by Mindy Klasky
The question surprised her as much as it surprised him. She had been thinking it for days, though, ever since he had told her about the danger. Ever since he had sparked the constant gnawing uncertainty about the health of their baby, the niggling fear that would not be put to rest for several more weeks.
“I’m sorry,” she said, when she saw the stricken look on his face. “You don’t have to answer that.”
“No.” He drew a deep breath, and then he took a healthy swallow of his burgundy. “I do.” He rubbed his hand across his mouth, as if the gesture would help him to collect his thoughts. “I never had the surgery because it would be permanent. It felt like giving up. Like admitting that we’ll never find a cure.”
“After what? Fifty years?”
He heard what she was doing with her voice, the way she tried to be gentle with him. The way she tried to say that there might not ever be a cure. He appreciated the effort, even as he pushed away her specific question.
“In fifty years, Hartwell Genetics has brought hundreds of new pharmaceuticals to the market. We’ve found cures for a dozen different diseases. We’ve helped millions of people. We just haven’t helped my family. Yet.”
“Yet,” she said, purposely hardening her voice to match his certainty.
He nodded, and then he rubbed his hands together, obviously closing the door on that part of their conversation. For now, he amended mentally. Until Sloane decided that she needed to talk about it again. He would answer any questions that she had, whenever she had them. He would do that for her.
“Your turn,” he said with a devilish smile. “What’s your favorite dessert?”
“Chocolate mousse,” she said. “No, wait! Crème caramel!”
“Let’s see what we can do about that then, shall we?” He raised his chin, claiming the attention of the waiter on the far side of the room.
Hours later, well after crème caramel and coffee and several long, lingering kisses, Sloane was falling asleep in the privacy of the guest suite when she remembered the last thing on her list—the June wedding date. Oh, well, she thought, already slipping into the fuzzy warmth of a dream. There was plenty of time to set a date…months and months and months.
Sloane caught her tongue between her teeth, holding her breath as she pressed the enter key on her computer. A progress bar appeared on the screen, racing from left to right, and then a model of the Hope Project home page blinked into existence. Every photograph was in place. The fonts were correct. Three columns marched neatly across the screen.
“Yes!” she cried, pumping her fist in the air. She was startled to hear laughter from the doorway. “Ethan!” she exclaimed, looking up. “How long have you been standing there?”
He ignored her question. “I take it the Hope Project is going well?”
He looked perfectly relaxed in his broadcloth shirt and tailored trousers, as if he’d left the office hours before. She wondered what he was doing home in the middle of the day, on a Friday no less. Glancing back at her computer screen, she grinned. “I finally got the front page to look the way I want it to. It’s taken about a hundred tries, but everything is finally falling into place.” Ethan started to walk across the library, but she shielded the screen with her palms. “No! You can’t look at it yet. It’s not ready for prime time.”
He held up his hands as if to prove that he was innocent. “The computer’s working all right, then?”
“It’s wonderful.” She couldn’t help but caress the sleek silver edge of the casing. The new machine was ten times faster than the wreck she’d brought from her apartment. Ethan had assured her that the computer was just something he’d had lying around the office, that it hadn’t cost him a penny. Reluctantly, she’d accepted it, telling herself that she needed something to help her fill the long hours that he spent at the office. Speaking of which… “What are you doing home?”
“Don’t we have Daisy’s appointment this afternoon?”
The puppy’s first visit to the veterinarian, a simple checkup to make sure she was in general good health. “I thought I was going to take her,” Sloane said. James had already told her that she could take the SUV from the garage. Sloane had looked up directions to the vet’s office, telling herself that she would have no trouble navigating the unfamiliar streets. No trouble, that was, if Daisy behaved herself.
Ethan shrugged easily. “It didn’t seem fair for me to stick you with the hard stuff. Partnership, right? We’re in this together.”
If Ethan had harbored any doubts about coming home early, they were banished by Sloane’s brilliant smile. He really should be back at the office, but there would always be time to schedule another meeting with the in-house trademark lawyers.
He watched Sloane’s fingers fly over her keyboard, saving whatever she had just completed on her internet project. He was glad that the new machine was working out well. The technology guru back at the office had laughed when Ethan suggested repairing Sloane’s old computer. “It’ll cost more and take longer for me to order replacement parts for this ancient thing than for you to just buy something new, something top-of-the-line.” The guy had shaken his head as if he were studying some museum exhibit on the history of home computing.
Top-of-the-line it had been, then. Getting the new computer was simple enough. And it made Sloane happy.
Ethan produced a ring of keys from the pocket of his trousers. “Do you want to drive? Or should I?”
Sloane told herself that she was silly to feel so relieved. Of course she could have made it to the veterinarian’s office on her own. Nevertheless, she laughed as she said, “You drive. Our fearless watchdog is in the kitchen, sleeping on her new bed.”
She switched off her computer and led the way out of the library. She was pretty sure Ethan was watching her as she walked in front of him. Normally, the thought would have made her self-conscious, but that afternoon, she felt empowered. She had just taken a major step toward completing the Hope Project. She was managing her life, accomplishing her goals. And Ethan had remembered the words that she had typed on that slip of paper. He had been the one to say partnership.
She let her hips sway a little more than usual as she walked down the hall. She couldn’t help but run her fingers through her hair. She slowed her pace, just a fraction.
She widened her eyes with mock innocence, as she tried to convince herself that it wouldn’t be her fault if Ethan came up close behind her. She wouldn’t be responsible if he nuzzled that sensitive place at the side of her throat, if he started to play with the buttons on her floral blouse. If he tempted her to forget every single promise that she’d made to herself and to the baby inside her. At least, it wouldn’t be entirely her fault. Would it?
Before she could decide just how far she was willing to tempt her fiancé, she was distracted by the sharp yap of an excited puppy, newly energized by a nap.
“Yes,” Ethan said, brushing against Sloane before he knelt on the floor to wrestle with the barking hellion. His hand lingered against Sloane’s hip for just long enough that she was certain he had been reading her mind. He didn’t follow through on that tingling promise, though. Instead, he crooned to Daisy, “I’m home. And you’re glad to see me. You know how to welcome a man back to his house.”
As Sloane watched, Ethan continued talking to the fluff ball of a dog. He growled at Daisy in mock ferocity as he eased the animal into her harness, double-checking the fastening to make sure the puppy couldn’t escape, couldn’t come to harm on his watch. The click of Ethan’s tongue was automatic as he summoned the dog to walk beside him to the garage. He was a natural at controlling Daisy, at giving her the length of leash she needed, at pulling back to keep her manageable and secure before he put her into a travel crate.
Ethan handled the car with the same smooth efficiency, winding his way through the shady summertime streets. As he braked to a stop at a traffic light, he asked Sloane, “So, how close are you to finishing the Hope Project?”
“Getting that template to work
this afternoon was a major step forward. I still need to test the algorithms, though, to make sure that everything works as well online as it does on paper. I’d like to think that it will function perfectly, but there’s a huge difference between design and reality.”
“Tell me about it.” He sighed, heading back into traffic.
“What does that mean?” she asked. “Are you having computer problems at work?”
“Not a computer.” He shrugged and glanced in the rearview mirror before changing lanes. “There’s a new drug that showed a lot of promise in the lab. Turns out it’s not nearly as effective in our first round of human test subjects. It’s safe, not going to hurt anyone. But if it worked as well as it did in the last round of testing, we could wipe out an entire class of diseases.”
She heard the disappointment in his voice. There was something else there, though, something that ran even deeper. It took her a moment to process his words, to figure out what she was responding to. Ah, that was it. Determination.
Ethan was determined to make his drug therapy work, no matter how many times he had to go back to the drawing board. No matter what it cost him financially, emotionally. He was invested in Hartwell Genetics, and he wouldn’t give up until the new drug functioned flawlessly.
Maybe that was what had drawn her to him in the first place. Okay, she reasoned with herself. In the second place. She’d been drawn to him in the first place by his incredibly sexy smile, by his ruffled hair, by the smoky way his eyes had tracked her when she’d walked into the Eastern Hotel bar.
His determination was what had convinced her to take the chance of a lifetime, to jump into the deep end by agreeing to marry him when her entire life had turned upside down. Ethan was a man who could make things happen. He could get things done.
Her fingers inched across her blouse, gathering up the fabric in tiny hills and valleys. There were some things, she knew, that even Ethan couldn’t accomplish. Their baby was growing, with or without the Hartwell genetic flaw. Ethan couldn’t change that. Not now. Not ever. And she dreaded the fight that she knew was coming if all her hopes came to nothing, if all her dreams crumbled to ash with the amnio results that Ethan dreaded. Sloane could barely imagine what life would be like if she were pitted against the very determination that had drawn her in so deeply at the start.
“I lost you there,” Ethan said, and she was flustered to realize that he had pulled into a parking space. She had completely lost track of their drive, of the careful twists and turns that had brought them to the vet’s office.
“Sorry,” she said, flashing him an automatic smile. She wasn’t about to tell him all of her worries. No reason to borrow trouble. Not now. As if to emphasize Sloane’s resolve, Daisy yipped from her crate in the back of the vehicle. “I didn’t mean to zone out like that.”
She undid her seat belt with her own gesture of determination. Ethan shot her an appraising look, as if he knew that she was ducking out of an unpleasant conversation. He didn’t press the point, though. Instead, he easily maneuvered the latch on Daisy’s crate, bundling up the wriggling puppy, laughing as the dog tried to smother him with sloppy kisses.
Soon enough, an only slightly subdued Daisy was standing on the veterinarian’s examination table, shaking her head at the scope Dr. Johnson used to inspect her ears. With the vet’s right hand firm on her neck, the puppy submitted to having her teeth inspected. “Her gums look good,” the vet said. “She should start to lose her milk teeth in a couple of months. She’ll chew on things constantly as her adult teeth come in. Make sure she has toys, or you’ll find yourself out a pair of shoes or two.”
Sloane laughed. “No problem there. She has all the toys a puppy could ever need.” Ethan had seen to that, bringing home a wide selection of playthings earlier in the week. Zach might have strong-armed him into accepting the puppy, but Ethan was taking his responsibilities as a pet owner seriously.
Dr. Johnson moved her hands down Daisy’s back, apparently pleased with the alignment of the puppy’s spine. She reached around to the belly, palpating and nodding to herself. “No masses in the abdomen,” the doctor said, before she slipped her stethoscope buds into her ears.
Ethan approved of the doctor’s smooth actions. The woman was clearly comfortable with puppies. It was obvious that she liked them; the vet had exclaimed over Daisy as if she were the only dog on the schedule for the entire afternoon.
Comfort, though, and enthusiasm, weren’t enough when it came to medical care. A good doctor was thorough. Able to diagnose problems from the subtlest of hints.
Dr. Johnson moved her stethoscope around, finding a better placement on Daisy’s chest. A tiny frown tightened around the woman’s lips, and she planted the medical instrument again. Another shift, another angle for the stethoscope’s round plate.
“Is there something wrong, Doctor?” Ethan made himself keep his voice even, but he felt his brain shift into businessman mode. As an officer of Hartwell Genetics, he was accustomed to dealing with medical professionals who bore bad news. As an expert in human genetics, he was prepared to discuss anatomical anomalies, contraindications, complex diagnoses.
Sloane must have recognized the change in his focus. He heard her breath catch at the back of her throat. Wishing that he could spare her whatever the doctor was about to say, he stepped closer, weaving Sloane’s fingers between his own. Her hand was cold, slack, as if she already knew that the veterinarian had bad news.
Dr. Johnson only shook her head, taking several long minutes to listen further to Daisy’s chest. When she finally removed the stethoscope from her ears, her face was grave. “I’m sorry,” she said. “At first, I wasn’t certain what I was hearing—I didn’t expect to find it in a puppy this young.”
“Find what?” Sloane asked the question before Ethan could, her voice impossibly fragile.
“Daisy has a heart murmur. The valves of her heart aren’t functioning the way that they should, so her heart isn’t pumping blood as efficiently as normal.”
“What grade?” Ethan snapped. He’d read enough laboratory studies over the years to know that there were five grades of heart murmur. Grade one or two, and Daisy was fine; she’d likely grow out of the problem. Three or four, though, and the poor dog would have problems, meaning she’d likely require medication. And five…
“Five,” the vet said grimly.
“But what—” Sloane started to ask, her voice breaking before she could complete the question.
“You’ll do an EKG to be sure?” Ethan asked. The electrocardiogram might give them valuable information. Let him control the situation. Manage everything that was going wrong.
“Of course,” Dr. Johnson said. “And an echocardiogram might get us more information as well. Maybe some X-rays, if it seems like they can give us more facts.”
“You have the equipment here?”
“Yes,” the veterinarian assured him. “Of course, the tests can become rather expensive—”
“Just do them,” Ethan cut her off.
Dr. Johnson flashed him a pleased smile. “Some people aren’t willing to invest in a new pet, a puppy they’ve hardly gotten to know.”
“Do whatever tests you need to do,” Ethan said.
The vet gathered up the squirming puppy. “Come on, you. These tests aren’t going to hurt. And you just might get a treat when we’re done.” She turned back to Ethan and Sloane. “We’ll probably need an hour or two. There’s a coffee shop next door, if you want to wait there.”
If Ethan had been on his own, he would have insisted on waiting right there in the examining room. Keeping himself front and center, he would have made the vet’s staff work harder, complete the tests sooner, interpret the results just a little faster.
One glance at Sloane, though, told Ethan that it would be a mistake to stay there. Her face was rigid with worry. She was already looking at the instruments in the examining room as if they were tools in some medieval torture chamber. It was better for Sloane to get away
, to wait somewhere else.
“Thank you,” Ethan said stiffly.
The veterinarian smiled, as if she knew the battle he had fought. “Just leave your cell phone number with the receptionist, and we’ll call you as soon as we have any results.”
This was a nightmare, Sloane thought as she watched the doctor carry off Daisy.
Any minute now, Sloane was going to wake up. She would hear the oak tree scraping against her window, smell the roses on the writing desk. She would realize this was all a bad dream, and she would laugh at herself.
But the oak tree had been cut down almost a week ago, the very same Sunday that Zach had brought Daisy into their lives. The roses had been replaced with a new floral display, a riot of color that no one could ever confuse with a funeral arrangement.
She felt Ethan’s fingers tighten around hers, and she realized that they were still holding hands, had been ever since the veterinarian had begun to examine poor Daisy. Sloane let Ethan guide her out of the bright room. She stood beside him while he recited his cell number to the receptionist. She waited with him while a bored barista served up two cups of coffee—a dark roast for Ethan, decaf for her. She watched as he doctored her cup, adding a healthy dose of cream, stirring in a single packet of sugar.
She roused herself enough to carry her own cup to the table, and she was vaguely conscious of Ethan holding her chair for her, waiting to make sure that she was settled before he folded himself into his own seat. Reflexively, she started to drink, but the beverage was still too hot. Nevertheless, Ethan managed to swallow his.
She waited until he’d returned the paper cup to the table before she finally asked, “What are we going to do?”
“Let’s wait until we hear what the doctor has to say.”
“Grade five,” she said, finally getting to the question she’d been unable to choke out back in the examining room. “That’s serious, isn’t it?”
She saw the discomfort on his face and realized that he wanted to duck the truth, to lie to her. She also recognized the moment that he decided to face the problem head-on, the moment that he embraced the first word on her list. Truth. “Yes,” he said. “It’s serious.”