FOURTEEN
Sheridan Road had never looked more verdant, its grand houses standing sentinel over her journey home. Or what she called home these days, like she was playing house with borrowed dolls and Monopoly money. She shouldn’t be driving, not when the tears blurred her vision like rain on the windshield. She needed wipers for her eyes.
Oh, God, this couldn’t be real. Not again.
First, you can’t believe it’s happening to you. That might sound stupid, because cancer doesn’t discriminate, but you start off in a cloud of disbelief. You have time bombs for breasts, and this body you’ve always trusted was now turning on you. Cancer instills bone-deep fear, yet the idea of parting with these weaponized masses of tissue is almost as bad as knowing how they’ll harm you if you let them stay.
When she was initially diagnosed over two years ago, her mind could barely process it. I’m too young. I shouldn’t have to go through this, not when I have so much I haven’t done yet. So much I want to see and do and feel. I don’t want to suffer. And then, vainly: I don’t want to lose my breasts, my hair, my dignity.
She’d done it, though. She’d gone through the radiation and chemo, traveled that road to hell and back. A double mastectomy was supposed to prevent recurrence. Of course, no surgery was 100 percent, but this one—this excision of what made her a woman—was supposed to be as good as. Her monthly breast self-exam wasn’t due for another week, but something had made her check. A slight ache in her shoulder, and there it was.
A pea-sized lump in her armpit.
It might be nothing, but she’d said that before and it wasn’t. It. Wasn’t.
She swiped at the tears and slammed a hand on the steering wheel. Fuck. This wasn’t fair. She’d come through and was finally getting her life back on track. Getting to know her sisters, making friends, feeling like she had a purpose—first with the team and then with Bren’s little girls.
Well, universe, looks like you’ve got me!
Make an appointment. That’s what she needed to do. Since arriving in Chicago, she’d seen a physician recommended by Harper twice for a check-in. A-okay. But not anymore.
The bastard was back.
An SUV cut her off, the driver shaking his fist like some Scooby-Doo villain because she’d veered into his lane. She really should not be driving.
Pulling over to the side of the road outside a glorious colonial in glorious Lake Forest, she stabbed at the dash for the hazards. If only there were a button that could rewind back to a time when she didn’t know about this lump. Or fast-forward to a time when it was over.
The in-between was the worst.
Were her hazards on? Her noisy thoughts allowed nothing else to penetrate, so she pressed several buttons. The radio burst into life and with it the voice of her icon.
“You touched my hand, I played it cool . . .”
“Seven Wonders”—not one of Fleetwood Mac’s most popular songs, but like all of their tunes, Violet loved this one. Composed during one of the band’s crazy interludes when they weren’t talking to each other because so-and-so was still bitter about who slept with whom, it was particularly memorable for Stevie Nicks’s crazy mullet-perm in the video.
Violet sang along, tearfully letting herself fall into the words, assigning stupidly deep meanings like people do when they need something to latch on to. What would Stevie do in this situation? Probably a line of coke and one of the guys in the band. Zing!
“If I live to see the Seven Wonders . . .”
Time dragged, sped up. She had no idea. Minutes. Hours.
The passenger door opened; the car’s weight shifted. She turned, shocked at the sight of Bren. Or shocked at how relieved she was to see him.
“Nice parking job,” he muttered, and she was so grateful that he didn’t immediately launch into what’s wrong? that all she could do was stare. His nose was a little crooked. She hadn’t noticed that before, but then she was usually trying not to get all caught up in his Celtic glimmer.
An electric moment passed—a Bren and Violet moment—as they held each other in thrall. He was waiting with the patience of a man who was used to enduring.
“I think it’s back,” she finally rasped.
“What is?”
She couldn’t say it. The C-word. “I had them removed.” She pointed at her tits—at her beautiful, perfect, reconstructed tits. “These are fake. I had them cut out and now I think it’s back.”
No shock from the unshockable Bren St. James. Instead he leaned in and cupped her face. “Tell me why you think that.”
She pulled at his free hand and pushed it under the T-shirt he’d given her to wear.
This was not how she’d imagined the first time he would properly feel her up.
“Here.” She guided him to her armpit, absorbing how his fingers brushed the side of her breast. No bra, because she’d been wearing a bikini before the shower. Smugly tempting the man who claimed he would lose his mind if he let her in.
What the hell was wrong with her?
She felt that brush of his fingers as one would feel knuckles grazing an arm. Not sexual, just an awareness of a human touch to her skin. Placing his fingertips over the armpit, she pressed them down. “Right there. A small lump. Feel it?”
He nodded gravely. Did that word come from grave, as in the hole you dug to bury someone?
“When did this happen before?”
“Two years ago. It runs in my family, and while it was only in one, there was enough about my genetics to encourage me to have the double mastectomy. It’s not supposed to come back, Bren. It’s not—”
His thumb stroked her lip, as much comfort in it as a hug. “It might not have. We’ll get you in to see a doctor tomorrow. Today. We’ll get it taken care of. You can handle this. You did before.”
With her mom and aunts around. She didn’t think she could go through this again, not with these people. Shared DNA, yet strangers to her. But she would, because the only way out was through.
He followed her home to the cottage at Chase Manor. Only when he got out of the car did she think to ask, “Who’s with the girls?”
“I took them next door to visit the neighbor kids, the Nicholses.”
“Oh, okay. Tristan and Balthazar. You should get back to them.”
“They’ll be fine for a while.” He followed her into the cottage and closed the door.
In her small kitchen, the one she had decorated with thrift store bits and bobs, he looked solid and present and surprisingly at home. “Thanks for seeing me back.”
“We should call Harper.”
“No! She’ll call a million people, drag some doc out of his golf game.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
She opened a cupboard to get a glass for water. Her mouth was dry, words hard to form. “I don’t want her or Iz to know. Not yet. There’s so much happening with the play-offs that this is just a distraction.”
“A distraction.” He leaned against the counter. “That’s what you do best, though, isn’t it, Violet? Distract?”
She stared at him, trying to reckon with his meaning.
“You’re the queen of distraction.” He raised a hand away from his body. “Telling people to look here because you’re doing something over here.” A gesture with his other hand in the opposite direction. “With Cade. With other players.”
“That’s not why I was with Cade. He needed a cover and he’s my friend.”
“Aye, but it suited you, too. Kept you safe when you knew I’d be gunning for you if I thought for a second you were free.”
How the hell did they get onto this topic? She had bigger problems than whether Bren St. James thought she was a tease.
“Like I said, you had your shot.”
“And you’ve spent the past nine months reminding me of how I fucked up that day in the bar.” He shook his head, shook off his frustration with her. “But that’s a conversation for another day. For now, we’re going to focus on the current problem, and when that’s resolved, you and I will have that reckoning.”
She was a fake-boobed, possibly cancer-riddled mess and he still wanted her. Or wanted her enough to get some sort of revenge for the torture she’d put him through these past few months. Her entire body warmed at the prospect of being . . . used.
“Why wait?”
“Why wait for what?”
“This reckoning.” She moved forward and placed both hands on his chest. His breath caught, his pecs rose beneath her fingertips. “Maybe you should just take that revenge now.”
“Revenge? That’s not it. A little punishment, perhaps.” His fingers dug into her hip, a subtle display of dominance. “But you’ll not use me to blank out your problems, Violet. I know all too well the dangers of using. Sex. The bottle. When I fuck you, there’ll be nothing clouding your judgment.”
“So sure it’s going to happen, Scot?”
“It’s inevitable, lass. We can fight it or accept it. First, we’ll take care of you, then we’ll take care of each other.”
She had started to shake, and the only way she could think to stop was to sink into him, all that strength. His arms encircled her and pulled her flush. She knew she must look a fright with her half-rinsed hair and his oversized sweats, but none of that mattered while Bren held her. Head tucked beneath his chin, she closed her eyes, inhaled his scent. Soap and a hint of coffee. She knew he wouldn’t break first. It would be a point of pride with him.
In the arms of this warm, breathing monolith of a man, she felt safer than she had in years.
“I should take another shower,” she murmured against his hard, wonderful chest. “Rinse out the shampoo.”
He drew back. “Do you have an oncologist in Chicago?”
She shook her head.
“Go take care of yourself and I’ll make a few calls.”
“Not Harper.”
“Not Harper. But this isn’t how we’re doing this going forward, Violet.”
“Doing what?”
“You need help, you ask for it.”
“I don’t—” He stopped her midsentence with that famous St. James scowl. “I got through this before.”
“On your own?”
“No, my mom. My aunts.” Her mom was back in San Juan and no way was Violet calling her or Tía Cecy—next in line to the mom throne—with news of a possible recurrence. This is how she’d handled it back then. Didn’t spill until absolutely necessary. It was weird sharing this with Bren, and while it should have felt like a relief, it didn’t. It felt like another weight in their already taut relationship.
She was too tired to argue. “I’m going to take that shower now.”
She walked back into the kitchen to find Bren still there. This shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. Reflexively, she tightened the knot on her towel.
He looked up, and she assessed his gaze for changes. Would he view her differently now that he knew she wasn’t the same person as he’d suspected? Would he think she was a fraud because she had provoked and teased, sold him a fake bill of goods?
She felt different because of what she’d found under her arm and the knowledge he now had about her. This last part should have made no odds, but it did.
“I thought you would have left.”
“What gave you that idea?” He gave her an up-down look filled with what could only be called carnal interest. Maybe he did it to make her feel better. It’s okay, Vi. I’m no longer attracted to you, but I’ll play along to make you feel better.
“The girls need you,” she said.
“They do,” he said simply, and there it was again. That unshakeable feeling that every time he mentioned his girls, she was included.
“I made a few calls,” he went on, “to get the names of the best oncologists in the city. Everyone I talked to said you’ll need to see your regular GP first. You have one? Nearby?”
That’s what she’d figured. “Yes, she’s at the Riverbrook Medical Building. I’ll call her on Monday morning.” Today was Saturday, so she’d have to wait.
He nodded. “And you’ll take one of your sisters with you. Or Cade.”
Probably not. “Of course.”
He nodded, so assured that what he said would be taken as the law of the land. “You’d best get dressed and dry your hair. You’re coming back to our place for lunch.”
She swallowed. “No. I mean, thanks, but I’m not good company.”
“I’m not letting you stay here to brood. One of us with that attitude is bad enough.”
Said as if they were a couple who needed to balance each other out. Shut up, Vi, that’s your underarm lump talking.
“I’d really prefer to be alone.” It was a lie, and he knew it. She always did better around people. She could go stretches without them, but she needed the energy of others to refuel her. She looked around at her kitchen, this place she felt ownership over. This place she was prepared to leave in a heartbeat as soon as the dumb hockey season was over and she had that big, fat check in her hand.
He waited. As before, when he held her in his solid embrace, she got the impression he could wait her out forever.
She didn’t want to be alone here. She wanted to be surrounded by love, even if it wasn’t for her. “I’m going to get dressed.”
Not a word from the Scot, but then he’d known she just needed time to get used to the idea.
“You’ll be here when I come out?” She tossed off the question as if his stubborn streak was annoyingly inconvenient, but her breath held in anticipation all the same.
“Aye, lass. I’ll be here.”