CALLIE (The Naughty Ones Book 1) (101 page)

“That’d be great. Could you call her and let her know?”

He nodded. I reached over and touched his hand lightly.

“Are we okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said slowly, smiling at him. “I think so.”

I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Why did he pick that check up and decide to cash it? Was it because of his brother? Or was there more to it than that? Was he ashamed of his past? Was he worried about me finding out the truth?

I needed to know, but I couldn’t ask Grant. We’d gotten to a place where things were beginning to progress. I didn’t want to rock the boat by bringing up the past again. But I needed to know.

After a week, I was still struggling with it. And then Angela walked into my office and I suddenly realized the answer was staring me in the face.

Both Rebecca and Bellamy said that Kevin was always willing to tell stories on his brother. Maybe he’d tell me a story or two, too.

I was slipping out of my office when Grant grabbed my arm and tugged me into the break room.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m having lunch with a friend. What about you?”

“A meeting.”

He slid his hand along my hip and tugged me close against him, sliding my skirt up my leg a little as he pressed me up against the wall and leaned his forehead against mine.

“I’d rather be at home with you, but…”

“Your place reeks of paint. I don’t think I’m up to spending too much time there.”

“True. But we could hide out at your place.”

I smiled, my lips pressed against his. I loved the way he tasted, loved the feel of him against me. He tugged me closer, his fingers finding a bare spot behind my knee. It’d been a couple of days—moving everything onto computers and tablets was proving to be more of an ordeal than any of us anticipated—and I was missing these quiet moments together. But then his phone vibrated and we both heard giggles as someone caught sight of us as they passed the open door.

“I should go,” he groaned against my lips.

“Don’t sound so happy about it.”

He squeezed my leg before letting it go.

“I’ll see you later.”

He kissed me gently, and then he walked away. I watched, loving the sight of his body moving, but wishing it wasn’t moving away from me.

With a sigh, I gathered myself together and headed out. I was meeting Kevin at the hospital for sandwiches in the hospital cafeteria. It was all the time he could spare. But he was excited to get together. He’d told me on the phone—Angela gave me his number—that he’d been wanting to apologize for our fiasco of a dinner weeks ago, but he was so busy that it kept getting put on the back burner. I wasn’t expecting an apology, but I was hoping for a few answers.

He wasn’t there when I arrived, so I bought myself an overcooked hamburger and found a seat near the back of the room. He wandered in fifteen minutes late, waved, grabbed a plate of food, and came to sit.

“Sorry. We have a kid who likes me to read to her while they do scans. It took longer than I expected.”

“Don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t want to pull you away from saving someone’s life, or something.”

“You didn’t. More like kindergarten class.” He shrugged as he bit into his own hamburger, chewing quickly as he downed it with a gulp of soda. “Being a pediatrician is a combination of saving lives and entertaining small children.”

“I suppose it is.”

“So,” he studied my face over his hamburger, chewing on his second, much larger bite, “you wanted to talk about Grant?”

“How did you know that’s what it was?”

He shrugged. “We have two things in common, and I didn’t think it was about Angela.”

I smiled. “Very astute.”

“I didn’t become a doctor on my looks alone.”

I laughed.

He was so different from Grant. Not only was he less intense, but more laid back and open. There were also differences in their appearance. Kevin was shorter, his shoulders not nearly as broad. They had the same dark hair and blue eyes, but there were clear differences that I’d not noticed before. But, again, the last time I’d met him I hadn’t known he was Grant’s brother until later.

“Grant is a deeply private person. This isn’t the first time I’ve been approached this way.”

“Other girlfriends?”

“No. More like coworkers.” He raised an eyebrow. “You and Grant are dating?”

“I don’t know if you can call what we’re doing dating. But we’re…” I blushed as I tried to find a word for what we were. Lovers? Companions? Formerly engaged?

Kevin waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it. I get it.”

“How much do you know about our history?”

Kevin shrugged. “I know you were together when he lived here before. And I know that he wanted to marry you. I also know that he came to California without you.”

I pushed my food away. I shouldn’t arrange these meetings over meals. High emotion was not an appetite inducer.

“Did he tell you anything else?”

Kevin took another huge bite of his hamburger and then set it down, watching me as he took several gulps of his soda.

“You mean about the money?”

“He told you?”

“No, but it wasn’t hard to figure out. My brother, who worked construction, suddenly shows up at my hospital bed with the fifty thousand dollars we needed for the medication the doctor wanted to give me? It wasn’t a big stretch.”

“My dad…”

“Yeah, I thought so.”

“Do you know why he took it? Was it because of you?”

Kevin shrugged. “We never really talked details. But I’m sure that had something to do with it. We were on the phone for days before he arrived in California, trying to figure out what we should do next. Maybe…”

I nodded, but it didn’t fit. They talked for days. But Grant made his decision quickly and was gone before I had a chance to go to his place and ask his landlord about him. And by gone, I mean all his things were gone. He’d packed up his truck and left—no note, no forwarding address. He must have left within hours of talking to my dad.

“He never told me about you.”

Kevin sort of coughed, taking another gulp of that poor soda.

“Never?”

“I thought his only family was all gone.”

Kevin frowned, but he didn’t say anything.

“Why didn’t he tell me?”

He picked at his burger, pulling the crust from the bun, his brow knitted as he thought. “I don’t know,” he finally said.

“We met in May. Is that significant to you in some way?”

He shrugged. “I was diagnosed with cancer in February of that year. He knew all about it. Maybe…maybe he just didn’t want you drawn into the whole drama of it.”

“Or judge him.”

Kevin nodded. “That’s possible. Maybe he thought you would think badly of him for not coming to California faster.”

“I just don’t understand. My father confronts him with his juvenile record and he already knew you needed money. Yet he refused the money. But something must have happened when my dad left, something that made him take it. I just don’t understand what.”

“Maybe you should just ask him.”

Kevin reached across the table and touched my hand. “I don’t know why Grant did what he did. But I can tell you that my brother never let anyone close. From the moment our father left, he closed himself off. He had no close friends, no girlfriends in high school. He went to class and then came home to take care of me. And when he was old enough, he got after-school jobs to help out. My mom was always pushing him to go out, to have a life outside of us, but he refused. And then she died and there was no time, you know?”

I nodded.

“And then there was you. When he called and told me about you, I was so surprised but happy for him. And he sounded so happy.” He looked down at the table and kind of sighed a chuckle. “He said that he wasn’t looking for anything, but then you were there and he couldn’t stop thinking about you. He thought he’d take you out and you would be a spoiled brat, the kind of girl he couldn’t stand, and it would end right there and then. But you were so much more than he’d expected and he couldn’t get you off his mind.”

I bit my lip, stopping the smile that wanted to live there. Grant had said these things to me, but there was something special about hearing someone else say it.

“He was so in love with you and I think it scared him. Maybe that…”

I nodded.

“He came back for you.” He squeezed my hand again. “Not to tell you how to think or feel, but it seems to me that that’s all that should matter.”

“Thank you, Kevin.”

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and groaned. “They’re calling me back. Let me walk you to your car.”

“I don’t want to keep you if they need you.”

“It’s just my patient having the scans. The next book can wait a few minutes.”

He stood and held out his hand. I took it, noting almost as an afterthought how much smaller it was than Grant’s.

“My brother is difficult sometimes,” Kevin said. “But he’s a good man.”

“I know,” I said. I think I’d always known that. “I just…it feels like a betrayal that he took that money. But I know he regrets it now. And I know that he didn’t leave me without putting a lot of thought into it. And I know he came back for me. I guess I’m just struggling with trust. I don’t know if I can trust him now.”

“I understand. But I trust him, if that tells you anything.”

“You’re his brother.”

“I know. But I’m such a great judge of character. That should tell you something, right?”

I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do. He laughed, too—a sound that was warm and made me want to forget why I’d come here in the first place. It made me want to get to know him better.

My car was in the lot at the back of the hospital, across from a couple of our buildings that housed the less critical facilities, such as the employee pharmacy. I pulled out my keys and was turning to say good-bye when I happened to glance across the lot. I caught sight of my dad going into a building a few hundred yards to our right.

“What is that?” I asked Kevin.

“That’s where they do outpatient dialysis.”

“Dialysis?”

“Why?”

“I just saw my dad go in there.”

“Maybe he has a friend undergoing the procedure.” Kevin saw the worry in my eyes and he touched my arm to offer some consolation. “They also do outpatient blood tests there. Maybe he’s just having some blood work done.”

I nodded, but there was this knot in my stomach as I stared at the façade of the building. I remembered the many times I’d thought my dad looked tired. All the times when it crossed my mind that he looked thinner. I remembered how thin he’d looked even this morning.

Was there something wrong with my dad?

The receptionist looked up as I walked into the building. She smiled, but I could tell she was wondering who the hell I was and what the hell I wanted.

“Hello,” she said in a soft voice.

“I was wondering if I could speak with a patient.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, managing to sound a little apologetic, “we value our patients’ privacy. We can’t have people just walking in and out of here.”

“I understand that. But I saw my dad come in here.”

Comprehension flooded the woman’s eyes. She looked me over, probably trying to decide which of the patients that had just come in I belonged to. Then she sort of nodded and picked up the phone, whispering something I couldn’t hear. Her eyes moved over me again, and then she slowly set the phone down.

“If you’ll follow me.”

She led me down a long hallway past doors with windows in them—the kind of doors you might see in a school building. Then she paused at one halfway down the corridor and knocked. A woman in nurse’s scrubs answered, looking at me the same way this woman had, then she stepped out of the way.

“Please don’t get him upset.”

I walked into the room and my heart dropped to my toes. My dad was reclining in a chair that was designed to be a makeshift bed. He was sitting up at the moment, but the bottom was pulled out so that he could stretch his legs. He was covered by a blanket even though he was still fully dressed in khakis and a golf shirt. There were thick tubes snaking under the blanket that were connected to a large machine that made a whirring sound as it did whatever it was doing.

“Addison,” my dad said, his voice weak but filled with pleasure.

“What are you doing?” I asked, even though I was aware the question was pretty stupid considering where we were.

He pulled one arm out from under the blanket and held his hand out to me.

“Come sit.”

I went to him, taking his hand, shocked by how cold it was. He just looked at me, his eyes filled with affection and grief. The grief was so clear, so heavy, that I could actually feel it like a weight on my shoulders.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He kissed the back of my hand. “I didn’t want you to sit here and worry.”

“But you’re my dad.”

Tears filled his eyes, but he smiled. “It’s my job to protect you. And I’ve done all I can to do that.”

“I’m an adult now. You don’t have to protect me anymore.”

“Yes, I do.” He tugged my hand, drawing it closer to his chest. “I called Grant.”

I frowned. “When?”

“A little over a month ago. I saw what was happening with the company, saw where we were headed, and I didn’t want to leave you with a company that was falling apart.”

“Daddy—”

He waved his hand at me, gesturing for me to wait for him to finish. I could see how tired he was, how hard this was on him. It made me feel stupid to realize this had been going on for however long and I’d been so wrapped up in my own stuff that I didn’t see it.

“I knew we would have to sell. And I’d been following Grant’s career in California. I knew he was in a position to come in here and take over. I knew he could take care of you now. And I knew he was the only one you’d accept.”

“Was there ever any other offers on the business?”

My father smiled. “We’ve had dozens of offers over the years. But Grant’s was the only one I considered.”

“And the money…”

“I wanted him to put all the money in a trust fund, because I knew you would have to replace a huge chunk of the employees in order to modernize our operations. I wanted you to be able to offer them early retirement and not have to worry about where the money was coming from.”

“Did Grant know you were sick?”

My father shrugged. “I didn’t tell him, but I’m sure he figured it out.”

He pulled his other arm out from under the blanket and I flinched at the thick tubes attached to it. There were bruises under his thin skin that looked terribly painful. I wondered again how I’d never noticed. He wore long sleeves often, even in the summer, so I didn’t think about it. But I should have noticed.

I should have known.

“I wanted you taken care of. I need to know you’re going to be okay.”

“I’m not the one who’s sick.”

He let go of my hand and reached for me. I moved close, let him run his hand over my face.

“I’m ready, Addison. When your mother died, she made me promise I would stick around until I walked you down the aisle.” He cleared his throat. “I probably won’t make that. But you kept me going. Now you’re grown and you’re not alone.”

I shook my head, choking back tears. “I don’t understand. You’re talking like it’s all over. I don’t even know what’s happening here. Can’t they do a transplant or something?”

My dad shook his head. “I have cancer, Addison. The kidney thing is just a side effect of the chemotherapy drugs they’ve been giving me. They won’t put me on the transplant list, or even consider it, because the cancer will kill me before the kidneys do.”

I couldn’t wrap my mind around what he was saying.

“You can’t be dying. I just…I refuse to believe that.”

“Addison—”

“You’re the healthiest man I’ve ever known. You’re unorganized and you can’t remember things as well as you should, but you eat well, you exercise—”

“That’s not always enough.”

“We could find another doctor, get a second opinion.”

He smiled softly, a tired smile that did nothing to brighten his tired eyes. “I’ve been to half a dozen doctors. There’s nothing more that can be done.”

“But—”

“Addison, I’ve accepted this. You need to respect that.”

His tone was firm, a shadow of the tone he used with me when I was a child and I’d done something wrong. It was biting in this moment. I sat back and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands, not caring about makeup or appearance or anything. I just wanted to make the tears go away.

“You’re giving up.”

“I’m not giving up. But my cancer is advanced. It was advanced when I was diagnosed. There’s nothing that can be done.”

“But you—”

“Addison, this is reality.”

“You are the only family I have.”

The grief was back in his eyes, if it had ever left. He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed my palm. And then he closed his eyes and my heart began to pound.

What was I going to do without my dad?

I leaned close to the bed and took his hand, held it between both of mine and just watched him struggle through four hours of dialysis. I had to be strong. I had to be the one he could lean on now.