Saving Forever - Part 2 (17 page)

Elijah stepped toward her.

She held him off by holding her hand up. She looked her father in the eye. “I feel the same about you, Dad. I can’t look at you without seeing the coward who hid while his wife suffered and died.”

Her father stared at her. His shoulders dropped and he sank back into his chair without saying a word.

Chapter
21

She hurt him.
Good. It’s about time he knows what it feels like.
Except it didn’t feel good to her. She felt like a spoiled brat. Her father sat dejected and spent. She always imagined she would be the one to lose this argument because he was the hard, callous one. The words that flew out of her mouth were not true. She blasted them out in anger and wished instantly she could take them back.

She sank into a chair across from him, her head in her hands. She didn’t want to cry but silent tears dropped onto the table.

Elijah cleared his throat. “Why don’t I nip out and grab some coffee? Are your keys in your purse in the kitchen?” He didn’t wait for a reply; he went to the kitchen and came back a moment later with the rental car keys. As he passed her he gently squeezed her shoulder blade.

The door closed a few moments later. Charity sighed and brought her head up. She stared at walls of the home she’d grown up in. The house was too big for just her father, but he hadn’t moved. It still had all the touches and décor her mother had done. Framed pictures rest
ed on the top of the large fireplace. They were new. Images of their family, each one included her mother.

Her father missed his wife. Realization sunk in. He hadn’t changed the house, moved or remarried because he still loved his wife. He still wore his wedding band.

She let her gaze travel from his ring to his face. “Why did you ask me to plan your sixty-fifth gala event? You don’t like parties.”

“Your mother loved them.” He sighed. “I wanted to see you. I didn’t know how else to get you to come home.”

Maybe try saying ‘sorry’? Years had gone by and he still couldn’t say it. “Inviting me might have worked.” She undid the button above the missing one.

He raised an eyebrow at her and tilted his head slightly. “Really? I get the impression you’re as stubborn as me.”

“Maybe. Probably a bit more.”

“I… I didn’t hide when Lily got sick. She had been sick for two years before she called you.”

Charity’s heart stuttered. “What?”

Her father pressed his lips together. “She was initially diagnosed with stage two color cancer. Because it was caught early and the spot on her colon was small, she didn’t want you to know. You were busy with school and she begged me not to tell you. She promised if it didn’t clear, she would tell you.”

Charity stared at her father in shock. It was impossible.

“You left for school and she scheduled the surgery for the day after. I had our best oncology doctor do the surgery and he was quite sure they’d removed everything. I oversaw the whole procedure and helped set up her chemo. She did a preventative chemo – radiation for twelve weeks. That’s the fall we told you we were going to a bed and breakfast for Thanksgiving. You came home at Christmas and we hid it from you. I took you to the hospital so your mother could rest.”

She knew exactly when it was. She loved that Christmas break. He’d taken her into surgery with him to observe and grilled her with questions after he did rounds with patients and took her along. Her mom had made this amazing dinner Christmas day and bought her a Pandora bracelet. They spent the day going over old photos and talked family holidays and growing up. She’d raced back to school the next day because of some silly New Year’s Eve party Julie and her had planned.

Her mom had looked thin and when Charity had commented on it, she said she’d been doing some cabbage diet and exercising.

Charity shook her head. “But you said you got everything.”

He shook his head. “Everything looked clear but that’s the thing about cancer, it’s a sneaky bitch. It must have spread to her lymph nodes and the sample the doctor took showed clear. The preventative treatment is useless if it’s already spread. By the spring it had spread to her lung
s and liver. We tried trial chemo. I worked in the lab with a colleague to see if there were other possibilities.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Your mom responded great to treatments. She looked fantastic… no one could tell she was sick. She felt good as well. Her blood work showed high white blood cells, low platelets typical of chemo treatment, but her energy was still pretty good. We marked treatment on how she felt. It was working.”

“You should have told me.” 

Her dad continued as if he hadn’t heard her, lost in the world of the past. “And then a year later it spread so fast and we were powerless to control it.”

Charity knew her mother had pushed for the trials, probably harder than her dad. He hated to lose a patient – more for the competition against death but her mother… Charity knew she would have done the same thing if she had been in her mother’s position.

“Then she called you. She was torn up for not telling you sooner and begged me to not say anything. Then you came home.”

“And you ran and hid.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. She had carried the anger and resentment for six years. She didn’t know how to let it go.

“I wasn’t hid—” he sighed and stared at his wedding ring. “Maybe I did hide. I was so sure you’d figure it out and hate me for it. Your mom wanted you to enjoy university. She didn’t want you to worry and we both thought we had control of the disease. I kept thinking we’d find something to fight it. Instead we just masked the disease and then it festered everywhere.”

The torment on her father’s face erased the anger she felt. “You didn’t kill her.”

It was a few moments before he spoke. He dragged his eyes off his hand and looked directly at her, guilt making him appear older than he was. “I couldn’t help her. Brilliant—completely useless—doctor. And then I failed as a father. You hated me and quit med school. I ruined your dreams as well.”

Charity came around the table and sat down beside her dad.
Countless things ran through her head but the one thing she knew for sure, she needed to tell him. “I don’t hate you.”

His reaction was the last thing she expected. He turned and wrapped his arms around her. He hugged her so tight she couldn’t breath
e. His grip loosened and she sucked in a gulp of air. “I love you, Charity,” he whispered so quietly she wasn’t even sure if he had actually said the words.

They were still hugging when the door opened. They jumped apart, each awkward and wiping their eyes.

Elijah stood by the door, three Starbuck coffees in a tray. His face betrayed nothing.

Her father’s face became similar to Elijah’s, his mask hiding everything that had been clear to Charity moments before. He cleared his throat. “I apologize, Elijah. I invited you over for a nice meal and instead you have to endure family drama.”

“It’s no problem.” Elijah spoke to Dr. Thompson with only one furtive glance at Charity. “I should probably—”

“You’re not going! Charity and I are fine. Let me grab us another bottle of wine.”

“Wait! Dr. Thompson…Scott.” Elijah swallowed, his words stopping Charity’s father from going to the kitchen. “That wasn’t what I was going to say.”

Charity had no idea what Elijah was doing. She looked back and forth between the two men, as if they were suddenly sizing each other up.

“I’m seeing your daughter. She came with me to New Zealand.”

Her father said nothing. His nostrils flared as he exhaled a short breath. Charity could see wheels turning. He knew Elijah’s playboy dating style. He knew little of hers. It didn’t matter, it didn’t add up.  “You don’t date wom
en.” His words were curt, full of daggers and anger.

Elijah stood his ground but wouldn’t make eye contact. “I know we’ve joked about my, uh, dating habits in the past.”

A sense of trepidation filled the pit of Charity’s stomach. Something was missing. Or hiding.

Her father jabbed a finger in Elijah’s direction. “Get out!” His chest heaved. “I took you under my wing, made you chief and this is how you repay me? You have the choice of any woman in the world to play with, and you suddenly want
my
daughter?” His voice rose. “There is no way in hell this is going to happen!”

“It’s already happened.” Charity said the words quietly.

“No!” Her father’s eyes grew large and he covered his mouth with his hand.

“Why not?” She didn’t understand his overreaction. “You basically treat him like a son.”

“He’s not dating material!”

“How do you know?”

“When did you start seeing each other? A few weeks ago? A month? More? You took her to New Zealand?” He glared at Elijah. “You bastard. You tell her or I will.”

Charity straightened. “What are you talking about?”

He jerked his head in Elijah’s direction. “Ask him.” He stomped to the kitchen. “I need a drink. A real one.”

Charity didn’t think she could handle any
more emotion for one day. “What’s he talking about, Elijah?” She stared into his piercing blue eyes, wondering if they had the strength to break her heart.

“Yo
ur dad has it all wrong.” He reached for her hand but she stepped back before he could touch her.

“What does he have all wrong?” She pressed her lips tight against each other, not wanting him to see the tremor that had already started on the lower one.

“Can we talk about this outside? Go for a walk?”

“No. Whatever you have to say, you can say it right here.”

Elijah ran fingers through his hair, still holding the coffee in his other hand. “Your dad walked in on me…”

She knew it. His playboy image, the awful trip to
New Zealand, she should have known something like this would happen. She should have prepared herself better. 

“…but it wasn’t what he thought he saw! I never explained what happened. I figured it didn’t matter. And then, well
, I figured he wouldn’t assume I was interested in you. Didn’t you make it clear you didn’t want him to know we were dating?”

“Whatever!” Her father scoffed from the kitchen.

Elijah glanced down the hall but touched Charity’s wrist so she would look at him. He huffed in frustration. “It’s not what you think! I can explain. Remember the nurse you saved me from? It was her! She was the one coming on to me. She cornered me in an examination room. The nut had another nurse call me on the intercom system at the hospital. She hid behind a curtain and when I opened it, she zoned in. She threw herself at me and wouldn’t get off! She was like a leech all over me.” He shuddered. “Somehow she paged, or called, or whatever she did, but she sent for your father. The bitch timed it all perfectly. When you dad walked in, she played the embarrassed girl and ran out. I was too stunned to explain to your dad what had happened.”

Charity blinked and something in the back of her mind clicked. The elevator! Yesterday.  That weird girl was the nurse! She’d acted all smug and weird. What had she said
? The timing couldn’t be more perfect. And something else… something about things getting messed up. “Is that the truth?”

“It is. I swear. I would not lie to you.”

She didn’t know if she should let her guard down.

“I should have told you.” He clenched and unclenched his fist. “It happened a couple days after I got back from
New Zealand and I wasn’t sure… you know.”

Her father came back from the kitchen, drink in hand. “Are you trying to tell my daughter you were set up?” He shook his head. “Lame. Smart doctor, dumb man.”

Charity rubbed her temple, just above her eyebrow. “Dad, I believe him. Elijah sle—went out with the woman before he and I...” She was going to say hooked up but stopped herself. She giggled suddenly at the thought of her dad’s face if she’d finished the sentence. All the pent up emotion of the evening suddenly burst out. It was either tears or laughter. She tried to stop, but it only made her laugh harder. She was nearly hysterical when another thought hit her. “Th-That nurse is k-kinda the reason we got together.”

Her father stared at her like she was half mad. Grinning, Elijah handed Dr. Thompson the coffees. “Your daughter basically did the same thing and set it up so the nurse walked in on us.” He cleared his throat. “Well, not really the same. The crazy nurse was stalking me and Charity let her know I wasn’t interested.”

Thank goodness he didn’t go into detail on what she’d done. She laid a hand on her abdomen, trying to stop the giggle-fit.

Elijah put his hands on her shoulders and dropped his head so she couldn’t avert her gaze. Her laughing subsided at the serious look on his face. “For the record, it wasn’t crazy nurse Jackie who brought us together. I fell for you that first night at the Twisted Cork. You can blame your father for that.”

“You kids are ridiculous.” Her father shook his head but Charity caught the mischief on his face before he turned around. “I think I need another drink.” He walked back to the kitchen.

She watched him go. They had a lot of fences to mend but it seemed like they were going to work it out. “You know what I think,” she said to Elijah. “I think he planned on getting the two of us together.”