by Brenda Novak
“He did that in his underwear, did he?”
“He was sleeping when I started throwing up.”
Kyle’s chest lifted as he took a deep breath. “How could he have heard that from the barn?”
“He wasn’t in the barn. I—I’d asked him to come in because—”
“You could’ve called me,” Kyle broke in. “I would’ve helped you.”
“I know. But I had no warning, and I didn’t realize it would get as bad as it did.”
“What made you sick?”
“The flu.”
“Wait...” He blinked as he shook his head. “Why was he inside again?”
“I didn’t want the two guys who own the dogs that attacked him to come back. They gave us some trouble night before last, remember?”
She purposely didn’t mention that the prospect of the police returning also worried her. She knew how it would make Levi look to say he wanted to avoid them.
Kyle didn’t seem to be listening, anyway. If she had her guess, he was feeling too many conflicting emotions. Shock. Outrage. Possessiveness. Chagrin at the knowledge that he had no right to be possessive.
Once again they were in that no-man’s-land they’d created when they’d slept together.
“Shit,” he said at last.
Levi raised a hand. “Look, I’m leaving in a few days. You have nothing to worry about.”
Kyle eyed him, gave a deep sigh. “I’m not worried about me. Don’t you get that? She deserves someone who’s capable of loving her. Someone who’s stable and can help her build a good life. She wants marriage, kids. Is that what you have to offer?”
“I have nothing to offer. I’m leaving, like I said.”
“Then do it before you hurt her,” he snapped, and walked out.
A second later, Callie heard what she hadn’t noticed before he let himself in—the sound of his truck engine. It flared up, then dimmed as he drove away.
Levi shoved a hand through his hair. “How’d he get in?”
She’d locked the door. Levi had watched her do it after she’d brought him into the house. “He has his own key.”
Lowering his head, he started to leave the room, but she didn’t want him to go just yet. She felt the need to explain.
“Kyle and I have slept together. You were right about that.”
He looked at her but said nothing. She couldn’t even ascertain what he was feeling.
“It’s happened a few times—five or six. But...it’s not what you think. It’s not about love, and it’s not about screwing around just to get off.”
“Then what’s it about?”
She got the impression that he didn’t want to ask but couldn’t resist. “We’re both tired of being alone, I guess.”
He seemed to consider her response. “I can understand that,” he said, and went to get dressed.
* * *
Callie had a doctor’s appointment. She didn’t want to admit that to Levi, didn’t want him asking any questions. But she was also nervous about leaving him there alone. Not because she thought he’d steal from her or harm anything. She was afraid he’d be gone when she came back.
That was really an odd reaction to have to a drifter, someone she’d always known she couldn’t maintain a relationship with. But she couldn’t help it. All morning she kept remembering how it had felt when he’d snuggled up with her. Different from Kyle. Different from any other guy she’d been with—not that there’d been very many. She’d also been unable to get the image of Levi standing by her bed in his briefs, with certain body parts more apparent than usual, out of her mind.
“So do you want me to put Rifle in the fenced yard while I’m gone?” she asked as she stood beneath the ladder Levi was using, holding her purse and her car keys.
Levi focused on the dog pacing at her heels. Rifle had been running loose on the property—she let him do that when someone was out with him—and there hadn’t been any trouble between the two of them. Still, before she drove off, Callie wanted to be sure Levi felt safe. She didn’t want to come home to see either him or her dog hurt. The stitches that snaked across the golden skin on his arms were a constant reminder.
“He’s fine. He doesn’t go more than a few feet from me.” Levi’s biceps strained as he adjusted a piece of heavy metal he was attaching to the roof.
“You’re sure?”
He shifted the metal until he was satisfied he had it in place. “Positive.”
He’d made a lot of progress since breakfast. Not long ago, she’d heard him start his motorcycle, knew he was double-checking his repairs. Now he was working on the barn.
She gazed around the property, seeing all the other jobs he could do. But he wouldn’t want to stay, even if she could offer him work. Whatever had sent him out on the road seemed to be chasing him, especially when he let down his guard. He refused to allow himself to form any attachments. For whatever reason, even friends were too much of an emotional risk for him.
She wondered what had happened in Afghanistan, guessed it was the tragedies of war that had left him so scarred.
“When will you be back?” he called as she walked toward her car.
“It’ll be several hours.”
“You’ll be at the studio?”
She cleared her throat. She’d said she had some errands to run. Apparently, he assumed that stopping at the studio would be one of them.
She didn’t correct him. “That’s right.”
“Can you pick up a handful of these nails from the hardware store on your way back?”
He got off the ladder to show her what he had in his pocket, and she took one with her, just to be sure she got the correct kind.
“Don’t worry about dinner,” she said. “I’ll bring something.”
He squinted against the sun as he stared at her.
“What?” she said when he didn’t go back to work.
“You sure you’re okay? Last night was...last night seemed bad.”
“The flu always seems bad. I’m fine.”
“Good.” His gaze moved down. “By the way, I really
like that dress.”
A tingle of awareness made her curl her fingernails into her palms. She’d chosen the dress with him in mind.
* * *
Callie chewed her bottom lip as she tried to read her hepatologist’s expression. Had her situation worsened? Would her placement on the national organ-donor list change?
She hated going to the doctor’s alone. She was most tempted to tell someone about her condition whenever she faced an appointment. One of her friends would gladly have driven her the hour it took to reach the University of Davis Medical Center.
But then she’d have to confront the reality of her situation every time she looked into her friends’ or family’s eyes, and she wasn’t ready. She kept coming back to that, to putting off the moment of truth so she wouldn’t have to deal with other people’s emotions while struggling with her own. Maybe it’d be different if she had any chance of finding a live donor. With live-donor transplants doctors took a portion of a living person’s healthy liver and put it inside someone like her. Both pieces regenerated, which made the procedure sound very attractive. But it wasn’t quite that simple. Only a small number of these operations were performed and it was usually done between family members. As an only child, she wasn’t likely to find a match. Her mother had multiple sclerosis and required a wheelchair to get around, and her father had type 2 diabetes, which ruled them out.
Briefly, she thought of Levi’s comforting presence last night and wished she’d brought him with her today. Very soon he’d be out of her life. What would it matter if he knew the truth?
That was what her head told her. But her heart said something else. Maybe he’d be moving on come the weekend, but while he was staying at her place she didn’t want him to know she was critically ill. She found him attractive. That made her hope to be attractive to him, too. And she couldn’t imagine it would be remotely appealing t
o hear that she had non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, even if it was, as her doctor said, idiopathic, meaning no one could say why her liver had suddenly stopped functioning properly. She didn’t have hepatitis or anything, wasn’t contagious.
“So?” Breaking a silence that had felt stifling, she wiped her sweaty palms on her sundress. “What do the latest tests reveal?”
The doctor was sitting on a rolling stool, studying her chart. After everything she’d been through, she couldn’t believe she still found it difficult to wait for the latest results. While being evaluated by the center’s transplant team, she’d undergone a biopsy to confirm her diagnosis and a computed tomography to determine the size and shape of her liver. She’d also had an echocardiogram to check her heart, numerous blood tests to search for infection and determine her clotting ability, an upper endoscopy to examine the state of the veins in her abdominal wall, some pulmonary function studies to ensure that her lungs were exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide properly and several ultrasounds. She’d been at this center so often over the past two months it sometimes felt as if she lived there. That was another reason she’d decided to entrust her photography business to her assistant. She couldn’t do certain shoots. Even if she felt well enough to work, there were days when she had to be gone. What would she have said every time she had to run to Sacramento for new tests?
“Well...” Her doctor set her chart aside. “Unfortunately, I see some degradation of your condition.”
After feeling so terrible last night, she’d prepared herself for this. But how much degradation? Would he classify her as status one? Status one meant she’d be given the highest priority for a new liver. It also meant she wasn’t expected to live longer than a week.
A week! Maybe she’d be gone before Levi....
She swallowed. “How bad is it?”
“It’s affected your MELD score by a fairly significant margin.”
The Model for End-stage Liver Disease or MELD score was how the United Network for Organ Sharing determined where she belonged on the national donor list. A computer-generated number between six and forty, based on blood tests, indicated how likely she was to die in the next ninety days without a transplant. The higher the number, the more serious her condition.
“How much of a margin?”
“Three points. You were at seventeen. Now you’re twenty because your bilirubin count is up. The good news is that your international normalized ratio and creatinine—”
“Creatinine?” She’d forgotten what that was. She knew bilirubin measured the amount of bile pigment in her blood, and the PT-INR measured her blood’s clotting ability, which came from proteins secreted by the liver. But what was the creatinine?
“It measures renal function,” he explained.
“You mean kidney function.”
“Right. Along with your PT-INR, your creatinine levels are not too alarming.”
When liver failure became acute, a patient also had severe kidney problems and could wind up on dialysis. She was hoping to receive a transplant before that.
“So it’s the bilirubin that concerns me the most,” he was saying. “Are you being careful about what you eat?”
“Very. I haven’t had any alcohol. No salt. Plenty of fruit and vegetables. Whole grains. Lean protein.” If she ate at all... It was almost easier not to eat. But she needed the strength.
“Glad to hear it. I’ll update your standing on the donor list and we’ll pray for a match.”
Pray. Weren’t doctor’s supposed to act as if they were in control?
She was actually glad Dr. Yee didn’t pretend. She preferred to face the truth—that he was just a man and could not ultimately decide her fate.
He stood to smile and shake her hand but, for some reason, this appointment was more difficult than the others here at the center. Her chest constricted and her eyes filled with tears—and the weird thing was that she felt it had something to do with wearing the pretty sundress she’d chosen for today and the look in Levi’s eyes when he told her he liked it.
9
Callie wasn’t sure how Levi would react when she returned home with new clothes for him. She doubted he’d be pleased. He’d made it clear that he didn’t want her to do him any more favors. If she cooked, he insisted on doing the dishes or fixing something around the house—like the screen door in back that had been sticking for ages—in exchange for his meal. This morning, he did the cooking himself. He also joined her when she’d gone out to weed the garden and, with his help, she made much quicker work of it than she would have otherwise. He felt as if he was already in her debt and, technically, he was. She’d spent two hundred and eighty dollars on his motorcycle. But it would’ve cost her a lot more to have the barn fixed and painted, so she figured she was getting a bargain.
Regardless, he wouldn’t want her spending any extra money on him. But thinking about someone she liked as much as she liked him counteracted—just a little—the bad news of her MELD score. She enjoyed having him in her life. She wasn’t sure why. She’d never felt quite the same about any other man.
But she’d never been dying of liver disease before, either. She had to admit that changed her perspective.
“Can I help you?”
She turned to see a sales associate. She’d driven to Arden Fair Mall so she’d have a selection. “I need a shirt and a pair of jeans for a man who’s maybe six foot two and one hundred and ninety pounds.”
“You want something casual, for summer?”
She nodded. Levi wasn’t the type to dress up. He looked perfect in a plain white tee and worn blue jeans. But she hadn’t managed to get the shirt clean that he’d been wearing when he was attacked, and the jeans he’d had on were torn well beyond what was stylish.
“How about this?” The woman held out a stonewashed, reddish shirt, basically a V-neck tee. It was rugged, simple. Callie could easily imagine how good Levi’s well-defined chest would look in that and thought it was just masculine enough that he might like it.
“Great. I’ll take a large.”
The saleswoman brought the shirt to the register, then beckoned her over to a large display of jeans. “Are you interested in dark or light denim?”
“Dark.” She might as well get him something slightly dressier than the ones he had.
“What about these? They’re a loose fit.”
She considered them but ultimately decided they weren’t right. “With his build he could afford to go a little tighter.”
“Gotcha.” Lips curved into a conspirator’s smile, the woman plucked up a different pair. “These?”
“Definitely.” They weren’t “skinny” jeans, nothing metrosexual or too trendy, but they’d make the most of his physique.
“What size?”
“I’m guessing...thirty-two by thirty-six?”
“You’re in luck. We have one pair left.” She pulled some jeans from the bottom of the stack.
Callie had paid for her purchases and was walking out of the mall, carrying the sack, when her phone rang. It was her neighbor Godfrey. She’d forgotten that he’d tried to reach her earlier, when she was at the transplant clinic.
“Hello?”
“Callie?”
An older gentleman held the door so she could walk out into the bright afternoon sunshine. “What’s up, G.? Do you have an update for me on those pit bulls?”
“I’m afraid the situation’s not good. I could have them euthanized. That’s the only way to ensure they won’t hurt someone else. But if I do, the owners are claiming they’ll sue the city.”
She hated the idea of killing any animal but, under the circumstances, she didn’t think they had a choice. “If you don’t, and someone else gets attacked, the victim or the victim’s family will also have cause to sue, because now we all know those dogs are dangerous.”
“The details are...kind of murky.”
She waited for a break in the traffic so she could cross to her car. He hadn’t thought they were mur
ky when he stitched up Levi’s wounds. “Because...”
“Because we weren’t around when it happened. We don’t know exactly what occurred.”
“Levi told us what occurred.”
“But is it the truth? Even if it is, he’s a drifter. He won’t be around to testify if or when this goes to court.”
She was winded just from the exertion of walking to and from the mall. The fatigue was almost the worst of what she was going through. “So? He deserves the same consideration as any other citizen. Drifting isn’t against the law.” She put her bag in the backseat of her BMW X3. “So what’s happening?”
“The dogs are currently at the shelter. I wanted to see how convinced you are about what should be done before I go any further.”
She sighed. If these pit bulls were dangerous, she couldn’t allow her love of animals to come before human safety. What if they attacked a child?
She didn’t want to be responsible for that. And after meeting Denny and Powell, and seeing how they behaved, she doubted they’d take the situation seriously enough to put a stop to the threat.
“I believe Levi,” she said. “You saw what those dogs did.”
“But did he trespass? Egg them on in some way?”
She could’ve reminded him about the lack of blood in the garage where Denny was staying, or the placement of Levi’s bike, but she knew it came down to credibility. She and G. had credibility in Whiskey Creek. They’d lived here all their lives, knew everyone. Levi and the renters did not.
“Like I said, I believe Levi.”
“Okay,” he said, as if that decided it. “Consider this handled, but...”
“But?” she repeated.
“There’s one other reason I’ve been dragging my feet.”
“And that is...”
“I don’t trust Denny Seamans or Powell Barney. I’m afraid of how they might respond, afraid they might blame you instead of me.”
“They shouldn’t blame anyone, except their dogs—or, more to the point, themselves, if they didn’t train those dogs properly.”
