LITMIR.BIZ

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as if she’d just come from a funeral. In many ways she had, but that didn’t matter. Not now. Tessa needed strength from her parents, at least from the one who wouldn’t fail her. She straightened in her seat and rubbed her thumb along her lash line, clearing the smudged eyeliner.

      No matter what the hematology oncologist told her today, she planned to stay strong for Tessa’s sake. Leukemia was an unlikely diagnosis; the physicians had made that much clear. They were only ruling out the last of the “ugly” diseases before they could trust their earlier suspicions. And those weren’t all that beautiful themselves.

      Please, God, let it only be JRA. She stared at the floor, keeping her eyes open for fear she would pass out if she shut out the light. Her stomach clenched and sweat gathered under her bangs. What was she saying? Had she lost her mind? She shook her head. Here she wasn’t just hoping, but begging, that Tessa would have to live with a potentially crippling chronic illness like juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. How could she wish that on her own child?

      But that answer was as simple as that most wonderful word she kept repeating like a mantra: life. No matter how difficult a diagnosis of JRA was, it, unlike several of the diseases the specialists had ruled out in the past few months, was something Tessa could live with. Recent medical advances even made it possible for her to have a high quality of life. Serena realized she didn’t have the luxury of worrying about levels of contentment yet. When she straightened, a renewed strength filled her.

      “Mrs. Jacobs?” The anesthesiologist stood before her, waiting until she looked up. “Tessa’s in Phase One Recovery, which means she’s still sleeping, but I’ll go ahead and allow you into the PACU—that’s the post-anesthesia care unit—if you’d like to wait with her.”

      When she reached the unit, Tessa was lying very still in the hospital bed, looking even tinier than when the anesthesiologist had taken her away. Her need to make physical contact with her child was so strong that Serena leaned over and brushed the mass of dark curls from Tessa’s forehead. She traced the line of thick lashes resting against the child’s cheek. Tessa started, showing she was returning to consciousness.

      Serena pulled her chair close to the bed, leaned her head against the rail and poked her arms through the bars, simply to touch her daughter’s hand. She should not have allowed the doctors to take Tessa away. A better mother would have insisted, no matter what the hospital’s ridiculous rules, on being allowed in the operating room.

      She might have been too numb to fight earlier, but she had to scratch her way out of this void now. Tessa needed her. That was the important thing.

      Staring down at her little girl, Serena felt the lullaby they sang together each night come from somewhere deep inside her. “Hush-a-bye, don’t you cry, go to sleep, my little baby. When you wake, you will have all the pretty little horses.” She wanted to sing away all of the pain and the broken promise that she’d always protect Tessa.

      The child awoke in slow, groggy increments, moaning as she returned from that dark place of unnatural sleep.

      “Hi, angel-cookie. Mommy’s here.” Serena used the singsong voice that had always calmed her daughter’s bad dreams until now. But those visions had been only of monsters that inhabited closets or toys that made mischief. She wasn’t at all sure she had any remedy for Tessa’s very real nightmares today.

      “Do you want Mommy to hold you?” She took that moan as a “yes” and lifted Tessa from the bed, wrapping her in a thin white blanket. The child’s gown was still unsnapped from when it had been removed for surgery, so Serena carefully closed the fasteners while she held Tessa close.

      Serena had no idea how many minutes or hours had passed—only that she’d been exactly where she needed to be—by the time the hematology oncologist took the other seat in the curtained cubicle. Tessa had become more coherent but was crabby and was fighting against her bunny hospital gown. Her mother calmed her with touch and kept rocking.

      “Has my husband checked in with you?” The question seemed to be her last defense, as it delayed the verdict a few seconds more. Could she live with the answer the doctors had tried so hard to find? She had to. Tessa would need her now more than ever.

      “I’m sorry, Mrs. Jacobs. We haven’t heard from him, although we asked the waiting room volunteers to send him in when he arrives.” She smiled with a comforting expression that tinged a bit too much on pity. “I do, however, have some good news for you.”

      Good news? Serena’s heart rate must have tripled. Her oxygen supply seemed to be temporarily blocked. While questions whirled through her mind, she was able to choke out just two words. “Excuse me?”

      “The bone marrow biopsy shows that your daughter does not have leukemia.”

      Chapter One

      Twelve months later

      Coming here had been a really bad idea. Turning around and heading home sounded like a perfect one. Serena hesitated a second longer before climbing the last two steps leading into Hickory Ridge Community Church. Once inside the heavy, twin glass doors and past the sanctuary, she headed up the stairs toward Andrew Westin’s office.

      What had she been thinking when she’d set up this appointment last week? Why had it sounded so much better to visit with a youth minister? Even one who, because of his training as a clinical counselor, frequently met with church members to discuss problems. This way, though, she had not been forced to admit, even to herself, that she was going to a shrink.

      Right now, the anonymity of a private counseling relationship sounded preferable by loads. If her parents were still living, or even if she’d developed some close friendships in her twenty-eight years, she wouldn’t be in this position. Then she would have had someone to talk to. More useless “what ifs.” What good had they done her so far?

      Pushing forth with more confidence than she felt, she knocked on the door, hoping the youth minister had forgotten about the whole thing. Then she could forget to reschedule, and all would be well.

      “It’s open,” said a baritone voice behind the door.

      She shrugged. Well, at least the meeting was cost free. She used that thought to bolster her courage as she opened the door, plastering a smile on her face.

      “Mr. Westin, I’m Serena Jacobs. We talked on the phone.” She crossed the room with her right hand outstretched, but he stood and met her halfway. Out of his usual Sunday costume of a dark suit, he was dressed in jeans and a beige polo shirt that offset his tan.

      “Call me Andrew, Mrs. Jacobs. ‘Mr.’ makes me feel old.”

      He gripped her hand with a firm shake that was just shy of painful. At five foot eight, Serena wasn’t accustomed to having to look up to anyone, but Andrew’s height of well over six feet forced her to lift her head to meet his gaze. He smiled down at her, though, and she found it easy to smile back.

      It was the first time she’d seen Andrew up close, instead of across the church sanctuary where he and the Reverend Bob Woods sat, so she was surprised at how quickly he put her at ease. He probably had to take a whole class on that in his training for the ministry.

      He sat in his upholstered executive chair, motioning for her to take the chair opposite the desk. Funny, he didn’t much fit the picture she had of a member of the pastoral staff, even if he wasn’t the church’s head minister. His sandy brown hair was a tad too long, threatening to curl at his nape. And his dress was too casual for a game of golf, let alone for what she’d come to expect of a church leader.

      She lowered herself into the armless visitor’s chair. “Call me Serena. Mrs. Jacobs doesn’t…fit anymore.”

      “Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware you were…divorced?” The way he stressed the last word made it a question. The sadness in his gold-colored eyes appeared genuine.

      She nodded. “It was final just last week.” With nervous tension weighing on her and making it difficult for her to sit still, she looked about the room, conscious how plain it was. There

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