by Casey, L. A.
OTHER TITLES BY L.A. CASEY
Slater Brothers Series
Dominic
Bronagh
Alec
Keela
Kane
Aideen
Ryder
Branna
Damien
Alannah
Brothers
The Man Bible: A Survival Guide
Collins Brothers Series
Dateless
Maji Series:
Out of the Ashes
Ripples in Time
Standalone Novels
Frozen
Until Harry
Her Lifeline
My Little Secret
Forgetting You
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2021 by L.A. Casey
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542023320
ISBN-10: 1542023327
Cover design by Plum5 Limited
For my mother.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE FRANKIE
CHAPTER ONE FRANKIE
CHAPTER TWO RISK
CHAPTER THREE RISK
CHAPTER FOUR RISK
CHAPTER FIVE FRANKIE
CHAPTER SIX RISK
CHAPTER SEVEN FRANKIE
CHAPTER EIGHT RISK
CHAPTER NINE FRANKIE
CHAPTER TEN FRANKIE
CHAPTER ELEVEN RISK
CHAPTER TWELVE FRANKIE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN FRANKIE
CHAPTER FOURTEEN RISK
CHAPTER FIFTEEN FRANKIE
CHAPTER SIXTEEN FRANKIE
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN FRANKIE
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN RISK
CHAPTER NINETEEN FRANKIE
CHAPTER TWENTY FRANKIE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE FRANKIE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO RISK
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE FRANKIE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR FRANKIE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE FRANKIE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX RISK
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN FRANKIE
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT FRANKIE
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE RISK
CHAPTER THIRTY RISK
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE FRANKIE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO FRANKIE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Did you enjoy . . .
PROLOGUE
FRANKIE
Nine years ago . . .
I awoke to the heart-stopping sound of thunderous banging.
I shot upright and stared around my darkened bedroom. I reached over to my left, expecting to find the warm body of my boyfriend, but his side of the bed was empty and cold. I didn’t have a spare moment to think of where he was because the banging quickly resumed. I kicked my duvet off my body and hopped down from my bed. The harshness of the hallway light almost blinded me the second I opened the door. I rubbed my eyes with my fingers as I scurried down the narrow passageway and came to a stop at my front door.
“W-Who is it?”
“It’s Michael, Frankie. Open up.”
I felt relieved when I recognised the voice. I undid the lock, pulled the door open and stared up at the tall, stocky, brown-haired man who I was not expecting to be banging down my door in the middle of the night.
“Dr O’Rourke?” I blinked tiredly. “What’s wrong?”
“Frankie.” His hands were on his hips, his bushy eyebrows drawn in tight. “I’ve been callin’ ye for the last hour.”
Dr Michael O’Rourke was a Dubliner, from Ireland, but had lived in Southwold for a long time. He was my GP and had been for as long as I could remember. A mentionable fact was that he was also my mother’s boyfriend. My mum having a boyfriend wasn’t a problem for me, it was actually welcomed. I had just turned eighteen and she was a forty-six-year-old widower who deserved to find a good man who loved her. It was just a little bizarre that that man was my GP. They had been dating for a little over three months and I still didn’t know how to act around Dr O’Rourke so I always remained polite, but a little standoffish.
“It’s on silent.” I shivered as the crippling cold of the winter’s night slithered around me. “I was out until late with Risk.”
Upon saying my boyfriend’s name, I remembered where he was. He was a musician who lived and breathed music. When he and his band, Blood Oath, weren’t travelling around the UK playing as many gigs as they could get, anywhere they could get them, they were in a tiny studio writing and recording. Risk Keller spent as much time in that studio as he did with me; if he wasn’t by my side, he was there.
Dr O’Rourke coughed into his elbow. “Can I come inside?”
“Of course.”
I backed into my home as Dr O’Rourke stepped inside and closed the door behind him. For a few moments, neither of us spoke and all that could be heard was the low whistle of the wind outside. It was awkward.
“Uh, would you like a cuppa tea?”
“Please.”
On autopilot, I turned and entered my small kitchen, flipping on the light as I went. I grabbed my kettle, filled it up with water, set it on its stand, plugged it in and switched it on. I grabbed two cups, popped a tea-bag into each one then turned and leaned my lower back against the counter-top. Dr O’Rourke was seated at my two-person table. His eyes were on his hands, which were resting on the table’s surface. They were clasped tightly together.
“Dr O’Rourke—”
“Michael.” He looked up with a tired smile that didn’t reach his brown, hooded eyes. “I’ve been datin’ your ma for a few months now, Frankie. I think ye can call me by me name. Don’t you?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, flushing. “It’s a force of habit, I’ve only ever called you Dr O’Rourke.”
He nodded and we fell back into an awkward silence.
I looked from him to the clock on the wall and stared at the two hands. Twenty-five past five in the morning. Dr O’Rourke was in my home at twenty-five past five in the morning. He had never been inside my cottage before, let alone this early and unannounced. I felt my body began to shake as an overwhelming sensation of dread filled the pit of my stomach. It was an odd experience, to feel my body fall into a hole of panic so rapidly. I could already hear the familiar tell-tale musical sound from my lungs that told me an asthma attack was fast approaching.
“Something’s happened to my mum,” I rasped. “Hasn’t it?”
When Dr O’Rourke looked my way, his clouded eyes were filled with untamed despair and I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe. My chest tightened and drawing in air became increasingly difficult, like someone had poured concrete down my throat. I felt the blood rush inside of my head. My feet tingled, my hands shook and my vision distorted, like I was looking through a shattered piece of glass.
I was on my knees without realising I had fallen to them.
I felt calloused hands on either side of my face and a voice that sounded like it was a long distance away. I couldn’t understand what was being said, but when I felt an object being pushed inside of my mouth, my instant reaction was to inhale. The instant I breathed in, a familiar puff of air that tasted like chemicals assaulted my taste-bu
ds on its way down to my lungs. Robotically, I held onto the puff of air for a few seconds before I exhaled it. This process was repeated a few more times and just as quickly as the pain began, it faded.
I opened my eyes, not realising they had closed, and stared into Dr O’Rourke’s worried ones.
“You’re okay,” he said, his hands on my shoulders. “Don’t talk, just breathe in and out.”
I followed his instructions and remained on the cold, tiled floor of my kitchen until the threat of my attack passed. When I felt better, I made a move to get back to my feet and Dr O’Rourke helped me. I was a tiny bit unsteady, but my senses had returned to normal. Dr O’Rourke didn’t take any chances as he aided me in walking over to my table. I eased down onto the chair, leaned my elbows on hard wood, turned my head and watched in silence as Dr O’Rourke re-boiled the kettle and after a couple of minutes, brought over two steaming cups of tea and placed one on a coaster in front of me and the other in front of him. He got milk from the fridge as well as the sugar-pot and two spoons and placed them on the table too.
I said nothing, I only watched him.
“Much milk?”
I bobbed my head to his question. He poured milk into my cup and followed it up with two spoonfuls of sugar. He mimicked his actions with his own cup of tea then sat across from me. We both stared at one another until I broke the contact and picked up my cup. I blew across the top of the steaming hot liquid for a dozen or so seconds, then took a sip, then another. I felt my body loosen as the sweet, familiar taste slid down my throat and did its job of calming me.
“A cuppa Rosie Lee always hits the spot.”
I couldn’t smile, laugh or do anything other than look up and stare at this man who had come to tell me something had happened to my mother. I knew he had and I knew that he knew that.
“Is she . . . is she d-dead?”
My voice broke with the last word as flashbacks of my mother sitting me down when I was thirteen and telling me that my father had gone to heaven and wouldn’t be coming home to us, entered my mind. I could remember screaming as overwhelming pain filled my body. I still carried that pain around to this day.
“No, no, no,” Dr O’Rourke shook his head. “She’s alive, she’s just not well.”
The relief I felt was almost enough to make me sick.
“What’s wrong,” I said, gripping my cup. “Just tell me.”
“She drove to the twenty-four-hour garage a couple of hours ago for some cigarettes and was hit by a drunk driver but she’s doin’ okay,” Dr O’Rourke said in a rushed breath. “Her leg is fractured quite badly, but that is the only physical injury she has sustained apart from a dustin’ of minor cuts. The driver of the other vehicle wasn’t so lucky: he was pronounced dead at the scene. He wasn’t wearin’ a seatbelt.”
I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. I was looking right at Dr O’Rourke when he spoke, I could hear each word he said clearly, but none of it felt like it was really happening. I don’t know how to explain it other than that I was imposing on an important moment in someone else’s life.
“I . . . I can’t believe this.”
“It’s hard to believe, I know, but your ma wanted me to come and tell you instead of the police showin’ up to inform ye since they took a statement from her about what happened. Luckily, she has her dash cam that you gifted her at Christmas last month as evidence since it was recordin’ at the time of the accident.”
I felt my head bob up and down.
“I can’t process this,” I said, lifting a hand to my temple and rubbing. “This feels like it’s not happenin’.”
“That sounds a lot like shock to me,” Dr O’Rourke said. “Drink some more of your tea.”
I did as suggested and drank some more, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something I was missing. Dr O’Rourke was speaking and acting normally, but his eyes . . . I could see a haunting wave of turmoil within them. I knew there was something that he wasn’t telling me.
“There’s more,” I said, setting my cup down. “Somethin’ else is wrong.”
Dr O’Rourke lifted his hands to his face and scrubbed up and down until his skin was flushed. When he lowered his arms, he took in a deep breath and exhaled it before he glanced around, looking for something.
“Where did I put your inhaler?”
Automatically, I looked to the white plastic box on the wall of my kitchen that Risk had drilled into place. We had one in each room of our cottage; we jokingly called them my air boxes because inside of each container was an inhaler. I had severe asthma and was also prone to panic attacks. I always carried my two inhalers, a blue emergency inhaler for when I had attacks and a brown inhaler to combat symptoms throughout my day-to-day life. I always had a blue reliever inhaler in each air box inside my home just in case.
The air box I was staring at was open and empty.
“There it is.”
Dr O’Rourke got up, moved across the small room, and picked my inhaler and its cap up from the floor. He shook the inhaler, then pressed on it and sent a puff of life-saving medicine into the air.
“Still works,” he relaxed. “I was worried I’d broken it.”
He capped my inhaler then placed it in front of me. I looked from it to him and blinked. “D’you think whatever you’re goin’ to tell me will trigger another attack?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I dunno, maybe.”
My gut clenched. “Just tell me, sir. Please.”
He exhaled another big breath and for a few seconds he said nothing. It frustrated me; I wanted to reach over and shake him until he said whatever it was that needed to be said. The suspense was killing me.
“A couple of months ago,” he began. “I noticed a pattern with your mother.”
“Okay.”
“Nothin’ major, just little things. Forgetful moments.”
I raised a brow. “You noticed she’s been forgetful? She had a stroke three years ago, of course she’s goin’ to be a little forgetful now and then.”
Since her unexpected stroke, she had some problems with her memory as well as having a little difficulty swallowing, but other than that, she had recovered.
“Now and then isn’t a pattern, Frankie. She is forgetful frequently; forgettin’ newly learned information is worryin’.”
I shifted. “How worrying?”
“Worryin’ enough for me to be concerned. A few weeks ago, I made some at-home tests for her, simple memory tests that a child could complete. She got four out of ten questions correct. She couldn’t remember the things I’d asked her to remember over the period of a week and it was a red flag for me. I talked her into havin’ some scans done a week ago.”
“Scans?” I repeated. “What d’you mean?”
“CT, MRI.”
“Right,” I leaned back in my chair. “Brain scans.”
“Yes,” he shifted. “Last week, we got the results.”
“And?”
“And,” he looked down to his hands. “Accordin’ to the scans that were taken, she has a build-up of beta-amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in her brain.”
I scowled. “I don’t know what any of that means, Dr O’Rourke.”
“It’s a diagnosis.”
“A diagnosis of what?”
“Early-onset Alzheimer’s.”
I didn’t know what I was expecting the man to say, but those words were absolutely not it. For a moment, I said nothing and didn’t move, then I huffed a puff of air through my nose as I silently chuckled at the ridiculousness of what I was hearing. It was entirely too insane to even comprehend.
“She’s forty-six.” I shook my head. “She doesn’t have Alzheimer’s. You’re crazy.”
Dr O’Rourke closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his stubbled face. When he lifted his eyelids and looked back at me, I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. The man’s eyes were a bottomless pool of misery. He was hurting.
“No,” I practically sn
apped, all traces of humour vanishing. “D’you hear yourself? Alzheimer’s? That is an elderly disease. She doesn’t have that.”
“It’s more common in people older than sixty-five, but a lot people below that age have the disease too. It’s just not as prevalent so ye rarely hear of it, especially in a town as small as ours. People who have suffered from a stroke are at risk of developin’ it.”
I lifted my trembling hands to my face and tried to think. Processing the doctor’s words was like swallowing ground chalk, I couldn’t do it. Risk popped into my head. I needed him. I needed him next to me so I could try and make sense of what Dr O’Rourke was telling me.
“I can’t believe this.” I dropped my hands, not being able to accept what I was hearing as the truth. “There has to be some sort of mistake. A misdiagnosis. That’s what this is. The doctor was wrong.”
“Your ma’s scans have been reviewed by a team of doctors at the hospital, Frankie, as well as specialists in London. They all came to the same conclusion with their diagnosis. It’s Alzheimer’s.”
My body began to shake uncontrollably.
“She’ll have treatment,” I sputtered. “We’ll find the best doctor who specialises in Alzheimer’s and we’ll go from there. She’s young, she’s mostly healthy if you don’t count what happened when she had her stroke. She’ll be fine, she’ll beat this easily.”
“Honey,” Dr O’Rourke frowned deeply. “There is no cure for Alzheimer’s. It is a progressive disease.”
“Shut up!” I jumped to my feet. “Shut the fuck up! You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about! She’ll be fine. D’you hear me? Fine!”
I heard the familiar wheeze as I breathed and felt tightness across my chest, so I grabbed my inhaler and took a puff before breathing became too hard and another attack had me in its clutches. I repeated the step with my inhaler two more times until I had somewhat of a handle on my situation and could breathe easily. I felt sick to my stomach. It’d been a couple of weeks since I’d had such a bad attack, with another looming not long after the first one had ended.
“Honey,” Dr O’Rourke said gently. “I know tellin’ ye to relax is stupid, but what ye need to do is calm yourself all the way down.”
I found myself nodding as I focused on my breathing. I went to my quiet place where I blocked everyone and everything out, and focused on nothing other than breathing in and out. It had taken years of practice to be able to acquire this focus but it helped me massively and had done since I was a young child.