Cole felt his neck and ears turning red. “Colorful way to put it, but I haven’t seen her since the cookout. Not sure she’ll remember my name.”
“Don’t pretend that what I said isn’t true.”
He shook his head. “She’s a beautiful woman but way out of my league, Lindsey. I’m walking away.”
“You shouldn’t.” Lindsey’s teasing tone turned serious. “Sloan’s got a world of hurt knotted up inside her. She could use a friend like you.”
He turned into the hospital’s parking lot, glanced at Lindsey. “She tell you she was hurting?”
“Not in so many words…but I know what suffering looks like. I see it all around me up there in the chemo unit. I see it in my own mirror every day. Just ’cause somebody don’t talk about it doesn’t mean it don’t show. My sister has hurts, and she’s buried them deep.”
He thought about that as he parked, killed the engine, and walked around to open the passenger door for her. “You have any thoughts on what you think she’s hurting about?” He helped Lindsey out of the truck, walked her inside the hospital.
“Been trying to figure it out. I see the signs whenever we talk, but there’s no way to know without asking outright, or unless she volunteers telling. Maybe it’s something from her childhood, growing up without our daddy, or maybe a love thing that didn’t go right.” They stopped at the elevator, and she pushed the button for the chemo floor, waited, shivering from the air-conditioning.
Cole couldn’t deny he’d felt those guarded undercurrents when he’d been with Sloan too. “From my line of sight Sloan Gabriel is sitting on top of the world.”
“Not everything’s what it looks like on the surface, Cole.”
The door slid open, and she stepped inside, but when Cole started to join her, Lindsey held him back. “No need for you to come. I know how you hate going up there. Go on to work. I’ve already made you late.”
“How will you get home?” he asked as the door began to slide shut.
“My sister’s picking me up. Too bad you’re working the next twenty-four hours, or you could stop over this afternoon.” She flashed a mischievous smile as the door sealed shut.
Cole stood staring at the stainless steel doors and mulled over what Lindsey had said. He blended her comments with Sloan’s hit song. She’d written that song for or about someone. Then he remembered watching Sloan and Dawson as they’d stood together in the ER lobby, the look on their faces, and the tension in their bodies. Cole had been convinced they had a past with each other, but after meeting Lani, it was clear that Dawson had moved on. Perhaps Sloan had not.
He shook his head to clear away the jumble of emotions crowding in on him, and knew his desire to hold her, kiss her mouth, had not abated one bit. Yet to crave Sloan was a luxury he couldn’t afford to pursue. He gave a rueful smile, turned, and rushed off to work.
“How’s my favorite patient?” Lani asked as she hooked Lindsey, stretched out in a chemo chair, to a machine that would deliver measured doses of a pharmaceutical stew into the central line port in her chest.
“ ’Bout as good as you can expect for someone getting poisoned to death by chemo drugs. But I show up mostly to visit with you anyway, not this old machine.”
Rows of heat-resistant windows designed to fill the room with natural light filtered morning sun into the space. The architect had thought of everything to make the room welcoming and mask what it truly was—a battlefield between life and death. There were only two other patients under Lani’s care this morning, both attached to pumps, one woman reading, another knitting. Sometimes patients wanted someone to talk with, while others wanted to crawl inside protective shells and not be bothered. Lani tried to be sensitive to each individual’s needs.
“Instead of poison, how about thinking of it as a military force flowing through you, armed and ready to take out the enemy?”
“Like predator drones?”
“Exactly!”
Lindsey shrugged and gave a half smile. “They’ve been stalking my bad guys for years, and they haven’t gotten them all yet, only made them retreat into another part of my body.”
Lani crouched beside the chair, put her hand on Lindsey’s shoulder. “I know it’s been a long war, but don’t give up hope.”
“I like having you on my side.” She patted Lani’s hand.
Lani had not yet told many people about taking the St. Jude’s fellowship. In general, chemo patients tended to become attached to their caregivers, and Lindsey, who usually wore a smile and rarely complained, was one patient Lani would truly miss. Maybe now would be a good time to tell her—
“How’s that good-looking man of yours?” Lindsey’s sudden shift in topic and a cheerful smile pulled Lani away from her intention.
“Dawson’s fine. Working too hard, but doing what he likes to do.” Lindsey had never met Dawson, but Lani had shown her photos of the two of them on her cell phone. “How’s that good-looking young man of yours?”
Lindsey’s whole demeanor softened. “Toby’s still the love of my life.”
“He’ll be getting out of school for the summer soon, won’t he? You going to bring him to the playroom so I can pamper him with soda and candy?”
Lindsey shifted her gaze, knowing she couldn’t tell a bald-faced lie to Lani concerning the decision she’d made about her cancer treatments. She was leaving the unit for good after today, and would begin hospice care at home. She wanted one last summer—if she could manage it—with her son without the drugs and paraphernalia of these last few years. Just medications for pain control. Her doctors had been forthcoming weeks before when they’d showed her MRIs of her brain and pointed to the dark spots…her cancer’s final frontier. Only Cole and Gloria knew she was abandoning treatment. She wanted Sloan to know too….Next time they were alone, she’d tell her.
Answering Lani’s question, Lindsey said, “School’s out a week before Memorial Day, but I registered him for a summer camp program at the YMCA, so he can have some fun. And Cole’s coaching baseball at the Y in his spare time, so no need for me to drag him here.”
“Sounds like a perfect fit for you both.” Lani stood as another patient entered the unit. “I’ll come check on you soon.”
Lindsey closed her eyes, performed deep breathing exercises, and focused her mind on an image of Toby grinning to show he’d lost a second front tooth.
“Mom, look what the tooth fairy brought me! Five whole dollars! She must really like me!”
“She loves you, Little Man.”
The next thing Lindsey knew, Lani was gently shaking her shoulder, unhooking her infusion pump, and offering her an orange-flavored soda. “I guess I fell asleep,” she said with a yawn. She stretched, took hold of the cold cup, and sipped through the straw. The sparkling sweetness revived her.
Lani asked, “You need a ride home? I’ll call you a cab.”
Lindsey craned her neck toward the room’s entrance and broke into a big smile. “Not necessary. I have a ride. Someone I want you to meet. Why, here she is now.”
Lani had been busy with the pump and pouring Lindsey’s drink, but she turned toward the doorway, and felt her knees almost buckle. Coming straight toward her and Lindsey was Sloan Quentin, like a blond sorceress stepping out of a past Lani wanted to forget. The moment felt surreal.
Sloan’s gaze shifted from Lindsey’s smile to the nurse beside her chair, and she stopped walking. The clench in her stomach was reflexive, a reaction that came whenever confronted by the unexpected. The fight-or-flight reaction, scientists called it. If Lindsey hadn’t been beaming her a smile and holding out her hand, Sloan would have turned and fled.
“Sloan, come meet my favorite nurse, Lani Kennedy.”
Sloan and Lani locked guarded gazes. Lani offered a tentative smile. “You look good, Sloan.”
“You two know each other?” Lindsey asked, then did a finger snap. “Of course! You both grew up in this town. Bet you went to school together. Were you friends?”
The three of them laughed aloud, and that broke the tension.
“I was a year ahead of Lani,” Sloan said, coming closer, eyes only on Lindsey.
Lani’s head swam with questions, but before she could say anything, Lindsey clasped Sloan’s hand to her cheek and said, “Lani, I’m pleased and excited to tell you that Sloan Quentin Gabriel is my long-lost sister.”
Lani went mute. Sloan shifted uncomfortably. Baffled, Lindsey glanced between them in the ensuing silence. “Hello—anybody hear what I said?”
Lani found her voice first. “I—I didn’t know you had a half sister, Sloan.”
“It was a surprise to me too, but Lindsey contacted me while I was in Los Angeles and made a pretty compelling case for us being related.”
“We had the same father,” Lindsey added, glancing between the two. “Jerry Sloan. I think that’s why her mother named her Sloan—after Daddy.”
Sloan silently pleaded with the universe for Lani to not turn inquisitive over Lindsey’s announcement, or worse, start spouting off details from their shared past. A few words from Lani could be her undoing.
Lani sensed Sloan’s unease, one that matched her own. At the moment, she didn’t care how Lindsey had come to call Sloan sister. Lani’s personal history with Sloan was much too difficult to handle, and she’d come too far over the past year to fall into the abyss that had once almost consumed her.
Lindsey quickly realized that Sloan and Lani were not pleased to see one another, and she backpedaled. “It’s a long story and I’ll tell you sometime,” Lindsey said. “Bottom line…I figured out our connection months ago. I wrote Sloan, and was blown away when she came all this way and listened to my proof. I always wanted a sister, and now I have a famous one!” Lindsey added, “I know you have a sister, so you get how excited I am to discover I also have one.”
“How is Melody?” This from Sloan, in an effort to redirect the conversation.
“She’s doing well. Mr. Boatwright retired, and she’s in charge of his office these days.”
Sloan felt her tension easing, realizing Lani didn’t want to revisit the past either. Relieved, she asked, “So you got your nursing degree?” She swept the treatment room with a look—the chairs, equipment, the spotless new floors and walls.
“I did. And you’re a singing star. I guess we both landed upright, didn’t we?”
“It seems so.”
Lani pushed ahead with, “Our whole town rooted for you during the contest.”
“So I’ve been told…sort of surprised me too.”
Lani sorted through the chaos of emotions inside her, wanting to convey to Sloan that she was all right about Sloan’s returning, no matter the reason. “One thing about this town: It rallies around its own, and you’re counted as a true daughter of Windemere. We’re proud of you, Sloan. Truly.”
Sloan offered a nod of acquiescence, a tiny smile. She remembered that kindness was one of Lani’s virtues.
“Once word gets around that you’re here, people will want to see you. Newcomers will want to meet you,” Lani said.
Sloan had hoped that the isolation of Lindsey’s house in a rural area would shield her comings and goings, but she should have realized that the town was too small for her not to be noticed. “My plan is to stick close to Lindsey, so I hope word doesn’t get around.”
Lindsey heard Sloan and Lani sharing a subliminal conversation, and Lindsey realized that she, without meaning to, had been the one to unearth it. To smooth over her faux pas, she jumped in with, “Well, now that the two of you have become reacquainted, maybe you both can come visit me at home. You’re two of my favorite people, you know.”
Lani’s gaze drifted to Lindsey’s upturned face, her expression innocent and guileless. Lani glanced again at Sloan, standing in a pool of sunlight spilling through a window and turning her hair white-gold. Sloan was beautiful, and more polished and softened than in high school. Sloan Quentin had been a counterpoint to Dawson’s dark hair and eyes, while Lani usually felt plain and ordinary beside him. “Will you be here long?” she asked Sloan.
“I’m cutting an album in Nashville, so I have a place rented near the studio, but I’ll come visit Lindsey when I can, especially with her being sick and all.”
Lindsey said, “Seeing Lani has been the only perk for me coming to chemo.” She pushed up from the chair. “I should get on home. Don’t want Toby coming into an empty house.” She wobbled slightly, and Lani and Sloan both reached to steady her.
“You should eat some lunch,” Lani said.
“I’ve got her,” Sloan said, a firm grip under one of Lindsey’s arms. “I’ll make sure she eats something.”
“She likes milk shakes,” Lani called as they shuffled toward the door. She wondered what Sloan must have felt, to have learned about a long-lost sister, only to face losing her to cancer. Life didn’t play fair.
“Vanilla,” Lindsey said. “With lots of whipped cream. I never have to worry about what I eat these days. Just have to worry about keeping it down.”
Sloan frowned over Lindsey’s dark humor. They took a few steps, and then Sloan turned. “I’m glad you got your RN degree, Lani. Nursing suits you.” Then, recalling Lani’s initial reaction at seeing her, Sloan added, “I’m a little surprised Dawson didn’t tell you he’d run into me weeks ago.”
Lani felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. Not trusting her voice, she shook her head to confirm that Dawson hadn’t.
Puzzled by Dawson’s omission, Sloan concentrated on holding on to Lindsey until she was steady on her feet, and walked her through the doorway.
After they were gone, Lani stood paralyzed. Dawson knew Sloan had returned and kept it from me. She struggled for equilibrium as a chime went off, alerting her that another patient was finished with chemotherapy. She hurried across the room.
Waiting for the elevator, and seeing how pale and weak Lindsey was, Sloan asked, “Why don’t we hit a drive-through for that milk shake on the way home?”
“Yes…that would be best. Chemo sucks me dry.” Lindsey glanced back momentarily and said a silent final farewell to the unit, its machines and drugs, knowing this was the last time she’d set foot in it again. “I feel like celebrating, so make sure the shake has a cherry on top, all right?”
“You should have told me! Why didn’t you tell me, Dawson? We just ran into each other. It was awkward! Embarrassing! And with Lindsey, of all people.” Lani stood at the sink in his apartment, rapidly scraping skins off potatoes and tossing them onto a growing heap they’d be unable to eat in a week’s time. Lani had finished her shift in the cancer unit and had left instead of helping the afternoon nursing crew, always busier with patients. Peeling the five-pound bag of potatoes kept her hands busy while her mind replayed the encounter with Sloan.
Dawson, still dressed in his construction clothes and heavy work boots, leaned against the counter, his lower back pressed into the hard stone. “I was blindsided too, but she said she was leaving town real quick, and I didn’t see any reason to mention it to you and stir things up.” He crossed his arms and watched her flail at the hapless potatoes. All he wanted was to shower, grab a cold beer, and chill out with Lani after dinner—and not talk about Sloan.
“Did you talk to her when you ran into her? Ask why she’d come back?”
“I wasn’t interested in why. I was in a hurry, and she was with that guy, Cole, we met at the restaurant weeks ago. She and I said a few words, and we went our separate ways.” He slapped construction dust off a leg of his jeans.
“Don’t withhold information thinking you’re protecting me. Talk to me!” Lani stomped her foot, gouged out an eye of the potato she held. “I know why she’s back.”
Dawson sagged, saw his peaceful evening disappearing into Lani’s anger. “I give up. So, why did she come back?”
“Well, my patient Lindsey Ridley, my sweet favorite patient, to
ld me she and Sloan are sisters…half sisters, because they had the same father. Did you ever know that Sloan might have had a sister? You lived with her, Dawson!”
He straightened, more surprised by than interested in Sloan’s familial connection, but he knew that the unexpected meeting had been traumatic for Lani, and therefore, he had to tread carefully. “We never talked about her family. All she wanted was to be free from her mother.”
Dawson reached down and unlaced his boots, kicked them into a corner. “Baby, we watched her sing on that TV contest together. We both voted for her. You told me you were all right with her winning and her name change and her song that’s playing every time I turn on the radio. Give me some head room here, Lani. I didn’t mean to ‘withhold information’ from you. I just want us to move on.”
Lani knew she wasn’t being fair, because Lindsey, not Sloan, had told Lani about a shared father, but right now she was so angry—not just at Dawson, but at everything, at life, at what had happened years before. She struggled to regain self-control.
Dawson rubbed his eyes, feeling beat. “Look, can we talk later? I’m going to clean up.”
He fled the kitchen area, and Lani stopped whittling on a potato that now looked shredded and pathetic. Poor potato. She set it aside, stared down into the sink piled with brown potato skins, as depression engulfed her. She shook her head, did deep breathing exercises to hold the dark emotions at bay. What had the counselor at the hospital told her? “Fight your dark moods. Don’t let them get a foothold. Exercise. Endorphins are your friends. Change your habits and patterns. Depression hates that. Don’t fall into its rut of negativity.”
Without telling either Dawson or Melody, Lani had sought out a psychologist in the hospital, a woman on staff hired to help employees deal with burnout and other work issues. She’d helped Lani immensely over the weeks to take control whenever dark memories threatened her.
She had planned to ask Dawson to come with her to Memphis this weekend to check out the apartment space where she’d be living for the coming months. The paperwork said the rooms were partially furnished, but she needed to see exactly what partially meant and what furniture she’d need to bring with her. And now they’d fought over something that, when she thought about it, she knew was truly trivial. My fault. Through the glass doors she saw the sun going down, turning the sky pink and gold and lavender.
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