by Fiona Lowe
A zip of excitement pulsed through him and immediately snagged on guilt. He was still alive and got to have birthdays. With more force than necessary, he ripped open the envelope and pulled out a gift certificate.
This certificate entitles Dr. Will Bartlett to an accelerated free-fall skydive. Enjoy the exhilaration of falling free through the BIG SKY COUNTRY skies.
The date was for set for his birthday.
Bro, we need to do something awesome every year on our birthday. Deal? Memories of Charlie making that pronouncement at sixteen and insisting they shake on it came rushing back to him.
Sadness tangled with something that could almost be called happiness, and that confused him, because his birthday was almost as tough as the anniversary of Charlie’s death. He set the certificate down. “How did you know that Charlie and I always did something like this on our birthday?”
Her shoulders rose and fell. “I took a guess. From what you’ve told me about him, I figured the two of you would hardly have sat around playing board games.”
“You got that right,” he said, thinking about some of the things Charlie had dragged him into doing.
“You’re not upset?”
He heard the tentativeness in her voice and moved to reassure her. “No. It’s incredibly thoughtful.” He kissed her cheek. “And it’s the perfect gift. Charlie would have loved it, too. Thank you.”
Relief crossed her face. “You’re welcome.”
He laced his fingers between hers. Since the day at the rez where they’d skipped stones, he’d discovered he liked telling her Charlie stories. Sharing him with her kept him close. “Over the years, we did all sorts of things on our birthday, but one of my favorite trips was snowboarding in the backcountry of the Victorian Alps.” At her surprised expression, he added, “July falls in winter in Australia.”
She laughed. “That’s so weird. You know we might see snow on the Rockies when we jump.”
His entire body jerked as if he’d been hit by 240 volts. “We?” The word wheezed out, and he immediately cleared his throat. “What do you mean by we?”
She squeezed his hand. “You didn’t think I was going to let you jump on your own, did you? I’m jumping, too.”
“No.” The word came out so vehemently that the yellow breasted meadowlark on the deck railing ceased its twittering and flew away. The thought of her blacking out halfway through her descent haunted him. “That’s not going to happen.”
Millie stiffened, but sympathy played in her eyes. “Why?”
Dex chose that moment to beep, as if the device was saying it knew exactly why.
“Is this because I’m not Charlie?” she asked softly.
No. But so help him, he was using that thought as the reason. He stroked her face. “I’m sorry.”
The sympathy in her eyes got pushed aside by hurt, and she released his hand. “Me too.”
Guilt kicked him hard in the gut, but not enough to make him change his mind. No way in hell was he letting her skydive and risk her falling out of the sky. It had disaster written all over it. He kissed her and rose to his feet. “I need to cook those steaks.”
She sighed. “Will, that beep is Dex reminding me that I need to change my sensor. It’s got nothing to do with my blood sugar.”
Thankfully, the timer he’d set on his phone sounded incessantly. “The grill’s ready. I’ll cook while you go change your sensor.”
She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, but she closed it, turned and walked away.
HAVING to eat no matter if she was hungry or not was one of the things that drove Millie crazy about being diabetic. Will’s rejection of her offer to accompany him skydiving had vanquished her appetite. It had taken a great deal of effort to force down the tender, juicy steak and enough of the creamy potato salad she needed to eat to satisfy the amount of insulin she’d bolused.
She hated how much his rejection of her offer hurt. Right up to that moment, it had all been going well. She’d been so happy at the look on his face when he’d opened the envelope—Boo-yah! Nailed that gift. The warm and fuzzy feelings that had flowed through her because she’d known exactly what would make the man she loved happy had given her indescribable pleasure. It was like being on the top of the world. His no had plunged her into a deep, dark low.
Right gift, wrong date.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. She should have booked the jump for a less significant date, but it was his birthday present and they were running out of time to do things together. She’d honestly thought that after all he’d shared with her about Charlie, he’d be okay with her tagging along. Knowing she’d been way off target and he’d shut her out ate at her.
Over dinner, the conversation had lurched around the elephant in the room that was the skydive. They’d exchanged information about their day—Will overenthusiastically and she rather desultorily—and when she’d finally finished the meal, he’d insisted she go get comfy on the sofa while he cleared away. Usually they tidied up together, but she didn’t have the energy to argue, so now she was sitting on the sofa, determined to rescue the evening when he joined her.
She heard the dishwasher start, and then Will walked into the room smiling. As he sat down next to her she noticed he was holding a small box tied with a silver bow. He rested it in his palm and held it out to her.
She blinked and her heart flipped in her chest like a fish on a dock. “Is . . . is . . . that for me?”
“You bet.”
“But it’s not my birthday.”
“I know, but sometimes a gift just needs to be given. I was going to give it to you before dinner, but you got in first with your present.”
“Sorry.” Oh man, had she totally ruined his plans to propose?
He is not going to propose, but it might be a promise ring.
Zips of excitement rushed her. He was making the first move and talking about their future. This was the start of them committing to each other and making the three years she was tied to Seattle work.
“No worries,” he said easily. “Now’s probably a better time anyway, because we’ve got the rest of the evening to talk about it.”
She waited for him to say something else, hint at what was in the box, tell her he loved her, but he just kept smiling at her, his blue-on-blue eyes crinkling around the edges. “Go ahead. Open it.”
When she lifted the box off his palm, she realized that her imagination had been running wild and interfering with her visual perception. Although the box was a similar shape to a ring box, it was bigger. She neatly undid the bow and opened it. Her flipping heart stilled and then sank like a stone.
She stared down at a watch.
It wasn’t a pretty, delicate piece of jewelry that would have suited her narrow wrist. No, it was bright fluoro green and black, a giant, clunky thing that was as tall as her wrist. “It’s a watch,” she said inanely, sounding stupid.
Will laughed. “It’s a smart watch.”
“Oh, like a sports watch that measures my heart rate?”
“Sort of, but it can do a lot more than that. You can link it to your phone and get your messages and e-mails.”
She thought it was an odd gift, given that Mr. Fitness himself didn’t wear one. “I’m not sure I need to be that connected.”
He took it back off her and put it on the coffee table as if he needed her to concentrate on him, not the watch. “Millie, it’s like a computer on your wrist. You can connect Dex to it so with the flick of your wrist you can easily see your blood sugar.”
And with the size of the screen on the watch, so could everyone else in a ten-foot radius of her. She was about to say that getting Dex out of her pocket was really not a problem when Will said, “And the great thing is that with all of Dex’s data uploaded into the cloud then other people can wear a smart watch and see your numbers, too.”
Other people? She started at him speechless, her brain going around in circles. “What other people?”
“Your parent
s, me.” His face was animated with enthusiasm. “This new CGM cloud is a game changer for diabetics.”
She knew about the cloud, but she’d only ever thought about it in terms of children with diabetes. It gave their parents peace of mind and hopefully the kids more freedom, although information was a funny thing—sometimes it was used to confine. But she wasn’t a kid—she was very much an adult, and this felt like a massive invasion of her privacy.
“Will, the only person I need or want scrutinizing my numbers is my endocrinologist. This would freak my parents out, and I spent years clawing out my independence from them and separating them from my diabetes, so why would I want to give all that up?”
He frowned. “This has got nothing to do with independence. This is all about keeping you safe.” He leaned toward her. “For instance, say you have a hypo when you’re asleep. I get a warning on my watch.”
“I don’t see the point. Dex wakes us both up anyway.”
An odd look crossed his face, and he said gently, “This is for the time I’m not in bed with you.”
Time. Her heart took a hit—pierced clean through from one side to the other—quivering wildly. He didn’t say times as in the occasions when they’d be apart, but time as in the looming future. “What’s the point of you knowing my numbers if you’re in Great Falls or even Australia?”
“It’s all part of your safety net,” he said, not denying her claim he’d be somewhere other than Seattle. “If I couldn’t reach you on your phone, then I’d contact someone in your building so they can go check on you.”
She shook her head fast, curls flying. “I’ve been doing fine on my own for a long time now, Will. I don’t need this.”
“I think you do,” he said firmly. “It’s a way of keeping you safe.”
She wanted to shake him. “You’re not my doctor, Will.”
A muscle twitched near his eye. “No, but I am a doctor, and I’m your mate, your friend. I care about you.”
Friend, not lover. He’d just defined their relationship in his terms, and the words pummeled her so hard she wanted to put her hands over her head to ward off the devastating blows. She loved him with every breath she took, but despite their time together being the best weeks of her life, he only cared for her as a friend.
Good old Millie. Everyone’s friend. Fun to have around.
Right at that moment she hated him. “You’re my friend?” She spat the words out of her mouth on a rising tide of fury. “Have you conveniently forgotten about our weeks of sex and the fact you’ve virtually moved into the guesthouse?”
He flinched. “Of course not. It’s been great, but you’re leaving soon, and I just want to set you up so you’re safe.”
“It’s not your job to keep me safe,” she ground out between clenched teeth.
“I’m happy to do it.”
She thought about her friends at grad school and of Ethan, Ty, Katrina and Josh. All of them loved her as a friend, but none of them would ever suggest that they get this intimate with her diabetes. Her skin prickled, and suddenly she needed to move away from his sincerity and caring before it suffocated her with everything that it didn’t offer. Everything she wanted.
She stood up and started pacing. “I don’t get it. You want me to share my blood sugar numbers with you but not my life?”
“Millie,” his tone implored, “right from the start, we were always going to have an end date when you left for Seattle.”
Her misguided hopes that he might feel differently took another knock, and she struggled to align being dumped with being spied on. It didn’t match up. “But this idea of yours isn’t ending us. It’s keeping us connected in a way I don’t want. It’s creepy and it’s stalkerish.”
“The hell it is,” he yelled, shooting to his feet. “Jeez, Millie. Don’t you get it? I’m keeping you safe.”
Safe. She blinked at him. How many times had he said that in the last few minutes? She thought about his phone calls today, all the times over their weeks together that he’d sought her out at work under the guise of wanting to see her, his verbal dodging and weaving whenever she suggested they go hiking, his almost obsessive response every time Dex beeped and just now, his reaction to her suggestion she go skydiving. Just like that, it was as if someone had turned the light up from a dim yellow to a bright white, all-revealing glare.
Her diabetes terrified him.
No way. He’s an intelligent guy. A doctor. Rational. Scientific.
Life teaches you that sick people die, not healthy ones.
Will’s words rushed back to her, bouncing and jostling in her head. He’d said them the day he’d told her Charlie had died. At the time, she hadn’t thought much about it other than it being a fairly apt statement. Now it seemed a lot more personal. I want to keep you safe.
Did he think she was going to die?
No. It was such an irrational thought that she didn’t want to entertain it. Nothing about it made any sense, especially not the part where he was breaking up with her but still wanting to be more involved in her diabetes than she would have wanted if they’d been together.
It was like being lost in a corn maze, and the only GPS she had was her love for him and a gut feeling. She’d stayed silent these last few weeks, waiting and hoping that Will might tell her he was committed to her beyond the summer, and when he did, she’d tell him she loved him. Only Will wasn’t going to tell her, and the time had come for her to speak. Sometimes stepping out on a limb and taking a huge risk was required, and this was one of those times.
“I love you, Will, and I think you love me, too.”
WILL heard Millie’s heartfelt words and wished that he had not. Now he had no other recourse than to hurt her. He shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry, Millie. If it helps, you’re the first woman I’ve spent so much time with in a long time.”
Her eyes filled with pity, and it took him a moment to realize it wasn’t for herself but for him. “And there’s a reason for that, Will, and it’s called love.”
She waved her hand up and down her body. “Look at me. I’m a little bit heavy, I wear comfortable clothes and my makeup regime is a swipe of lip gloss when I remember. You could have spent the summer with much prettier and better dressed women than me.”
He hated it when she said stuff like that about herself. “I did not slum it with you.”
“Exactly.” Her dimpled smile danced at him. “We’re good together. I make you happy. You make me see a sparkling future of possibilities for both of us.”
Her optimism bit into him, clamping down hard and reminding him exactly how everything wonderful could be lost in a heartbeat. “Millie, I can’t give you what you want when it’s not there to give.”
She pressed her palm against his heart. “Tell me what’s in there.”
“A bloody enormous, empty space.” The truth tumbled out before he could stop it. He closed his eyes, steeling himself for her reaction, hating the idea that raw and ragged pain would twist her beautiful face and take up residence in her eyes. When he opened his eyes, all he saw was empathy.
“I’m so sorry Charlie’s dead, Will, but you can’t live your life avoiding loving people in case they die.”
His heart hammered hard and fast, beating the pain of memories through him. Oh yes, I can and I will. He had to, because he’d already lost half of himself.
He knew Millie, and if he committed to her, she’d want a child. The idea of her body, compromised with some kidney damage, being pregnant and open to the ravages of all the other complications didn’t bear thinking about. If he allowed himself to love her and something happened to her, he wouldn’t survive it.
He tried to make her understand. “Charlie was fit and healthy, Millie, and”—he snapped his fingers—“he died.”
A small frown creased the space between her eyes. “It was an awful thing, but it was a random accident.” Her intelligent gaze sought his. “I’m not going to die on you, Will.”
A spurt of anger burne
d him. “You can’t promise me that. No one can promise anyone that.”
She sighed as if he was a crazy person. “Let’s look at this logically, then. You’re fit and healthy, and you have the rest of your life in front of you. I’m fit and healthy with the rest of mine in front of me, so why don’t we live it together?”
She didn’t get it. His fear for her was a living, breathing thing in his chest, dealing out fingers of pain like a bartender with a bottle of Scotch. He’d tried to do the right thing so as not to hurt her. He’d organized the cloud so he could take care of her from a distance, he’d tried to be gentle and oblique, hoping she’d make the connections and understand so that he could use the reliable exit line of They’d always had an end date.
But she was pushing and pushing and pushing, and he needed it to stop. “You’re not exactly healthy, Millie,” he said quietly. “You have some kidney damage already.”
She jerked as if he’d just slapped her hard, and her green and brown-flecked eyes darkened with amber shards of fury. “So you’re saying that if I wasn’t diabetic we’d have a future together?”
Her incredulity burned him from top to toe, and he wished more than anything he could change things, but this was survival. “I’m saying that I don’t love you.”
Her chest heaved like she’d just been running fast, and now it was hard to move air in and out of her lungs. Two pink spots of anger flared on her creamy cheeks. “This is your problem, Will, and I refuse to own it. I am done being the person who causes worry, because I work damn hard at managing my diabetes and living my life. I am not sick.”
She sucked in another breath, but when she spoke again, her voice had lost its harshness. “Will, I get that losing Charlie was like losing a part of yourself, but tell me this. Would he be happy knowing you’re walking away from a chance at happiness?”
Bro, you have to meet Miranda.
A simmer of unease bubbled under his skin. “Leave Charlie out of this.”
“Why?” Her curls quivered. “Because you know he’d tell you that you’re being a coward and a bloody idiot?”
