"I know. I'm afraid that—" Crash broke off.
"What?" She moved closer, almost close enough to touch him. "Talk to me. I know you're not talking to Jake or Daisy about any of this. You've got to talk to someone."
Crash looked toward the house, squinting slightly, his mouth tighter than Nell had ever seen it. When he spoke, his voice was so low, she had to lean closer to hear him. "I'm afraid that when the time comes, when the pain gets too intense, when she can't walk anymore, she's going to ask me to help her die." When he glanced up at her, he didn't bother to hide the anguish in his eyes. "I know she'd never ask Jake to do that."
Nell drew in a shaky breath. "Oh, God."
"Yeah," he said.
Nell couldn't stand it any longer. She put her arms around him, knowing full well that he would probably push her away. But he didn't. Instead, he pulled her close. He held her tightly as, around them, the snow began to thicken and turn to freezing rain.
"I remember the day she came to get me from summer camp like it was yesterday," he said softly, his face buried in her hair, his breath warm against her neck. "I'd only been there two days when I got a message from the head counsellor that Daisy was coming to see me." He lifted his face, resting his cheek against the top of her head. "She hit the place like a hurricane. I swear she came up the path to the camp office like Joan of Arc marching into battle. She was wearing a long skirt that just kind of flowed around her when she walked and about twenty bangles on her arm and a big beaded necklace. Her hair was down—it was long back then, it went down past her waist, and she was carrying her sandals. Her feet were bare and I remember there was bright red polish on her toenails."
He was talking about the year he was ten, Nell realized. The year his mother had died and his father had sent him directly to summer camp from boarding school.
"I was waiting for her on the porch of the office, and she stopped and gave me a big hug and she asked me if I liked it there. I didn't, but I told her what my father had told me—that there was no place else for me to go. I didn't really know her that well—she was my mother's cousin and they hadn't been particularly close. But she stood there, and she asked me if I would like to spend the summer out in California with her and Jake. I didn't know what to say and she told me that I didn't have to go with her if I didn't want to, but..." he cleared his throat, "that she and Jake very much wanted me to come stay with them."
Nell could hear his heart beating as he was silent for a moment.
"I guess I didn't really believe her, because I didn't go to my cabin to pack when she went into the office. I stayed on the porch, and I heard her talking to the administrator. Without my father's permission, he refused to let me leave. Daisy called my father—he was in Paris—right from the camp office, but she couldn't get through. He was in negotiations. He wasn't taking any calls until after the weekend. No one would interrupt him. He was...pretty formidable.
"So Daisy came back outside and she gave me another hug and told me she'd be back tomorrow at dinnertime. She said, 'When I get here, be packed and ready to go.'"
He was quiet again for a moment. "I remember feeling disappointed when she left without me. It was a strange feeling because I'd gone so long without any expectations at all. And that night I actually packed my stuff. I felt really stupid doing it, because I really couldn't believe she was going to come back. But something made me do it. I guess—even though most of it had been shaken out of me by then—I still had some hope left. I wanted her to come back so much I could barely breathe."
It was raining harder now, but Nell was afraid to move, almost afraid to breathe herself for fear she would break the quiet intimacy and he would stop talking.
But he was silent for so long, she finally lifted her head and looked at him. "Was she able to get in touch with your father?"
"She couldn't get anyone to interrupt his meetings, so she flew to Paris." Crash laughed ruefully, his mouth curving up into a half smile. "She just walked in on him with a letter for him to sign, giving her permission to take me out of the camp. I remember doing the math, adding up the hours, and realizing that she must have been travelling continuously from the time she left the camp to make it to Paris and back in a single day.
"It was so amazing to me," he continued quietly. "The fact that someone actually wanted me that badly. And Daisy really did. Both she and Jake actually wanted me around. I think about all the time Jake spent with me, that summer in particular, and it still amazes me. They really wanted me. I wasn't in the way."
Nell couldn't keep the tears that were filling her eyes from overflowing and mixing with the rain that was falling.
Crash gently touched her cheek with one knuckle. "Hey, I didn't mean to make you cry."
She pulled away from him slightly, using her hands to wipe her face. "I'm not crying," she insisted. "I never cry. I'm not a crier, I swear it. I just... I'm so glad you told me."
"I would do anything for Daisy and Jake," Crash said simply. "Anything." He paused. "Watching Daisy die is hard enough, though. If I have to help her to..." He shook his head. "It's raining—and our pizza's here."
It was. The delivery truck was pulling into the driveway.
Nell stood up and followed Crash the rest of the way down the hill. She put the Flexible Flyer back inside the garage as he paid for the pizza.
Unfortunately, her appetite was completely gone.
"Today we're doing what?"
"Learning to tap-dance," Daisy said, taking a sip of her orange juice.
Nell glanced up. The look on Crash's face was nearly as good as the look on Jake's.
"I don't think SEALs are allowed to tap-dance," Crash said.
Daisy set down her glass. "The instructor should be here in about an hour. I told her to meet us in the barn."
"She's kidding," Jake said. He looked at Daisy. "You are kidding?"
She just smiled.
Nell drained the last of her coffee and set the mug on the breakfast table with a thump. "I already know how to tap-dance," she announced. "And since I have four million phone calls to make, I'm going to excuse myself from this morning's activity."
Crash actually laughed out loud. "Oh, not a chance," he said.
"You know how to tap-dance?" Daisy was intrigued. "How come you never told me that?"
"Oh, come on, Daisy, she's bluffing," Crash said. "Look at her."
"I never mentioned it because it's not something that usually comes up in normal conversation," Nell said. "I don't go around introducing myself to people and saying, 'Hi, I'm Nell Burns—oh, by the way, I know how to tap-dance.'"
"I don't buy it." Crash shook his head. "No way. She's just trying to get out of this."
He was teasing. There was a light in his eyes that told Nell he was teasing. Ever since the evening they went sledding, the evening he'd actually talked about himself, their relationship had continued to grow. But only in one direction. They only continued to be friends.
It was driving her nuts.
"You just think because you're helping FInCOM do an advanced security check, you know everything there is to know about me," Nell countered. "I'm glad you don't believe me. This proves that I'm still capable of having secrets. God knows everyone needs at least one little secret—even if it's only that they know how to tap-dance."
The truth was, Nell had more than one secret. And one of those secrets she was keeping was enormous. She was falling for Crash. With every moment that passed, she was falling harder for this man who was determined to be no more than her friend.
She glanced at Daisy, who was watching her with a smile. Strike that. The way Nell felt about Crash was apparently quite obvious to some people in the room.
"I believe you," Jake told her. "But there's only one way you're going to convince Lieutenant Skeptic here. You're going to have to tap dance for him."
"That's right." Crash gestured toward the spacious kitchen floor. "Come on, Burns. Knock yourself out."
"Right here? In the kitch
en?"
"Sure." He leaned back in his chair, waiting.
Nell shook her head. "I...don't have tap shoes."
"I bought us each a pair," Daisy said helpfully. "They're out in the barn."
Nell stared. "You bought four pairs of—"
Crash stood up. "Let's go."
"Now?"
He started for the door. "Jake was right. The only way I'll let you get out of the required beginners' class is if you walk your talk, so to speak."
Nell rolled her eyes at Daisy, then followed Crash out to the barn. She shivered as he unlocked the door.
He glanced at her. "Where's your jacket?"
"You didn't take yours."
"I usually don't need one."
"You usually work in the jungles of Southeast Asia where the average December temperature is a steamy eighty degrees."
"You aren't supposed to know that." He held the door open for her and then closed it behind them. "It's cold in here, too. I'll turn up the heat."
"Don't. It's not good for the trees to be really warm until they absolutely have to be," Nell explained. "If we keep 'em inside at seventy-two degrees for a week, and then put them outside when it's in the twenties...it blows their minds."
"They're trees," Crash pointed out dryly. "They don't have minds."
"That's not what my mother thinks. She talks to all her plants. And I think it works. My parents' entire house is like a botany experiment gone wild."
"I hate to break it to you, Burns, but that says more for the power of CO2 than anything else."
"Yeah, yeah," Nell said. "Be that way." The morning was grey and she turned on the overhead lights.
Four shoe boxes were neatly stacked underneath one of the Christmas trees that she and Crash had decorated.
Tap shoes. Two pairs of men's shoes, and two pairs of women's. They were all black leather, and the women's had a sturdy two-inch heel.
Somehow Daisy had known Nell's exact shoe size. She sat on the floor and pulled off her boots. "It's been a while," she said, looking up at Crash as she strapped on the shoes. "I learned to tap back when I was in high school. I was a theatre-major wanna-be—you know, in the chorus of all the school musicals, never good enough to get a lead role. I was an okay dancer, but not talented enough to get into a performing-arts program at any college. At least not any college I wanted to go to."
She stood up. Trust Daisy to spend the money on quality shoes that fit comfortably.
Nell caught sight of herself in the wall of mirrors. Dressed in jeans and a turtleneck, she felt odd in fancy black heels. She felt odder still about Crash, leaning against the wall, arms crossed, waiting to watch her dance. She knew he wouldn't laugh at her—at least not out loud.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. "You know, I really shouldn't have to do this," she said. "We're friends. You should believe me. You should take on faith what I've told you is true."
He nodded. "Okay. I believe you. Dance."
"No, what you should say is that you believe me, and because you believe me you don't have to see me dance."
"But I want to see you dance."
"All right, but I'm warning you. It's been years, and even back when I was taking lessons I wasn't very good."
Crash turned toward the windows. "What's that?"
"What?"
He straightened up, pushing himself off the wall. "A siren."
"I don't hear..." She heard it then. In the distance, moving closer.
Nell went toward the door, but Crash was even faster. He pulled it open and went outside at a run. Her tap shoes clattered on the macadam as she followed. Somehow the kitchen door had gotten locked, and they raced around to the front of the house, arriving just as an ambulance bounced over the speed bump and up into the main part of the driveway.
God, what had happened? It hadn't been more than fifteen minutes since they'd left Daisy and Jake in the kitchen.
"Jake!" Crash burst into the house.
"In the studio," the admiral bellowed back.
Nell held the door for the paramedics. "Down the hall on the left," she instructed them, standing back to let them go first. They were moving fast and she raced after them.
Please God... Nell stopped in the studio doorway as the three paramedics crowded around Daisy.
She was on the floor, as if she'd fallen, with Jake beside her, and Crash crouched beside him. Nell hung back, suddenly aware that she was not a member of the family.
"She blacked out," Jake was telling the paramedics. "It's happened before, but not like this. This time I couldn't rouse her." His voice broke. "At first I thought..."
"I'm okay," Nell heard Daisy murmur. "I'm all right, baby. I'm still here."
Nell shivered, holding on to herself tightly. She knew what Jake had thought. Jake had thought that Daisy had slipped into a coma. Or worse.
The paramedics were deep in discussion with both Jake and Daisy. They wanted to take Daisy to the hospital, to run some tests.
"Nell."
She looked up to find Crash gazing at her. He'd straightened up and now held out his hand to her—a silent invitation to come stand beside him.
She took both his invitation and his hand, lacing their fingers tightly together.
"Your hand is cold," he whispered.
"I think my heart stopped beating for a minute."
"She's okay, you know," he told her.
"For now." She felt her eyes fill with tears.
Crash nodded. "Now is all we've got. It stinks, but it's better than the alternative, which is not to have now."
Nell closed her eyes, willing her tears away.
To her surprise, he touched her, gently pulling a strand of her hair free from where it had caught on her eyelashes, pushing it back, dragging his fingers lightly through her hair. "But remember that line of thinking doesn't apply to every situation," he said quietly. "Sometimes taking advantage of now doesn't do anyone any good."
He was talking about...them? Was it possible...? Nell looked up at him, but he'd let go of her hand, all of his attention on Jake, who was pushing himself to his feet.
As she watched, Jake backed away to let the paramedics put Daisy on a stretcher.
"She didn't agree to go in for tests, did she?" Crash asked incredulously.
Jake gave him a you've-got-to-be-kidding look. "No chance. She's only letting them help her into the bedroom. She's still feeling kind of dizzy." He forced himself to smile as Daisy was carried past. "I'll be in in a sec, babe," he told her before turning back to Nell. "I know this is asking a lot, but... What are the chances of moving the wedding up a few days?"
Nell glanced from Jake to Crash then back. "How many days?"
"As many as possible. To tomorrow, if you can swing it."
Tomorrow. Oh, God.
"I'm afraid..." Jake cleared his throat and started again. "I'm afraid we're running out of time."
She would have to call the pastor, see if he could change his schedule. And the caterer was going to have a cow. It wasn't a weekend, so the band might be open to switching the dates. But—the guests! She'd have to call them individually. That meant close to two hundred phone calls. But first she'd have to find all those phone numbers and...
Crash touched her shoulder. When she looked up at him, he nodded, as if he could read her mind. "I'll help."
Nell took a deep breath and turned back to Jake. "Consider it done."
Chapter 6
As far as weddings went, this one had been perfect.
Or rather, it would have been perfect, had the bride not been dying.
Crash closed his eyes. He didn't want to go there. All day long, he'd avoided that dark place.
The barn sparkled and glistened with the decorations he'd helped Nell hang. It rang with laughter and music. It glowed with warmth and light.
The band was great, the food was first-rate, the guests were bemused by the bride and groom's sudden change of plans—because none of them knew the truth.
; And amidst all the sparkle and joy, Crash could almost pretend that he was just as ignorant.
The champagne he'd had hadn't hurt much, either.
The crowd was really thinning out as it approached eleven o'clock. Crash watched Nell from across the room as she spun around the dance floor in the arms of a man he'd met just that evening. He blanked on the name. Tall, dark and distinguished-looking, whoever he was had just been elected to the U.S. Senate. Mike something. From California. Garvin. That was it. Senator Mark Garvin.
Garvin said something to Nell and she laughed.
Crash was certain that Garvin—along with the other 299 wedding guests—couldn't tell that Nell hadn't had more than two hours of sleep in the past forty-eight. The only reason he knew that she hadn't slept much was because in the past two days he hadn't had time to catch more than a short combat nap himself.
Of course, he was used to going without sleep. He was trained to be able to stay alert and functioning under severe conditions.
Nell was running on adrenaline and sheer grit.
"She's great, isn't she?"
Crash looked up to see Dexter Lancaster standing beside him, following his gaze. He was talking about Nell.
"Yeah," Crash agreed. "She's great."
"I figured you out, you know." Lancaster took a sip of his drink. "I've danced with Nell four times tonight. Garvin over there has danced with her twice. A collection of other gentlemen have taken her around the floor this evening as well. But you, my friend, have not danced with her at all."
"I don't dance."
Lancaster smiled and his blue eyes twinkled warmly. "She doesn't have a clue that you're hung up on her, does she?"
Crash met the man's gaze steadily. "She's my friend," he said quietly. "I happen to know that she's emotionally vulnerable right now. She doesn't need me—or anyone else—taking advantage of her."
The lawyer nodded, setting his empty glass down on a nearby table. "Fair enough. I'll wait to call her until spring or early summer."
Crash gritted his teeth and forced himself to nod. By spring or early summer, unless there was some kind of miracle and Daisy went into remission, he'd be on the other side of the world. "Fair enough."
It Came Upon A Midnight Clear Page 7