Page 111 of Love Me Boldly

“This isn’t going to sound like good news, but I promise you it is.” She kept her gaze on Holly. “It’s not cancer, and it wasn’t tumors on your cervix, Holly.”

“What is it?”

“Fibroids.” The doctor smiled then, it was serene and hopeful and full of genuine peace. “I know that sounds bad, but they’re not cancerous. They’re basically benign cells that grow, but they don’t turn to cancer.”

“I can get rid of them?” Holly asked, and this time when she went to squeeze my hand, I pulled my fingers out and took ahold of her hand in both of mine. This time, I held on to her. Let her know she had someone there, holding her, taking care of her.

“We’ll have to discuss treatment. We should be able to get rid of these three here quite easily.” She pointed to some blobs I couldn’t detect, but I wasn’t the doctor. “These might cause some concern, but don’t get worried. It just might mean a different kind of surgery. The thing to know is really, out of everything we considered, this is thebest outcome, Holly.”

I was reading the relaxed features on the doctor’s face, but Holly must have read something else. “But it’s not a great outcome. It’s not…it can still be bad.”

“There is a chance, given the placement of this.” She pointed out all the fibroids. Six of them. On her cervix, her uterus, and her left ovary. “We might have to remove the ovary, and in the future,yearsdown the road if they return, you might need a hysterectomy. But at least through the next few years, you should be okay. This type of fibroid tends to be slow-growing, which means they’ve been there awhile before you started having any issues, maybe even years.”

“With one less ovary.” She didn’t glance at me, but she swallowed thickly. “Kids?” she asked. “Will it…I hadn’t even considered it, not really, but would I be able to have kids someday?”

I saw it then. Holly laughing with our kids. Both of us teaching them to cook, maybe dancing in the kitchen along with baking. We’d take them to parks, she’d bring them to watch me coach hockey. I’d teach my kidsandher how to skate. All the things I started to see with her all those years ago…and now they could be gone.

“Have all the kids you want. Lots of women only have one functioning ovary. It might take longer to try, but it shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll keep an eye on you every six months and then yearly check-ups to see if the fibroids return. But the hysterectomy is the worst-case option, years away. I truly believe that.”

Holly was quiet for so long I thought she’d turned to stone. And then she turned and smiled at me. “I’m going to be okay.”

Tears slipped down her cheeks, and I didn’t care if a doctor was in the room. I leaned forward and kissed one away and then wiped the others. “I told you. You should really start listening to me.”

Holly chuckled.

The doctor smiled.

“Call my office next week so we can talk to you about scheduling the surgeries to start getting them removed. It’ll be a few visits, but the procedures are very low-risk and outpatient for the most part.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

The doctor grabbed a tissue and handed it to Holly. “Any questions for me?”

Holly shook her head. “Outpatient, that’s just a morning or something, right? Because Jonah…”

“We’ll make sure he’s taken care of,” I assured her.

“Outpatient, usually just a couple hours in and out and then resting for the rest of the day, maybe two. But you won’t be in the hospital, not any more than overnight if there are issues.”

“Okay. Thank you again. I just…I really thought it’d be worse than this.”

“It’s normal to let your fears get away from you when this stuff comes up. No one blames you for that, but now you get to go celebrate.”

“Celebrate,” Holly muttered, like the concept was foreign to her. “I get to celebrate.”

“And I get to be tortured by your cop friend.”

I got a strange look from the doctor I ignored.

Because Holly was smiling, and when she smiled, it was all I ever saw.

* * *

I kissedher against the truck until it became almost indecent for the public. I kissed her in the cab of my truck until she laughed and pushed me away. I kept reaching over and kissing our interlocked hands on the way back to Deer Creek, and as we made the drive to the restaurant to pick up Jonah and tell Caroline the good news, I couldn’t stop touching her.

“It still doesn’t sound great.”

She was staring at her phone.

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