Milly might have said she’d let Iain accompany her to her appointment, but it didn’t really feel like she had a choice. They sat together in the waiting room of the Edinburgh Cancer Care Centre, her hand folded into his, both hands resting together on his denim-clad thigh.

The waiting room was tiny. She hadn’t noticed that before. But that’s how it felt now, especially here with Iain. His size and larger than life vitality seemed to fill up the small space to capacity.

The thigh their hands weren’t resting on jiggled impatiently. But she didn’t bother to remind him he didn’t have to wait with her. She’d already done so—several times—and had only gotten scowls in return as if she’d somehow insulted him.

But despite his apparent impatience with all the waiting, he’d only released her hand once since they walked through the main entrance doors: when one of the nurses came to take her back for a blood draw and urine sample. And when she returned to the small row of seats in the waiting room, he’d snatched her hand back in his as soon as she sat down beside him.

“I’m sorry it’s taking so long,” she said, eyeing the front office staff who’d whisked her away for more tests only to leave the two of them waiting in the uncomfortable chairs for over an hour.

“It’s fine. They want to compare these latest results to those of your previous tests,” he answered, voice tight. “They need to be sure before they have you meet with the doctor.”

She peeked sideways at him. “It sounds like you have a pretty good idea what’s going on here.”

He shifted in his seat, his grip on her hand becoming a little tighter. “I have some inkling.”

A couple entered the room through the Cancer Centre’s patient treatment exit door then. The man with red hair and a somber expression on his face, and the woman wearing a knit cap and bald spaces where her hair and eyebrows should have been.

She looked to be one or two decades older than Milly, but cancer had a way of aging a person until it was hard to know how old he or she really was. However, she carried a portable oxygen tank in a backpack, with a long clear tube running from it to a nasal cannula fitted to her nostrils with an elastic head band.

She watched the woman carefully shuffle out on her husband’s arm. And as she passed by, Milly could swear she could smell the disease eating away at her like rot, along with the medicinal scent of the chemo she’d just been injected with to fight it. Smell it, but not mind it.

Another item on the list of things to ask Dr. Keller about. Not only had her sense of smell become significantly more heightened since her diagnosis, but she’d also undergone some weird psychological changes.

For example, she used to hate the smell of Marmite—a gross food paste that was a snack food favorite among many Scots, including Iain. But when they grabbed a quick breakfast in the clinic’s cafeteria, and Iain spread the dark goop on his toast, she’d been surprised to find she didn’t care one way or the other about its dank and yeasty smell.

It was as if she could smell everything now, but intense smells that used to make her gag no longer struck her as unpleasant. They just were. And then there was her 20/20 vision. And the intense sex craze that had fallen over her for four days straight only to disappear just as suddenly and mysteriously as it had started. Milly’s cheeks heated, wondering how she planned to bring that one up…

Iain looked over at her. “Milly, you know you don’t have to—” he began but was cut off when the waiting room door opened.

“Millicent Odoom?” a voice called.

Milly gently removed her hand from Iain’s and made her way towards the nurse. “That’s me,” she said, her voice sounding as nervous to her ears as she felt.

“Hello, luv. Right this way,” the nurse said, beckoning her forward with a manila file folder. “Dr. Keller can see you now.”

Iain had followed her across the small room and stood resolutely by her side as if he meant to accompany her to her appointment with Dr. Keller.

“No, Iain,” she said, reaching out to pat his hand.

“Millicent, I’m coming with you,” he stated in a tone that brooked no argument. He clasped her hand in his as if to further emphasize his point.

But she didn’t back down. “No…this is something I need to do on my own. But I really appreciate you offering. I promise I’ll be back soon.”

He blinked hard, nose flaring. But finally, he released her hand and said, “I’ll be waiting here when you get out, chri—Millicent.”

She turned to follow the nurse only to stop again when Iain caught her arm and pulled her back towards him. He gently cupped her neck, thumb stroking hard as he kissed the hell out of her. He didn’t seem to give a damn about the staff watching him from the check-in window, or the nurse who waited patiently next to the treatment area double doors. “You can do this alone if you want to, chridhe, but from this point forward you will always have a choice. I’m here now.”

His endearment and his sweet words brought tears to Milly’s eyes. Especially coming from someone she’d been certain gave less than two craps about her only a few days ago.

“I always cared about you, Milly,” he said. “And that was the problem. Humans are so fragile. It makes it difficult to form connections. But I am sorry for how I handled your announcement when you came into my office. I was just… caught off guard and didn’t know how else to keep you here where you’d have my support to get through this.”

Milly gazed up at him, feeling so unbelievably touched. Their history rewriting itself, forcing her to reevaluate everything she’d thought she knew about him. It seemed more and more evident that she’d been reading him wrong this entire time.

“I love you.” The words slipped out before she could stop them.

Because it was true. Because it felt stupid to hide her feelings from a man she’d spent all weekend with naked. Because she didn’t have much time left. What did she have to lose when her life was already on the line? There was no point guarding her heart like a wounded animal.

So she said it again. “I love you, Iain. And this weekend was the best weekend of my life. I never get to be the healthy girl. But you changed that. I felt whole, sexy, and strong—like I could do anything. No matter what Dr. Keller tells me in there, I’ll always have these last four days when I got to experience what it was like to be normal, to be someone who isn’t walking around under a Leukemia cloud. So…thank you. I’m so damn grateful for this time I had with you.”

“Millicent, moi chridhe…” he said, voice rough with emotion as he pulled her in close again.

But then the nurse waiting at the door gently cleared her throat, “Millicent, Dr. Keller is waiting.” Her expression was sympathetic, however her kind but firm tone made it clear that Milly needed to get a move on.

Milly broke away from Iain, honestly afraid she wouldn’t be able to return to Dr. Keller’s office if she didn’t do it immediately. But leaving Iain’s arms felt like it should be accompanied by a ripping sound.

It hurt, almost on a physical level. And even though she still had every intention of getting the updated diagnosis on her own, she threw a few looks over her shoulder as she left. Her heart panged at the sight of Iain, standing in the waiting room, arms folded over his chest as if it was taking everything he had to stay behind.

Which was why Milly wasn’t all that surprised to find Iain standing in the exact same place she’d left him when she returned to the lobby a mere twenty minutes later. His position hadn’t changed. Nor had the expression on his face. Not one iota. He was the same Iain she’d left behind.

But this was more than she could say for herself.

Milly opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She was obviously in a state of shock.

Iain scanned her closely and then seemed to make up his mind about something. “Right then. Saw a pub on the way here. We’ll go there for this conversation.” He curved an arm around her shoulders and gently guided her out the main exit towards the car park. “Think I’ll be needing a drink as well.”