Page 87 of Tate
“But what youdon’tknow is that Joy was born with spastic diplegia cerebral palsy. It’s a less traumatic CP but affects the muscles of the legs. My sister could walk on her toes, with a sort of scissor gait, but it was…frightening. She’d fall a lot, so in school she used a wheelchair. And she had seizures, which eventually led to her kidney failure.”
He was just listening, frowning.
“It was my job to take care of her. I wheeled her to class. When the other kids went out for recess, we stayed inside. If my sister went to the doctor, I went too. We never did anything apart.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t get me wrong—I loved my sister. My mother says we were born holding hands, and maybe we were. She was…she was pure light. I had the healthy body, but she had the healthy spirit. Nothing ever got her down. It was easy to see why my mother loved her best.”
Tate opened his mouth, as if to argue, but she shook her head. “It’s okay. I had a healthy body, I could do anything,everythingmy sister couldn’t. I couldn’t begrudge her the attention she got from my mother. And it wasn’t like Mother ignored me—she came in every night and read to Joy—read to both of us.”
She resumed walking. The sun had dropped into the horizon, casting shadows across the meadow, a purpling hue clouding the mountains to the west. “Joy’s first kidney failed when she was eleven. By the time she was thirteen, the other was dying. She went on dialysis at fifteen, and after waiting for a perfect match for a year, they finally decided to give her one of mine. It had nearly all the markers, and it was a 98 percent match.”
She reached a bench, and for a moment, the place jogged the memory of being here over a month ago, hiding from the stalker who had shot her. Kelsey had pushed her into the ground, kept her silent. Her adrenaline had numbed the pain long enough for the Marshalls to find them.
For Tate to pull her into his arms.
For her to believe that maybe she even belonged there. It had given her a strength she didn’t know she possessed.
“Right before she went into surgery, they gave us a moment together, and she looked at me and took my hand and…” She drew in a breath. “She said that the angels were coming for her. That she would be gone in an hour.” Her throat thickened. “I told her not to be morbid and that we’d be fine and made her promise that she’d live. I was soangryat her. I don’t know why, but here I was giving her a kidney and she was planning on dying on me—” She ran her hand across her chin.
“I went into surgery thinking she was ungrateful and selfish and…” She glanced at Tate, who watched her, his eyes soft. “And she never woke up again.”
He didn’t move. Just his chest, rising and falling.
“The last thing I said to her was that if she died on me, I’d never forgive her.” She shook her head. “Nice. Real nice.”
“Glo—” He reached out for her, but she stepped away.
“No, Tate. Listen. She’s not the only one I was angry with. I know that Kelsey told you about David, about the boy I dated in high school. What you missed was that I begged him not to enlist. I gave him an ultimatum—if he loved me, he would stay. He enlisted anyway, and I was so angry with him, I didn’t write to him.” She closed her eyes. “He went to war and never…” She whisked her hand across her wettened cheek. “He never heard from me again. And he died, thinking I was angry with him.”
He drew in a breath.
She covered her face with her hands. “See, Tate? I’m not the person you think I am. I’m selfish and angry?—”
“And hurt, Glo. You’re grieving. And anger is a huge part of grief.” He stepped up to her and put his arms around her, turning her. “You gotta give yourself some grace.”
She didn’t have the strength to push him away, but instead curled into him. He was warm and solid and simply held her, the cottony, freshly showered smell of him seeping into her skin.
Oh, this man could turn her weak, as if she didn’t have bones in her body. But, “I hurt you because I was angry at you, Tate. And truthfully, I’m still angry. If you get killed?—”
He held her at arm’s length, his blue eyes in hers. “Stop. Listen. I’m not going to get killed?—”
“You can’t say that?—”
“When I was six years old, I got bucked off a horse and broke my arm. My brothers Reuben and Knox thought it was hilarious.”
“What—why?”
“Because the horse only bucked because I screamed. It reared up and I tumbled right off, onto the ground. I lay there in the dirt crying, and my dad came and picked me up and told me I’d be okay. To stop making such a fuss. To shake it off.”
“You broke yourarm.”
“Yeah, well, people get hurt all the time on a ranch. It took two days for my mother to bring me in to the doctor. They both felt pretty bad when they discovered I’d broken my arm—but by then, I’d decided that I wasn’t going to let fear land me in the dirt again. And if it did, I was going to get back up, without crying. I hated horses after that—hated ranch life, actually, but I still learned to ride, still ran cattle, still rode fence. I’m not the guy who stays in the dirt, Glo. I get back up. And if I say I’m going to do something, I do it.” He took her face in his hands. “And I promise you right now—I’m not going to let anything happen to you…or me.”
Oh, she wanted to believe him. And maybe her doubt showed in her eyes because, as if to reassure her, he leaned down and kissed her.
And it wasn’t the kiss of possession back in Nashville or even the tentative wonder they’d shared in Vegas, but one of surety. One that said,you are safe.
