by Loree Lough
The only sound in the room was the steady tick, tick, tick of the schoolhouse clock on the wall above the sink…and the thudding of his heart echoing in his ears.
It was Patrice who spoke first. “Well?”
He grinned. “Well, what?”
No answer.
He looked up to find her sitting there, her eyes closed and her mouth puckered, awaiting his kiss.
Only too happy to oblige, pretty lady, he thought. As his lips touched hers, his mother’s words echoed in his head yet again: When things look darkest, God’s word brings me light, and I feel like I’m stepping out of the shadows.
And for the first time in his life, Wade felt the radiant glow of real, abiding love.
Chapter Twelve
After leaving Patrice’s house the night before, Wade had gone home and plugged in to the Internet. He’d searched every online site for more information about Chagas’ disease. Though a bit tired from his first all-nighter in years, he felt he’d traced Gus’s problem—and a viable solution.
Now, at last, it was time to break the news to Patrice’s father. The moment Gus wheeled into his office, Wade closed the door. He dispensed with the usual pleasantries.
“Were you ever in the military, Gus?”
“You betcha.” Chest puffed up with pride, he added, “Spent fifteen years in this man’s army.”
“I’m proud to know a man who spent that much time putting his life on the line for his country.”
“Aw, it was peacetime, mostly. I never saw any action.”
Maybe not, Wade thought, but you came home with major damage, all the same. Sitting behind his desk, he riffled through the man’s file. “Where were you stationed?”
“Oh, they moved us around a lot. Different base every few years.” Gus ticked them off, one by one, ending with Panama.
“Panama,” Wade echoed. “How long ago?”
He shrugged. “Hmm, during the seventies. Why?”
Leaning back, Wade shook his head. “The explanation for your condition is rather convoluted. See, it started out as one thing, ended up something else.”
Grinning, Gus made himself comfortable. “Figures. I never was one to do things the easy way….”
“First, let me assure you that we ran your tests four, five times, to rule out any chance of error.”
“Okay….”
“The blood work tells us you have Chagas’ disease. It’s—”
Gus groaned. “I was afraid of that.”
Wade was mildly surprised. “You’ve heard of it?”
“Wish I hadn’t.” Gus sighed. “Good ol’ American trypanosoma cruzi,” he spouted, as if to prove what he knew. “Just my luck, comin’ down with something incurable.”
Wade frowned. “I wouldn’t say it’s incurable, exactly.”
“Aw, don’t give me that. You and I both know the best I can hope for is some kind of prescription medication that’ll control whatever damage has already been done.” He looked Wade in the eye. “Am I right?”
More or less, Wade thought. But in place of a direct answer, he said, “I would’ve expected the government to educate you guys on prevention.”
“In a perfect world, that’d be true enough, but you know as well as I do, the army isn’t a perfect world. What I know about Chagas’, I learned on my own after I overheard some natives talking about creepy-crawlies that get their start in cracks and holes of substandard housing.” He hesitated. “Want me to go on?”
Gus probably knew as much as or more than Wade did about the disease. So he said, “Sure.”
“Those nasty li’l bloodsuckers pass their infection through feces deposited on a person’s skin. ’Course, animals are affected, too, but I digress.” He chuckled a bit. “Anyway, the Panamanians also call these parasites ‘kissing bugs,’ because they’ll crawl right into a person’s mouth, usually while they’re sleeping, to do their business.” He paused. “So how’m I doin’ so far?”
“Disgusting,” Wade admitted, grinning, “but right on target. I’m impressed.”
“Well, the trouble with Chagas’ is, the first symptoms aren’t severe enough to cause any real alarm. Folks usually mistake it for a routine case of the flu—fatigue, fever, chills, minor swelling at the bite site…. The real problems don’t show up for ten, twenty years or more. That’s when the ol’ Rhodnius bug takes its victims. Enlarged liver or spleen, swelling of the lymph nodes, digestive disturbances, difficulty swallowing….”
Wade took over from there. “And cardiac problems, like enlarged heart, cardiac arrest, heart failure, and in your case, bradycardia.”
“Bradycardia,” Gus repeated. “What is that?”
“Low heart rate, to put it plainly. My heart beats at a rate of between seventy and one hundred times a minute, depending on what I’m doing. And you, my friend, are lucky to register fifty beats. That’s why you’ve been feeling dizzy and sluggish lately, why your appetite has fallen off.”
“Aha. So it caused my fever, too?”
Wade nodded. “I expect so. But we won’t know for sure until we try treating it.”
Gus brightened. Seeing that look on the man’s face alone had made every sleepless minute worthwhile.
“Treating it? You mean you really can?”
“We’re gonna do our best, starting with a pacemaker and following up with medication.”
Gus shook his head. “Pacemaker, eh?”
“Don’t worry, I’ve assisted in a couple hundred of these operations. For your surgery, I’ll partner up with an electrophysiologist. Chances are, you won’t even need to spend the night in the hospital.”
“That simple, huh?”
“Well, not simple, but certainly not as difficult as I’d anticipated when I first saw your test results.”
Gus pointed at the folder on Wade’s desk. “That big fat thing mine?”
“It sure is.”
He whistled, then clucked his tongue. “You keep adding to it, you’re gonna need a chair like mine just to cart it around!”
Getting to his feet, Wade laughed. “Hopefully, we’ll only need to add a few more pages.”
“So have you told Patrice?”
“No.”
“Ah, doctor–patient confidentiality?”
“Exactly.” Then Wade said, “Do you want me to tell her?”
He thought for a moment. “Might be better, coming from you.”
“Just between you and me, if I have a daughter someday, I hope she’ll care about me even half as much as Patrice cares about you. She thinks you hung the moon, single-handedly.”
Laughing, Gus said, “Well, don’t blow my cover, Doc. It’s kinda nice havin’ her look up to me—” he slapped the armrests of his wheelchair “—especially considering I spend most of my time in this contraption.” Gus sighed. “That girl fusses over me as if I were made of spun glass.”
“She blames herself for putting you in that contraption. So it’s not at all surprising that she acts as if you’re breakable.”
“What?”
Surely Gus knew—it was written all over Patrice’s face, in her actions….
“If I’ve told that girl once, I’ve told her a thousand times. She isn’t to blame for what happened. It was an accident, plain and simple.” Gus narrowed his dark eyes. “What did she tell you, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“Something about a party on a rainy night,” he said offhandedly. “She didn’t have her license yet and you didn’t think it was safe to drive her, but she raised a ruckus and—”
“Ruckus? All she said was, ‘Dad, will you drive me?’ and I said no. She’d been through so much, losing her mother and brother…never gave me a whit of trouble…took right over running the house like a full-grown woman. And without a word of complaint, I might add.”
Gus shook his head. “I hated denying her anything, so when I saw that disappointed look on her face, I caved.” Sighing, he added, “Like I told her over and over again, it wasn’t her fault. She was th
e kid, I was the parent. If I had stuck to my guns, the accident never would have happened. I wouldn’t be in this chair, and she wouldn’t have that miserable reminder of it on her beautiful face.”
“Has she considered plastic surgery?”
“I brought it up once or twice, but the suggestion gave her some crazy idea that I thought she was ugly, so I quit talking about it. She’s the prettiest thing on feet, if you ask me, scar and all.”
“And I agree.”
Gus nodded sagely. “I kinda figured you’d say that.” Chuckling, he tacked on, “Would you think I’m an old-fashioned fool if I asked again what your intentions are toward my daughter?”
“Not at all.” Perching on the corner of his desk, he looked Gus straight in the eye. “She doesn’t know it yet—at least, I haven’t told her so—but I love her more than life itself. And if she’ll have me, I want her to be my wife. Someday. If I ever get around to telling her how I feel.”
“Well, then, when the time comes, you’ll have my blessing.” Gus wiggled his eyebrows. “Provided the operation is a success, that is. You botch the job, and I’ll retract that blessing so fast it’ll make your head spin.”
“Glad to have the incentive to do a good job,” Wade said, laughing. Standing, he opened the office door. “I’ll try to get together with Patrice sometime today, bring her up to speed on your condition. You want me to call you once she’s been told?”
“Nah. I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to fill me in.” He wheeled into the hallway. “Thanks, Doc,” Gus said, extending his hand.
Wade clasped it, gave a hearty shake. “Don’t thank me just yet. We have a wedding riding on the outcome, don’t forget….”
Patrice pushed the play button on her answering machine and smiled when she recognized Wade’s voice. Wasn’t it weird, she asked herself, that the mere sound of his voice could increase her heart rate more than a half-hour aerobics workout! “Hey, kiddo,” he said, “Give me a call when you get a minute. There’s something I want to tell you about Gus’s case.”
Eleven-thirty, said the clock on the wall. Would he be in the cafeteria, having an early lunch? Grabbing the phone, Patrice decided to give it a shot. Seconds later, she was more than a little surprised when he answered the phone.
“Where’s your secretary?” she asked him.
“We have an arrangement,” he told Patrice. “She takes the early lunch shift while I cover the phones.” He paused. “Between you and me, it doesn’t ring much this time of day, which is why I chose this one. But don’t let on, because she thinks hers is the cakewalk.”
Laughing, Patrice sat at her desk, tossing loose paper clips into an open drawer. “I thought for sure I’d be leaving a message because you’d be in the cafeteria, scarfing down a burger and fries.”
“Nah. Tryin’ to lay off the greasy kid stuff for a while.” Another pause. “So, did you get my message, or are you just calling because you missed me?”
Patrice held the receiver away from her ear. Maybe she’d dialed the wrong number, because this sure wasn’t like her serious, stoic Dr. Cameron.
Her Dr. Cameron. She rather liked the sound of that….
“The results of your dad’s tests are back. You want me to come down there to talk about it, or would you rather meet me here?”
Her thoughts about Wade’s upbeat demeanor were quickly forgotten at the mention of Gus’s condition. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she said, and hung up.
He was sitting behind his desk, paging through a three-ring binder, when she bounded into his office. “Got here fast as I could,” she said, breathless from her jog.
Calmly, Wade pulled back his sleeve and looked at his watch. “I believe you just set a record.” And smiling at her, he added, “You made it in four minutes, thirty seconds.”
Patrice took a seat in one of the chairs facing his desk. “Helps to know a few shortcuts.” She couldn’t help but wonder why he was looking at her that way—as if she were the love of his life and he hadn’t seen her in years. Grinning, she shrugged.
“Maybe someday you’ll be kind enough to share a few with me?”
“Maybe.” But she couldn’t continue sitting there, giddy as a shy schoolgirl in the presence of the team’s star quarterback. There were far more important things going on in her world than her hopeless devotion to Wade. Squaring her shoulders, Patrice pointed at the thick folder on his blotter. “Is that Dad’s file?”
“Hefty, isn’t it.”
“Scary is a better word. Why is it so fat? The others aren’t half that bulky. What’s going on? He’s all right, isn’t he? What did the tests—?”
Wade chuckled. “Easy, easy,” he said, hands up in mock surrender. “Gus has a problem—pretty serious one at that—but I think we’ve found a solution for it.”
She took a deep breath. “A serious problem? Oh, I was afraid of that.”
“Sweetie, didn’t you hear a word I just said? Things could be problematic, but there’s a solution.”
Sighing in relief, she whispered, “Thank You, God.”
But wait. Had Wade just called her…sweetie?
Patrice didn’t know why it had surprised her so, considering their little tête-à-tête in her kitchen the night before.
First things first, she told herself, in order of importance. “So what’s Dad’s ‘problem’?”
She watched Wade lean forward, balance his elbows on the edge of his desk. He looked so knowledgeable, explaining Gus’s illness. But as he went into more detail about the disease, its onset, its symptoms, the bradycardia, Patrice’s fears escalated. “Sounds like the Ebola virus, and that’s deadly.”
“Actually, it’s a related malady, very similar in many ways. Except Chagas’, if caught in time, can be controlled and even cured.”
“Thank You, God,” she repeated. Then, “You don’t really mean there are bugs living inside him?”
“Parasites,” he corrected gently.
Patrice shivered. Like it made a difference to Gus’s insides! Then it dawned on her. “Good grief, you’re not joking, are you.”
He shook his head somberly. “I’m afraid not. But I believe medication will eradicate the problem in a week or so, and when we’re sure it’s taken care of, we’ll implant a dual-chamber pacemaker to take care of the bradycardia.”
“Bradycardia,” she echoed. “Sounds so serious.”
“Can be, if left unchecked.” He leaned forward a little more. “But we’ve got it checked.”
Nodding, Patrice attempted a smile. “So, surgery, huh?”
“Uh-huh.”
Tears stung behind her eyelids, and she struggled to keep them at bay. “Are you sure…sure that he’s strong enough?”
“Wouldn’t be suggesting this course of action if I wasn’t. The meds should bring him back to his old self. That’s one of the reasons we’re waiting a couple weeks to do the implant surgery.”
“One of the reasons?”
“Caution, sweetie. I always like to err on the side of caution.”
She blew a stream of air through her teeth. “So he’s really going to be all right?”
“He’s really going to be all right.” He paused. “But something else is wrong. Very wrong.”
Her heartbeat doubled, and she nearly lost her precarious hold on her emotions. “Oh, what now?”
“Well, for starters,” Wade said, pointing at her, “you’re way over there, and I’m way over here.”
Memory of their kisses last night flashed in her head—and in her heart. Smiling, Patrice said, “Which means one of us has to move?”
He grinned.
“Hmm,” she said, “how do we decide?”
“Mind if I make a suggestion?”
“You’ve been doing pretty well so far….”
“My chair is bigger than yours.”
Rolling her eyes, Patrice feigned lack of interest—not an easy task, considering the way her pulse was racing—and trudged to his side of the desk. “Th
ere,” she said, standing beside his chair, “are you happy now?”
“Well, that’s better. But not quite good enough.”
“You’re not an easy man to please, Wade Cameron.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Monkey Lady. Takes little or nothing to make me happy.” And taking her hand, he said, “Someday I’ll have to show you my so-called bachelor pad. My sister Anna calls it the Great Gobi Desert.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s barren and boring.”
Patrice laughed softly.
“And small. Very small.”
“I’ve never been in a real bachelor pad before….”
“Just one of your many attributes.”
She raised her eyebrows.
And he wiggled his. “I like my women gorgeous and guileless.”
Women. Plural. She couldn’t help but wonder, standing there beside him, how many there had been, how many he’d truly cared for, and how many had been…sport. Is that how he saw her—as the pawn in a game of some sort? Was his main interest in her as a “win”? Maybe she should be playing hard to get—harder to get, at least, so if Wade was in it for the thrill of victory, the game would at least last longer. But if she did that, what trophy would she claim?
Heartache. And she had had enough of those on her shelf to last the rest of her days. Patrice grit her teeth, determined to harden her heart, intent upon protecting herself. She hadn’t been unhappy, after all, taking care of Gus. And what with this…bradycardia thing that had cropped up, he’d need her now more than ever. Focus, she’d always told herself. With focus, anything in life is possible. She could live without a husband and children, without a home of her own, with the proper focus. And the key, experience had taught her, was to aim her focus outward, on anything but herself, her dreams and desires….
Wade pulled her onto his lap just then, drew her into a hug.
She looked into his eyes, searching for a sign—any sign—that in a week, a month, she’d be another notch on his belt. Seeing none, her heart softened. If only what she thought she read on his beautiful face could be real.
“Now that’s better.”
He’d said it with a warm, loving smile that sent shivers up her back. She loved the feel of his muscular arms around her, loved the sound of his voice so near her ear; the way she only had to lean her head slightly to rest it on his broad shoulder. A good fit, she said to herself. A real good fit.