Love Finds You in North Pole, Alaska (25 page)

She hardly gave a thought to the way he’d reacted the first time she suggested that they pray together. Instead, Sam turned to her brother. “Bill?”

He gave one nod of his head and closed his eyes. “Dear heavenly Father,” he began, “we come to You this evening with heavy hearts and worried minds as Your beloved daughter Olive awaits the doctors’ prognosis. We ask that You bless the medical team, Father, that they might know how to heal her. Bless Olive, too, Lord, with complete trust in You and Your will for her life. Watch over Duke as he stands beside his new bride, and bolster him with the strength to be a supportive, loving husband.

“Cloak us now, O God, with abundant and abiding faith, so that we can remain steady in our trust in You, so we will believe with every fiber in our beings that You will answer the prayers said here on Olive’s behalf. Lord, we implore You to help us comprehend and comply with Your will, and grant us the wisdom to know what You would have us do—for Olive and for one another—until she is home again, safe from all harm and pain, from all fear and illness. We ask these things in Your most holy name, amen.”

Sam wasn’t the slightest bit surprised at her own tears or at the glisten in her brother’s eyes, for heart-to-hearts with the Lord often invited a bit of dampness, but the damp streaks coursing down Bryce’s face rocked her to her core. If not for Bill’s firm grasp on her hand, she might have lost it completely. “That was beautiful, Billy,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” Bryce agreed, “it was.” Lips taut and brow furrowed, he ground out a quiet “Thanks.”

“Mr. Stone?”

Bryce stood ramrod straight as Bill and Sam flanked him.

“I’m Doctor Eversly,” he announced, extending his right hand. “I’ve been overseeing your aunt’s case. Her husband asked me to update you.” Eversly fidgeted with the black tubing of his stethoscope and said, “We’re re-running the tests, to be sure our initial diagnosis is correct, but I’m afraid it’s serious.”

Sam glanced up in time to see Bryce’s Adam’s apple bob up and down. “How serious?”

“Looks like cancer.” He held up a hand to add, “But Fairbanks is home to one of the country’s best cancer centers, and their top expert is on his way here now, so there’s no need for immediate alarm.”

“What kind of cancer?” Bryce ventured.

Everybody tensed when the doctor’s jaw muscles bulged. “I think I’ll let Dr. Dugas provide the specific details once he’s had a chance to study your aunt’s file.”

“You’re saying you don’t know what kind?”

The doctor removed his glasses and ran a hand through his hair. “Mr. Stone, I—”

“Either you know or you don’t.” Bryce stared him down. “And if you know, I’d appreciate your honesty.”

Quiet
pings
overhead prefaced a nasal female voice that droned from the overhead speakers. “Paging Doctor Marcus…”

A nurse hurried by, clipboard in hand and crepe-soled shoes squeaking on the highly polished linoleum floor.

A door slammed in the distance.

The elevator doors across the hall hissed open with a
ding
.

Dr. Eversly swallowed as Bryce cleared his throat and Bill coughed, and Sam thought surely all three men could hear the hard beating of her heart. Finally, the doctor’s voice cracked the quiet. “The tests are only preliminary, understand, which is why we ran them more than once.” Staring at the pale blue-and-green flecks in the tile beneath his wingtips, he continued. “Looks like it might be pancreatic cancer.”

Sam stifled a gasp. Wasn’t that one of the worst kinds?
Lord Jesus
, she prayed,
let the tests be wrong
….

Dr. Eversly opened his mouth to say more when the voice floated from the speakers yet again. “Doctor Eversly,” she said this time, “paging Doctor Eversly. Please report to the ER…”

“Sorry,” he said, looking almost relieved that an emergency required his attention. “A nurse will be out soon as your aunt is settled into her room.” And with that, he hurried through the double doors leading into the emergency room, white coat flapping as he disappeared around the corner.

Bryce took a step back and all but fell into the seat he’d been occupying when Dr. Eversly had made his appearance. “Pancreatic cancer,” he breathed. And balancing elbows on his knees, he buried his face in his hands. “Isn’t that the one that kills within months of a diagnosis?”

Sam sat beside him and rubbed his back. “Not always,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder. “We’ve got to keep the faith, believe the doctors have caught it in time.”

“She’s right, man,” Bill added, taking the chair on Bryce’s other side. “You heard Eversly…the tests could be wrong, or maybe some newbie in the lab read the results incorrectly. Either way, this Dugas expert will have answers.”

“She’s all I’ve got,” Bryce grated.

“You’re wrong about that,” Bill said, one hand on Bryce’s shoulder.

“You’ll never be alone,” she whispered, “as long as I draw breath.”

Nodding, Bryce whipped off the eye patch and tossed it to the floor. And as his friends sat helpless, the big, no-nonsense ex-marine broke down and sobbed.

Since there wasn’t much he could do for her, Bryce took Olive up on her suggestion to go home for some much-needed food and rest.

“Besides,” she’d said as the foursome stood around her hospital bed, “Bill needs to pack so he can get back to Baltimore. School starts soon, and I know from past experience how important it is to get into the classroom early. Isn’t that right, Bill?”

Sam’s brother had grinned and, firing off a few wisecracks, agreed. But his red-rimmed eyes were a dead giveaway that Olive’s quickly failing health had impacted him, too. And though Bryce had only known Bill for a few weeks, the man had earned his respect and friendship, and Bryce hated to see him go.

To give her her due, Sam held up well through all the hospital mumbo jumbo, the farewell supper with Bill, and the uncomfortably quiet ride to the airport. Somehow, she’d managed not to get more than a little damp-eyed bidding him good-bye at the curb outside the airline terminal, and she probably would have made it all the way back to North Pole without blubbering if Bryce hadn’t insisted on stopping to visit Forever.

Side by side, they’d stared in respectful silence at the vast expanse of evergreens, at the steel blue sky and looming thunderclouds that blocked the noonday sun. And with no warning whatever, she’d thrown herself into his arms, her lurching shoulders his only clue that she was crying.

Bryce hadn’t known what to say or do to comfort her, and the powerlessness threatened his own precarious hold on self-control. He wanted to be her rock, to shield her from every sadness the world might throw at her. Wanted to protect her from fear and loneliness and despair. But how could he be the man she needed—the man she so richly deserved—when it was all he could do to hold it together himself?

He’d considered prayer but then decided against it. Why bother? There was too precious little time, in his opinion, to waste even a minute of it, voicing some futile plea to a God who had obviously turned a deaf ear to him. He’d more or less believed it for decades, because any time he’d turned to the Almighty, Bryce had gotten nothing in return. He’d never expected to have
every
prayer answered; he was too practical for that. But none of them? Even a war-hardened jarhead like himself knew to quit while he was ahead!

God hadn’t turned his cause-loving parents into people he could look up to, people who could help mold and guide him. He hadn’t stopped the bleeding when his comrades lay dying on the battlefields. Hadn’t helped the search party find his mom and dad after they went missing. Hadn’t changed Debbie’s mind when she decided that being a career marine was more important than Bryce’s heart.

By the time that land mine detonated, taking out a young soldier and wounding half a dozen others, he’d given up all hope of capturing the Almighty’s attention. Other people promised to pray for him as he lay alone and in agony at the VA hospital, and for a while, he allowed himself to hope that maybe the Lord would answer
their
prayers. But the sight never returned to his left eye, and the kids who’d been hit by the same flying shrapnel that had blinded him went home in far worse shape than Bryce. When
he
got home and entertained the idea of selling Rudolph’s, the place had fallen into such disrepair that no one in his right mind would fork over hard-earned cash for it. What else was he to think but that God was the product of overactive imaginations, like Santa and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

He’d never voice his bitter opinions, because why wake the believers from their happy dreams? If leaning on a Being who promised to move mountains if His followers had faith as minuscule as a mustard seed could help them cope with the ugly things of the world, who was he to take that from them?

Sam, he realized as he sat at his computer keyboard, had more faith than any ten people he could name. If she ever came to her senses and walked away from him, he’d need strength like he never needed it before. And surely that would happen when she figured out what a heathen she’d fallen for, because didn’t her beloved Bible say she wasn’t supposed to yoke herself to an unbeliever?

Staring at the glowing monitor, he scrolled through page after page, searching for the latest facts and figures on pancreatic cancer. The more he knew, the better he could help Olive. After a lifetime of uncomplainingly caring for others—her parents, her students, his parents, him
self
—Olive had earned the best, and he intended to see to it she got it, or he’d die trying.

Her uncomplaining attitude, as it turned out, was partly to blame for her condition. If she’d said something sooner about the pains in her gut, about her exhaustion and insomnia, about the aches in her muscles and joints, maybe the experts could have diagnosed the cancer in time to remove the tumor surgically, put one of the new-fangled drugs to the test.

Tonight, when nothing new showed up on his screen, Bryce rolled back from his desk and slammed a fist into the nearby wall. “In God’s hands,” he muttered. “What a lot of—”

A soft knock kept him from finishing his sentence. “What?” he barked.

“It’s just me,” Sam said, walking toward him, a piled-high plate of who-knows-what in her dainty hands. “I thought you might be hungry….”

Might as well get the wheels turning, he thought, because putting off the inevitable would only make things harder for both of them. She needed to go back to Baltimore, where a loving family would help her get back to her life as it was before North Pole. Then he’d sell the shop, even if it didn’t make a profit, and take that boring desk job in Quantico. In time, maybe he could parlay it into a special ops assignment.

“Just put it over there,” he snarled, pointing at a bare spot on his desk. Bryce glanced at the plate and noted that, as usual, Sam had thought of everything, from a big white paper napkin to a tall glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade. Oh, how he wanted to show her, to tell her how much he appreciated her thoughtful, loving gestures! But because he genuinely believed she deserved better than the likes of him, he sat, silent as a statue, staring at the glare of the computer monitor.

“Find anything?” she asked, setting up the corner of his desk like a table in some fancy restaurant.

“Nah.” He hit a button, putting the computer into hibernation.

“Better eat while it’s hot…”

He got to his feet and started pacing between the door and the desk. It didn’t really surprise him when Sam got up, too, and walked beside him.

“Good exercise,” she kidded. “But you keep this up, you’ll wear a path in the carpet.”

Just look at her
, he thought,
all tiny and cute, all loving and kind
…
and completely unaware that I’m about to turn her world upside-down
.

On more than one occasion, she’d accused him of being able to read her mind. He thought maybe the condition was catching, because she said, “If you think for one minute you can get rid of me, you’re sadly mistaken, marine.” Then she planted herself in his path and, hands on hips, glared up at him.

He couldn’t afford to let her get to him. Couldn’t afford to let her niceness soften the hard decision he’d made. Didn’t she realize he was doing it to protect her? Bryce did his best to scowl. Standing taller, he crossed his arms over his chest, fully prepared to tell her to take a hike. To get lost, bug off, leave him be…

But before he could formulate a stern lecture in his head, before he could summon the ire required to convince her that he meant what he said, Sam wrapped her arms around him and leaned her curly-haired head on his chest.

“You’re not fooling me, you know.”

He stared at the ceiling, wondering what to say next.

“I know exactly what you’re up to.”

“Oh, you think so, do you?”

Nodding, she hugged him tighter. “You think if you act all big and bad and mean, I’ll scurry off like a scared little rabbit and drive back to Baltimore where my folks and my brothers will surround me and say silly things like ‘there, there’ and ‘poor baby’ until I’m over you.”