His father snorted at that and offered her a shot of ouzo to calm her nerves instead.
“She’ll throw up, Dad,” PJ said firmly.
It was probably the truth.
Ally tried to be polite, to thank them for their concern at the same time she tried to keep a stiff upper lip and maintain some slight version of her father’s vaunted Maruyama control.
But, as she feared, she wasn’t a very good Maruyama. Her lips quivered when she said, no, thank you, and tears welled when she shook her head. She might have made it with her dignity intact if, just as she was going to get into the car, PJ’s grandmother hadn’t said, “Wait!” and trundled down the steps to wrap her in her arms and hug her tightly.
And Ally couldn’t help but hug her back. It was like hugging her own grandmother, the same small bones, the same tender look, the same fierce love. It undid her completely, and then she couldn’t stop the tears that streamed down her face.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to.”
“Ne, ne. It is good that you cry,” Yiayia said, patting her back, touching her cheek. “You love him.”
“I do, yes. But—” But that was only part of why she was crying. There was no way she could explain the guilt she felt. She shook her head and wiped her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For everything.”
Yiayia nodded, smiling gently as she touched a finger to Ally’s chin. “It will be all right, you see. And when you come back, you bring your papa, ne?”
The idea was as preposterous and it was tempting. Mostly it provided Ally with a glimmer of hope. She swallowed and managed a tiny tremulous smile of her own. “I hope so,” she said. “Oh, I do hope so.”
“It will be all right.” PJ tried again to get through to her, break down the wall of reserve Ally had barricaded herself behind.
She didn’t answer, just sat there in the car silent as a stone.
Every now and then he heard her gulp or sigh or sniffle. But she said barely a word.
“He might be sitting up eating dinner by the time you get there,” he persisted, patting her knee in an awkward attempt at consolation. How did you console someone who wouldn’t be consoled?
“No,” she said tonelessly.
“Ally, listen to me. You always used to tell me what a tough old buzzard he was. How can you possibly think he’s going to pop off without a fight?”
She swallowed convulsively and shook her head. “I don’t know. He’s been fighting—” Her voice broke.
“I thought he wanted to see a grandchild,” PJ said firmly. “You don’t think he’d stick around for that?”
Tears spilled down her cheeks then and she didn’t reply at all.
He knew she was crying for her father. But he suspected there was a lot more to it than that. Guilt, for one thing. A bit desperately he said, “Look, get it through your head, this is not your fault!”
But Ally didn’t reply. And if she believed him, he couldn’t have said.
All the rest of the way to the airport, she sat with her lips pressed together, staring out the window. He didn’t know what she was seeing, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t Long Island potato fields or suburban housing tracts. He wanted to reach her, to comfort her, to support her, but she’d created a wall between them and he didn’t know the way over.
She didn’t speak until they got to the airport and he turned at the long-term parking sign.
Then she roused herself to ask, “What are you doing? It’ll be so much faster if you just put me off at the terminal.”
“But I’d have to catch up,” he said, pulling into the stall and shutting off the engine. “And the plane won’t leave any sooner. Come on.” He opened the door and got out.
Ally got out, too, and stared as he opened the back and took out their suitcases. Her eyes widened as she pointed to the extra one. “What’s that?”
“Mine. I’m coming, too.”
She stared, then shook her head as if she didn’t believe it. Then shook it again more rapidly as if she did and didn’t want to. “No! You can’t. I mean, you don’t need to do that.”
“I want to do it. I’m going to do it.”
“But—it’s Hawaii! It’s hours away!”
“Eleven until we get there,” he said, picking up the cases and leading the way to where they could make a transfer. “No big deal.”
She kept pace with him, though she nearly had to run to do so. “Really, PJ, it’s not necessary!”
But he didn’t believe that. Not anymore. He wasn’t going to argue about it though. He just shrugged. “Yes it is. And I’ve got a ticket. I’m coming.”
She called the hospital before they boarded the plane. Her father was stable, the nurse said.
“As well as can be expected,” Ally reported when PJ asked. “Whatever that means,” she muttered.
“It means he’s hanging in there,” PJ said. He squeezed her icy hand.
She gripped his, too, so tightly it was almost painful. He didn’t care. If he could take her pain, he would. Anything he could do, he would.
He leaned across the armrest between them and planted a kiss on her temple. “You’ve got to hang in there, too, Ally.”
She drew a slow breath, carefully, almost warily, and nodded her head. “Yes.”
If there was an unexpected blessing to their having spent most of the past two nights sleepless, the first in misery and the last in each other’s arms, it was that eleven hours of forced inactivity meant they had a chance to sleep.
Ally did, eventually. In fits and bits, a couple of hours into the flight. PJ couldn’t close his eyes. To do so felt almost like falling asleep on duty. She was his to care for and protect. And so he tucked a blanket around her, sat next to her and kept watch.
She woke once and found him looking at her and said, “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
“Believe it.”
“You have a life.”
“I have a wife,” he countered.
As far as he was concerned, that was the bottom line.
Ally smiled faintly, almost sadly. And then she closed her eyes again and slept.
If Ally had ever needed a demonstration of the expression “He’s got your back” she had it today. PJ had been behind her or beside her—stalwart, strong and steadying—every step of the way.
He’d packed their bags, got their tickets, taken her to the airport, held her hand every inch of the way. He’d let her sleep on his shoulder and wipe her nose on his handkerchief. He’d got a rental car while she’d tried futilely to call Jon, and then he had driven her straight to the hospital. This was Honolulu. He knew his way around.
She was grateful for it. She loved him for it.
The truth was she loved him, period.
He slowed to turn into the hospital parking lot.
“No,” she said, “Just drop me at the front entrance. It will be quicker.”
He nodded. “Okay. I’ll meet you inside. Wait and—”
“No,” she said quickly, needing to get it over with. “I have to go by myself.”
“No! Last time you went by yourself.”
Last time? “You mean—”
“When we got married, you told him on your own. I’m not letting you deal with that this time.”
“I have to. You can’t come.”
He jammed on the brakes and stared at her. “Why?”
She glanced away, unable to take the hurt in his eyes.
“It’s not that I don’t want you there,” she tried to explain. “It’s just…he doesn’t know. About you, I mean. And me. He thinks Jon—He expects Jon…” She couldn’t finish. She could see she didn’t have to.
His jaw tightened. His lips pressed into a thin line. “You’re saying it will kill him.”
“I don’t…know.” Her voice wobbled. “But I can’t take the chance. I can’t tell him now. I just need a little time. He’ll come around. I know he will. He’ll want to meet you…”
&
nbsp; But they both knew it wasn’t true. The last person in the world her father would want to meet was PJ, the man he blamed for the loss of his daughter for all those years. And now PJ was the fly in the ointment again. He was the man who had given her the chance to leave once before, and now he was the one who stood between her and Jon…
“We’ll talk about it later. Promise. I won’t be long,” she said. “They never let anyone stay long. I’ll see him now, talk to Jon. Half an hour. Please?”
His fingers flexed on the steering wheel, knuckles whitening. A muscle in his jaw ticked.
She put her hand on his arm. “I don’t want him to die, PJ. I don’t want to be the reason he dies.”
His jaw tightened. “I know that.” He let out a harsh breath and stopped the car in front of the hospital entrance. “Go on then.”
Ally climbed out, then turned back. “You don’t have to stay in the car. You can wait in the lobby. Or come to the cardiac floor. There’s a waiting room there. He won’t know. All right?”
“I’ll park the car.”
She leaned across the seat and gave him a quick hard kiss. “Thank you, PJ. You’re the best.” Then she turned and hurried through the doors.
She’d said that to him on their wedding day, too.
They’d said their vows, had become man and wife and, coming out of the courthouse she taken his arm and looked up into his eyes, a smile bright on her face and she’d said, “Thank you, PJ. You’re the best.”
He wondered if she even remembered that now.
Certainly she didn’t at the moment. At the moment, understandably, she was only thinking about her dad.
He couldn’t blame her. If his own dad were in intensive care, he’d be doing whatever needed to be done to make sure the old windbag stayed alive. He loved his unpredictable flamboyant father even when the old man complicated his life. And he didn’t doubt that however difficult Ally’s father had made her life over the years, she loved him, too.
He could even understand why she didn’t want him to come in and meet her father now, though it rankled. No, more than rankled, it hurt.
He’d never even met the man. His father-in-law!
PJ parked the car and pocketed the keys, jingling them in his fingers, weighing his options. But he didn’t weigh them for long. He hadn’t come all this distance to be turned away at the door.
Ally was his wife, damn it, and he loved her. He wasn’t going to interfere, wasn’t going to cause problems or upset her or her father. But if Ally needed him, he was going to be there, a heartbeat away.
He turned and headed for the hospital doors.
He’d been in a couple of emergency rooms during his time here before. He’d split his head on a rock one summer, had run a drill bit through his thumb one fall. He’d never had a heart attack, though, so this part was all new to him.
It was less nitty-gritty than the emergency rooms and far more high-tech. Nurses moved with quick efficiency, barely sparing him a glance. He asked for Mr. Maruyama’s room.
“Number four,” a nurse said, barely glancing up from her charting. “But you can’t go in. Only family allowed.”
He could have argued. He was family. But that would only make things worse.
Besides, he could see the family—Ally—from here.
It wasn’t far down the hall and the wall of the room was half glass. The privacy curtains were open.
Ally was standing next to the bed, one of her hands clasped in her father’s, the other gently stroking his thinning gray hair. The pinched worried look he’d seen on her face ever since he’d awakened to Elias’s news this morning had softened.
But she’d got here in time. And now as she smiled at something her father murmured, a gentle joy seemed to light her face.
A man in a white coat brushed past him, bumping his elbow. “Sorry.” But he didn’t even glance around, just headed straight toward Ally’s father’s room.
And as PJ watched, the man swept into the room and wrapped Ally in a hard fierce hug. Her father’s gray face seemed almost to light up at the sight of him.
Jon.
PJ didn’t move. Just stared.
He could hear nothing they said. He didn’t need to. He saw Jon take charge, his manner easy and efficient, his expression concerned as he talked to Mr. Maruyama, but softening with a smile whenever he looked at Ally. PJ’s guts twisted.
He saw the old man beam as he looked at the two of them. He reached out a hand and took one of Ally’s, then extended it feebly in Jon’s direction.
Ally hesitated only for a moment, then, as Jon’s hand came out to meet it, let his fingers curl around hers.
“How’s that for a happy ending?” The charting nurse smiled up at PJ and put her pen away.
PJ had no words.
He wanted to stalk into the room and rip their hands apart. He wanted to wipe the smile off Jon’s cheerful face and the satisfaction off Ally’s father’s. He wanted to say, “She’s mine, damn it! She’s my wife. She belongs to me. I love her!”
But it was love, God help him, that stopped him.
Love—not the physical bit, not the touches and caresses and ecstasies they’d shared last night—but the deeper stuff, the harder stuff, the selfless stuff held him right where he was, on the outside, looking in.
Love, real love—“grown-up love” as his sister Cristina had called it just the other day—wasn’t about what you wanted. It wasn’t about that at all.
And loving Ally wasn’t about possessing her, or even about protecting her or giving her such a good time in bed that she couldn’t say no to him.
It was wanting what was best for her. Deep down. Gut level. Heart-and-soul level.
It wasn’t killing her father’s hopes and dreams to make his own come true. PJ knew Ally well enough to know the guilt would destroy her. It would also destroy the very love they shared.
His throat was tight. It hurt to swallow. His jaw was clamped so tight his teeth hurt.
The nurse laid a hand on his arm. “Are you all right? Do you want to go sit down? I’m sure Dr. Tanaka or Mr. Maruyama’s daughter will come out and talk to you soon. I can tell them you’re here.”
Numbly PJ shook his head. “No,” he said, his voice rusty with pain. “I have to go.”
But still he didn’t move, just had to look, to memorize, to hold forever in his heart.
And then Ally looked up and saw him. Her eyes widened. Her whole body tensed.
Of course it did. Because if he walked in there, he would destroy everything she loved.
He drank her in—her soft mouth, her flawless skin, her midnight hair and her wondrous eyes. He closed his own for just a moment, held the vision tight, as if imprinting it on his soul. And then he opened them and gave her back the sad smile she’d given him on the airplane.
He understood it now—felt it all the way to the bottom of his heart, to the depths of his soul.
Then he turned and walked away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OF COURSE it had been longer than half an hour.
Ally knew that. And she knew from the grave look on PJ’s face when she’d spotted him in the corridor that he wasn’t happy.
But surely he understood she couldn’t just leave that very second.
Of course he did, she thought as she hurried outside to find him. And he’d followed her wishes and hadn’t come in.
But when she’d come out forty minutes later, he wasn’t there.
He hadn’t been in the heart center waiting room, and he wasn’t in the lobby downstairs. The gift shop—he might have gone to buy a magazine, she thought—was closed. And the cafeteria was empty except for the man mopping the floor.
He’d probably just got tired of waiting and gone out for a walk.
She didn’t blame him. She wished she could have brought him in.
But of course it was impossible. Her father was too ill. The slightest upset could cause his condition to deteriorate further. She hadn’t needed the nurse t
o tell her he was fragile.
Nor had she needed the benefit of Jon’s medical opinion in the corridor for ten minutes after her dad had fallen asleep again. She knew he was trying to be helpful, to include her. But he was only making her feel guiltier.
She knew she needed to talk to him, to tell him what had happened. But now was not the time. And she didn’t want to hurt Jon, either.
Still, all the time he’d talked, she worried about how to do it, and how to tell her father, and wondered where PJ had got to.
And now that she was outside, she realized that she didn’t have a clue where he’d parked the car or even what kind it was. Some late-model metallic silver four door—like hundreds of others—but the model was a mystery.
She looked around, feeling desperate.
“Calm down,” she told herself. He’d probably just got tired of waiting and had gone to get something to eat. It had been hours since either of them had eaten. And since the cafeteria wasn’t still serving, he’d probably gone to pick them up some sandwiches.
Maybe he’d even gone to Benny’s, she thought with a tired smile, then turned and trudged into the hospital again. She’d just go back and sit with her father a while longer. PJ knew where she was, after all.
She wasn’t exactly sure how long she sat there before she noticed the suitcase in the corner of her father’s room behind the door. It caught her eye because it was tweed and battered and looked exactly like hers.
She eased her hand out of her father’s frail grip and went to examine it. Her heart was doing skip-steps in her chest. Her mouth was dry. It couldn’t be.
But it was. Her suitcase. Her luggage tag with her address in Honolulu.
She hurried out to the nurse’s station. “The bag in my dad’s room! Where did it come from?”
“Bag?” The nurse looked confused.
“Suitcase,” Ally corrected. “It’s mine.”
“Oh, yes. The gentleman left it,” said another nurse who appeared just then. “You were in with your father and—”
“When?”
“Oh, a couple of hours ago. He said you’d need it.”
“Where is he? Where did he go?” Her heart wasn’t skip-stepping now. It was flat-out galloping.
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