Katherine Carolyn McCray.
She smiled at the sweet, childish fantasy, then the song ended and they returned to the table and the monstrous realities of her future loomed before her. “Hayden and I have to leave soon,” she told him, the words coming hard. “I promised my parents I’d have Hayden in Montana for his fourth birthday.”
“You said his birthday was next month,” Mitch said, clearly taken aback by her abrupt announcement.
“July second,” Hayden announced. He’d finished off the mug of root beer.
“That’s over two weeks from now. You have plenty of time to get back to Montana. There’s lots you haven’t seen yet. The Yukon River, the Arctic Circle…” Mitch gave her a puzzled look.
Kate lifted her beer and took a small sip, avoiding his eyes. “My mother wants us to come home. I’m sorry, Mitch, but she was so upset when I talked to her last night, I told her we would. I’m glad we came. I’ve had a good time, and I think Hayden has, too.”
“I’ll be four,” Hayden piped up.
“So then what?” Mitch said to her in a flinty tone of voice. “You wait around in Montana until the phone call comes from your doctors in Seattle?”
“Or until I have to go back for another round of chemo. Yes. That’s how it works.”
Mitch studied her across the table. “You could wait here just as well as there. Anchorage has a good hospital, and it’s a whole lot closer than the one in Seattle.”
Kate struggled to find the words to explain, but she knew nothing she said would help. “I promised my parents I’d go home.”
He pushed back in his chair and tried to keep his tone even so as not to upset Hayden. “So you’re just going to fly out of here with Hayden and I’m supposed to stay here and wait to hear from you?”
Kate glanced at Hayden, who was examining his empty mug with a studious frown, then sighed. There could be no happy ending to this trip, only a long, hard goodbye. “I’ll keep in touch. I’ll let you know how things go.”
Campy’s appearance effectively halted any immediate response from Mitch. She slid a huge plate in front of each of them, another beer in front of Mitch and another frosted mug of root beer in front of Hayden. She gave Kate a questioning glance when she saw her untouched beer. “Can I get you something else to drink?”
“Water, Campy, thanks,” Kate replied.
When she had gone, Mitch leaned forward on his elbows and held her gaze until Kate felt herself clench up. “I had to know what kind of a man you were. What kind of father you’d make. Don’t you see? I had to come and I’m glad I did, but I never intended to stay.”
“I don’t wanna go,” Hayden said.
They both looked at Hayden while Campy set the big glass of ice water in front of Kate. “Can I get you anything else, hon?”
Kate shook her head.
“Mitch, Sanford’s here, along with his cronies,” Campy said, bending close. “They just arrived from Dutch Harbor and he’s itching to shoot a game of pool with you.”
“Tell him I can’t right now,” Mitch said.
“Okay, hon, but he’s hot to trot and he brought a wad of money with him. A big wad.”
Mitch shook his head. “Sorry. Not tonight. Tomorrow, maybe.”
Kate fixed him with a questioning look after Campy had gone. “Who’s Sanford?”
“Pool shark. Makes tons of money working in Dutch and loses most of it right here at Brock’s.”
“Go ahead and have a game if you want. We’ll watch.”
Mitch glanced over his shoulder to the group of men clustered at the bar, then looked back at Kate. “I don’t give a hoot about shooting pool with Sanford, but I do care about you and Hayden. We’ve shared a lot in the past few days.”
Kate lowered her eyes again. “Yes, we have.”
“It just seems wrong for you to take him and go.”
“Can’t we stay, Mumma?” Hayden interjected, chewing his French fries.
“No, we can’t, and don’t talk with your mouth full.” She glanced back up at Mitch. “Try to understand my position.”
“Believe me, I am.”
They stared at each other while Hayden looked between them, frowning. “Mitch, you’re Hayden’s father and you’ll always be a part of his life. That’s why I brought him here, so the two of you could get to know each other.”
“And I appreciate that, believe me, I do, but what about you and me, Kate? What part are we playing in this little family scenario? What part do I play?”
Kate drew a steadying breath. “I’m just trying to survive this. That’s about all I can do right now.”
“Right now you seem to be focused on running away from me.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Mitch. Believe me, I’d love to stay longer, and I’m grateful for all you’ve done, but we have to go.”
“I don’t wanna go, Mumma. I wanna stay here with Mitch,” Hayden said.
“Eat your burger, Hayden. You know we have to leave. We had this conversation last night. Gram and Gramp are waiting for us in Montana. There are horses there, remember? You’re going to learn to ride.”
Mitch pushed away from the table in an abrupt movement. “I told Wally to buy a Cessna 185 with the insurance money. The 185’s a good plane, and there’s one for sale in Anchorage at the Lake Hood base. It’s not the same caliber as the Porter, but it’s a good plane.”
Kate felt herself stiffen. “The Porter’s a great plane, perfect for what you do here.”
“No arguments there, but I can’t accept it.” He stood and stared down at her with those keen clear eyes. “I’m glad you came. I guess I’d have liked it a whole lot better if you’d come four years ago, but I can’t change that and since I can’t convince you to stay, maybe I will go shoot a game of pool with Sanford. I could use the money.”
“I wanna stay with you, Mitch,” Hayden said, looking perilously close to tears. “Can I stay? I’ll be good. I promise.”
Mitch bent over the table and rumpled Hayden’s hair. “Don’t worry, pard. I’ll come visit you a lot. Meanwhile, you learn to ride those mustangs so you can teach me how when I come. Deal?”
Hayden’s eyes filled with tears as he looked up at his father. “I wanna stay.”
“I wish you could,” Mitch said, straightening. His expression was stony. “The two of you finish your burgers and I’ll run you back to the Moosewood. This won’t take long. Games with Sanford never do.”
Kate watched him walk toward the bar and wished she could have said the things she really wanted to say, but she knew how selfish that would be. Mitch didn’t need to be dragged any deeper into the nightmares she faced. She would deal with them as best she could on her own, and maybe, just maybe, if things worked out, if a donor was found and if the transplant was successful…maybe one day she and Hayden could come back together.
In the meantime, all she could do was hope…and dream.
MITCH ANNIHILATED Sanford in less than forty minutes. He showed no mercy. There was none in him tonight. Sanford sulked for a few moments, the way he always did, then demanded a rematch. He plunked another wad of bills on the green velvet of the billiard table but Mitch shook his head, pocketing his winnings. “Maybe later,” he said, and returned to where Kate and Hayden waited. Kate had barely touched her burger and Hayden’s face was red as though he’d been crying.
“It’s getting past your bedtime, Hayden,” he said, hearing his own father’s words again. “Let’s get you back.”
“I wanna stay here with you,” Hayden whined.
“Well, I’m leaving, so c’mon, pard. Let’s go.”
Kate was predictably quiet on the drive to the Moosewood. He wondered if she had ever, just once, talked for the sake of talking. Talked about the weather, the crowd at the bar, the price of gas. No, there would be no idle chatter. Everything with Kate had to have a reason, a purpose. Every action, every word.
Back at the Moosewood, Mitch carried a groggy Hayden to Kate’s cabin and handed h
im off to the hovering Rosa, who took him into the bedroom. He stood for a moment, wondering what to do or say. Kate seemed equally at a loss. Rosa came back into the room, saw them standing there and scowled.
“A fine thing, for the two of you to be inside when outside the sky is so beautiful. I’ll watch Hayden. You go out and watch God’s handiwork.”
They went out on the porch and dutifully admired the alpenglow that lit the snow-clad peaks in the distance. They stood side by side, close together but miles apart. Kate’s arms were crossed and Mitch could feel the unhappiness radiating from her. “If Hayden’s birthday isn’t until July, I don’t see why you can’t stay for at least another week.”
“I think it’s for the best that we go.”
“Best for who? Hayden?”
“The press conference with the governor is scheduled to be aired after the news tomorrow evening. Campy told me she’d tape it and send me a copy,” Kate said, dodging his question. “I hope it helps get more native Alaskans on the donor registry and helps Tuttu find her twin brother.”
Mitch shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and leaned against a porch post. “Wally wants to go to Anchorage tomorrow to look at that plane. I’ll be gone all morning. Maybe we can get together in the afternoon.”
“Maybe.” She was completely noncommittal, avoiding his eyes by keeping hers fixed on the mountains.
“What does Hayden want for his birthday?”
She smiled faintly. “Ever since meeting Thor, he’s been after me to get him a dog of his own, but if a bone marrow donor is found for me and the transplant takes place, I can’t be around them for a year.”
“Why?”
“Until my immune system reboots, the doctors advise against exposure to pets, people and public places.”
“How long will you be in the hospital?”
“For the actual stem cell transplant, in and out about six months total.”
Mitch figured it’d take maybe a couple of months and was shocked by her answer. “Why so long?”
“It’s a long process.”
“So tell me about it.”
“There are a couple weeks of tests involved in the workup phase prior to the transplant, then they insert a Hickman central line catheter into the right atrium of my heart. That’s where they’ll channel all the chemo, antibiotics, antivirals, liquid food, saline and anti-nauseameds and diluted radioactive antibodies.”
“They inject that stuff into your heart?”
Kate nodded. “The huge volume of blood pumping through the heart dilutes the chemicals quickly. That’s why they put the IV there. I’ll be placed in a lead-lined room for six to eight days for this phase because I’ll be too radioactive to be around other people. After all my own marrow cells have been destroyed, then comes the transplant from the donor, and then another three months in the isolation ward before I’m allowed into a regular hospital room for monitoring. That’s assuming I don’t get graft versus host response, which would be bad.”
Mitch stared. He couldn’t think of a single positive thing to say. She looked at him with a wry smile. “I know. I can’t tell you when anything has scared me more than the six months of hell I’ll be facing if a donor is found, but for Hayden’s sake I have to do this. Getting a bone marrow transplant is my only chance to watch him grow up and catch that first big fish. I’m sorry for taking Hayden away from you so soon, but don’t you see, I have to leave now, because if I stay here any longer I may not be able to go.”
As far as Kate was concerned, their conversation was over. She dismissed him with a brief kiss, this time on the cheek, but when she spoke, her voice trembled with emotion. “Thanks again for everything, Mitch. I’m glad I came. You’re a great guy, and Hayden’s got a great dad. Good night.” She turned swiftly and the door closed behind her, leaving him standing on the porch, alone and confused.
He drove back toward Pike’s Creek, reeling from this abrupt dismissal and still trying to grasp a cancer treatment so horrific the radioactive meds were administered directly into the heart and the patient was confined in a lead-lined room for one week. His thoughts were tangled in confusion. On the one hand, he didn’t want her to go. On the other, he was relieved that she was leaving soon, and stricken with guilt for feeling relieved. But he knew she was right. It was better this way. Staying would only make it harder. Harder for her to go back to that hospital and harder for them to say goodbye.
But what about Hayden?
He swung by the airstrip on his way home to check on the Porter, which was right were he’d chocked it before the camping trip. Wally’s Harley was parked in front of the warming shack, pristine, gleaming. He paused beside it for a moment, remembering how Kate had admired it, and realized that no matter how hard he tried to convince himself that Kate’s leaving would be a good thing, the best thing for both of them, his heart was saying something completely different.
Wally was inside, working on the books and chewing on an unlit cigar. “What’re you doing here?” he growled. “Thought you went to Anchorage for the meeting with the governor.”
“We did,” Mitch said. “We’re back. What are you doing here on a Monday?”
“Campy had to work, and I’m trying to balance the books and find us another plane. I lit a fire under the insurance company. It won’t take long to get the money.”
“The longer it takes, the more business we lose.”
“Don’t I know it.” Wally heaved a weary sigh. “You could always fly the Porter. The lease agreement’s been signed and its all insured.”
“Let me borrow your Harley and I’ll think about it.”
“No way in hell,” Wally said, coming half out of his seat with an expression of alarm.
“An hour, that’s all I’m asking. I’ll have it back before you’re done with your book work. I just want to take Kate on a nice, gentle cruise.”
“Like hell you will!” Wally was standing now, his face darkening with indignation. “Your nice gentle cruise will top out at over a hundred miles an hour. I know you jet-jock types. No way, Mitch. Sorry.”
“It’s for Kate, Wally. She loves your bike. Let me borrow it just this once.”
Wally sagged back into his chair, looked intently at Mitch then reached into his jeans pocket and tossed him the key. “One scratch,” he warned in an ominous tone.
“Thanks, boss, I knew you’d come through for me.”
Mitch walked out of the shack, climbed aboard the black-and-silver anniversary edition Harley and headed back toward the Moosewood. Kate had, after all, saved his life. Mothered his child. Given him one of the best weeks of his life.
He couldn’t let her go without one last chance at redemption.
KATE WAS SITTING on the porch, sipping a glass of water and feeling blue when she heard a big motorcycle stop out in the parking area of the main lodge. She didn’t think too much about it. There were multiple guest cabins and the restaurant was busy in the evenings. Vehicles came and went constantly. But then she heard footsteps approaching and Mitch came around the corner. He walked up to the foot of the porch steps and paused, hooked his thumbs in his rear pockets and slouched like a biker. The sun had set, but he was still wearing his tough-guy aviator shades.
“Thought you’d want to see my new wheels,” he said.
She set the glass down and stood, her lonesome blues banished by his unexpected appearance. “Wally let you borrow his Harley?”
He grinned and nodded. “C’mon. Let’s go for a spin. Shake her down and wring her out.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“Damn straight. Dangerous is what you need right now. But don’t worry, it’ll be a safe kind of dangerous. Hayden won’t lose his parents.”
She didn’t need to be asked twice. Sticking her head in the cabin door, she relayed to Rosa that she’d be gone for a little bit, then followed Mitch out to where the bike was parked. She ran her fingertips over the gleaming fender. “He actually trusts you with it?”
; Mitch straddled the leather seat. “Of course he does. Climb aboard, pretty woman.”
“You sure you know how to drive this thing? It only has two wheels and no wings,” Kate couldn’t resist teasing as she hopped up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
Kickstand up, engine revving, Mitch left a trail of dust as they exited the parking area and swung onto the Parks Highway heading north. In a matter of seconds the speedometer was nudging sixty. He throttled back and held it there until Kate tightened her arms around him and shouted, “Faster!” He accelerated slowly. Seventy. Eighty. Kate leaned against him and hung on tight, wind whipping past her ears. No wind through her hair, that’s for sure, but suddenly that didn’t matter a bit, and when Mitch passed a motor home long enough to qualify as an oceanliner in a mere second and a half, Kate laughed her exhilaration into his ear and wished they could hit two hundred and keep on going straight to the moon.
It was a little dangerous, it was a little crazy and it was just the thing she needed to purge the dark thoughts and grim scenarios from her mind, to remember what it was like to fly at Mach 2 with her hair on fire. To be young and invincible and free.
The only thing missing was Bruce Springsteen belting out “Born to Run.”
Too soon he was slowing, slowing, then pulling a U-turn, turning back.
Cruising again at a sedate sixty, big bike purring along, Kate leaned into the solid warmth of Mitch’s back and relished the feel of the wind and the open space, the soaring mountains and the open road and, above all else, just being with Mitch. She could spend the rest of her life like this and be happy.
Back at the Moosewood, Mitch cut the ignition. They sat for a moment, reluctant for the adventure to end. Just as Kate was about to slide off the bike, Mitch pivoted his upper body, lifted her into his arms and pulled her onto his lap, all in one smooth and remarkably inspired movement.
And then he kissed her.
This was no tender, gentle, pitying kiss. He didn’t kiss her as if she was a cancer patient who had lost all her hair. He didn’t kiss her as if she might die any day. Mitch kissed her like he wanted more than just a moment, more than a day or a week, a whole lot more, and she twined her arms around his neck and kissed him back with the same fierce, desperate passion.
From Out of the Blue Page 22
