by Dori Lavelle
Heat smiled as he entered. “Thank you.”
“Go on.” The woman shooed him in the direction of the stairs. “He’s in room six.”
Heat nodded and climbed the stairs. At the top, he stood still. His earlier fury had waned. But although he wasn’t ready to kill Scott anymore, he was ready to demand answers. Scott still had a lot of explaining to do.
He knocked on the door and waited with his hands in his pockets.
The door opened and Scott stood before him, his nose red and swollen from Heat’s blow earlier.
Heat caught a glimpse of the broken man he was. A man who must have been so desperate, so scared, to do what he had done.
“Heat,” Scott said and stepped back, as if anticipating another punch. “I’m sorry for everything . I mean it.” Scott leaned against the doorframe and clutched his stomach. “I’d like to talk, but I’m not feeling well right now. Seriously, I need to lie down.”
Heat almost thought Scott was faking it as a way to get out of talking to him, but he had gone very pale and sweat was dripping down his face.
As Heat struggled with what to do, Scott sank to the floor. Cursing under his breath, Heat caught him, gripped him under the arms, and pulled him back up. “Come on, then. Let’s get you to bed.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“You should see a doctor.” Heat fumed inside as he helped Scott into the small bed.
Scott leaned against the pillows. His breath came in quick gasps. “No hospital.”
Heat backed away from the bed and lowered himself into a rickety chair that stood next to an open suitcase. His eyes didn’t leave Scott’s face. “Afraid someone might recognize you?”
Scott didn’t respond and Heat continued. “So you’d rather die than get treatment?”
“I’m going to die, anyway,” Scott said, pulling the covers up to his chin. “It’s only a matter of where I’ll die.”
Heat leaned back against the chair and crossed his arms. He didn’t say anything for a long time. Deep down, he’d hoped Scott was lying about the disease. His mother’s only sister, Jane, had died from cancer and he wouldn’t wish it on anyone, not even his worst enemy. Scott looked exactly the way his aunt had a few weeks before she died—gaunt and tired, with dark circles under the eyes. “Why didn’t you say anything? I would have stood by you, you know that. I thought we were friends.”
Scott cleared his throat. “You would have tried to stop me. I needed to leave.”
Scott raked a hand through his hair. “Yes, dammit, I would have,” he said, seething with rage. “I wouldn’t have let you do something so foolish. I wouldn’t have let you hurt Melisa. How could you do that to her? You’re not the man I knew and respected. I don’t even know who you are.” Seven years ago Heat had said goodbye to his best friend, the man he thought he could trust with his life. How could he have been so blind? How could he not have seen who Scott really was?
“How dare you marry my wife?” Scott asked, ignoring Heat’s remark. “My best friend and my wife?” He gave a sarcastic laugh, which was surprisingly strong for a man who had keeled over just a few minutes ago. “That’s disgusting. Some things you just don’t do.”
“Damn right.” Heat placed his hands on his knees and leaned forward as if getting ready to pounce on Scott. “Some things you just don’t do. Like faking your death, for example. Like running away to save yourself, not caring what happens to the wife you left behind.” He stood up and paced the room, his jaw tight. Then he spun around and jammed a finger in Scott’s direction. “You have no right. No right at all to question the decisions Melisa and I made.”
“I have every right.” Scott’s voice was edged with steel and anger distorted his facial features. “She was my wife, and you took advantage of her when she was at her weakest.”
Heat jammed his hands into his pockets and glared at him with narrowed eyes. “I have no idea how much Melisa has told you about us.” He walked to the window and squinted into the darkness. “She was mine long before you married her.”
“Bullshit.” Scott retorted. “You fucked her, got her pregnant, and shoved her aside like a piece of garbage. She told me everything. She didn’t mention your name at the time. I’d never have let you near her if I knew it was you. But you were the first person to break her heart.”
“I was a kid. I’ve changed a lot since then. I’ve made mistakes, but at least I’m man enough to own up to them, and make things right.” Heat swallowed hard. “When you walked away, I was the one who helped her heal. I was there, when you were too much of a coward to stay behind and own up to what you’ve done.” He sat back down. “Now you have the audacity to compare what you’ve done to what I did as a teenager?”
Scott looked away and tightened the blanket around his body. He was shivering.
Heat sighed and closed his eyes for a brief moment. He pinched the bridge of his nose and opened them again. “I’m so fuckin’ pissed at you right now. I could strangle you for trying to justify what you’ve done.” He paused. “But I’m not one to beat a man when he’s down. You’re sick. Get some rest. I better get out of here before I do something I’ll regret.”
“Can you…” Scott lifted his right arm a few inches off the bed and dropped it again. “I need water. Please.” He started to cough so hard his face turned red.
Still gritting his teeth, Heat picked a glass from a corner table and filled it at the rusty-looking bathroom faucet. Instead of putting the glass in Scott’s hand, he placed it on the bedside table, averting his gaze.
“Thanks.” Scott attempted to pick up the glass but he was trembling so much that some of the water sloshed from the glass and spilled onto his hands.
Heat inhaled sharply, then helped him bring it to his cracked lips, waiting until he took a sip. “Drink more,” he said when Scott attempted to push the glass away.
Scott drank some more and nodded. “Thanks.”
Heat lowered the glass back on the table, and thought of turning around and just leaving. After the argument they’d had, no one would blame him if he did. But he couldn’t get his feet to move. Reluctantly, he looked down at Scott and his heart clenched. He looked less like a man and more like the boy Heat once knew, his best friend, not the person who had betrayed them.
“When are you planning to leave town?” he asked, his voice devoid of emotion.
Scott blinked as if in slow motion. Even something as simple as that required much effort. “As soon as I get my strength back. Don’t worry, you never have to see me again.” In an instant, his face creased and he groaned loudly as he clutched at his stomach.
“I’m getting help.” Heat turned on his heel and strode to the door.
“Don’t,” Scott said in a weak voice. “No doctor. No hospital… I…” He doubled over again.
“You need help, and I’m going to make sure you get it.” Heat walked out, slamming the door behind him. There was no way he’d leave him in that condition.
Five minutes later, he returned to Scott’s room, followed by Mrs. Drawbridge, and her daughter, Charlotte, who just happened to be a nurse.
Upon seeing the pain Scott was in, Charlotte left the room and returned with a box of painkillers. She gave him the medication and the glass of water and wiped the sweat off his face and neck while talking to him soothingly as if he were a child.
Ten minutes later Scott’s face had relaxed and his breathing had become even.
Heat pulled Mrs. Drawbridge and Charlotte aside and asked them to keep everything they had witnessed to themselves. After they left the room, he looked into Scott’s drowsy eyes. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying in Serendipity.”
Chapter Thirty
Heat stayed away for over two hours, and every one of those minutes Melisa shook with fear. She paced around the house and glanced out the window more times than she could count. Several times, she had considered going to the inn, but it could make matters worse. So she stayed put, feeling as if she were going to throw
up. When the clock struck midnight, she called his cellphone, but it went straight to voicemail. Since there was nothing else she could do, she took a shower and climbed into bed.
When Heat arrived a few minutes before 1:00 a.m., Melisa was still awake. With sluggish movements and without saying a word, he got undressed and climbed into bed next to her.
Melisa bit her lip and inhaled silently, gathering the courage to ask him. “How did it go?” she murmured in the darkness.
All Melisa heard was his labored breathing. He shifted, and she could feel his breath fanning her cheek. He had come close. He could bear to be close to her. She sighed with silent relief.
“Horrible,” he said finally and flicked on the light.
Melisa’s heart broke when she saw his eyes. He looked as if he had been crying. “What happened? Did you get to talk? You didn’t hit him again, did you?”
Heat pulled himself to a sitting position, leaning against the pillows. “Not this time. God knows I wanted to. We talked for a while, then he got sick… a bout of stomach cramps.” He shook his head. “I’m so pissed at him and I want to hate his lying ass…but I understand how you feel.”
“Is he okay?” Melisa asked, sick with worry.
“When I left, he was. I tried to talk him into going to the hospital but he refused. The landlord’s daughter, Charlotte, is a nurse. She gave him something for the pain.”
“What if she tells someone?”
“She didn’t seem to know who Scott was. She calls him by his fake name. And her mother assured me that no secrets leave the Drawbridge Inn.” He paused. “I can’t believe he’s back. It was scary to watch him suffer.” Even if he was too angry to admit it to anyone, watching Scott in so much pain had affected him deeply. And he felt the overwhelming need to be there for him. “What he did was twisted. I don’t even know who he is. But why the fuck do I still care about him?”
“What you feel is normal. No matter what he did, he used to be an important person in your life. That’s why you’re finding it hard to turn your back on him.” Melisa closed her eyes and sent up a prayer of thanks. Heat was on her level. They could share their fears with each other.
“I guess you’re right.” Heat turned to her with a small smile. “Did you mean what you said earlier?”
“I said a lot of things.” Melisa laughed, even though there wasn’t much to laugh about.
“Did you mean what you said? Do you love me more than you loved him?”
Melisa didn’t hesitate. “Yes. You are the love of my life.”
“Then”—Heat drew her to his side and planted a kiss on the top of her head—“we’ll get through this. Like we made it through all the other shit.”
Melisa swallowed the lump in her throat. “Yes, we will. Where do we go from here?”
“The only thing we can do at the moment is be there for Scott until… He said there’s no cure for him.”
Melisa nodded, her eyes burning. “He’s just waiting. I feel so sorry for him. I do care about him, you understand that, right? I will hurt when…”
“Yes,” Heat replied. “I know. I will hurt too. I asked him to stay in Serendipity for a while so we can be there for him. He has no one else.”
“Thank you… thank you for doing that.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t find what he did disgusting. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him for what he put you through. It’s just…” He shook his head. “There’s not much time left.”
“What about us? I’m so sorry for not confiding in you.”
“I understand why you didn’t, but Mel, you should have told me. You should know by now that you can trust me. I’m your husband. But you’re here, you’re home. That’s what matters to me right now. Everything else, we’ll figure out later.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Scott’s health deteriorated from one day to the next. He still stayed at the inn, and Melisa and Heat stopped by daily to see him. Heat came in the mornings after his shifts and Melisa in the evenings after leaving the bakery. Not wanting to flaunt their relationship in front of Scott, they never visited him together.
The second week after the truth came out, Melisa dropped by to bring him some pies and cakes from Mel’s Delights and was shocked to see a very different man. He was thin and frail-looking, his eyes hollow and jaundiced, his hair thin and lifeless. She wished she could run away, avoid seeing him dissolve into nothing. But she couldn’t. They had promised to be there for him no matter how hard it got.
“Scott, I think you should go to the hospital,” Melisa begged him again as she plumped his pillows. “Maybe they can do something.”
Scott shook his head. “It’s too late. There’s nothing they can do apart from pumping painkillers into my body. Charlotte is helping me with that.” He dabbed sweat off his brow. “All I can do is wait.”
He was right. Charlotte, who came to see him every two days or when he was in intense pain, did take great care of him. Melisa had watched her tend to Scott with a gentleness that was often reserved for children. She was about Melisa’s age, a single mom with piercing blue eyes and long brown hair that she kept braided, who seemed to genuinely love taking care of people. She even carried a keychain with a slogan that read Proud to be a nurse.
True to her word, Charlotte didn’t mention to anyone that she was treating a mysterious man at her mother’s inn.
“Don’t worry,” she’d told Melisa the night they met, “I’m no blabbermouth. It’s no secret that the people who stay here are running from something.” She dabbed Scott’s forehead with a cool cloth. “My mother enjoys helping people who no one else wants to help, and who have nowhere else to go. She believes there’s good in every person. I warned her it could be dangerous, but if she has a room free, she never turns anyone away.” She handed Scott a pill and a glass of water. “I don’t know what your friend here is running from, but that’s his business. The only time I’ll say something is if I suspect him to be a danger to my mother. But I think he’s too sick for that.”
“Charlotte said her father died from cancer as well,” Scott said, breaking through Melisa’s thoughts. “She took care of him until the last minute.”
Melisa sighed, but her heart was breaking. “Fine. But promise me to keep drinking.” She handed him a glass of water. It was late in the afternoon and the water jug next to his bed, which Mrs. Drawbridge brought to his room every morning, was still full.
“What’s the point?” Scott put the glass back down again without taking even one sip.
Melisa understood. She wanted to hurl anything and everything breakable at the wall, wanted to curse whatever had brought this fate upon Scott. She wanted to scream and shout and sob. But she had promised herself she would not cry. She wanted to believe that maybe, if she didn’t cry for him yet, he might live longer. One day more, one week, one month, maybe six? But she knew it was not realistic of her to wish for him to live beyond a month or two. He looked like he wouldn’t even last another day.
Heat, too, was tortured daily by his best friend’s worsening state, and he always looked defeated after seeing Scott. But he and Melisa both tried to ignore the inevitable and pretend life was normal, even as every day the Scott they’d known and loved slipped further away, and they knew the end was fast approaching.
Today, Melisa stayed longer so she could have dinner with him, to make sure he ate. But he only ate a quarter of his food before nausea seized him. She helped him to the bathroom and as he bent over to vomit, she gazed up with her eyes closed. Tears broke through her resistance, poured down her cheeks, and trailed down her neck to be soaked up by her blouse.
A few minutes later she cleaned up, wiped his face, and tucked him into bed. She went home feeling as if the weight of the whole world were pressing down her shoulders. Heat was at the station, so she talked to Carlene over the phone to update her on what had been happening. Then she checked up on Ben, and finally curled up in bed with a bowl of ice cream for comfort and a movie for
distraction. For the next two hours, she tried to forget.
It didn’t work. Her stomach was in knots and she stayed perpetually on the verge of tears. In the end, she perched at the windowsill and gazed into the darkness, wondering when the curtain would fall.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Melisa sighed as she trudged down the corridors of the Drawbridge Inn.
When she neared Scott’s door, she slowed and held her breath, as she always did whenever she came to visit. She had no idea why. After a busy day at Mel’s Delights, she was exhausted. She wanted to go home, have a bath, eat dinner, and go straight to bed. But she had promised to come and see Scott every single day. And each day counted, since they had no way of knowing which would be his last.
Something didn’t feel right. She couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but her whole body sensed it. Breathing out, she knocked. Mrs. Drawbridge had given her and Heat a key, but she’d forgotten it at Mel’s Delights. She paced in front of the door as she waited for Scott to open it, knowing it would take him some time. She waited a while, then knocked again. She pressed her ear to the door and heard the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Who would be vacuuming Scott’s room? It couldn’t be him, since he broke out in a sweat just walking to the bathroom, and Melisa had told Mrs. Drawbridge that she would be cleaning Scott’s room and not to send a cleaner.
She tapped on the door again, calling out Scott’s name this time.
The sound of the vacuum died and the door was yanked open by a tall, bottle-blond cleaning lady.
“Hi, I’m looking for…” She tried to remember Scott’s fake name but couldn’t. “I’m looking for Mister… The man who’s staying in this room.”
“No,” the woman said in an annoyed voice. “This room is not occupied. The person who stayed here left this morning.”
Melisa’s breath froze inside her lungs. She craned her neck to look past the woman but there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the room. “He left? By himself? He was here last night. I saw him. Did he check out or move to another room?”