Take Your Time (Fate and Circumstance #2) (29 page)

Before I could say anything else, Axel came up behind Bree and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his hands against her stomach. “Has she told you yet?”

I didn’t need to ask what he meant by that, and even if I hadn’t already known, the smile on his face would’ve given it away. “Yes. She just told me, actually. Congratulations.”

“Yeah…it’s going to be our last one, so we expect some good gifts this time,” he said, unable to hold back his laughter as it ran through him, causing his shoulders to bounce up and down.

“Last one? Says who?” Bree pulled out of his embrace and spun to face him.

“It’s become our tradition for me to knock you up before marriage. Now we’re married. No need to break this stellar record we’ve got going for us.”

“Only you would make light of our sins.”

“When have we ever done things the right way, Bree? Why start now?”

As humorous as their exchange was to watch, I suddenly felt like a third wheel. So I moved along, allowing them to share in this moment together. I found Clari on the other side of the room and went over to talk to her, noticing she appeared to be a little under the weather. I worried it had to do with Mom and wanted to offer her some comfort.

“He’s here,” she whispered before I could even get a word out.

“Who’s here?”

She nodded once and moved her line of sight over my shoulder. I turned around to see who she was talking about, and found Luke sitting at one of the round tables in the center of the room, alone.

“Why is he here?” Adrenaline flooded my system and brought with it a heavy sensation that settled in the pit of my stomach. Nervous didn’t even begin to describe how I felt as I stood there, my hands tingling by my sides. His presence meant something different to me than it did to Clari. To me, it was a living, breathing reminder of Bentley. I had no idea what it meant to her.

“He came as a plus one to one of the guests.”

I turned back to Clari, catching her wide, glistening eyes. “Has he said anything to you?”

“No. But I’m worried.”

“Why? What could he possibly do to you?”

Her eyes burned with panic, wide and intense. “Joel doesn’t know that I called him before the wedding. I don’t want Luke to say anything to him about it. If he really wants to get back at me, all he has to do is tell Joel.” Tears formed above her lower lids, and then fell past her painted lashes, taking with it soft streaks of black. “He can’t find out, Sarah. He wouldn’t understand, and he would never forgive me.”

I gave her a tight smile and rested my hand on her shoulder to offer her some comfort and strength, knowing how badly she needed it. “He won’t say anything. Don’t worry.”

I left her standing there and made my way to Luke, my heart lodging itself in my throat and pulsing in my neck with every click of my heels. He sat in the cushioned chair covered in white linen with his ankle propped up over his knee, sipping amber liquid from a crystal tumbler as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Meanwhile, my sister stood nearly fifty feet away about to have a nervous breakdown in the middle of a wedding reception. When I took the seat next to him, he finally turned his attention to me, his eyes wide as if he hadn’t expected to see me there.

“I really hope you didn’t come here to ruin another wedding. Any other rings and houses I should know about? And if there are, I’ll admit that it stings a little, Luke. I mean, there are three of us, and if you’ve bought diamonds and lake houses for the other two, I’ll take that personal.” I made a joke of things to keep him from becoming defensive, but in reality, the massively twisted knots in my stomach made it hard to keep my composure.

He smiled and relaxed further into his chair. “You have nothing to worry about, Sarah. I’m not here to convince Bree to leave with me. It was only ever Clare. And if I really wanted to ruin her wedding, I would’ve barged in on the ceremony instead of meeting her in the back of the church before she even had her dress on. So I would appreciate it if you guys would stop accusing me of trying to ruin her wedding.”

“It doesn’t matter how or when you did it, Luke; it doesn’t take away the fact that you fucked her up that day. You can’t show up on your ex’s wedding day, beg her to leave with you, and not expect to cause some sort of damage.”

“And what would you do if Bentley was getting married? What would you do if he called you crying, telling you how much he loved you, telling you he thinks he made a mistake by leaving you? Wouldn’t you do anything you could to get him back, even if that meant going to him hours before he took his vows? I didn’t do it to fuck with her or ruin her day. I did it so I couldn’t look back and wonder what might’ve happened if I’d just done or said something different. It was my last chance. I wasn’t about to pass that up and spend the rest of my life with what ifs.”

His questions clenched my insides until taking a full breath became impossible. Things seemed a little different after viewing the details through his eyes. But even though I understood his reasons, it didn’t make it any better. It didn’t mean I suddenly sympathized with him. No matter why he did it, I still had a sister on the other side of the room practically hyperventilating with fear that Luke hadn’t let things go. “Why are you really here?”

“Because I was invited.”

“By whom?”

“My
date
.”

His attitude was clear, and so was his desire for me to leave him alone. I nodded and pressed my hand against the tablecloth, ready to get out of my seat, but the nagging question in my head grew too loud to ignore, ringing in my ears until I gave in and asked it. “How is he?”

His gaze narrowed and the creases between his eyebrows became deep valleys of anger—and possibly pain. “How do you think he’s doing, Sarah? You left him high and dry. The man fell in love with you, and then you just walked away. I don’t know what it is with you Campbell girls and your need to fuck with my family, but I’m over it.”

I hesitated for a moment, gathering my thoughts enough to form a rational sentence without losing my calm. “You knew about the heart transplant. You knew who I was and that Bentley was spending time with me. Did you also know that he had lied to me from the very beginning?”

Luke finished his drink and then slammed the glass on the table. “I told him it was a bad idea that night he came back from the bar. I told him it was a bad idea
before
he even went up there to meet you. The night I saw you coming out of the bathroom? Yeah, I told him again that night how fucking stupid he was, and how he’d never get out of it unscathed. But he wouldn’t listen to me.”

“So then why is it
my
fault? What the hell did I do wrong?”

“You left him.” Ice formed in my lower stomach as his stare grew more intense, angrier. “He stuck by your side, defended you, refused to let you go because he couldn’t stand the thought of walking away and leaving you alone, and yet that’s exactly what you did to him. You left him—alone.”

“What was I supposed to do, Luke?” My voice rose, defensiveness overtaking my emotions until my hands shook and my head throbbed. “He lied to me. I trusted him, and he lied. From the very beginning. And not just about his medical issues. Do you seriously think I should’ve jumped for joy?”

He licked his lips and then leaned into the table with his forearms pressed against the edge, taking his time before responding. “Let me tell you a little story, Sarah. When my cousin was diagnosed, every doctor pretty much told him he wouldn’t make it. No one had hope. Because the only chance he had to survive was to get a heart, and that list is long. Most people die before their number is called. So before he left to come here, he had to say goodbye to his family. He had to hug his mom, believing it would be the last time. You think it’s tough being the one left behind after a family member dies? Imagine being the one
dying
, having to make peace with everyone. Having to make sure
your
loved ones get their closure. Sure, he had time to say goodbye—if there’s such thing as enough time for something like that—but can you even begin to imagine what it’s like knowing you maybe have months left to live? To think about all the things you still want to do in life, but you can’t do any of it? Well, that was him. That’s what
he
had to endure.

“And then his health rapidly deteriorated. Less than a week before Christmas, we had to rush him to the hospital. Luckily, they were able to move him up the transplant list, but that was pretty much an empty promise, and he knew it. They didn’t expect him to live to see the new year, and doubted he’d even make it to Christmas morning.”

I dried my eyes with my fingertips and interrupted him. “That’s a sad story, Luke, but I don’t know what that has to do with me. What does that have to do with my reaction to his lies?”

“No matter what I said to him, nothing was going to convince him to leave without seeing you, without seeing the person responsible for him getting more time with his family.”

“Why?”

He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. When his eyes met mine again, I noticed something had changed in them. The amber color had dulled, the light behind them faded, revealing the vivid pain behind them.

“He wanted to thank you for saving his life.”

“Then why didn’t he just do that and leave? Why string me along? He didn’t have to stick around and lie to me for a month. That was
his
decision, one I don’t deserve the blame for.”

“He stayed
because
of you. Because of how your mother’s death had affected you. And he felt guilty for that. He blamed himself—hated himself. You see, he had accepted his fate. He didn’t want to die, but he was ready for it. Before he came to stay with me, he’d tied up every loose end he had. There wasn’t one person that had come in contact with him throughout his life that would ever question how he felt about them. He made sure he left no stone unturned before coming here to die. Because that’s what he thought he was doing…spending his last days here. He honestly thought the only way he’d be going back to his parents was in a box.

“And because of
you
, because of your decision to donate your mother’s organs, he was given another chance at life. All he wanted to do was thank you, because that’s the kind of guy my cousin is. But once he saw you, and he saw how much pain you were in, how you were punishing yourself and everyone around you, he couldn’t do it. He felt guilty that he—someone who’d accepted his fate—lived while your mom had died. He hated that he had the chance to say goodbye to his mom, yet you never did.”

I pulled my glossy lip into my mouth and bit down on it, hoping to keep my tears away. “He needs to know that I don’t blame him.”

“Then you should’ve told him while he was here.”

My head snapped up, cold chills filled my insides while my skin burned hot. “What do you mean? Where is he? Did he go back home?”

“How much do you know about heart transplant patients?”

I shook my head. I didn’t want a lesson on hearts. I wanted information about Bentley. “Nothing. Why? Just tell me, Luke. Stop fucking with me.”

“When you get a new heart, your body thinks it’s a foreign object and your white blood cells attack it. The main reason transplants fail is rejection. So after surgery, you have to go back often to have the heart biopsied to check for signs of rejection so it can be caught early. One of the things they do to help prevent rejection from happening is daily medications to suppress the immune system. It keeps your white blood cells from attacking your heart. However, without a strong immune system, you have nothing to help fight off other things like the common cold.”

“Cut the bullshit, Luke. I don’t need a lesson on heart transplants. Just tell me what happened to him.” The hair on the back of my neck stood up, causing my body to shiver uncontrollably. The room spun and the noises around me turned muffled, my equilibrium becoming unbalanced.

“After you left him, he became secluded and really quiet. I thought he was just upset over what had happened between the two of you. But after a few days, I noticed he had gotten worse, and that’s when I realized it was more than just him being upset. I took him to the hospital and found out that he had a really bad infection.”

“Where…is…he?”

“Leave him be, Sarah.”

“No.
Tell me where he is, Luke
!”

He buried his head in his hands and sighed dramatically, as if I’d been the one dragging him around. “He needs time to heal. Give him that.”

I stood up and pounded my fist against the top of the table, commanding the attention of people around us. I leaned over and lowered my voice to a throaty growl as I said, “Tell me where he is. Please, don’t keep me from him. That is my
mother’s
heart.”

Bentley

Heavy pounding woke me from a dead sleep. Incessant, panicked pounding that echoed through the otherwise quiet house. I shot straight out of bed, confused and taken by surprise by the interruption. Then I glanced at the clock on the side table, the blue digital numbers reading “2:08 a.m.”

My house was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees and dirt roads, so there’d be no reason for anyone to simply stumble upon it, let alone, give them much reason to knock on the door in the middle of the night. I grabbed a shirt from my dresser and pulled it over my head as I carefully made my way to the front of the house.

The pounding continued. I maneuvered around the furniture in the dark, the noise growing louder the closer I got to it. I had no lights on outside, and contemplated turning the one above the door on to see through the peephole, but then I decided against it, wanting to take the intruder by surprise instead.

But a second before I unlocked the deadbolt, the pounding abruptly stopped. I waited silently with my ear pressed against the door, hoping to hear something from the other side. Other than soft shuffling noises, there was nothing…until the broken sob let loose. Just one. One short, whimpered cry broke through the silence and filled me with cold dread that turned the blood in my veins to ice. I immediately unlocked the door and swung it open, finding myself staring into the eyes that had haunted my dreams for weeks.

Nothing was said as we stood a few feet apart, watching each other through the darkness of night. Only the sounds of crickets chirping could be detected as the seconds, minutes ticked by. I wanted to do so much—hold her, close the door, kiss those lips, tell her to leave—but I found myself unable to do anything other than blink as the silence stretched on.

“Bentley…” Just one word whispered softly, wretchedly, as she wiped the falling tears from her face on my moonlit porch. It sounded so miserable, so tender, and yet hopeful all at once.

“How did you know where I live?”

My emotionless question seemed to stun her and forced her to take a small step back, nearly tripping over a bag behind her that I hadn’t noticed until then. “Luke…he told me where to find you.”

I nodded stiffly and then said, “You shouldn’t be here.”

I moved to close the door, unable to take one more minute of her presence and the pain it left me with, but her next words made me freeze.

“I know. But there was no other place I wanted to be.”

“You don’t know what you want…”

Her head shook slowly, the loose curls next to her face swaying with the movement. “I’m not leaving, Bentley. Do what you need to, say what you have to, but it won’t change anything. It won’t change how I feel or why I’m here.”

“What if I don’t want you here?”

Her shoulders raised high, almost meeting her ears, and then fell heavily. “You really gonna make me drive six hours back home? Alone in the middle of the night?” She took a hesitant step toward me. “Just let me in, Bentley.”

If only she knew that I’d already done that. I’d let her in and she left, taking the air from my lungs, the pulse from my heart, and the life from inside me with her. I couldn’t handle that again.

But I couldn’t turn her away, either.