For 100 Reasons (100 3)

The lock snicks free, then Kathryn Tremont slowly opens the stall door. I haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks, yet the woman I’m looking at now seems to have aged ten years since then. Her late-stage cancer is to blame for that. Kathryn’s lovely face is gaunt and ashen. Her steel-gray hair, still elegant in its twisted chignon, is dull beneath the soft light of the ladies’ room. Her wise, dark eyes hold me in an affectionate, if pleading, stare.

“I’m fine now,” she murmurs behind the wadded length of toilet tissue she holds to her mouth. “I just need a little drink of water . . . and some . . . air.”

She takes half a step out of the stall before her knees give out and her tall, frail body begins to sag toward the floor. Lita and I both leap into action, each of us taking an arm and carefully helping Kathryn out to one of the cushioned settees in the adjacent washroom.

I’m taken aback by the extent of her weakness. With her eyes closed and her rail-thin body slumped into the small sofa, it’s a stark reminder of just how far Kathryn’s cancer has advanced. Lita recognizes it too.

“I’ll get some water,” she says, leaving me to try to reason with our unexpected charge.

I press the back of my hand to Kathryn’s brow. Her skin is clammy, but her forehead is burning up. “How do you feel?” I ask quietly.

Her cracked, pale lips stretch into a wry smile. “Like I’m dying, dear.”

She attempts to sit up, but can barely manage to lift her shoulders off the cushioned seat. “You need rest, Kathryn. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I think you need to go to the hospital.”

“For what? So they can run a bunch of tests and tell me I’m dying?” She barks out a rattling laugh. “I’m a tough old bird. I’m going to go when I damn good and ready.”

I smile sadly, shaking my head. “I think your stubbornness is what’s gotten you this far.”

“Don’t you forget it.” Her eyelids lift and I see a small spark of determination light in her weary gaze. “Help me up now. I need to get back to the ballroom.”

I’m skeptical, but I say nothing as Lita brings a disposable cup of water from the tap and hunkers down in front of Kathryn to give it to her. Kathryn’s hands shake terribly, but she succeeds in taking a few small sips.

“All right, let’s get on with it,” she says, pushing the cup back at Lita. “I feel much better now.”

Lita’s glance is as dubious as mine, but we do our best to assist Kathryn to her feet. Her limbs feel boneless, uncooperative beneath her. After a couple of failed attempts to stand, she sinks back down onto the settee with a deep sigh.

“You need to be in bed resting,” I tell her. “If you won’t go to a hospital then you need to let me find someone to take you home. Where’s your driver tonight?”

“I can’t leave now,” she mumbles, already fading again. “Tell my driver I have to . . . I have to get to the hotel before . . . the auction starts . . .”

“Go find Jared,” I instruct Lita as Kathryn slips into a faint. “Explain the situation to him and let him know I’m going to make sure she gets home. He’s going to have to carry the whole event tonight and make some kind of excuse to cover Kathryn’s absence. He’ll know what to do.”

Lita nods. “You’re sure we shouldn’t call 911 or something?”

“There’s nothing any of those people can do for her.” I exhale an ironic, humorless breath. “Kathryn Tremont would rather die than create a scene with an ambulance and a stretcher carrying her out of her own soiree.” I glance back down at the woman who’s become an unlikely friend and confidante to me. “I’ll make sure she’s taken care of.”

Lita casts me a sober look. “Keep me posted. Call me if you need anything.”

I nod. “Thanks, Lita.”

After she goes, I retrieve Kathryn’s evening bag from where she dropped it in the bathroom stall. Her cell phone is locked with a passcode, so there’s no way for me to call her driver even if I could find the number in her contacts.

“Shit.” I’m not about to leave her alone to go looking for him. I walk back out to where she’s slumped on the sofa, her breathing shallow, her fever still burning under my fingertips as I gently stroke her brow.

I deliberate only for a moment before I reach into my small clutch and push the number I still know by heart.

“Nick?” I murmur as soon as I hear his deep voice answer. “I need you. Please, come now.”

Chapter 10

“Bring her around this way, Nick.” Avery glances back at me as I carry Kathryn from my car toward the palatial Fifth Avenue residence.

I had been waiting nearly four days for some wor

d from her, trying my damnedest to uphold my agreement to give Avery time and space to decide if there was still anything left between us to salvage. I would have gone to her anytime, under any condition she set, but nothing could have kept me from her once I heard her emotion-choked voice on the other end of the line.

Not even my acrimonious past with the unresponsive woman draped lifelessly in my arms.