“Don’t make that face around me. People will think I died,” Neve said, her beautiful green eyes opened slightly, her voice scratchy, little more than a whisper. She winced when she swallowed. “Water.”
He lifted the cup from her bedside table, elevated the head of her hospital bed, and guided the straw to her mouth. So many of his friends had died, but not Neve, thank God. “Nate ran out for coffee.”
“What day is it?” she asked, her voice a little stronger.
“Monday.”
She went to move her arm with the IV in it and winced. Then she lifted her other hand and rubbed her face. “I’ve been out of it for two whole days.”
Rory nodded. “Pretty much.”
As if just realizing something, she went still, then looked up at him with a questioning look: “Why are you still here?”
Because Neve had become such an integral part of his life, during such a difficult time in his life, and he didn’t want to lose her over some misunderstanding. She’d become his best female friend. He appreciated her perspective on things, valued her opinion, and enjoyed their interactions, especially the very intimate sharing of naughty letters and sexual likes and dislikes. He could talk to her about anything. And as much as he didn’t want to lose a friendship that had become very special to him, he also wanted more of what had happened between them in the storeroom of his parents’ pub. And he couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t stop thinking about her.
They needed time to talk so they could move past Mary, who was not now and had never been his fiancée, so they could figure out what happened next, where they fit into each other’s lives now that he’d returned home for good. And they couldn’t very well work all that out until she woke up.
But he didn’t tell her any of those things. Instead he decided he’d much rather get a rise out of her, spark some life back into her, so he leaned in close, stared directly into her sleepy eyes, and whispered back, “You promised next time I could have you naked in a bed and take all the time I want.” He leaned in closer, almost to her ear, hating the stink of bleached hospital sheets and sickness, wishing she smelled of the enticing perfume she’d used to scent her erotically charged letters. “And here you are, in a bed, wearing nothing but a flimsy gown, which is close enough to naked for me. Now that you’re up, whaddya say we get to it?”
“Really, Rory.” She let out an annoyed huff. “Propositioning a woman in the hospital, hoping she’s so delirious with fever she’ll agree to have sex with you, is the sign of a truly pathetic, desperate man.”
Not just any woman. He turned his head so she wouldn’t see his smile, so happy to have her back. “I can wait until your fever comes down.” He pulled over the chair he’d been sitting in, lowered himself into it, and put his feet up on the foot of her bed. “It’s the gentlemanly thing to do. Besides, I’m in no rush.”
Before Neve could respond Nate returned—damn it. “Get your filthy boots off of my sister’s bed. Hey,” his voice softened. “You’re awake.” He looked back toward the door. “I should go tell the nurse.”
“No,” Neve pleaded. “Please. Give me a few minutes.”
“Okay.” He set both coffee cups on her bedside table and leaned in to kiss her cheek.
“Brooke sends her love. She wanted to drop everything and come for a visit, but I told her to hold off until she heard from you.”
“Thank you. The last thing I need is Brooke hovering.”
Maybe so, but Rory could clearly make out affection for Brooke in Neve’s tone.
“How are you feeling?” Nate asked.
“Remember the time I stole that cute little mouse so my friend Brian couldn’t feed it to his pet snake? Remember how it escaped from the old fish tank I’d set up as its safe house? Well, I feel like that mouse after Mom found it in the kitchen and flattened it with Grandma Ida’s cast-iron skillet.”
Nate smiled. “I told you to duct-tape some screening over the top.”
“Thank you for reminding me.” Neve scowled as she tried to reposition herself in the bed. “When can I get out of here?”
“Don’t even start.” Nate handed one of the coffees to Rory, then lifted the other one and took a careful sip. “Do you remember Dr. Glassman stopping by late last night?”
Neve shook her head.
“They’re working you up for osteomyelitis, an infection in your bone or bone marrow, for chrissake. That’s serious stuff.”
“You mean I don’t have the flu? How…?” Neve looked confused, for all of three seconds. “Uh-oh.” She reached for the railing on her bed and pressed the button to elevate the head some more. Her IV tubing started to pull. Rory jumped up to fix it.
“You’re damn right, uh-oh,” Nate said. “Do you think your birth-mother appreciates what you did? Do you think she gives a damn that forty-eight hours ago you were near death?”
“Near death?” Neve asked. “Really, Nate. How dramatic. I wasn’t near death.” Her eyes slid over to Rory as if seeking confirmation.
“I didn’t hear the doctor say near death,” Rory started.
“See,” Neve said. “Overreacting. Always overreacting.”
“But,” Rory added, “the doctor wouldn’t talk in front of me because I’m not family. Regardless of what he said or didn’t say, you were pretty damn sick. You scared the crap out of both of us.”
That quieted her down. She inhaled a breath, then blew it out. “I’m sorry I scared you.” She glanced between both of them. “Really. Thank you for bringing me to the hospital. I’m feeling better.” She smiled, albeit weakly. “No more need to worry.”
“You might need weeks of intravenous antibiotics through some kind of special IV called a PICC line and in-home nursing visits. Who’s going to pay for all that? Your birth-mother? Or is she done with you again, now that she got what she wanted?”
“Whoa,” Rory said, holding up a hand between them. “Back off. She just woke up.”
Apparently Nate had been seething with anger and worry for too long to care. “She abandoned you.” He shifted in his chair to fully face her. “Years later she showed up at our house to bribe Mom and Dad, made them pay to keep her from making trouble in your life. She signed legal documents agreeing to have no contact with you. Christ, Neve. Why on earth would you do anything to help her?”
Neve turned her head away.
“Damn it.” Nate shot to his feet. “Because of what Mom said. Years ago. In a fit of anger…at her sister, not you. How many times does she have to apologize? How many times does she have to tell you she didn’t mean what she said?”
“Whether she meant those words or not doesn’t matter.” Neve turned back to stare directly at her brother, her voice gaining strength. “If I had refused to help a gravely ill nine-year-old boy because I was mad at his mother, if I’d refused to go through with a bone marrow donation after finding out I was the only available match, then I’d be the selfish, spiteful bitch Mom accused me of being.” She let out a breath. “I don’t want to be that person. I’ve been trying not to be that person anymore. And since selfish, spiteful bitchiness comes naturally to me, it’s a constant struggle.”
At that, Nate smiled.
So did Rory. Until Neve pointed straight at him and said, “Stop smiling. This is all your fault.”
Her accusation had Rory smiling even bigger. Then a laugh slipped out of him. Because in that moment he knew Neve was going to be okay.
Of course Nate had no idea why Rory had laughed. “What’s so funny? You think this is funny? Nothing about this is funny. And why the hell is this your fault? Did you tell her to do it?” He shot out of his chair, his hands clenched into fists, threatening. “Because if you were the one who told her to undergo a risky procedure—”
“It wasn’t risky,” Neve interrupted. “Well, not riskier than any other routine surgical procedure. Only something like less than two percent of donors suffer serious complications.”
“Yet here you are.” Nate gestured toward
the bed with his hand.
“Yes, I know, one of the unlucky two percent. My first stab at selfless, and I’m paying the price for going against my true nature.”
“Stop with the dramatics.” Nate pushed up his sleeves and glared at Rory. “Tell me how Rory is involved in all this.”
“Sit down, big guy.” Rory pointed to the empty chair beside him. “Take a load off and I’ll explain.”
Nate didn’t sit.
“I know you’re upset,” Rory said, using his calmest tone. “I know you’re looking for someone to blame, for someone to fight so you can get out all of your pent-up aggression, but I’m not going to fight you.”
“Of course he’s not going to fight you,” Neve said.
Rory felt the need to clarify. “Not because I don’t think I can win,” he said as he kept his eyes on Nate and stood, to be ready just in case. “I’ve been taking on bullies who are bigger and taller than me my whole life, boys and men quick to underestimate me because I’m shorter than they are. But I’ll let you in on a little secret.” He leaned forward. “I don’t lose.” Not anymore. Over the years he’d learned to fight smart, to use more than brute strength.
“You don’t lose, huh?” Nate seemed to take Rory’s words as a challenge. Nate seemed a lot like his sister.
“Stop it, you two,” Neve intervened. “Sit down.” When they didn’t she added, “I’ve got my nursing buzzer and I’m not afraid to use it to get you both kicked out of here.”
Since Rory did not want that, he held out his hand. “Truce?”
Nate shook it. “For now.”
They both sat.
Nate took another sip of coffee, then said, “I still want to know what happened.”
“Go on and tell him,” Neve said. “I don’t have the energy.”
So Rory did. “After Neve’s birth-mother approached her at the gymnastics studio…”
“How did she find you?” Nate asked.
“I don’t know,” Neve answered.
“She told Neve,” Rory went on, “that her son needed a bone marrow transplant and asked Neve to get tested to see if she was a match.”
Neve added, “She brought along a picture. He looked so sad, so sick, and bald from his chemotherapy.”
“You know she did that on purpose,” Nate said. “That manipulating—”
“Stop interrupting,” Neve said. “Let Rory talk.”
Rory almost smiled, because Nate wasn’t the only one interrupting. “After their meeting, Neve wrote me a long letter.” A good five pages front and back. “She used it to get her thoughts in order, detailing the pros and cons of getting tested and what to do if she was a match, agonizing over how the surgery would impact her life and her work, dealing with her anger toward her mother.”
“Her birth-mother,” Nate clarified.
“Yes. Her birth-mother. Sorry. By the end Neve had decided—all on her own—to get tested and, if she was a match, to go through with the bone marrow extraction. She felt doing everything within her power to save the life of a very ill child was the right thing to do, regardless of who that child’s mother was.” Rory had been, and still was, very proud of her for that.
Neve added, “Rory had given up a year of his life to fight a war overseas, risking that life day in and day out protecting and serving our country, the definition of selfless. And there I was stressing over the inconvenience of quickie surgery and a few weeks of soreness after a procedure that could save one life. It really put things in perspective for me.”
“In the letter she mentioned she wasn’t a big fan of being told what to do—”
“That’s for sure,” Nate grumbled.
“Shut up and let him finish,” Neve snapped.
Rory did. “So our one-sided conversation, if you could even call it a conversation, worked for her. But at the end of the letter she reminded me that she’s a woman and therefore, if something went horribly wrong, even though she’d made the decision entirely on her own, she’d likely find a way to blame it on me.” Rory smiled. “And she did.”
Even Nate smiled. “That sure does sound like Neve.”
“Well, it is his fault. He made me feel like a slacker, like I wasn’t doing enough to help my fellow man. Do you honestly think I would have willingly undergone a surgical procedure that in no way benefited me if I wasn’t trying to prove I could be just as selfless?”
“Yes,” Rory said. “I do, because you’re a good person.”
“If you think that, then you don’t know me very well.” She looked away.
After all they’d shared in their letters, emails, and phone calls, he was pretty sure he knew her better than most people did. He knew there was a soft, caring woman beneath her brash exterior, a woman worth fighting for.
After a few moments of silence Nate said, “I have to get word to Mom and Dad.”
“No.” Neve tried to push up to a sitting position but didn’t have the strength, so she lay back down. “You can’t. They’ve been looking forward to this vacation for months. Don’t ruin it.”
A world cruise adventure, Neve had said, planned after her dad’s heart attack, booked as soon as her father’s physician had given him the go-ahead. They’d both taken time off from work, and they planned to be away over three months.
“Mom will kill me when she finds out. And Dr. Glassman said you can’t go home alone. I’ve got to work.”
“I can stay for a week or two,” Rory offered, warming to the idea immediately—and not only for the chance to give Neve a sponge bath, even if the idea popped into his head and he did nothing to push it away.
Nate completely ignored him. “What about Brooke?”
“I’d hate to bother her. She just got engaged. She wouldn’t want to leave Shane, and he can’t miss his physical therapy and counseling appointments.”
“What about me?” Rory offered again. “I’m right here.”
“Yes, you are,” Neve said, turning her gaze on him. “So I’ll ask again. Why are you still here? And I want to know for real this time. Why are you here with me when you should be back in Boston with your loving fiancée?”
Chapter 4
FOUR MONTHS EARLIER, DAY SEVEN OF RORY’S TEN-DAY LEAVE
BOSTON
Amazing how Rory could be away for nine months, come home, and nothing had changed. Their old corner pub in their working-class neighborhood looked the same, walls crowded with sports memorabilia from their beloved New England Patriots, Boston Red Sox, Bruins, and Celtics. Pictures autographed by athletes who’d visited over the years mixed in with framed prints and souvenirs from Ireland. The long, heavy wooden bar with two large television screens mounted behind it, the booths that lined the far walls, the small tables that dotted the eating area, the dartboards in the far corner—all the same. Another Saturday night, people everywhere, Rory behind the bar, working his ass off, but still managing to laugh, joke, and flirt. Seemed like lots of women willing to show a soldier on leave a little love were out and about.
“Hey, man.” Rory’s friend Dean, who lived down the block, pushed his way up to the bar. “Welcome home.” He reached out his hand and Rory shook it. “Back for good?”
Even Dean looked the same, the ends of his scraggly black hair sticking out from beneath a well-worn baseball cap, a faded T-shirt advertising beer—looking very similar to the ones he used to wear in high school—stretched over his pudgy chest and belly.
“Ten-day leave,” Rory answered. “What can I getcha?”
“Four shots of Jägermeister.” He held up four fingers to go with his order.
“You got it.” Rory turned to grab the green bottle from the freezer, working on autopilot.
Despite all the offers he’d received since coming home, the only woman he wanted was Neve, who hadn’t responded to his email confirming the dates he’d be home and suggesting they meet up somewhere. So he’d left her with an open invitation to visit, going as far as to give her the street address for the pub, which also happened
to be his home address since he lived upstairs, and all of his phone numbers—home, pub, and cellphone, which he’d taken back from his youngest brother as soon as he got home.
As he lined up the shot glasses a flash of purple in the crowd caught his eye. Neve’s favorite color, a deep rich purple. He studied the area, tried to catch another glimpse. Gone. Damn it. He needed to stop searching for her in the crowd night after night. She’s not coming, boyo. Deal with it.
Dean handed him a hundred-dollar bill, which made Rory wonder what his friend had done to get it. But he made change, sticking the five-dollar tip in the big glass snifter beside the register.
Seeing Melissa, one of the waitresses, waiting at the far end of the bar, Rory slid behind his brother Kev—already an accomplished bartender at twenty-two years old—and headed that way. When he saw “margarita”—Neve’s favorite drink—on one of the slips of paper Rory couldn’t help but ask, “What table ordered the margarita?” A drink not typically requested by their largely stout- and ale-drinking regulars.
Melissa leaned in and yelled to be heard over the crowd. “No table. A woman in the back grabbed me. Small. Said she couldn’t make it to the bar.”
“What did she look like?” he called back.
“You think she’s the one?”
“The one what?”
“The one you’ve been scanning the crowd for every night you’ve been here.” Melissa smiled.
Had he been that obvious? “I have not—”
Melissa hiked up one perfectly arched eyebrow.
Okay, he had. “What did she look like?” he asked again.
“Short, like I said. Dark hair. Pretty, wearing a damn sexy, body-hugging purple dress.”
He grabbed a pint mug, tilted it at a forty-five-degree angle for the perfect pour, and worked the Guinness tap. “Did she come in with anyone?”
“Couldn’t tell.” Melissa grabbed a fresh stack of napkins and took a sip from the water bottle she kept beneath the bar. “But if she didn’t she won’t be alone long with this rowdy bunch.”
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