LITMIR.BIZ

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choice. “Mom, I want to be here. I owe you. You were always there for me when I needed you, even when I didn’t deserve it. You are not going to face this ordeal without your family standing beside you, and that’s that.”

      Just that easily—just that heartbreakingly—the decision to stay was made, and this time it was irreversible. Only time would tell if she would be able to live with the consequences.

6

      When Cassie finally left her mother’s room, it was almost midnight. As she went to take their untouched, full teacups into the kitchen, she thought she noticed a movement on the front porch. She set the cups on a table in the foyer, slipped quietly up to the door, flipped on the overhead light and saw Cole sitting in the swing, idly setting it in motion. She wasn’t nearly as surprised by his presence as she should have been, nor as dismayed.

      She stepped outside, closing the door behind her. “What are you doing here?” she asked, aware that her voice was ragged and her eyes red rimmed from crying.

      He turned to face her, his expression sympathetic. “I thought you might need a friendly shoulder.”

      “I could use one,” she agreed. But his? How could she possibly turn to him? How could she let him back into her life at all?

      He patted the swing. “Come on over here and tell me how your talk with your mom went.”

      At the moment she needed comfort more than she needed to maintain a safe emotional distance from this man who represented such a huge threat to her and her son. She sat beside him, careful to keep as much physical distance between them as the swing allowed. Cole was having none of that, though. He slid closer and draped his arm around her shoulders as he had dozens of times in the past.

      She turned and met his gaze. “How did you know? I’m sure she didn’t share it with you.”

      “It’s a small town. Word gets around, especially about something like this. There have been prayers at church. Everyone wants to help out. How’s she doing?”

      “Better than I am,” Cassie said honestly. “She thought she’d just postpone the surgery until after I was gone and I’d never have to know a thing. She didn’t want me worrying. Well, she was right about one thing—I am worried. I’m scared silly, in fact.”

      Cole simply let her talk, his silence giving her permission to voice all of the fears she hadn’t been able to express to her mother.

      “I know all the statistics, but I always thought breast cancer was something that happened to other people, not to me, not to my mom. It’s not just the surgery. These days they treat cancer aggressively—she’s likely to have both radiation and chemo. She’ll lose her hair, more than likely. She’ll be exhausted. She doesn’t have any kind of medical insurance. And she thought she could go through all of this alone, that she could manage. What does that say about our relationship? She’s sick, really sick, and she didn’t think she could count on me.”

      “I don’t think it was that,” Cole said. “Your mom’s always had to be strong to face the adversities in her life. She’s always had to rely on herself. She simply figured she’d deal with this the same way.”

      Cassie turned her tear-filled gaze on him. “But, Cole, she could die.”

      Cole’s expression suddenly turned bleak. “Breast cancer survival rates are better these days than they used to be,” he said stiffly.

      Only then did she remember that Cole had lost his own mother to breast cancer years ago. She cursed herself for her insensitivity. How could she have forgotten that he’d been little more than a boy when he’d had to face what she was facing now? How much more terrifying it must have seemed to him. And his father, with all his power, hadn’t been able to change the outcome. Nor had he ever gotten over the loss.

      She touched a hand to his cheek. “I’m sorry. I should have thought. You shouldn’t have to listen to me go on and on about this. It’s bound to bring up a lot of very painful memories.”

      “Stop it,” he said, clasping her hand in his. “I’m the one who came over here, remember? Nobody understands better than I do what you’re going through, but I’ll say it again, the odds are in her favor. And stop worrying about the expense. Just put it out of your mind. I don’t cared who she’s seen already, we’ll see to it that she has the best surgeon and the best oncologist around.”

      “We?” she echoed.

      “Of course I’m going to help.”

      “But why would you do that?” she asked, genuinely bewildered by the offer.

      “Because she’s your mother,” he said simply. “Besides, for a time she was the closest thing I had to a mother, too. It hurt to lose her, when I lost you. I don’t want either of us to lose her forever.”

      “Oh, God,” Cassie whispered as the panic rose inside her again. “We’re not going to, are we?”

      “Not if I can help it,” Cole said with grim determination.

      Cassie felt some of the tension leave her body. It was as good as a promise, and at one time she had trusted Cole’s promises with total confidence.

      There might be a million things left for them to work out where the past was concerned, but just for tonight she wanted to believe in him again. Because he was all that stood between her and despair.

      * * *

      He shouldn’t have promised Cassie that her mother would live. Cole paced his office, portable phone in hand, as he waited for yet another so-called expert—men who were recommended by friends—to deliver an opinion about Edna Collins’s chances of survival. He’d spent the day looking for guarantees, but so far none had been given.

      He told himself he was doing it as a courtesy to a woman who’d once been kind to him, but he knew better. He was doing it for Cassie. He’d recognized that bleak expression on her face, that panic she hadn’t been able to keep out of her eyes. He’d seen it reflected time and again in the mirror years ago.

      While his father had ranted at the doctors and cursed God, it had been left to Cole to pray, to sit and hold his mother’s increasingly frail hand as she slipped farther and farther away from them. No matter that Cassie was older than he’d been, no matter what he thought of her, he didn’t want her to go through that, not if he could help it.

      “Why are you mixed up in this?” his father asked, his gaze speculative. “Edna Collins won’t take kindly to your interference.”

      “What would you know about Edna Collins? You always looked down on her.”

      “I did not. She’s a fine woman. I just thought her daughter wasn’t the right woman for you—not back then, anyway.”

      “And now?”

      “Now I’m maintaining an open mind.”

      “Not likely,” Cole muttered. “But whatever your agenda is, Dad, keep it to yourself. Cassie and I were over and done a long time ago, and you know precisely why that is. You did your damage, and it’s too late to fix things.”

      He needed to convince his father of that, if only to keep him from meddling and ruining whatever chance Cole might have to patch things up. This time no one would have an opportunity to interfere.

      “It’s never too late as long as there’s breath in your body,” his father said fiercely, clearly undaunted by Cole’s remark. “If there’s a second chance for the two of you, don’t be bullheaded and waste it.”

      Was there a second chance? Cole wasn’t certain yet. A part of him wanted there to be. To be sure all of the old feelings—that quick slam of desire—were as powerful as they’d ever been, stronger, in fact, now that they were a man’s, not a boy’s.

      Funny how at twenty he’d thought

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