have a six-year celibacy streak to break first.”
BRIAN’S HEAD THUNKED back against the floor, on edge just from thinking about every wicked thing she was promising with that single look. He was but a weak, mortal man, unable to do more than make a halfhearted grab for Abby’s hands as they quickly undid his button fly...and she was the goddess hovering over him with her lips inches from the promise land, her fingers already starting to pull down his boxer briefs.
