LITMIR.BIZ

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she looked around his living room, taking in his garish purple-and-green-plaid sofa and the two matching easy chairs. She tried to hide her surprise.

      “Rented furniture,” he informed her.

      She was startled at first, but then she laughed. She was outrageously pretty when she laughed. “You read my mind.”

      “I didn’t want you thinking I was a purple-and-green-plaid furniture type by choice.”

      There was a glimmer of amusement in Crash’s eyes, and his mouth quirked into what was almost a smile as Nell gazed at him. God, was it possible that William Hawken actually had a sense of humor?

      “Let me get something on,” he said as he vanished silently down a hallway toward the back of the apartment.

      “Take your time,” she called after him.

      The less time he took, the sooner she’d have to tell him the reason she’d come. And she’d just as soon put that off indefinitely.

      Nell paced toward the picture window, once again fighting the urge to cry. All of the furniture in the room was rented, she could see that now. Even the TV had a sticker bearing the name of a rental company. It seemed such a depressing way to live—subject to other people’s tastes. She looked out at the overcast sky and sighed. There wasn’t much about today, or about the entire past week and a half, that hadn’t been depressing. As she watched, the clouds opened and it started to rain.

      “Do you really want to go out in that?”

      Crash’s voice came from just over her shoulder and Nell jumped.

      He’d put on a pair of army pants—fatigues, she thought they were called, except instead of being green, these were black—and a black T-shirt. With his dark hair and slightly sallow complexion, he seemed to have stepped out of a black-and-white film. Even his eyes seemed more pale gray than blue.

      “If you want, I could make us some coffee,” he continued. “I have beans.”

      “You do?”

      The amused gleam was back in his eyes. “Yeah, I know. You think, rented furniture—he probably drinks instant. But no. If I have a choice, I make it fresh. It’s a habit I picked up from Jake.”

      “Actually, I didn’t really want any coffee,” Nell told him. His eyes were too disconcertingly intense, so she focused on the plaid couch instead. Her stomach was churning, and she felt as if she might be sick. “Maybe we could just, you know, sit down for a minute and…talk?”

      “Okay,” Crash said. “Let’s sit down.”

      Nell perched on the very edge of the couch as he took the matching chair positioned opposite the window.

      She could imagine how dreadfully awful it would be if some near stranger came to her apartment to tell her that her mother had only a few months left to live.

      Nell’s eyes filled with tears that she couldn’t hold back any longer. One escaped, and she wiped it away, but not before Crash had noticed.

      “Hey.” He moved around the glass-topped coffee table to sit beside her on the couch. “Are you okay?”

      It was like a dam breaking. Once the tears started, she couldn’t make them stop.

      Silently, she shook her head. She wasn’t okay. Now that she was here, now that she sitting in his living room, she absolutely couldn’t do this. She couldn’t tell him. How could she say such an awful thing? She covered her face with her hands.

      “Nell, are you in some kind of trouble?”

      She didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer.

      “Did someone hurt you?” he asked.

      He touched her, then. Tentatively at first, but then more firmly, putting his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close.

      “Whatever this is about, I can help,” he said quietly. She could feel his fingers in her hair, gently stroking. “This is going to be okay—I promise.”

      There was such confidence in his voice. He didn’t have a clue that as soon as she opened her mouth, as soon as she told him why she’d come, it wasn’t going to be okay. Daisy was going to die, and nothing ever was going to be okay again.

      “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

      “It’s okay,” he said softly.

      He was so warm, and his arms felt so solid around her. He smelled like soap and shampoo, fresh and innocently clean, like a child.

      This was absolutely absurd. She was not a weeper. In fact, she’d held herself together completely over the past week. There had been no time to fall apart. She’d been far too busy scheduling all those second opinions and additional tests, and cancelling an entire three-week Southwestern book-signing tour. Cancelling—not postponing. God, that had been hard. Nell had spent hours on the phone with Dexter Lancaster, Jake and Daisy’s lawyer, dealing with the legal ramifications of the cancelled tour. Nothing about that had been easy.

      The truth was, Daisy was more than just Nell’s employer. Daisy was her friend. She was barely forty-five years old. She should have another solid forty years of life ahead of her. It was so damned unfair.

      Nell took a deep breath. “I have some bad news to tell you.”

      Crash became very still. He stopped running his fingers through her hair. It was entirely possible that he stopped breathing.

      But then he spoke. “Is someone dead? Jake or Daisy?”

      Nell closed her eyes. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

      He pushed her up, away from him, lifting her chin so that she had to look directly into his eyes. He had eyes that some people might have found scary—eyes that could seem too burningly intense, eyes that were almost inhumanly pale. As he looked at her searchingly, she felt nearly seared, but at the same time, she could see beneath to his all-too-human vulnerability.

      “Just say it,” he said. “Just tell me. Come on, Nell. Point-blank.”

      She opened her mouth and it all came spilling out. “Daisy’s been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. It’s malignant, it’s metastasized. The doctors have given her two months, absolute tops. It’s more likely that it will be less. Weeks. Maybe even days.”

      She’d thought he’d become still before, but that was nothing compared to the absolute silence that seemed to surround him now. She could read nothing on his face, nothing in his eyes, nothing. It was as if he’d temporarily vacated his body.

      “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, reaching out to touch his face.

      Her words, or maybe her touch, seemed to bring him back from wherever it was that he’d gone.

      “I missed Thanksgiving dinner,” he said, talking more to himself than to her. “I got back into town that morning, and there was a message from Jake on my machine asking me to come out to the farm, but I hadn’t slept in four days, so I crashed instead. I figured there was always next year.” Tears welled suddenly in his eyes and pain twisted his face.

      “Oh, my God. Oh, God, how’s Jake taking this? He can’t be taking this well….”

      Crash stood up abruptly, nearly dumping her onto the floor.

      “Excuse me,” he said. “I have to…I need to…” He turned to look at her. “Are they sure?”

      Nell nodded, biting her lip. “They’re sure.”

      It was amazing. He took a deep breath and ran his hands down his face, and just like that he was back in control. “Are you going out to the farm right now?”

      Nell wiped her own eyes. “Yeah.”

      “Maybe I better take my own car, in case I need to get back to the base later on. Are you okay to drive?”

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