by Kristie Cook
“What’s wrong?”
“This isn’t me, Mason. I look ridiculous.” I turned back to the mirror and waved my arm toward my silly reflection.
“Like hell you do.” He walked up behind me, his gaze reflecting back at mine, holding it. Without breaking the lock, he dipped his head down and planted his lips on my neck. “You look phenomenal. I don’t know if I can manage getting through the night before taking it off of you, though.”
I turned around and draped my arms around his neck. “Let’s not go out, then. Let’s stay here and order in, and we can spend the night alone … but together.”
His lips tipped up slightly. “Very tempting. But I’m too proud of you and need to go out and show off my girl.”
I frowned. “I look like a fake wannabe, Mason.” I flicked my fingers over the tattoo on my collarbone. “I don’t belong at a fancy restaurant or even in this dress.”
He stared straight into my eyes. “You belong by my side, wherever that is. Don’t let anyone tell you differently, especially yourself. I’m in this forever, precious. And that will mean fancy dinners and club houses, and you will be there looking every bit as hot as you do now. And you damn well do belong in that dress. I swear it was made for you.” He gave me a kiss, and then said, “We’re going out. I just need a quick shower.”
I sighed as he pulled away, undressing as he walked for the bathroom. I was half-tempted to follow him in, but he was insistent about our plans, and I didn’t want the steam to ruin my look, as fake as it was.
“Do you know the first reason I fell in love with you?” he asked a few minutes later as he came out of the bedroom, wearing black dress pants and buttoning up a light green shirt that made his eyes even more stunning than usual. “You didn’t seem like the type who cared what other people think.”
I turned in my place on the couch and looked up at him. “It’s not that I care all that much about what other people think, especially snobby-nosed assholes. But I do know where and how I’m comfortable, and that’d be wearing a halter top, cut-off shorts and cowboy boots while whoopin’ it up at a K-bomb. Not dressed like this and eating fancy food at a restaurant so dark you can’t see what you’re eatin’ and so hoity-toity, you’re afraid to even laugh out loud.”
“Maybe this will make you feel a little better.” He held out a small, square box in his palm. I froze. I was so not ready for this. He must have seen the panic in my eyes, because he snorted. “Don’t worry. It’s not that. Not yet.”
He gave me a wink before sitting on the couch next to me and leveling the box in front of my chest. I reached out and lifted the top. Inside lay a pendant—a silver pair of cowboy boots with a bright pink stone at the top of each. A kind of squeal mixed with a laugh escaped my lips, and I picked it up. A silver necklace dangled from it.
“This is too much, Mason,” I said, but I turned my back for him and held the necklace out. “But I love it.”
He fastened the necklace and although it might have looked all wrong with the dress, it somehow made it all feel more right. Mason took me out to an amazing dinner, and after we came home, the best part of fighting began: the makeup sex.
“I don’t want to do the dominance thing tonight,” I said against his mouth as we kissed while making our way to the bedroom.
“Okay. Why don’t you take control this time?”
So I did. And I’m pretty sure he enjoyed every single second of it.
He woke me up the next morning with breakfast in bed and cleaned the kitchen spotless by himself. Then he stepped in the shower soon after I did and made sweet, crazy love to me before tenderly washing my body. He left me standing under the warm water, rinsing off.
“What do you think about getting a puppy?” he asked from the other side of the glass door.
“A puppy?” I echoed.
“Yeah. Or are you more of a cat girl? You seem like a dog person to me.”
“I’ve never had a pet,” I admitted. “Unless you count Sissy.”
“He’d keep you company during the day until you found a job.”
“And then I’d have no time for him and neither do you. You’re hardly home as it is.”
I turned the water off, and when I opened the door, Mason stood there with a towel hanging from his waist, holding another.
“That’s going to change,” he said, handing me the spare towel. “I guess you heard that I was a resident?”
I stopped rubbing the terrycloth over my head and looked at him. “Yeah, about that …”
“I’m really a doctor, Bex. I don’t know what you know about the process—”
“Pretty much nothing.” I nearly missed his smile as I bent over to twist the towel around my hair. When I came up, he held out another, bigger one for me, which I wrapped around my body.
“Well, as soon as you finish med school, you have a doctorate degree and are called a doctor. Then you do your residency, which is like a paid apprenticeship. By the time you’re done with that, you finish the tests to get your license and go for Board certification. I just finished my residency.”
I stared at him and lifted my brows. “So you’re not really a doctor?”
His eyes tightened, and his nostrils flared, as though I’d accused him of lying. Maybe I had. But I was also trying to understand. He gained control over whatever anger had risen.
“Yes, I am. I’m allowed to treat patients. I’ve just been under supervision. I finished my residency, though, and will soon be licensed to practice on my own.”
I processed this, then bounced on the balls of my feet and smiled. “That’s a big thing, right? We should celebrate!”
He laughed and pulled me into his arms. “Yeah, it’s kind of a big thing. But let’s hold off on the celebration until my license is in hand.”
“So the residency is when you have to work all those god-awful hours, right? Like they do on the TV shows?”
“Right. And I’m done with that now. Being a doctor still means I’m on call and will have some long days, but not like it’s been.”
“I always thought they didn’t make much money. Seems like they complain about bein’ poor all the time, even the characters who come from real poor.” Like me.
“We get a salary, but nothing like when you have your practice. Most residents have hundreds of thousands in student loans, so the salary seems pretty paltry from that perspective. I’m lucky enough to have an inheritance.”
“I thought you said you put yourself through school.”
He gave me a blank stare for a long moment, but then nodded slowly.
“Uh, yeah, I did. I didn’t get the inheritance until I finished.” He didn’t explain any further, even when I raised a brow. Instead, he reached behind him, and his hand came back with my phone. “Leni’s been texting you all morning. Says you have a date?”
I frowned.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
Possessive much? I wanted to say, not liking the tone of his voice or the fact that he’d read my text messages. Or that something felt odd about his whole explanation.
“We were supposed to meet for coffee this morning,” I said, trying to play it off. Reading my messages wasn’t really a big deal, was it? He did pay for my phone and the bill … “She’s probably waitin’ for me.”
“Maybe you can reschedule. I’m headed to the hospital.” He leaned in and kissed my forehead. “See you there?”
“Here, there, and everywhere, you are a part of me, and therefore always with me,” I murmured, the phrase suddenly coming to mind.
Mason chuckled. “What?”
I blinked. “Didn’t you say that to me last night?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m not that cheesy.”
Huh. I didn’t think it cheesy at all. In fact, it kind of made my knees weak.
And I could have sworn Mason had whispered it into my ear last night. Maybe it had been a dream?
Without another word, he strode out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. I hadn’t even finished brushing my hair when I heard the front door open then close. After waiting a few minutes to make sure he didn’t return for some forgotten item, I called Leni. For some reason I couldn’t explain, I didn’t want him overhearing my conversation with her.
We met at a nearby coffee shop, and I found her sitting at a table alone. When I asked where everyone else was, she said Jeric, Brock, and Asia had dropped her off before going to the mall down the street. I was surprised at that. I kind of had the feeling Jeric was a little overprotective of Leni. He’d been at Sullivan’s a lot when she worked and hardly ever gave her space, like he didn’t really trust her. I supposed having coffee with a girlfriend was different in his mind than working at a bar. I could sort of understand, but still thought he could lighten up.
She asked me about my mama and Sissy and squeezed my hand when I told her about Mama being in ICU. Other than that, we didn’t really talk about anything important. Back home, the blue-haired ladies would call it a gossip tea, but we didn’t really have anyone to gossip about. I supposed the coffee date was nice, but a little on the weird side. Sometimes I really didn’t get Leni.
“Do you mind giving me a ride to the mall?” she asked when I said I needed to get to the hospital when we finished our coffee. The mall was on the way, so of course I said yes.
When she got out of my car, she leaned back in, her big purse swinging forward. “I almost forgot I’m supposed to ask you something. You haven’t heard from Ty, have you? Like in the past week?”
“No. I called him the other night, but as usual, he didn’t answer or return it.” I didn’t tell her about sitting in his driveway for an hour. She nodded and shut the door, and as I was driving away, I wondered if I should have mentioned it. Something about Ty and the way she asked didn’t sit well with me.
I quickly forgot about it, though, when I arrived at the hospital. Dr. Wilcoxson and Dr. Munthe had exited ICU at the same time I rounded the corner and stood in front of the door to the family room. Sissy grabbed my hand and pulled me in, and the doctors followed. Their expressions scared me.
“Your mother’s taken a turn for the worse,” Dr. Wilcoxson said, his voice heavy as though he sincerely cared about her.
“You already know her liver and kidneys were failing, and her heart and lungs were weak,” Dr. Munthe said when his father-in-law seemed unable to go on. “Whatever improvement they’d made is gone. She’s developed pneumonia now, and she’s headed for end stage renal failure. I’m sorry …”
Sissy and I both stared at him. Sorry for what?
Dr. Wilcoxson cleared his throat. “At this point, it’s probably best to contact hospice and set her up so she can rest comfortably.”
“And then what?” I asked.
“Then we pray,” Dr. Wilcoxson said.
I blinked. He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed.
“Don’t worry about expenses or anything. Whatever isn’t covered by Medicaid has already been addressed. Apparently, your mother has a benefactor.”
My heart skipped at this news. Mason. Had to be. How much inheritance did he have? I pressed my hand to my mouth and nodded.
“How … long?” Sissy asked, choking on the words.
“How long does she have?” I clarified for her as I slipped my arm over her shoulders. Her body trembled against mine.
“It’s hard to say. A few days, maybe a week or so,” Dr. Munthe said. “We’re very sorry.”
The doctors left, and Sissy turned into me and cried on my shoulder. “I hate her, Bex. As much as you do. I really do. But I love her, too.”
“I know, Sissy, I know,” I whispered as I smoothed her hair.
We spent the next few hours filling out paperwork and talking to the hospice people. They said they needed to develop their plan of care with the doctors and would let us know if they’d be moving her tomorrow or the next day.
“I wish they could just put her down like a dog, bless her heart,” I muttered as Sissy and I walked toward the parking garage.
She grabbed my hand. “I actually agree with you. Too bad it’s against the law.”
I drove home in a daze. When I reached to the passenger side floor for my purse, my hand landed on something else. A book? I lifted it up and tried to see it better in the dim light of sunset. It was big enough and spread open, so I didn’t know how I’d missed it before, but now it was too dark to see the open pages. I pressed it against my chest, found my purse, and headed upstairs. If Mason had stopped in to see Mama, it must have been while Sissy and I were talking to the hospice people, because I never saw him. I was glad to see him home, sitting on the couch and reading. I dropped the book on the entrance table and my purse on top of it, kicked my shoes off as I walked over to him, and curled into his side. He put his magazine down and wrapped his arms around me while I cried.
Mason continued treating me like a princess—a sad and conflicted one—all night. He didn’t complain about me leaving my things everywhere, and he picked up my shoes and put them away for me. He made me dinner, even though I only picked at it, and cleaned up afterward.
“You paid for everything?” I asked as we snuggled in bed. He lay on his back, and I lay on my side with my head on his chest. One of his arms was behind his head, and his free hand twisted and twirled my hair.
“It’s not a problem,” he said, indirectly answering me.
“Why?”
“Because I love you. I want to take care of you, and right now, that means taking care of your mother.”
“You didn’t have to do that, though.”
He smoothed the hair away from my face, then gripped my chin and tilted my head back so he could look in my eyes.
“I told you. You are my life now. Your problems are my problems. I won’t always be able to solve them for you, Bex. I know life doesn’t work that way, but we’ll figure those out. This problem, though … this is one I can solve for you, so I did.”
“I can never repay you.”
His eyes flickered, and it almost looked like anger had passed through them, but then they softened. “You can repay me by loving me. That’s all I need from you.”
I gave him the best smile I could muster, too exhausted to argue tonight. “I think I can handle that.”
When I awoke the next morning, Mason was already gone. I padded into the kitchen in my tank and panties to pour a cup of coffee. As I headed back out with a cup in hand, I noticed the book on the entranceway table, still open under my purse. I retrieved it and went back to the bedroom. I propped myself up against some pillows, pulled the covers over my legs, and set the book on my lap. Both pages it was open to were blank.
As I lifted the yellowish pages to thumb through them, I noticed for the first time that a lock hung from the edges of the covers. I sucked in my bottom lip. This was a journal. It must have been Leni’s diary and fallen out of her purse yesterday. Before I could be tempted to read it, I went to close it immediately. The pages fluttered and something caught my eye, stopping me at the last moment. I stuck my hand between those pages and opened the book back up.
A face stared up at me.
A face I didn’t remember ever seeing before.
But somehow, a face I knew.
Chapter 22
The face, although a pencil drawing, looked a little like Mason, I thought, with darkish hair and light eyes that I could imagine being silvery green, but I guess they could have been gray or even blue. The rest of his features were like Mason’s, too, only … hotter. Lots hotter. More rugged than Mason’s pretty-boy face, but that somehow made this one more perfect. I didn’t think it possible, but this picture blew Mason’s reality out of
the water.
I turned the page, backward. Another face. Several pages, actually, of hand-drawn faces, all male, all different, all vaguely familiar. Kind of like I was feeling déjà vu again, but different. For some weird reason, my heart ached for all of them. As if I missed them terribly, although they had obviously lived in different times, judging by their styles, so I couldn’t have ever known them. I didn’t even know if they’d been real people or the objects of an artist’s imagination, especially since some didn’t even appear to be quite human. My reaction to the drawings made no sense, but it only continued to grow, making my stomach hurt as much as my heart.
“When I hold you once more, you will know where you belong and never question it again. Together, our souls as one, is how we’re meant to be.”
Another swoon-worthy phrase popping into my mind like the one yesterday, making my tummy dip. This time, I knew for sure Mason hadn’t said those words. But who had? And why did they suddenly pop into my head now?
I continued paging backwards, curiosity getting the best of me, until I reached pages of handwriting. I flipped to the front, where I learned this was not Leni’s diary after all. It may have been her book, but the journal was claimed by a Jacey who’d written it back in 1989. As soon as I turned to the first entry, my gaze fell on a single word: Bex. And then I was a lost cause. I couldn’t stop myself from reading, no matter how bad I felt for snooping. And the funny thing was the parts about this Jacey and Bex at college gave me the same feeling of recognition as the men’s faces. But I had no idea why.
I finished a gut-wrenching entry about Jacey’s pops dying, which reminded me of my own mama. I glanced at the clock. Oh, good heavens, how time flies. I was supposed to meet Sissy at the hospital in thirty minutes. I closed the book, sprang from the bed, took a quick shower and finished getting ready in a rush. By the time I parked my car, I was already fifteen minutes late.
A feeling of dread and hatred for this place blanketed over me as I walked down the corridor toward the ICU. I was sick of it—sick of the pale green walls, the hushed voices, the smell of bleach and disinfectant that ironically made me think of illness and disease. Sick of seeing Mama doing nothin’ but lying there, practically dead already. Not too long ago, when I’d first come to see her on the fifth floor, I’d been scared of myself, that I’d kill her as soon as I saw her. Now, I almost wished I had. Instead, we’d gone through two more months of suffering alongside her. Once again, she’d be leaving us with a mess of pieces to pick up. At least she’d be leaving us alone for good this time.