She was wobbling. Her eyes glittered. He knew it was with pain.
He sat her down on the edge of the bed. Knelt and slipped off her shoes.
“Do you want to sleep for a while, honey?” he said softly.
She shook her head, winced when she did.
“No. I want you to tell me what’s going on. Your brothers are with you. Why? And why are all of you behaving like you have a big secret?”
He sat down next to her and clasped her hand.
“I refuse to let you die,” he said in a low, fierce voice.
“Travis. I know you want to deny the truth. For a long time so did I. But—”
He silenced her with a tender kiss.
“Listen to me, just for a minute. Will do you that?”
Jennie sighed. “Okay,” she whispered, “but—”
“I tried to find you,” he said. “When I couldn’t, I turned to my brothers for help. Caleb located you.” He smiled. “Sometimes, it’s useful to have a former spy in the family. Jake—Jake did other things.”
Her eyes searched his. “What other things?”
“Remember, I told you he’d been wounded in Afghanistan. Badly wounded. He was hospitalized at Walter Reed, and while he was there, he met somebody, another soldier who—who had a tumor. Inoperable, like yours. At least, they said it was inoperable.”
Jennie tore her hand from his and got to her feet.
“No,” she said. “No more! I’ve tried a dozen cures. Nothing worked.” Her voice broke. “I can’t do it again, Travis. Believing there’s—there’s some kind of—of medical miracle, only to find out that—that...”
Travis rose and stood before her.
“Jake’s friend was accepted into an experimental program, right here at Boston Memorial.”
Jennie turned away and clapped her hands over her ears.
“I’m not listening!”
“Honey. Please. Hear me out.”
“I’ve done it all. Tests. Shots. Drugs and more drugs. I’ve seen a thousand doctors. All of it led to one thing.” She swung toward him, her mouth trembling. “I’m dying, Travis. It’s why I did all those—those crazy things. Why I wanted to experience as much of life as I could. I knew, sooner or later, I’d have to accept what was coming.”
“Jennie—”
“And I did. I accepted it. Until I fell in love with you.”
She’d said the only words he’d ever wanted to hear.
“Leaving you was the hardest thing I ever did.” Her eyes searched his for understanding. “I love you so much—”
“Then why did you run away from me?”
“Because I love you! Because I didn’t want you to be there to see—to see what’s going to happen to me. Because I didn’t want you to look back years from now and—and remember me broken and lost and drained of life—”
Travis pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
“What gives you the right to make those decisions for me?” he said gruffly. “I love you, dammit! I adore you. I want to be with you whatever happens.”
“Even to see me die?”
“Even that,” he said, his voice breaking. “But you won’t. I’m trying to tell you about this surgery—”
“No.”
“Jennie. Don’t say ‘no’ until you hear me out.”
“How about you hearing me out?” She stood straight within his embrace, her eyes locked to his. “I’ve done everything they told me to do, everything they said would work. Nothing did. Nothing will. And—and I can’t go through it again. The hope. The desperate, awful hope and then the letdown.” She took a breath. “It’s over. I’m dying and there’s no way to stop it—unless you believe in miracles and I have to tell you, I don’t.”
Travis framed her face with his hands.
“What I believe in,” he said, “is you. Your strength. Your courage. Your determination. Add in some damned good science, a surgeon who’s found a way to save lives. Would you walk away from that?”
“It’s useless, don’t you see? Useless!”
“I thought you were the girl who believed in taking risks.”
Tears were flowing down Jennie’s face.
“You’re not fighting fair.”
“No. I’m not. Why would I, when it comes to wanting you with me forever?”
“You’re merciless,” she said, but her eyes, her voice, said otherwise.
Travis forced a smile.
“That’s me. The merciless Travis Wilde. A man who won’t give up his woman without a fight.” He stroked his hand down her back. “I’ll be there. With you. I’ll be at your side the whole time. My love, my heart, all that I am will be with you.”
Jennie bit her lip.
“Suppose—suppose I said yes. Do you know the odds of me coming through something experimental?”
“When we meet the surgeon, he’ll tell us.”
“And—and if I didn’t come through, if I didn’t survive, I wouldn’t know the difference. But you would. I know you, Travis. You’d eat yourself alive for having had even the smallest part in this.”
“I’ll eat myself alive if I just let you leave me.” His eyes darkened. “Fight for your life, honey. I’ll fight for it with you. The doctors will do their part. We’ll do ours. Just don’t give up. I need you to be the girl who loves roller coasters, because that’s the girl you really are.”
Jennie didn’t answer. He wondered if she’d really heard him, if she understood how much he adored her.
At long last, she laid her head against his shoulder.
“All right,” she said quietly. “I’ll meet with the surgeon.”
Travis started to speak. She put her hand over his lips.
“I’ll talk with him, but I can’t promise more than that.”
“Okay. That’s good. It’s fine. We’ll talk to him.”
“We?”
“Yes. Because we’re one unit, honey. I’m you. You’re me. Unless, of course, you don’t want me to—”
She kissed him.
“Take me to bed,” she said softly.
“Honey. You’re so pale. And I know your head hurts.”
“Take me to bed,” she said. “Just hold me.” Her voice trembled. “I need to feel your body warm and hard against mine.”
He took her to bed. And held her.
And when she turned toward him, kissed him, stroked him to life, he made tender love to her.
She fell asleep.
Then he rose, dressed, went quietly into the sitting room where his brothers were waiting.
“Make the appointment,” he said. “To meet with the doctor.”
Jake smiled. “Already done. Tomorrow morning at
8:00 a.m.” He went to Travis and held out his hand. “She’s one hell of a woman,” he said, and Travis, not trusting himself to speak, nodded as he shook Jake’s hand, then Caleb’s.
They were right.
His Jennie was one hell of a woman.
* * *
And if he needed proof, which he surely didn’t, he got it the next morning when he and Jennie met with the surgeon.
She answered dozens of questions clearly and calmly.
Underwent endless tests, some of which looked like they’d been dreamed up by aliens.
At noon, the surgeon met with them again.
“Okay,” he said briskly, “as far as we’re concerned, it’s a go.”
Travis squeezed Jennie’s hand.
“The odds on my making it through the operation?” she said.
“Fifty-fifty.”
Travis winced but Jennie nodded.
“Thank you for being honest.”
“No sense in anything else, Ms. Cooper. It’s important you know as much of the truth as I know.”
“And what about coming through but—but being a vegetable? What are the odds on that?”
“Honey,” Travis said.
Jennie shushed him.
“I need to know,” she said, “because I think I’m e
ven more afraid of that than I am of dying. Doctor? What odds will you give me?”
“Better ones. Better, in your favor.” The doctor smiled; then his smile faded. “But it’s always a possibility.”
Silence.
Jennie’s face revealed nothing.
Travis, who had pushed her to get this far, hated himself for it. A fifty-fifty chance she would die. A slightly lower chance she’d survive with severe brain damage.
“No,” he heard himself say. “No, honey, you can’t—”
Jennie reached for his hand.
“When’s the soonest we can do this?” she said. “Because now that I’ve decided to do it, I really don’t want to sit around and wait.”
“Actually,” the doctor said gently, “we can’t afford to wait. How does tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m. sound, Jennie?”
Travis felt like a man standing at the edge of an abyss.
“Wait. We need to—to talk. Do some research—”
Jennie looked at him. “I want to do this,” she said calmly. “And I need you to be strong for me.”
She was right. They both had to be strong. And, suddenly, he knew exactly how they would get that strength.
“Marry me,” he said.
Jennie’s smile trembled. “If I can, when this is over—”
“Not then. Marry me now. Tonight.”
“No. No! What if—”
“I love you,” Travis said. “I’ll always love you.” He took her in his arms. “When you go into that operating room tomorrow, you’re going in there as my wife.”
Jennie cried. She laughed. She kissed the man she loved.
“Do I get a say in this, Mr. Wilde?”
“No. You don’t.” His eyes took on a suspicious glitter. “Get on the roller coaster, honey,” he whispered. “Take this ride with me.”
She kissed him.
And she said, “Yes.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
AT FIVE MINUTES of eight that evening, the Wilde brothers gathered in the hospital’s Serenity chapel.
It was a glass-walled room with a small fountain as its focal point. Water from the fountain ran over shiny black and gray stones, creating a peaceful sound. Slender ornamental trees provided a soothing touch of green.
Caleb and Jacob had been busy.