Dream Mender

by Sherryl Woods

  Beneath his touch, her flesh warmed and she began to stir. As she rolled onto her back, his fingers moved from hip to belly in a slow, sensual caress that changed the pattern of her breathing from restful to hurried. Hesitant to touch her breast, fearful that she would perceive the touch as a need she couldn’t amply fulfill, he stroked the scar instead. Jenny whimpered, then sighed, then came slowly awake.

  Frank smiled down at her, her sleepy sensuality an incredible turn-on that had him instantly hard and wanting. For an instant she remained open to him, then as if realizing her vulnerability, the exposure in daylight that hadn’t existed the night before, she grabbed for the sheet. He reached out to stay her hands.

  “Don’t,” he whispered, trying to quiet the panic in her eyes. Meeting that fearful gaze straight on, he said, “You are beautiful, a beautiful, desirable woman. Inside and out. And I could not possibly love you any more than I do right now.”

  Her lower lip quivered, and he wanted desperately to cover that faint trembling with his own lips, but he held back, knowing that the best proof was in not looking away. She would only believe him if he acknowledged the defect and showed her time and again that it didn’t matter. It would take words and actions and time.

  “You must believe me, Jenny,” he said. “You are all the woman I need, and I will spend the rest of my life proving it to you.”

  Tears gathered in her eyes, then spilled down her face. She captured his scarred hand in hers and held it to her damp cheek. “I know that,” she said with a sigh.

  There was a hesitation in her voice, a shadow of doubt. “But you don’t entirely trust what we have, do you? Why not? How can a woman who spends her life teaching others to look beyond scars, not see beyond her own?”

  She drew away from him then, both physically and emotionally. He could read the distance in her sudden stiffness, the dullness that took the lively sparks from her eyes.

  “Frank, it’s not just the scars. If it was, don’t you think I would throw myself into your arms and never let go? Last night was the most perfect night of my life. I felt fulfilled and complete and desirable. You did that for me. But I won’t be one of those people you gather in and protect. You’ve already raised five brothers and a sister. You deserve a life that is carefree and filled with happiness.”

  Frank struggled to follow what she was saying. It made no sense. How could she equate herself with his family? It sounded as if she viewed herself as a burden, rather than an incredible woman to be treasured. It sounded as if she planned to end things just as they were beginning.

  “Jenny, this is crazy. I love you. I certainly don’t think of you as some stray I have to take in and care for.”

  “But that could happen and I won’t have it.”

  “Won’t have what?” In his frustration, his voice rose to an irritated shout. “Dammit, talk to me. Make me see why you’re willing to throw away what we have.”

  She turned pale at the thunder of his voice, but her voice was steady and bleak. “Because I don’t trust it to last.”

  If she’d used the excuse that the sky might fall in a million years, he would have been no more confused. “Sweetheart, I know there are no guarantees, but why give up what we have now because of something that might never happen?”

  “I don’t like the odds.”

  “Odds? What odds? The fifty-percent divorce rate? What?”

  “Stop yelling.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re making me crazy,” he said impatiently.

  Her look quelled him. He took a deep breath. “Okay, talk to me. Make me understand. Are you worried about the way we met? Are you afraid that I’ve just grown dependent on you?”

  Her expression softened. “No,” she said, taking his hand and pressing a kiss to the knuckles. “You’re strong now, and I know exactly what your feelings for me are. And I won’t take advantage of that.”

  “Take advantage how?”

  She did grab the sheet then and tug it around her. When it was snug, when there was nothing for him to see below her bare shoulders, she said quietly, “What scares me more than anything is the possibility that I might become dependent on you.”

  “Jenny…”

  She touched a silencing finger to his lips. “No, listen to me. It’s been just about four years since the surgery. Five years seems to be the magic number in cancer survival. I’m still a long way from that. Every day I live with the reality that the cancer could come back. I won’t burden you with that, I won’t ask you to live each day with the possibility of a death sentence hanging over us.” Her gaze met his. “I won’t,” she said with finality.

  Frank struggled with the horrible possibility of losing her to a disease he thought she had conquered. His heart ached for her as he tried to imagine living with that fear of recurrence. And, yet, weren’t they losing even more by living now as if the merely possible were certain? He had to make her see that.

  Gently he brushed the tendrils of hair back from her face. He searched his heart for words that would be convincing. “Jenny, my love, haven’t you ever listened to the wedding ceremony? In sickness and in health, remember that?You’re healthy now. We have this moment in our lives. We’ll take each tomorrow as it comes. If we don’t, Jenny, if we turn our backs on this, what sort of memories will we have? Loneliness? Fear? Longing? I don’t want that for myself. I don’t want it for you. Maybe we’ll never quite stop being afraid, but we certainly don’t have to be alone.”

  “It’s not fair to you,” she said stubbornly.

  “It wasn’t fair for you to get this disease. It wasn’t fair for me to get burned. We both have to go on. It was your cancer and my burns that brought us together. Maybe we should concentrate on that and count our blessings.”

  “I’m scared, Frank.”

  “Of dying?”

  “Of leaving you.”

  “Then don’t do it now, not while you have a choice in the matter.”

  It was the most eloquent Frank had ever been, and he waited to see the effect of his words. For a moment as Jenny’s arms slid around his waist, he thought he’d won. But then she rose, found the clothes they had tossed aside last night in their haste and, after sorting through them for hers, took them into the bathroom.

  Frank wanted to throw something. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shout until she not only listened, but heard him. Instead he could only sit by helplessly as she did what she thought was right, what she thought was the noble thing.

  When she came out of the bathroom, he held out his hand. “Jenny, don’t go. I’ll fix breakfast. We’ll talk this out.”

  Swallowing hard, she shook her head. Then she kissed him one last time, with tears in her eyes, and left.

  Chapter Twelve

  Letting Jenny go, admitting that he didn’t know how to help her grapple with her fears that obviously tormented her, was the most difficult thing Frank had ever done. He’d wanted to fold her in his arms, to hold her and love her until she couldn’t walk away, but something told him that would only make the leaving harder, not impossible. He, better than anyone, knew just how stubborn and determined she could be. Yet knowing that he’d done the right thing didn’t make the days any easier.

  Boredom, worse than anything he’d faced in the hospital, set in and, combined with the loneliness, made him cranky. By the end of the week, he was snapping at anyone who dared to set foot near him. He tried carving again, but one slip of the knife had marred the blue jay he’d been struggling to complete and he’d tossed wood and knives into the trash. A day later he dug them out and tried again.

  When Sunday rolled around, he begged off from the family dinner. He felt as though a lifetime had passed since the previous week, and he wasn’t up to the questions and teasing innuendoes about a relationship that no longer existed. As soon as the excuses were out of his mouth, though, he knew it had been a mistake. By four, instead of gathering at his mother’s, the whole clan began descending on him. Tim and Jared were the
first to arrive.

  “You look okay to me,” Jared said after a close inspection.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You told Ma you were sick,” Tim reminded him.

  “I think I’m coming down with something,” he amended hurriedly. “I’m sure it’s not serious, but it could be catching. You two go over to Ma’s.”

  “We can’t,” Jared said.

  “Why not? She’ll be expecting you.”

  “No, she won’t,” Tim said, just as the doorbell rang. “That should be her now.” He glanced at Jared. “I’m betting on chicken soup. How about you?”

  “Broth. Beef broth and custard.”

  Frank groaned. “This is ridiculous. I am not that sick.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have told her you were. Now we’re all going to have to eat wimp food,” Tim complained grumpily. “Do you have any idea how much I detest custard?”

  There was a deeply offended gasp from the doorway. “What do you mean, Timothy Chambers? You’ve always said you loved my custard.”

  “Cripes, Ma, you weren’t supposed to hear that.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have said it, should you?” she said, hiding a grin. “Go out to the car and get the rest of the dinner.”

  “Real food?” Jared inquired hopefully.

  “Soup and custard are real food. Now, go.” Once they’d gone, she observed Frank closely and, with her finely tuned maternal radar, zeroed in on the real crux of his problem. “You and Jenny have a fight?”

  “Why on earth would you ask that?”

  “Otherwise, she’d be here nursing you.”

  “Ma, I think you’ve gotten the wrong idea about Jenny and me.” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. What was the fight about?”

  “It wasn’t a fight exactly.”

  “What was it then exactly?”

  “It’s private.”

  She nodded slowly. “Okay. You do what you think is best, but, Son, don’t turn your back on your feelings just because things aren’t so smooth. If you love her, then you owe it to both of you to fight. Don’t let it slip away because of false pride.”

  Frank didn’t think pride had anything to do with letting Jenny leave, letting her make her own choices, but maybe it did. Maybe it had hurt, thinking that she didn’t love him enough to try to save what they had. On the chance that his mother might be right, he made up his mind to go by the hospital on Monday, to talk to her and pester her until she saw that they could face the future and whatever it held—good or bad—a thousand times better together than they possibly could apart.

  Energized by a stubborn determination of his own, and filled with hope, he strode through the hospital the next day, poked his head into Pam’s room to say hello, then marched on to the therapy room like Sherman taking on Georgia. He pushed open the door and stepped inside, glancing first at Jenny’s desk, then around the room. It was empty. The desk was ominously neat. He was still standing there trying to decide what to make of it, when Carolanne returned. She looked puzzled at finding him there.

  “You here for a treatment?” she asked. “I don’t recall seeing your name on the list for today.”

  “No. I’m here to see Jenny.”

  Her friendly expression closed down. “She’s not in,” she said, her tone cautiously neutral.

  “I see that. Where is she?”

  “She took a few days off.”

  Frank’s heart began to thud dully in his chest. “Why? Is she okay?”

  Carolanne studied him with serious gray eyes. “Come on in and sit down,” she said finally. “I think it’s time we had a talk.”

  Frank’s pulse began to race. “Dammit, tell me where she is. What’s happened?”

  With the same spunkiness he’d encountered in Jenny, Carolanne pointed toward a chair. “Sit. You want some coffee?”

  “Fine. Whatever,” he said impatiently, but he sat.

  A lifetime seemed to pass before she handed him a cup of coffee, then pulled up a chair and sat opposite him. “Are you in love with her?” she asked bluntly.

  “Yes.”

  “Does she know it?”

  “Yes,” he said, oddly disquieted by the personal questions, yet sensing that Carolanne really needed to know if she was to be equally honest with him. “I’ve told her.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense then.”

  “What makes sense? Dammit, would you stop hedging and spit it out? Is she okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Frank felt as though the air were being squeezed out of his chest. Before he could say a word, Carolanne looked contrite and held up her hand apologetically. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you. I just mean that she’s undergoing some tests. Bone scans, liver scans, blood tests, the works. It’s routine in cases like hers, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t scare the dickens out of her, out of all of us who love her. I don’t know if you can imagine what it’s like waiting out the results, waiting to find out if your life is hanging in the balance, if you’re okay or doomed to undergo more surgery, more radiation, more chemotherapy, more hell.”

  Suddenly Frank made the connection between these annual tests and Jenny’s departure from his house. “Did she know these tests were scheduled a week ago?”

  Carolanne nodded. “I think she scheduled them three or four weeks back.”

  “Is she here in the hospital?”

  “No, these are outpatient tests.”

  “Who’s with her?”

  “I’m not sure. I think Otis probably took the day off to drive her. He usually does, despite her arguments that she can do just fine on her own.”

  “What’s her doctor’s name?”

  The therapist balked at that. “If she didn’t tell you about the tests herself, then she won’t want you turning up there.”

  “Don’t you see? I have to be with her.”

  Carolanne continued to hesitate, then finally seemed to reach a decision. “Go to her apartment. She doesn’t need you with her for the tests, but she will need you after. It’s the waiting that’s agonizing. She needs all the support she can get then.” She dug in her purse and handed him a key. “Thank goodness I still have this from the first time I watered her plants, while she was back East. You know the address, right?”

  “Yes. Thanks, Carolanne. I owe you.”

  “No. If you can make Jenny happy, that’s all that matters. No one deserves a little happiness more than she does.”

  “I’m going to try like hell.”

  “You’d better. Otherwise, she’ll kill me for giving out her key.”

  His first stop wasn’t a florist, though that had been his first instinct. He’d dismissed the idea of filling the apartment with flowers as both too ordinary and too funereal. Frank opted instead for balloons, dozens of them in every color imaginable. Filled with helium, they floated in Jenny’s living room like a rainbow sky. He ordered dinner from the finest restaurant in San Francisco and wine from the best Napa Valley vineyard. And, after determining that the test results would take days, he called a travel agent and ordered tickets for Hawaii to be delivered immediately by messenger. The impulsive, expensive vacation would dent his savings, but he couldn’t imagine any gesture that would be a better use of his money. This was no time for caution. A little extravagance was called for.

  With the tickets ordered, he sat back to wait, fully aware that his nervous anticipation was nothing compared to the dread that was likely to occupy Jenny’s mind unless he could distract her. It was nearly five o’clock when he finally heard her key turning in the lock.

  As the door swung open, setting a wave of balloons bobbing, an expression of delighted surprise spread across her face, wiping away the most obvious signs of weariness.

  “Welcome home,” he said softly, hiding his dismay at the shadows under her eyes, the slump of her shoulders that she couldn’t hide.

  “You did all this?”

  Otis stood behind her, nodding in satisfaction. He gav
e Frank an approving thumbs-up gesture, then said, “Guess I’m not needed around here anymore. I’ll just be on my way.” When Jenny didn’t even turn to look at him, his grin widened. “Tell her I said goodbye,” he told Frank, feigning irritation. “If she happens to notice I’m gone.”

  “Bye,” she murmured distractedly, apparently having caught just enough of Otis’s words to realize he was leaving. Her gaze was riveted on Frank. “Why?”

  “Because it’s time you and I came to an understanding,” he said matter-of-factly.

  She stared at him in obvious confusion. “About what?”

  “About the way things are going to be from now on. You were there for me when I needed help, when I was facing the toughest days of my life. From now on I’m going to be here for you. That’s just the way it is. Like sunrise and birds singing and tides changing. Don’t fight it, Jenny. I can’t let you win this one.”

  There was a spark of fire in her eyes, then a flicker of acceptance. She sighed heavily and sank onto the sofa. Her whole body seemed to slump with exhaustion. “I’m so tired. I don’t think I could battle a feather and come out on top right now.”

  Sensing victory, though not especially happy about the cause of her token protest, Frank pressed. “Does that mean you accept this as a done deal? You and me? Together, always?”

  “We’ll see,” she said weakly, her eyes drifting shut as she curled into a more comfortable position.

  It wasn’t the commitment he’d hoped for, but at least she wasn’t fighting him. Worried by her lack of energy, by her pale complexion, Frank settled beside her and pulled her into his arms. With a quiet sigh, she rested against him. “Oh, Jenny,” he whispered as he listened to the even rise and fall of her breath. “Don’t you dare leave me.”

  She murmured something in her sleep, then was quiet. Holding her in his arms filled Frank with the greatest contentment he’d ever known, even as his heart ached with the uncertainty of the future.