The Unsung Hero (40 page)
“Aha. The truth comes out.”
“Just don’t . . . expect too much and don’t lie, okay?”
“Okay.” He pushed the camera back so he could open the photo album on the bed. And just like that, he was instantly involved and connected, leaning over the pictures.
“Some of these are really good, Mal. Look at this one.” He pointed right away to a photo she’d taken when she was baby-sitting the O’Keefe twins, a photo she’d always thought was one of her best. “Look at the composition here. It’s really great the way you use the swing set to frame the photo. And you caught these kids in motion—it’s really dynamic, and you did it with an Instamatic.”
Mallory watched him as he talked. He was so enthusiastic, he spoke with his hands, with his eyes, with his entire body. He was so completely different from too-cool-to-be-anything-but-bored Brandon.
He was wearing kind of fashionable shorts that came down past his knees. The dork factor kicked in, though, because he was wearing really dweeby dark socks with his ratty sneakers. His shirt was a desperately ugly button-down short-sleeved plaid, but it didn’t matter. His crappy haircut didn’t matter, nor did his ugly glasses.
It was all superficial. An hour at the mall, a few fashion dos and don’ts, and David would transform nicely from nerd to kind of average-looking guy. But nothing anyone could do would change him into a superstud like Brandon.
Of course, it would take far more than a trip to the mall ever to change Brandon into someone as smart and funny and nice and genuinely sweet as David.
Mallory had to laugh.
David just smiled at her and kept on talking—he didn’t think it was weird she should just suddenly feel the need to laugh out loud.
It was ridiculous, though. Unbelievable. And incredibly cool.
She, Mallory Paoletti, was completely falling for David Sullivan.
“I thought I heard you come home.” Charles turned on the overhead lights. “What are you doing sitting in the living room in the dark?”
Kelly didn’t turn to look at him. “I’m exhausted and I’m hiding. What are you doing up? Joe left a note saying that you’d kicked him and Tom out at around eleven because you wanted to go to sleep.”
“A white lie,” he said. “I wanted to be alone. These days it seems as if the only time I’m alone is when I’m in bed—which is the exact opposite of the way it should be.”
Kelly could hear him using the walker to shuffle farther into the room. “Better not come in,” she said. “It’s not going to take much to start me crying.” And God knows Charles hated crying.
He stopped. “Oh.”
Betsy wasn’t going to make it. Kelly had realized that tonight. The chemo was most likely going to kill the little girl. But without it, the cancer would definitely kill her. “Most likely” came with pain and suffering, but “definitely” was definite. That was one hell of a choice for her parents to make.
Kelly had sat with the McKennas and Vince Martin for hours discussing different medications that might ease or even eliminate the side effects of the chemotherapy. But trial was involved, and with trial came error. And pain.
The McKennas had looked to her for answers, and she couldn’t help them. She had no answers, not even today with Tom’s scent still on her, with the glorious perfection of their physical joining still warming her skin.
The knowledge that he was everything she’d ever dreamed of in a lover—and more—didn’t help her as Brenda McKenna’s dark brown eyes begged her to tell them what to do. Let their child die, or try to save her and watch her suffer. After which she’d most likely die anyway.
Kelly had all but promised Tom they’d finish what they’d started when she got home tonight. But right now, sex was the dead last thing she wanted. She couldn’t bear the thought of celebrating life that way, not while knowing that the McKennas were facing death and struggling with such sorrow.
She knew Tom was probably upstairs, in her room, waiting for her.
She drew in a deep breath as she sat up, turning toward her father.
“Do you need something?” she asked Charles. “Can I make you a power shake?”
“No.” He cleared his throat. “Thank you, but . . .”
“Time for a pill?”
“Took one an hour ago.”
“Are you . . . okay?” she asked. “Is it time for me to call the doctor for a stronger—”
He took one hand off his walker to wave away her suggestion impatiently. “No, I’m fine. Relatively speaking.”
Had she done something to disrupt his carefully ordered world? Kelly couldn’t think of a single thing except for . . . oops. Seducing Tom up in her bedroom in the middle of the afternoon. Had Charles somehow found out about that?
He seemed exasperated and annoyed, but more at himself than at her.
“Do you need me to change your sheets?” she tried.
Maybe he’d soiled them during a nap. He hadn’t had that problem before, but she was well aware loss of control could happen at any time to someone with his deteriorating physical condition. She’d bought some Depends, and, like the walker, she’d simply put the box in her father’s room. They were there if he needed them—he wouldn’t have to ask.
But changing the sheets on his bed—that was something he wouldn’t be able to do by himself. And she could understand his not wanting to ask Joe for help.
“No,” he told her crossly. “I just wanted—”
She waited.
“I wanted to sit and talk for a minute. But if you’re feeling . . . Well, later will be fine.” He turned away, started back down the hall.
Her father wanted to talk to her.
Kelly couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Why did her father want to talk to her? And then she couldn’t do anything but think of reasons. Maybe to tell her he’d come to terms with dying, with the fact that he was running out of time, the fact that everything he’d left unsaid had better be said, and soon. Maybe he wanted to tell her more about that French woman he’d mentioned just last night. Had that really been only last night? It seemed like a million years ago.
Or maybe he had found out about her and Tom.
“Wait! Dad!” She hurried after her father. “Dad.”
As he stopped and turned toward her, she saw that just that little movement required a great deal of effort and her heart sank. He was looking more and more fragile every day.
“Talk to me.” She pulled him back into the living room, practically pushed him down into a chair. She pulled up a footstool right next to him. “I’m here. What do you want to tell me? I’m dying to listen.”
“It’s not that important. I just . . .” He couldn’t meet her eyes.
“Just say it,” she whispered. “It’s amazing how easy it is once you open your mouth and start talking. It’s amazing the things that come out.”
He finally looked at her. He even briefly reached out to touch her hair. “You always were a pretty child. I used to be afraid of Tom Paoletti, when he was living with Joe down at the end of the driveway. I saw the way he looked at you.”
Oh, my God. This was about Tom.
“You know, Dad, I’m a big girl now. I’m pretty good at taking care of myself.”
“You’ve always been good at taking care of yourself. It’s . . . um, it’s occurred to me that because of that, you might miss out on an opportunity to let someone else take care of you, if you know what I mean.”
Kelly didn’t. She shook her head.
“Tom,” Charles said with a spark of impatience. “We’re talking about Tom here.”
“Ah,” she said. “We are?”
“He’s a good man, Kelly.”
Oh, my God. Did her father think . . . ? “He is,” she agreed.
“I just wanted to make sure you knew I thought that,” he said awkwardly. “I’ve never come out and said that before.”
“Dad, it’s obvious you think very highly of him.”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately,” Charles said. “Since you told me, well . . . You know, you could do far worse.”
Oh, God. Her father thought she and Tom . . . “I’m not going to marry him. We’re not . . . He’s not . . .” She shook her head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.” Again.
“Oh,” he said. “I thought . . . I’d hoped . . .” He searched her face, then sighed. “It was too perfect. I just thought that if Tom could take care of you, then the two of you together could look out for Joe.”
This was about Joe. Her father was worried about what would happen to his dear friend Joe when he was gone.
Heart in her throat, Kelly took his hand. “I’ll make sure Joe’s okay,” she told him huskily. “I’ll take care of him for you, Daddy. I promise.”
He touched her hair again and his eyes were sad. “But who’ll take care of you?”
Tom sat at Kelly’s computer, suddenly completely uncertain.
He’d heard Kelly’s car pull into the driveway nearly an hour ago. It was hard to believe she hadn’t noticed that the light was on in her room, that the French doors were wide open.
She’d come into the house, but she hadn’t come upstairs.
She hadn’t called him from Boston, hadn’t called from her car, either.
It was probably no big deal. She’d probably just misplaced his cell phone number. And maybe she’d grabbed something to eat, gone in to check on her father. Those things took time.
He’d showered and shaved before coming back over here tonight, brushed his teeth, run his fingers through his hair.
He’d even practiced bringing up that goddamned unpleasant subject a few times. “Hey, Kel, you know in three and a half weeks when I go back to California? What do you say we do that crazy-assed long-distance thing? We could give it a try. You know, email, phone calls, I could visit every few months or so? . . .”
Of course, there was the variation on the theme that went something like “Hey, Kel, you know in three and a half weeks when I go back to California? Maybe you could go with me. . . .”
Or, best yet, “Hey, Kel, you know in three and a half weeks when I fail my psych evals and I’m kicked out of the Navy, when I’m homeless and jobless and certifiably insane, when I’m at my most pathetically, depressingly lowest—and oh, did you happen to notice it’s definite that I’m going bald?—what do you say we get married?”
It was crazy. He was nuts—this proved it.
But oh, God, he wanted her. He truly did. Tonight and forever. All evening, he’d been waiting, half-aroused, wishing she’d come home, dreaming of the stupidest things. The most efficient ways to get their crazy schedules to line up. A plan for bicoastal living. A simple, quiet wedding with Joe and Jazz standing up for him. Names for their children.
Holy shit, he was in serious trouble here. He was naming their frigging children after one naked afternoon. Yes, the sex was beyond incredible. Yes, she made him feel things he’d never felt before. But that didn’t automatically make what he was feeling love. That didn’t mean it was going to last forever.
Jesus, how do you know? Did the uncertainty ever fall away? Maybe if she looked into his eyes and whispered that she loved him. The thought of her doing that was enough to make him dizzy. God, he wanted her to love him.
He wanted her up here. Now.
If it had been him pulling into the driveway, he’d’ve taken the stairs to her room three at a time.
Finally, finally the door opened, and Kelly stepped inside.
She closed it behind her, leaning against it. She seemed to brace herself before looking over at him.
“Hi.” She forced a smile.
She’d been crying. She’d dried her face, but Tom could tell she was still extremely upset. He stood, suddenly even more uncertain. “I hope you don’t mind that I—”
“Of course not.” She was brisk as she came into the room, setting her bag down next to her dresser. “I said you could use my computer whenever you wanted.”
He wasn’t here to use her computer. Surely she knew that. “Is everything . . . Are you . . . ?”
She sat on the edge of her bed and untied her shoes. “I’m fine. I’m . . . My father’s dying. It gets to me sometimes. That and the fact that an eighty percent survival rate for childhood leukemia means that twenty percent of the children who get it die.” She fired first one and then the other of her shoes into the closet with about ten times the necessary force.
Tom sat down next to her. Oh, damn. “It doesn’t look good for Betsy, huh?”
She shook her head tensely, tightly. “No, it doesn’t.”
He took her hand, massaging her fingers gently. “I’m really sorry.”
She gazed down at their hands. “God, Tom, I’m so tired. It’s been an intense couple of days, and . . .”
“You look like you need a back rub.” He wanted to help erase the strain he could hear in her voice. “Joe’s got a pretty nice collection of French wine. I could go grab a bottle and—”
She pulled her hand free and stood up. Her voice shook. “Look, I know I promised we’d get together again when I got home, but I’m sorry, I’m just . . . I’m so not in the mood.”
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