Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
“We got the results.”
Eagle’s words coming through the phone he held to his ear had Lion freezing. The moment of truth was upon him, and he wasn't sure if he wanted his boss to hurry up and spit it out or delay another few seconds in case it was bad news and he could live with hope a little longer.
And hope was all they were talking about because there were no guarantees.
But his being a match meant they didn't have to give up on his daughter just yet, something he wasn't ready to do. For ten years, he’d thought she had died in her mother’s womb when Kate followed his commands and terminated the pregnancy.
As much as he’d hated himself for what he’d done, he had made his peace with it and accepted he was responsible for killing his child.
Now to know Kate had ignored him, raised an amazing little girl all on her own, having met her, spent time with her, fallen in love with her, he wasn't sure he could survive losing her all over again.
Obviously noticing his spiraling thoughts, Kate’s gaze met his, and he could tell the second that she realized who was on the phone with him. Shoving up from her chair, she looked from Ariella, who was sitting beside her at the kitchen table doing schoolwork, and back to him again.
“Is it the results?” she asked, and everyone froze, all attention shifting to him.
Lion nodded.
There was nothing else to do. Everyone was looking at him expectantly, even his nine-year-old daughter, and Eagle hadn't said anything yet, clearly waiting until he was ready to hear the answer that would shape his entire future.
Did he get a second chance with the woman he would love until he took his dying breath, and the daughter he’d only just learned about, or was he about to lose everything for a second time?
Putting it off wasn't going to change anything. Whether he was a match had already been decided long before Ariella even started showing symptoms. May as well get it over and done with.
“What does it say, Eagle?” he asked, voice strained as he fought the urge to hold his breath.
“You're a match,” Eagle said the words, and relief crashed over him like a tidal wave.
“Leo?” Kate asked, her bottom lip trembling as hope warred in her wide, blue eyes.
“Yeah, Katie-Bear, I'm a match,” he replied, not ashamed to admit his eyes had misted over.
A sob burst out of Kate, and then she and Ariella were both flying across the room toward him.
“Enjoy this moment with your family. I’ll call back later, and we can discuss details of what happens next,” Eagle said through the phone, and then his boss was gone, and his girls were in his arms.
Kate was crying, Ariella was crying, and even he shed a few tears.
His daughter had just been thrown a lifeline, and he had to pray that it would work, that the bone marrow transplant would cure her, even if she was never one hundred percent healthy.
He wanted Ariella to live a full and happy life, have a chance to do whatever her heart desired, and die of old age.
“Thank you for getting tested,” Kate whispered against his neck, where she’d pressed her face.
This morning, when she’d crept out of his room, he’d already been awake, fought with himself on whether he should let her know, and try to convince her to stay.
In the end he’d decided not to. He wanted her to be with him because it was what she wanted, what she was ready for.
While he wanted to jump all in and try to reclaim what they’d shared a decade ago, he understood it was going to take time for her to trust him again, and she was scared of getting hurt.
“Of course, Katie-Bear. I would do anything for our little girl, for you,” he whispered back.
Pulling back a little, she hesitated for a second, then leaned in and brushed her lips to his in a soft and sweet, but brief, kiss.
“We should celebrate,” Kate announced. “Ariella’s favorite is homemade pizza. We could have that for dinner, maybe make our own ice cream for dessert?”
“Sounds perfect,” he agreed, and the others all echoed those sentiments.
“I think school can be done for the day,” Kate told Ariella, who cheered. “You can go watch a movie, then we’ll play outside for a bit.”
“Thank you, Daddy,” Ariella said. Her eyes were bright with gratitude and love, then she pressed a kiss to his cheek before skipping out of the kitchen, no doubt heading for the living room to continue her Disney Princess movie marathon she’d complained about stopping last night.
Once the little girl was out of the room, Kate kissed him again, a little steamier this time, before pulling back somewhat reluctantly, like she’d just remembered they had an audience.
“I know this isn’t a guarantee of anything, but thank you so much for giving her this chance,” Kate said again, and when she went to move back, he hauled her right back into his arms.
“No other choice I would have made,” he assured her. Even if he hadn't been thrilled that his ex had kept a child at the time he had thought was better off dead, there was no way he wouldn't have stepped up and been tested.
“I've been working on trying to increase Ariella’s chances of the bone marrow transplant being successful,” Whitney piped up. In fact, he knew the former child genius had been working almost around the clock on it.
“Do you think you’ll be able to?” Kate asked.
“I know the doctors were already uncertain she was strong enough for it to work when I decided I had to track down Leo. I didn't know what to expect if I found him, but I did know that Ariella’s chances of a successful transplant were already low, even if he agreed to help.”
Ignoring the sting of pain at hearing that Kate quite understandably doubted he would want to help, she couldn’t think anything else, given their last interaction, Lion tightened his hold on her.
“Even if we could get our hands on the drug, there’s no way we could give it to her.
Grown men and women couldn’t withstand the anger and suicidal thoughts that come with it, let alone a sick child.
There are literally only the seven of us out of at least dozens, maybe hundreds, of test subjects who survived. ”
Kate shivered against him, and he touched reassuring kisses to the slender column of her neck, soothing her. There was no way he would allow his child to be injected with the same drugs that had blown up his life.
“The versions of the drug that Dr. Gardner messed with wouldn't work.
If I could get my hands on some of the earlier versions, ones he hadn't ruined, I might be able to use one of them to boost Ariella’s immune system.
I destroyed everything that was in the lab because I was trying to shut him down.
If I'd known we were going to need them, I would have hidden them.”
“No way you could have known that,” Kate reminded Whitney. “I'm grateful for anything you can do that might give my daughter a better chance at living.”
“I’m going to try to recreate it. I might have destroyed all my notes and paperwork, but I don’t need them, I have the formulas inside my head.
The problem is that it will likely take me months to remake the drugs, and I'm not sure Ariella has that long,” Whitney said gently.
“Of course, we can just go ahead with the transplant now, see how she does without the boost to her immune system the original versions of my drug would give her.”
“But this increases her chances a lot, right? Using your drugs. The good version, not the one that almost killed you all?” Kate asked.
“If my calculations are correct, it would increase her chances substantially, by more than fifty percent,” Whitney agreed.
“Only you can't make it quickly enough for her. I should have come looking for you as soon as Ariella got sick.” Fresh tears trickled down Kate’s cheeks, and he hated that she blamed herself when it was his fault he hadn't been part of either of their lives.
“Don’t do that, Katie-Bear, don’t blame yourself, blame me,” he begged, touching kisses to her cheeks to catch her tears as though in doing so he could consume her pain, take it from her so she never had to feel it.
“Nobody should be putting the blame on their shoulders,” Steel said firmly. “Ariella getting sick isn’t anyone’s fault, and we can't go back and change choices that were made in the past.”
“I’ve already started working on calculations,” Whitney assured them. “But I had another idea.”
“What is it, darlin’?” Blade asked, wrapping an arm around Whitney’s shoulders.
“Well, I was just thinking that you would be looking for her anyway,” Whitney replied, shooting apologetic looks Rose’s way. “And if she was involved, she might have some of the samples, which would mean I could get this done quicker.”
“You mean my mom,” Rose said softly.
“River Gardner might be the only one who still has vials of the drugs,” Whitney agreed. “Finding her might be the only way to save Ariella’s life.”
March 17th
5:39 A.M.
“Going to sneak away every morning, Katie-Bear?”
The words had her freezing, half bent over, reaching for the T-shirt she’d worn to bed last night, that had been stripped off her when she came looking for Leo, unable to stay away from him.
When she’d gone to her room last night, to get ready for bed, she found that Leo had been true to his word.
There had been a whole stack of slightly worn T-shirts sitting in her drawer, and she probably would never admit to anyone, that when she’d seen them, she’d scooped up the whole pile, clutched them in her arms, breathed in their scent, and shed a few tears.
Now she quickly reached for the simple T-shirt and pulled it over her head as though it could offer her some sort of shield from the emotions raging inside her. The emotions she felt flowing from Leo.
“Don’t hide from me, Katie-Bear. You never need to hide from me.”