by Teri Blake
“Of course you don’t. The blanket wasn’t yours. You had no connection to it. I did. If I’d known you left it on the beach, I’d have gone to get it.”
“I’m sorry.” There would probably be a lot of memories they’d discuss in the next week that she was sorry for. Had Ryla spent her whole life feeling like everything Quin had done had been specifically to torment her sister? “I hope you realize that I didn’t do it to hurt you. I was just a kid.”
She sniffled slightly but didn’t open her eyes. “I forgave you a long time ago. It was just a blanket. The problem is that it illustrates what my whole life was like in comparison to you. It’s exactly why I don’t want Mom and Dad here. I’ve always been the average kid, whereas you were the super-talented, amazing kid. I never measured up. Instead of our parents getting you another blanket, which would’ve made the most sense, they got me a new blanket. They just did everything for you and pushed me aside. They never saw the injustice.”
Neither had Quin, until just then. The perspective shift was painful. Why had her parents coddled Quin and stifled Ryla? “I don’t think they meant it to be cruel. They were trying to be fair.”
Twice in a half-hour she’d thought about fairness, but Paxton was right. The attempt at fairness had fallen way short. Maybe fair never was. But there had to have been times when Ryla had been the center of attention.
“Do you remember when we took that vacation to the dude ranch in Texas? Mom and Dad decided we were spoiled living by the beach all year round and thought we needed a little work over the summer.”
Ryla smiled and opened her eyes. “Oh, yes. Now that you mention it, I wish I’d gone back there after Mom and Dad left the house with me. If I’d gone before I got Duggy I could’ve stayed for a while.”
Quin had hated the trip. For the first time in her life, she’d felt like people were staring at her with disapproval. They’d hated that she just wanted to relax and ride. She’d wanted no part of cleaning horse stalls—vacations weren’t meant for shoveling. Her parents had paid a lot of money to be there, she shouldn’t have had to.
“I remember Blaze, that’s about it.”
Ryla raised a narrow eyebrow. “That’s because you didn’t do anything. I rode, I helped in the barn, I learned how to tie knots… So much fun. I should’ve had a horse. I wonder if they’d let me get one?” She tried to turn and look back at the house but gave up after the third try. She sucked in air and her lips tinged with gray.
“Please…put the nose thing back on.” Quin handed it to her.
Ryla glared at it. “It’s called a cannula.” She put it around her head and fed it into the base of her nostrils. Since she hadn’t turned off the oxygen, it started to work immediately and Ryla relaxed visibly.
“That horse ranch was good for you. Not so for me. I like the beach.” Quin settled back in her chair now that she didn’t have to worry about Ryla’s breathing.
“If that’s true, why do you fight coming back here so much?”
Quin took a moment to answer in a way that she hoped wouldn’t hurt Ryla. “I don’t know. I have my own life and I’m a creature of habit. I do the same things every day. It’s actually really boring, but it’s mine.”
“What about Ben? You haven’t mentioned him once yet. Did you finally tell him to go away so you could find a real man?”
Quin groaned. That was a little too close to how she genuinely felt some days. “No. He’s in Cincinnati at a show for me.”
“I’m guessing that’s the same show Mom and Dad went to when I talked to them last week?” Ryla stiffened slightly, the only hint that she was mildly curious about their parents.
“Yes, the same.” Even if Ryla didn’t want to talk about them, they would blame Quin for keeping them in the dark. “I still think I should tell them. Don’t you think they’d want to know?”
She scoffed. “And interrupt their tour of your artwork? Why would I do that?”
“Why are you being so unfair to them, and why do you hate me?” She hadn’t meant to be quite so blunt with her questions, but after feeling like she had to defend every aspect of her life in the last twelve hours, the question needed to be asked.
“I don’t hate you. Far from it. I envy you. You’ve had the world by the horns since the moment you were born. Nothing could ever slow you down. You’re talented at everything you do. Everything. I’ve never come close to being as special as Quin Morris. I can’t even tell Mom and Dad what I want without them correcting me.”
Quin didn’t believe that for a moment. There was more to this than that. Ryla had never, in all their visits, mentioned anything like this. “Are you afraid of death, so you’re taking out everything you possibly can on me? You realize I’m going to be left with all this to cope with after the fact, right?”
Ryla laughed. “This isn’t about you. For once it isn’t. This is about me. I’m dying. There, I said it. I’m dying and my biggest fear is that no one will care, or worse, they’ll step in and take that away from me too. If I had told you I had a heart attack three months ago, would you have come sooner? Think about your answer before you speak.”
Without hearing from Paxton and the entire scope of what had happened, she might not have come sooner. She may have still pushed off the visit. Worse, Ryla seemed to expect that answer which meant she was completely transparent. “I don’t know. I can’t go back and make an unbiased decision. I know what I know now.”
“Want to know why I won’t tell our parents? I’ll tell you. There is no way they can do right by me. Either they won’t come and it will devastate me, or they will come and they’ll take over. All my life it’s been, ‘sit here, do this, quiet down, pay attention to Quin.’ Even when they left, it wasn’t that they were giving me the house. They left me here to watch it for them, then just decided to keep traveling. I told them I was having health troubles. They told me I was young, and they weren’t worried.” A tear ran down her hollow cheek and her lip trembled. “I can’t even make them care about me when I’m dying. What do I have to do to make them listen and see me?”
There was no answer to that question. Quin couldn’t answer it without being an unintentional jerk because she’d been the one they’d seemed to favor all these years. “I’ll call them. I’ll make them understand.”
“You will not. I don’t want you to. I want my last few weeks to be peaceful. If I’m worried about them, their arrival, what they have to say, trying to be the good daughter that I’ll never be… I won’t be able to die in peace. Don’t do that to me, Quin.”
That was a promise she couldn’t keep. Her parents had to know. They had to take some of this burden. “Don’t they have a right to say goodbye too?”
“You’re giving them far too much credit. I took a chance on you. You were the one most likely to say yes and actually come. I’ll write them letters. I’ll leave them in my diary in my room.”
“Letters?” She wouldn’t want a letter. She’d want to talk to her sister. Especially since there were obviously things they needed to talk about.
“Promise me, Quin. Promise me you will not say a word to them until I’m gone.”
Choose. Her parents, or Ryla. Her sister had been begging to be important to someone since the moment she’d arrived. If she didn’t agree now, it would be a slap in her face. “All right…I promise.”
Chapter Six
After a day in the sun, and more listening than she’d ever done, Quin ran back to the house to get Ryla’s wheelchair. Sitting in the hard seat all day made her sister stiff and Ryla couldn’t walk across the street without risking injury. Quin wasn’t about to lose her sister in an avoidable accident when losing her was already coming far too fast.
Quin jogged into the house, then stopped. Without Ryla there to tell her where to find anything, she was lost. She’d just opened her mouth to call for Paxton when he poked his head out from the kitchen.
“You’re back? Need something?” Paxton tilted his head slightly to glance behind
her.
“Ryla needs a ride back to the house. I don’t know where her chair is.” Why did she always feel so out of sorts around Paxton? He’d never given her any reason to mistrust him, and that wasn’t the feeling entirely. It was more that she felt a buzz when he was near. He gave her a curt nod and headed for Ryla’s room. When the subject was Ryla, he was all business.
No other room bothered her quite as much as Ryla’s bedroom. So, of course, that’s where the chair was. The changes in the other rooms of the house were understandable and understated, but she wanted to avoid Ryla’s bedroom for as long as possible.
“I’ll just follow you out there.” Paxton pushed the folded wheelchair from Ryla’s room and headed for the front door.
Quin opened the door and held it for him. There was nothing about him that would make anyone think he was a nurse. He didn’t wear scrubs or crocs, not even a stethoscope around his neck to give it away. Though she’d learned from Ryla that he carried a pulse oximeter in his pocket all the time.
“Long day. Did you get a lot of talking in?” He waited until she closed the door to keep Duggy in the house, then carried the wheelchair down the stairs.
“Yes. Some rough, some not. It’s been a good day.” But now that she faced the evening, having Paxton there as an emotional cushion between her and Ryla would be nice. They’d moved on to good conversation after a rocky start, but as Ryla’s energy waned, would she continue on those lines or get short with Quin? “Do you have dinner plans?”
He laughed as he started across the road. “I’m going to sit in front of my television and leave my phone on in case Jane has any issues. I’m sure today took a lot out of Ryla.”
They reached the other side and Quin touched his arm to stop him. “She wanted to come. I don’t want to be blamed for wearing her out…” Ryla already thought she was selfish. There would be no proving otherwise if she just accepted blame for everything.
“I know. I was there when she suggested it. But you also need to understand that your sister often does things that aren’t strictly good for her just because she’s tired of following the rules.”
The oxygen immediately came to mind. Would she push the envelope and end up making herself worse because she couldn’t or wouldn’t follow a few guidelines? “I can totally see that about her. I was only assigned as her hospice care specialist after her heart attack, but even just knowing her superficially before that, I saw that in her. I didn’t want to be her care coordinator. She’s a friend. But she’s so private. I couldn’t just hand her over to strangers when I know she would never be comfortable with them. She would drive them out and just sit there. So, I put my own feelings aside and did what needed to be done.”
Just like she had to do with Ryla’s accusations. She had to put aside her own truth—that she wasn’t a spoiled brat who intentionally took everything from her sister, and that her parents weren’t complete monsters—and let Ryla tell her side of the story.
She released Paxton’s arm, but he didn’t move. “Was she laying like that when you left her?”
Quin looked up and Ryla had her head tilted back at an odd angle, like she’d fainted. “No…” Her heart leaped into her throat as they both raced for Ryla.
Paxton got to her first and reached for her hand. Ryla woke instantly and startled, then gripped her chest. “Paxton! You know better than to scare me like that.”
Quin slid to a stop and forced air back into her lungs. She’d fallen asleep because it had taken so long for them to return. “In his defense, you scared us—” She swallowed hard before she could finish her thought. Saying scared us to death was incredibly insensitive and that was what Ryla had asked of her—sensitivity.
Paxton lifted her easily into her chair and Quin gathered all they’d brought. Her wheelchair had a special holder for her large oxygen tank and Paxton lifted the tank into its place. “Can you pull the cart and grab the lunch basket?” He didn’t wait for a response or glance back to see what had been done.
Sometimes his all-business nature seemed cold, but only when she didn’t really examine it. He cared for Ryla without question. Quin was secondary, which was how it should be. Was the slight jealousy she felt because she was used to being first, or something else?
“I got a call from Jane, the night nurse,” he filled in for her. “She’ll be late today because of another client. So I went ahead and made supper for you.”
As Quin glanced up and down the street, she tripped slightly. Maybe over her thoughts, maybe over a loose pebble in the median. “Late? What if she doesn’t come?” Paxton had to be there for Ryla during the day. That was the most important. He couldn’t do a twenty-four-hour shift.
“She’ll come.” He finished pushing until they reached the base of the stairs. “Bring her chair up. I don’t want it sitting out with the salty sea air or it’ll rust.” He lifted Ryla with almost no trouble, leaving Quin to follow behind.
Though she hadn’t noticed when she’d come in for the chair before, the house smelled of luscious alfredo. The warm, cheesy scent wafted from the kitchen with promised relaxation, enjoyment, and very full bellies.
“I didn’t realize you could cook whole meals.” She mentally slapped her forehead. Couldn’t she ever just give a compliment?
Ryla laughed as Paxton set her down in a dining room chair. She seemed so out of place in the stark white room with sparse nautical baubles. “Just because I can’t keep an ounce on me doesn’t mean Paxton can’t cook. He does his best. He’s actually very good. Or…he was when I could taste anything.”
A knife of guilt hit Quin’s chest. That amazing aroma wafting from the kitchen would be torture if she knew she’d never actually taste it. “I’m sorry…I had no idea.”
With her usual ease, Ryla patted the table beside her. “Come, sit with me.”
Paxton tugged out the chair before he left for the kitchen. Quin tentatively made her way to the seat and lowered herself. “Did you have a good day?” The possibility that, even after all the things Ryla had said, she might still like spending time together gave Quin hope.
“Of course. I’ve wanted to sit with you on the beach for so long. The weather was perfect, the birds noisy, the traffic a distant memory… Didn’t you have a good day?” The expectancy in her voice stalled Quin.
“I did. I learned a lot, but it was a good day.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat in the sun for so long, especially with someone she cared about.
“I think, even though I had to wait for it, we were blessed with the perfect day. Which made the wait worth it.” Ryla smiled, then her gaze shifted to the kitchen door and her eyes went wide.
There, in the doorway, stood Paxton with two heaping plates of creamy pasta. “Ladies!” He strode to Ryla first and set down her plate, then did the same in front of Quin. “Would you like me to stay or do you think Quin can handle you if I go home?” He laid a warm grin on Ryla.
Quin sat silent, confused over her feeling of helplessness at possibly being alone with Ryla and doing something wrong, and utter amazement at how gorgeous Paxton was when he actually showed warmth. His attention shifted to her and she squirmed in her seat. “I don’t think I’d like a trial by fire. Could you stay? Please?” Maybe not just for Ryla, but mostly.
He grinned again. “Good thing I made enough for three.”
Quin tried not to sound too relieved yet happy all the same. “Good. You can join us.”
Ryla eyed her, then sat back in her seat as if thinking deeply. She opened her mouth, closed it, then closed her eyes. “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”
Paxton brought in another huge helping of pasta and sat across from Quin. He took Ryla’s hand, then held out a hand to her. After a slight hesitation, she slipped her hand into his. He gripped her gently. “Lord, bless the food we are about to receive. Thank you for the day, the weather, and the chance to reconnect. Thank you for old friends and new ones. Amen.” He opened his eyes and met hers across the table.
“Thank you,” she muttered softly. No one had ever prayed for her before.
Ryla ignored the food in front of her and launched into an expressive talk about their day. Quin tried to pay attention and eat, but she’d already lived through the conversation and didn’t want to go through it again. Her mind slowly wandered to the art show and what could be happening with her pieces. Ben would tell her what people thought of her work, but it wasn’t the same as seeing reactions in person.
“Quin, what do you think?” Paxton asked, a playful look on his face.
Busted. He’d caught her daydreaming about something else and now she was stuck. “I’m sorry. I was so into this amazing supper that I didn’t even hear what you said. I’ll need the recipe.” Her cheeks burned. At least her plate was half empty so it wasn’t a lie. The alfredo sauce was the best she’d ever had.
“The recipe is easy. Melt butter in a frying pan, add flour and stir until it looks like the sand outside, then whisk in milk. When that’s warm, add three cups of grated parm, and some nutmeg. Pour over the noodles and salt and pepper to taste. I’m no chef.” He shrugged.
Could’ve fooled her, she didn’t even know what a frying pan was. “I guess I’ll have to try it.” After she watched a few seasons of Food Network to know what he was talking about.
Ryla laughed. “She’s bluffing. You can see it in how she pinches her fingers together.”
My fingers? How did Ryla know so much about her, but she had no clue about her own habits and ticks? “She’s right. I am.” Quin closed her eyes and tried not to feel like a fraud. Back in Manhattan, she was always in control.
Paxton covered her hand with his. “Hey. It’s fine. If you want, I can teach you sometime. No need to be anything but real here. You look tired. We should get this cleaned up and move you both somewhere comfortable to relax.” He picked up his plate and Ryla’s still mostly full one and headed for the kitchen.
As she stood, Ryla reached out and laid her hand on the table. “He’s right, you know. You don’t have to be anyone but your true self here. Not who Mom and Dad wanted you to be, not who you think you are…just you.”
