by Bella Andre
“You won’t be.”
She’d seen the way he’d reacted when she said, You’ve lost enough already. He’d been unable to hold back his grief at losing his mother, the lingering pain that he’d told her felt like a two-by-four across his chest.
His father had been destroyed by his mother’s death. Justin had always said he wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on his worst enemy. Neither would she.
“Of course, I hope I have a really long, full life,” she said in a soft voice. “But neither of us can get away with trying to ignore the scientific facts. And the fact is that without a transplant—or even with one—I can’t guarantee anything.”
“Love doesn’t come with guarantees,” he insisted. “I love you, and I know you love me too.”
“I do.” More than anything else, she realized she needed him to know that, even if it didn’t mean they could be together. “I love you, Justin. I’ve always loved you.”
“Then let me be with you. As more than a friend. Let me help you figure this out, as a team, as your partner.”
“No.” She forced herself out of his arms. “I already told you—I won’t let you go down this road again. Because if the worst happens—”
“Goddammit, Taylor! I won’t let that happen.”
She knew he would move heaven and earth for her if he could. But it had taken him six long years to even begin to climb out of his grief over losing his mother.
“Please.” She didn’t want to cry, but she couldn’t stop the tears from coming. “I don’t want to fight. Not with you. Not with my best friend, especially when I haven’t gotten to be with you for so long.”
He tugged her tightly into his arms, and she buried her face in his neck, breathing him in. “I don’t want to fight either,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up.”
She knew he wouldn’t back down easily. It was one of the things she loved most about him—that he always fought for what he believed in. No matter how hard, no matter how long the fight.
If only they weren’t fighting on opposite sides.
There was a knock on the kitchen door. “Taylor, it’s Angie,” her friend called from the other side. “I hope I’m not interrupting. I just wanted to bring by the new goat’s milk and cheddar cheeses you asked for. Do you want me to leave them in the dining room for you?”
Taylor quickly wiped the wetness from her cheeks and made herself move out of Justin’s arms. “Come on in, Angie. This is my friend Justin. He’s visiting for a few days.”
For a moment, she was certain that he would correct her. She wasn’t sure which part he’d jump on first—that she’d called him her friend rather than boyfriend, or that he was going to be around for only a few days.
Fortunately, he simply shook Angie’s hand. “Sorry to say hello and run, but I should get into the shower. Taylor and I have a big day ahead of us, and I don’t want to waste any of it.”
She already knew exactly the form their big day was going to take. He was going to keep trying to convince her that they should be together, her disease be damned, and she was going to have to keep resisting the one thing she wanted most in the world.
The worst part of it all, though? That even going around and around on such a difficult subject with him would be better than anything she could do with anyone else. Even when things were bad with Justin, they were good.
That’s what a goner she was, and had always been, when it came to her best friend.
“He’s cute,” Angie said after he left the kitchen. “Just friends, you say?”
Taylor met Angie at a local business owners’ networking event last month and was thrilled to have made a friend so quickly. But the last thing she was up to this morning was dishing about her endless crush on Justin.
“It’s complicated.”
“Good complicated or bad complicated?”
“Both.”
“If you need to talk, you know where I am.”
“Thanks, Angie. I may need to do just that in a few days.” After Justin went back to Germany, something Taylor couldn’t even think about without feeling as though her heart would break.
But she refused to let herself get weepy. The sun was shining. The flowers were blooming. And she’d just had a night of unforgettably great sex with her best friend. For now, that was enough to keep a smile on her face.
It had to be.
CHAPTER TEN
Justin brought his laptop downstairs and set it up on the dining table, barely able to keep his hands from shaking. He hadn’t lost it, hadn’t fallen apart, since the day his mother passed away, but he felt damned close to that edge right now.
“I’d like to see everything the doctors have given you about the disease.” The letters P, K, and D felt like poison on his tongue now, so he did what he could to avoid saying them. “And your lab results too, if you wouldn’t mind showing them to me.”
“Of course I’ll show you everything.” Taylor went into the small room off the kitchen that she used as her office and pulled several thick folders from the bottom of the filing cabinet. But she didn’t give them to him immediately. “Promise me you won’t freak out when you start reading.”
“Too late.” Even if he tried to tell her comforting lies, she’d see right through them. “I need to know what we’re up against.”
“Not we, Justin. You’ve already fought one battle for your mother. You don’t have to fight mine too.”
“Like hell I don’t.” He all but ripped the folders from her hands. When her eyes went wide, he inwardly cursed himself. “I’m sorry.” The effort it took to keep himself together was almost more than he could bear as he looked at the woman he loved. The woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. The woman who had just told him about her diagnosis. “I just keep thinking that the sooner I start combing through everything, the sooner I’ll find a solution.”
“I knew that’s what you’d do.” She wrapped her arms around him, the folders between them like a bag of bricks. “I just don’t want you to be upset when you don’t find one.” Too quickly, she kissed his cheek and stepped back. “I’ve got some errands to do and then some business to take care of in my office. We can talk more when I get back, okay?”
He wouldn’t let her go without a kiss. A real one this time.
Her mouth was soft beneath his. And oh so sweet. Especially when she started kissing him back. A kiss that told him everything she felt for him, even if she thought she needed to push him away for his own good.
Before she walked away, however, she said, “I haven’t changed my mind about what I said earlier.”
“Neither have I.”
He would have given her another kiss to prove his point, but she slipped away before he could. As though she hadn’t yet realized that he’d stop at nothing to persuade her not only to be with him, but to also let him support her in her fight against her disease.
A fight he needed to arm himself for by being as informed as possible.
He began with her test results, his scientific mind whirring into overdrive as he read. Two hours later, when he finished the final set of reports in her files, he knew more about PKD than he’d ever thought he would.
And he was also more frightened than he’d ever been.
The literature made it clear that many people with the dominant PKD gene lived long lives with the disease. The majority, in fact. But for patients with autosomal recessive PKD…
No, damn it! He wouldn’t let himself lose traction in helping Taylor by getting stuck in dark thoughts and dangerous statistics. No matter what, he needed to stay calm and clear-headed. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be a help, he’d be a hindrance.
She came through the door carrying a large box, and he leaped from his chair to take it from her. “You shouldn’t be carrying that.”
She gave him a look like he was nuts. “It’s just ears of corn. I carry heavier things all the time.”
“Don’t.” Realizing too late that the word had shot from
his lips like a bullet, he ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry.” He had a feeling he was going to be apologizing a lot, like a panicked bull rampaging out of control in a china shop.
“I take it you read through everything?” she asked.
He nodded, bringing the box of fresh corn through to the kitchen. “Do you want me to help you shuck these?”
“That would be great,” she said with a smile clearly meant to show that she wasn’t upset with him for freaking out that she was carrying something heavy.
As he tore at the corn husks while he continued to mentally process everything he’d read during the past two hours, his jaw clenched so tight that it started to pop. He would have much preferred shredding her doctors’ reports to pieces.
“I’ll go toss the garbage bag so we have room for all of this.” She had to shimmy around the island to get by him and ended up bumping into the corner of it.
“Careful!”
“Justin,” she said, her voice carefully modulated, “I understand that all of this is a huge, horrible shock to you. But you need to stop freaking out.”
“Stop?” He gripped the ear of corn he was holding so tightly that juice from the raw kernels started to run through his fingers. “How the hell am I supposed to stop freaking out? And how the hell could you not have told me before we made love? I could have hurt you!”
“You would never have hurt me.”
“Of course I wouldn’t have done it on purpose.” The dozens of case studies he’d just read swam together inside his head. “But if I had jolted you the wrong way, or put too much pressure on your kidneys—”
“Making love with you was the best I’ve felt in months!” Her words stopped his in their tracks. “Don’t you dare take last night away from me or make me feel guilty about it.”
Softening his voice, he said, “I can’t stand the thought that I could have hurt you.”
“You didn’t.” She moved into his arms, and he held on to her as tightly as he dared. “You won’t.”
“If only we could be sure.” He breathed in her fresh scent, letting it fill him up. “I just want to be sure.”
Sure that she’d have a long and healthy life. Sure that they could share the life he’d dreamed of together. One full of kids and grandkids and love and laughter. And time.
Before she could respond, the front door opened and voices called, “Taylor? Justin?”
Taylor’s eyes grew big, and she stepped out of his arms. “That sounds like Drew and Ashley.” She hurried out of the kitchen to greet their unexpected guests. “What a lovely surprise,” he heard her say right before she brought his brother and his fiancée through the door.
Justin gave them each a hug, noting that they were both glowing with pre-wedding happiness. Normally, it would be good to see them on the spur of the moment like this, but nothing was normal right now.
“Any chance we can convince you guys to come with us to Sullivan Winery to check out the final wedding preparations?” Ashley asked. But then she paused and took a careful look at their faces. “Of course, if you’re in the middle of something, we understand.”
Ashley had always had a knack for sensing when someone was hurting. It was part of the reason she and Drew had initially connected. She’d been invited to join Drew’s concert tour a little more than five years ago to conduct research for a master’s degree on the music business. Though Drew’s music career had looked like it was going from strength to strength, the truth that he’d kept from all of them was that he wasn’t happy. Ashley had seen through the walls he’d put up, and she hadn’t hesitated to help him figure out what changes he needed to make to really enjoy making music again. Drew had done the same for her when he’d shown her how talented she really was, and he’d also helped to repair her relationship with her parents. Since then, they’d lived happily ever after—with their wedding this weekend making it official.
At present, Drew had his arm around Ashley’s waist. He obviously couldn’t stand for her to be anywhere but pressed closely against him. They were the most in-love people Justin knew, apart from Sean and Serena. Justin’s parents had been that much in love too.
His chest clenched tight as he looked at Taylor. He wanted to hold her just as closely—and know that he’d never need to let her go. Which was why he didn’t think it was a good idea to go off with his brother and Ashley right now. The two of them needed to hash everything out, no matter how tough the hashing-out was.
“Actually, maybe now isn’t—” Justin began, but Taylor quickly cut in.
“We were just getting some corn shucked for cornbread and chowder, but that can absolutely wait until after we get a sneak peek at your wedding venue.”
“And miss out on chowder and cornbread?” Drew looked seriously disappointed. He was always up for the chance to eat great home-cooked food.
“How about we take the muffins I made this morning with us to the winery?” She handed one to Ashley and another to Drew. “I’ve got to be back to put out afternoon tea for my guests, but that should still leave us plenty of time.”
Drew’s eyes all but rolled back in his head as he shoved half the muffin into his mouth. “Mmff ggdd.”
What would Drew’s millions of fans think of him if they could see him now, with crumbs and unintelligible sounds coming out of his mouth? But Justin already knew. They’d love him more.
Just like there was nothing that Taylor could say or do that would make Justin love her less.
* * *
Visiting Sullivan Winery affirmed to Taylor yet again that she had made the right decision to move to Napa Valley. The landscape was beyond beautiful, and the sky was so blue it almost didn’t seem real. She’d never be able to look out over the rolling hills covered in lush grapevines without them taking her breath away.
She was glad that Ashley and Drew had shown up unexpectedly. Being forced to stop thinking about her diagnosis for a little while was exactly what Justin needed. She wanted him to relax and enjoy his time off, not waste the rest of the week hunched over a computer on a desperate goose chase for a cure.
“The weather looks like it will be perfect this weekend,” Nicola Sullivan said to Ashley and Drew with a cheerful smile. “Just as we discussed earlier, we’re planning to set up the chairs for the ceremony over there.” She pointed to a large section of manicured green lawn and rosebushes between the tasting room and the vines. “We’ll set up everything for the reception just around the corner.”
Taylor was having a hard time not being star struck as Nicola led them around to the other side of the building. She knew all of Nicola’s songs—which had been written and released under her stage name, Nico—by heart. Sure, Drew was also a massive music star, but Taylor had known him before he hit it big, so he felt like a brother to her. Whereas Nicola was even more sparkling and beautiful and captivating in person than she was in concert and in her videos. Taylor had met Nicola and her husband, Marcus, a little more than five years ago when Drew and Nicola had done a combined acoustic tour together, but it was still hard to act completely normal around her.
“That’s quite a girl crush you’ve got,” Justin teased her in a low voice, obviously having noted her mute adoration, broken up by only a couple of awkward giggles when Nicola had tried to talk with her.
“Shhh.” She felt her cheeks flush, mortified that Nicola might have heard him. But then she had to whisper back, “She’s just so amazing.”
“You’re not the only one who thinks so.” He nodded toward Marcus Sullivan, who was laughing at something his wife had said, a look of all-consuming love on his handsome face.
“They are definitely giving Ashley and Drew some serious competition for the Most Perfect Couple in the World Award,” she said with a little sigh.
“So could we.” His statement stopped her in her tracks, just the way she was certain he’d intended. The others were continuing around the corner of the building, leaving them alone as he said, “Let me love you, Taylor. And let yourse
lf love me back. I know things aren’t easy right now, but that’s what love is, isn’t it? Sticking together in good times and bad. In sickness and in health.”
Her heart clenched as he all but made his vows to her right then and there. He’d always been her best friend, but he was right in saying he’d make an even better boyfriend. She wanted to be with him so badly—wanted it more than anything she’d ever wanted before.
But wouldn’t it be selfish to fall into his arms when she was such a mess? She had to be realistic, even if she hated what reality held for her. For them.
“I can’t stand the thought of putting you through the sick watch again. You read my charts, so you know that dating me would be like dating a ticking time bomb.”
“Be with me, Taylor.” Determination radiated from him.
“Have you heard anything I’ve said? Do you understand at all where I’m coming from, that I only want to protect you?”
“I heard every word. But it doesn’t change a thing. I love you. I’ve always loved you and I always will. You don’t need to protect me. I promise you that I’m strong enough to take whatever comes. Strong enough to be there for you. Strong enough to help you with anything you need help with.”
How could she possibly resist him when he opened his arms to her? No one could have, unless they were made of ice.
“I know exactly how strong you are.” For a moment, she let herself lean into his strength as she rested her cheek on his chest and wrapped her arms around him. But she knew what caring for, worrying about, and researching cures for his mother, all while putting on a brave face, had done to him. How it had almost turned him into a shell of himself. That was precisely why she hadn’t thought she could ask him to be strong for her too. Still trying to be strong, trying to do what she’d been so convinced was the right thing for him, she forced herself to pull back a couple of inches. “But I won’t ever be able to forgive myself if I end up hurting you.”