Killer Countdown (Man on a Mission 6)

When she finally opened her eyes and spoke again, she was much calmer. “I’m not stupid, Shane. It didn’t take me long to figure out why you’re trying to push me away. What you’re afraid of, deep down. You received some bad news from your doctor at the Mayo Clinic. Because of that, you’d rather sacrifice what we have than risk being a burden on the woman you love.”

She’d cut right to the heart of the matter in her insightful way. “Carly, I...”

“‘In sickness and in health,’ Shane. Those traditional wedding vows we both take seriously.” She swallowed hard. “If I told you I had cancer,” she whispered, “and I only had six months to live, would you walk away?”

Appalled she could even ask the question, his anger flared and he shot back, “Of course not.”

“Then why are you asking me to walk away?”

“I’m—” Not was what he’d intended to say, but then he realized she was right. He’d never considered it from her perspective. Protecting his woman was what a man did—his father had taught him that by deed as well as word. Protection was his right, not just his duty. It hadn’t occurred to him a woman could feel the same way about her man. That she had the right to protect him should the worst occur.

The only thing in his mind had been shielding Carly from the possibility that the seizures could cause mental damage, and subsequently drive him to take his own life...or become a drain on hers. His pride wouldn’t allow him to face the possibility of becoming dependent on her, dragging her down.

But just as he would still love and cherish Carly if something catastrophic happened to her, she would still love and cherish him if their situations were reversed. Whether she wanted to take that risk with him or not was her choice to make. Trying to take that choice away from her was an insult.

“I love you, Shane,” she said quietly. “I know I told you I wanted emotional distance. You knew that wasn’t really true or even possible because we were already beyond that point. But you pretended, because you wanted to give me everything I asked for. You wanted to make me happy.” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “I want the same thing. I want to make you happy, want to give you everything you need, whether you ask for it or not.

“That’s what love is, Shane. I can’t ask you not to die. I can’t ask you not to get sick. Those things happen, whether we want them to or not. But I can ask you to let me be there for you, ‘for better, for worse...in sickness and in health.’ Just as I can ask you to be there for me.”

She moved closer, sliding her arms around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder. His arms wrapped around her, holding her tight. “Whatever the doctor told you, we’ll face it together,” she assured him quietly. “Whatever the eventual outcome, we’ll have each other, and that’s all that matters.”

“You don’t know,” he began.

She raised her face to his. “So tell me.”

He laid it all out for her. The probabilities and the possibilities—including the worst-case scenarios. “So you see,” he explained, “this new medication might not work, either. There are other meds they can prescribe, but every one has serious side effects to worry about. And there are no guarantees any of the meds will work—small percentage odds on something like that, but...it’s still a risk.”

“You’re looking ahead and seeing only the worst that could happen, when the odds are it won’t.”

“But what if it does?” He’d done nothing but agonize over this possibility since the moment he’d seen his doctor, and that pain was reflected in his voice. “You’d be stuck with a husband who might not even remember you.” And the worst thing he could imagine—“Who might not even remember loving you.”

“‘Don’t borrow trouble, because you can never pay it back.’ My mom used to say that to me,” Carly said with a tiny smile of remembrance. “I was in my teens before I understood what she meant.”

“My mom uses that phrase, too. She’s really big on aphorisms.”