No Exchanges, No Returns

by Laurie Kellogg

  “Out-of-town business trips.” She grinned as if proud of pulling off her deception. “I was married to a pediatrician. I’ve seen the way families suffer when a loved one has cancer. If waiting means making my exit a month or two sooner, then so be it.”

  Suddenly, he felt sorry for the poor clueless schmuck she’d left.

  “If David found out I was sick, he would’ve developed a severe case of static cling. I want him to move on.” Brianna launched into a long story about her uterine agenesis and how her sister was carrying her ex-husband’s baby. She finished, saying, “About three weeks after the insemination, the headaches started, and I began having morning sickness. At first I thought I was suffering sympathetic pregnancy symptoms. But then I started dropping things.”

  Marc glanced at her sideways. “And your husband never noticed? He’s a doctor for—”

  “Sometimes I went for days without seeing him more than twenty minutes. If anyone should understand that, I’d think you would. I mean, how much time do you get to spend with your wife in a week?”

  “I’m not married,” he said, swallowing hard. At least not anymore. The biggest regret of his life was all the hours he’d missed with Francie.

  “Anyway,”—Brianna sighed—“David and I got married too fast and for all the wrong reasons. It was a simple case of lust at first sight. He and my sister have enough to deal with right now without worrying about my problems, too.”

  “Maybe so. But you need all the emotional support you can get, and who better than a doctor to give it to you?”

  “Look. I’ve seen the statistics for survival. If I have less than a thirty-percent chance of being alive in five years, I want my family spared from—”

  “But that figure includes all types of tumors and ages at onset. The type you have is one of the less aggressive, more curable varieties.”

  Brianna shook her head. “Even if by some miracle I survive another five years, I don’t want David watching me deteriorate one cell at a time. And I don’t want his child to get attached to me and lose her mommy when she needs her most.” Brianna knew firsthand what that was like.

  “With today’s advances in treatment, having a brain tumor isn’t necessarily a death sentence. You’re only thirty-four, Brianna. The younger you are, the better your chances are for long-term survival.”

  “Survival, sure.” She snorted softly. “What about brain damage? And how many new growths will I spawn?”

  She’d obviously been doing her reading and knew tumors frequently metastasized to other areas of the brain.

  Brianna leaned toward him, bracing her hands on his desk. “Be straight with me, Dr. Huntley. What’re my odds of living a completely normal life?”

  It was a fair question. Her chances of no recurrence weren’t great. But she had a decent shot at a lengthy remission with fairly good health. How great a chance was nearly impossible to answer at this point. However, if he could make that estimation based solely on the spark of courage and fortitude in her eyes, he’d say a hundred percent.

  “I’ll know better after we do another MRI and the surgery to see how much your delay has cost you.”

  “I’m not asking for a guarantee. Just give me the ballpark odds on my best case scenario.”

  “Just guessing?” Marc shrugged, leaning his elbows on his desk. “Optimally, you could have a sixty-five percent chance of being alive in five years.”

  “Alive, but not necessarily whole. That’s not a high enough probability for me to put the people I love through—”

  “What about what they want?” Marc asked.

  “I know what they’d feel obligated to do. The problem is, my sister, Casey, is one of those people who loves too deeply. If she found out about my tumor, she’d drop everything to wash my tush for me.” Something Brianna was obviously determined to prevent. “Nobody wants to do that. And I don’t want her to.”

  “You’re wrong. A person wants to do anything he can for someone he loves.” The bittersweet memory of bathing his wife in the last weeks of her life brought a giant lump to his throat, causing his voice to grate. “He’ll steal every precious second, no matter how much it might hurt. You can tell yourself you’re being considerate and making a sacrifice, but in reality, what you’re doing is just plain selfish.”

  “Selfish?” Fury twisted her beautiful features. “Listen, Bud, you may be the best neurosurgeon in the Midwest and all the nurses may fight each other for the chance to work with you, but your bedside manner stinks.”

  “Why? Because I call it like it is? Does it bruise your pretty little ego that I don’t think you’re some noble saint?”

  Her mouth dropped open as she stared at him for moment. “Do you always insult your patients this way?”

  “Just the ones who want to cheat their families out of the time they have left.”

  “Fine, I’ll make you a deal.” Challenge sparkled in her sapphire eyes. “As long as you keep me fully functional, my family will have all the time they want with me—after I finish my treatment.”

  No pressure there. Now she wanted to make it his fault if her loved ones were denied the chance to say good-bye.

  “I’ll give you my sister’s phone number. But it’s only to be used in the event I go into a coma or die. Otherwise, my family doesn’t need to know anything about my condition.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back in his chair. “Are you always this stubborn?”

  “Probably. Although, the last man to point it out used the term pigheaded.” Undoubtedly her ex-husband. “And just for the record, Dr. Hunky,”—she perverted his surname, proving she’d overheard what the nurses called him behind his back—“I don’t like you very much.”

  That was a crying shame, because in his opinion, she was utterly magnificent. He loved the way she breathed fire and told him off just as easily as Francie had. His wife had been one of the few people who’d never treated him like some sort of god because he stuck his fingers in people’s brains every day.

  Marc bit back a smile. “Do you really think it’s wise to alienate a man who’ll be cutting a hole in your head?”

  “Why not?” She shrugged. The sunlight streaming in the window turned her hair to spun gold. “If I can sue you for malpractice, I’ll be able to hire someone to wipe up my drool.”

  Shaking his head, he chuckled. He’d never treated such an independent, gutsy patient before. In her favor, if anyone could beat the odds, an obstinate woman like Brianna McIntyre could.

  ~*~

  David rounded the corner in the hallway leading to Casey’s classroom and screeched to a halt outside her door. He gritted his teeth at the sight of Paul chatting with Casey, his arm slung casually around her bare shoulders. She looked pretty in the pastel print sundress she must have worn for the graduation.

  An unfamiliar ache in David’s chest eclipsed all other sensation until the metallic taste of blood told him he’d caught a piece of his cheek between his grinding molars. He cursed under his breath.

  How could he possibly feel jealous? Casey was his sister-in-law for crying out loud. Or rather, his ex-sister-in-law. He had absolutely no right to feel so proprietary just because she was carrying his child.

  Irrational though it might be, he had to squash the urge to stomp in there and order his friend to back off.

  He ignored the pulse whooshing in his ears and forced himself to breathe naturally. The last thing Casey needed in her life was a player like Paul. It was his brotherly duty to make sure she didn’t get tangled up with a guy who wouldn’t take her seriously.

  Right. He swallowed hard. What he was feeling was just a clear-cut case of over-protectiveness, not jealousy. He loved his wife—or rather ex-wife.

  So then why haven’t you bothered to introduce Casey to any of your friends in the last year?

  He ignored the accusing voice that had been yammering in his head since she indirectly admitted she’d once had a crush on him. He felt as if someone had removed hi
s blinders, and he was seeing her for the first time.

  It was moments like this he wanted to choke Brianna. If he’d liked being single, he never would’ve gotten married in the first place. Of course, his eagerness to settle down was exactly what landed him in this kettle of confusion. If he’d taken his relationship with Brianna slower, maybe he would’ve realized he should marry someone more compatible like—

  Casey turned and spotted him. “David. Good, you’re here.”

  He lifted one hand in greeting and smiled, grateful for the reprieve from dissecting his conflicting feelings.

  “Paul was just saying your waiting room was packed. I sort of expected you to be late.”

  If he’d spent as much time with his patients as he normally did, he would’ve been. He’d raced through the last few appointments, worrying Casey would do too much.

  He would just have to make follow-up calls to the kids’ parents that evening to make sure there were no other questions or concerns they hadn’t had a chance to address. “I said I’d be here by five, didn’t I?”

  She gave him one of her get-real looks.

  Okay, so he’d occasionally let Brianna down after telling her he’d be somewhere by a specific time.

  Cynical hoots echoed in his mind.

  So it was more than once in a while. A lot more.

  “Rachel, you know we don’t do that in school,” Casey scolded a pigtailed cutie standing on a chair, attempting to climb onto one of the tables.

  The child pouted and jumped to the floor, training her attention on her teacher. Several moments later, she stepped back onto the chair.

  “If you put one foot on that table, Missy, you’ll find yourself in time out,” Casey warned.

  Bouncing her defiant gaze between her imaginary Mount Everest and Casey, Rachel lifted her knee to the table, testing her limits.

  “You’re making a choice you won’t be happy with later.” The way Casey gave Rachel options made the decision that much tougher for the child.

  The conflicted expression on the little girl’s face suggested a war raged inside her. Several seconds ticked by before Rachel finally stepped down and scampered off to join a few other students. The child’s grudging obedience testified to the consistency of Casey’s discipline.

  “That was a good choice.” She strolled over and squeezed the little girl’s shoulder. “Since you’re such a wonderful listener, you can help pass out the programs at graduation tonight.”

  “She’s gonna be a great mom,” Paul said, voicing David’s thoughts.

  Yeah. A mother who should be tucking her child into bed every evening.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t bear the thought of not being there to kiss his kid goodnight, too, or to watch him smear his breakfast all over himself each morning.

  Somehow, in the next few months, he had to convince her to continue living in his home after their baby was born. If necessary, he’d convert the storage area over the three-car garage into an efficiency apartment for himself and give Casey the whole freaking house if that’s what it took.

  “Yoo-hoo! Could someone take some of these, please?” a spry older woman called from the doorway, balancing a stack of shirt boxes in her arms.

  “Oh, Mrs. Berger, you shouldn’t have lugged that all here yourself.” Casey half dashed and half waddled to relieve the white-haired lady of some of the boxes. “I would’ve come—”

  “Don’t be silly, honey. I offered to bake for you so you could stay off your feet. I’m perfectly capable of carrying a few cupcakes and cookies.”

  A few? It looked to David as if she’d brought enough to feed a small third world country. His stomach rumbled, reminding him he’d missed lunch again.

  They each took a couple of boxes from the woman and placed them on one of the three adult-sized tables in the room.

  “I can’t thank you enough for doing this for me.” Casey squeezed her neighbor’s hand, introduced her to Paul and David, and explained, “Mrs. Berger is a godsend. She visits in the afternoons and reads to the kids who’ve outgrown naps so they don’t disturb the little ones who still need the rest.”

  One-by-one the children noticed the old woman and raced over to her, each receiving a giant hug.

  “Every day, they swarm all over her like the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz.”

  Paul smiled at the woman busy passing out graduation stickers she’d brought for the children. “No wonder they all love her. She comes bearing gifts.”

  “I just wish she’d let me pay her for her time and all the little trinkets she brings them.”

  “I suspect you already have in a way,” David murmured. “It strikes me she gets as much from coming here as the kids do.”

  Casey nodded. “I guess. It’s just—I know she could use the money. She sold me part of her property so she could afford to stay in her home after her husband died. She was thrilled when she heard I wanted to build a preschool. She could never have children of her own.”

  Which meant she also had no grandchildren. It was a shame, seeing as she was the quintessential grandma.

  The way Mrs. Berger doted on the kids reminded David of his parents’ eagerness to have a grandchild.

  His gut twisted into a clover hitch as he swallowed back a surge of bile. They’d be so disappointed in him when he finally found the courage to tell them his marriage had failed.

  Then again, it was nothing new. When hadn’t he let his mother and father down?

  ~*~

  No matter how many times Casey steered her car up the winding driveway to the five-bedroom, custom-designed home David had insisted on having built for her sister, she couldn’t help but gawk at European style house.

  Well, actually six bedrooms if she counted the small nursery/hobby room connected to the master suite.

  The gray stone building’s floor-to-ceiling Palladian windows screamed David’s tax bracket as loudly as his three-car garage and the two acres of dense woods surrounding the professionally landscaped grounds.

  According to Brianna, his parents had paid for his entire education and a generous trust from his grandmother had covered the cost of establishing his practice. So, financially, he was way ahead of most young doctors.

  The property overlooked a wide stream on the opposite side of the road, where the brilliant June sun sparkled on the water like a thousand glittering diamonds. The awe-inspiring view of the surrounding farmland never failed to take her breath away.

  Rather than appreciate the good fortune of living in a home that rivaled any in Architectural Digest, however, Brianna had been embarrassed by the upscale house with all its top-of-the-line amenities.

  Brianna and Casey been raised in a middle-class lifestyle that required economy. So she hadn’t blamed Brie for feeling a little self-conscious living in such a lavish home.

  What she didn’t understand, though, was why it had been so important to David to build such an extravagant dwelling when he spent so little time in it.

  Despite all the expensive jewelry, designer clothes, and the Porsche he’d surprised Brianna with on her birthday, he never seemed to indulge himself the way he did others. It was almost as if he were playing the role of the man he thought he should be but refused to allow himself to enjoy the fringe benefits.

  The door to her twelve-year-old Escort creaked as she opened it and slid out of the car. She breathed in the scent of fresh cut grass and flinched when a horn tooted behind her.

  David pulled his Camry up to the front door and climbed out. “Hey, Lead-Foot, the next time you barrel through a yellow light, you’d better not have my child with you.”

  “If you weren’t following so close, maybe I would’ve stopped. Or would you rather I slam on the brakes so you can rear-end me?”

  Reaching inside her car, he popped her trunk release. “Just slow down, okay, Mario?” He tossed her his keys and pulled her large suitcase out of the overstuffed trunk. “Unlock the door and head inside while I unload. There’s no reason for you t
o be out in this heat.”

  It was only one o’clock and the mercury was already pushing ninety-five. She wiped the perspiration from her brow and reached for her pillow. “I’m pregnant, not helpless.”

  He grabbed her wrist. “Go. If you want to make yourself useful, pour me a glass of ice water.”

  “Grouch,” she muttered and smoothed out the heat wrinkles in her navy tank top and denim shorts.

  Obviously, her moving in had put him on edge as much as it had her. She would’ve felt a lot better if she’d spoken to her sister before taking up residence in her bedroom. Unfortunately, Brianna still hadn’t returned any of her phone calls.

  When Casey entered the house, the air conditioning hit her like an arctic blast. She shivered and closed the leaded-glass and oak door, flinching at the sound echoing through the empty living and dining rooms that flanked the large center hall. The foyer alone could’ve housed her efficiency unit with space to spare.

  Casey’s sneakers squeaked against the polished hardwood floor while she wandered back to the sunny family room, her favorite spot in the house. The Mission décor and blue and gray color scheme were completely to her taste—not surprising since Brianna had offered very little input.

  The skylights in the cathedral ceiling gave the space a bright airy feeling, complimented by a wall of French doors that opened to an expansive stone terrace. It overlooked the immense freeform swimming pool landscaped with plants and rocks to resemble a tropical haven complete with a waterfall return from the filtration system.

  Upon hearing David dump her three boxes and two suitcases in the foyer, she bustled through the four-season dining area to the large state-of-the-art kitchen. She grabbed a glass out of the cabinet next to the sink and filled the tumbler with ice water from the huge built-in fridge. She stiffened, sensing David directly behind her.

  The man moved as silently as a doggone cat.

  She spun around with his drink and practically slammed her nose into his chest. She couldn’t help but inhale the heady scent of fresh male sweat.