Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
Your level of stupidity rendered me speechless.
—Bernice to Patrick Huber
Bernice
Today had been surprisingly great.
It was the new nurse, Chan’s, official one-week anniversary, and we’d celebrated by cleaning the entire office with Lysol.
I liked him.
He was fun and he worked hard, and seemed to fit well into our clinic dynamic.
He took on the extra workload without a complaint and had no problem splitting the work with Sage.
Sage looked like she was finally getting sleep.
And Magnolia started picking up the slack where she could.
All in all, the last week had been one of the best I’d had at the clinic.
Sadly, today Hux wouldn’t be picking me up.
I was getting a ride home with Sage.
“So how did you like the last week?” she asked.
“I actually liked it a lot more than I thought I would,” I admitted. “Chan does really well with the demand and workload. Doesn’t complain, and bonus, doesn’t give me the creeps.”
She shuddered. “Did I tell you that Randel called today?”
“No!” I gasped and practically leaned over the console as she took the right that would lead us to Hux’s place in my neighborhood. “What the hell?”
“It was during lunch,” she said. “I answered the phone and he asked if Odin had made a decision on his employment yet.”
“Odin didn’t tell him?”
“Odin did tell him.”
“Creep,” I murmured as she navigated the slick streets. “What did you say?”
“That we decided not to move forward with his employment due to a conflict of ideals,” she admitted. “Told him to check out Bozeman.”
I snickered. “And what did he say to that?”
“Nothing. Just said ‘thank you’ and hung up.” She pulled up to the house and stopped next to Heidi’s car. “You having a party?”
“A come-to-Jesus meeting,” I admitted, then gave her the quick rundown on Katana. “And family dinner. Plus, we’re going to clean out and box up all of Hux’s things. He’s officially moving into his warehouse this week. Putting his house on the market.”
“You don’t seem all that sad to be losing your neighbor.”
I scratched at my neck. “I might or might not be practically living with him at this point.”
She snorted. “Just make it official.” She looked at me dreamily. “If Hux is anything like Gentry, you won’t be leaving his house ever again anyway.”
“You might be right.” I patted her hand. “Thank you so much for the ride.”
“You’re welcome,” she said as I pushed the door open.
I squeaked when I found Hux there to catch me. “Have a good one, Sage.”
“You, too, Hux,” she called. “Bye, Bernice.”
“Bye!” I called out as Hux carried me into his house.
He didn’t put me down until I was inside the foyer.
There were moving boxes everywhere, and I could hear the laughter coming from the kitchen.
“Y’all’ve been busy,” I said.
He held on to my hands while I got rid of my boots, then helped the jacket off my shoulders. “Put a change of clothes in the bedroom.”
I leaned up onto my tiptoes and waited.
He dropped his mouth to mine then squeezed my hip. “Go.”
I went, changing into a pair of sweatpants, a thick black turtleneck, and my slippers.
The house was a comfortable seventy-eight degrees, and when I got into the kitchen, every last member of the Hosea-Palao family was wearing shorts and a t-shirt.
They didn’t seem to mind getting overheated, though.
“Heyyy, Bernice,” Heidi said. “I got you a drink here.”
She handed me a lemonade, and I looked at it skeptically.
In the weeks that I’d known the family, I’d seen them spike all kinds of drinks.
Lemonade included.
“It’s alcohol free,” she admitted. “I poured it before I added the alcohol.”
“Thanks.” I smiled and turned to Katana. “Hey, Katana.”
She looked a little green, but otherwise pretty happy.
A motorcycle sounded outside, and Heidi stood up. “That’d be my man.”
Only, when she came back, it wasn’t her man.
At least not by himself.
He had another man with him.
Shaw.
“Shaw.” I waved. “Hey! You both realize that it’s absolutely freezing out, right?”
“We do. But we’re moving the bikes into a new facility since the last one burned down. Only a few mile drive, and your place was on the way.” He gave me a chin jerk and turned to Hux. “Sorry to crash your party. Was hoping that you had a Band-Aid I could use. Caught…”
He trailed off when Katana turned around, revealing herself to him.
Katana paled and covered her mouth.
Shaw looked like he’d seen a ghost.
“I thought…” Shaw frowned and looked around. “What the hell?”
Katana stiffened. “Can we go outside?”
“No,” Heidi whispered and looked at her man.
Bells shrugged.
“No.” Shaw stiffened. “We could talk about how we’d decided to get married and have a bunch of babies before you ghosted me and ‘moved.’ We could definitely talk about that right here and right now.”
A pin drop could be heard throughout the crowded kitchen.
Romina and Candice stared. Harvey, Hampton, and Hux were all frozen solid.
Heidi had her hand covering her mouth.
But Katana?
She was crying silent tears.
“Everyone stop,” I found myself saying. “Katana. Sit.”
Katana sat, luckily before she fell.
“Shaw, outside.”
“I’m not going…”
I put my foot down and stepped in front of him. “Out. Side.”
He went, looking pissed as hell that he was leaving.
No one followed Shaw and me outside.
When we got to the front porch, he had his hands in his hair and he looked wrecked. “I don’t…”
“Shaw, Katana has terminal cancer.”
He whipped his head around. “What?”
“Terminal cancer.” I paused. “Well, kind of.”
“What the hell do you mean kind of?” he barked.
I didn’t flinch at the intensity in his tone.
“Katana has breast cancer. But she doesn’t want to do treatments,” I said. “And she’s a few months pregnant. I guess, with your child.”
His eyes closed. “You’ll have to talk to her more about it. But you can come sit down and listen to what we have to say. And maybe you’ll get some insight.”
“She won’t talk with me there,” he grumbled.
“Then sit in the living room and act like you’re not here,” I said. “Listen. Learn. Then help us break through her hard head.”
He looked sick to his stomach, but followed me back inside.
He took the seat closest to the kitchen that would allow him to hear but not be seen.
I headed back into the kitchen.
“Is he…” Katana started.
“Gone?” I nodded.
She blew out a relieved breath. “I always was going to tell him. I just…I’m scared.”
Of course she was.
“Katana,” Heidi said. “We all just saw what happened. Why would you let him go?”
She covered her face with her hands. “He doesn’t deserve to have to deal with me.”
“Doesn’t deserve?” Hux asked. “How about you let the grown man choose the course of his life. If he was willing to marry you and have your babies, then he’s going to stick by you through this time of your life.”
“But I’m dying,” Katana countered. “Why would I put him through that? It’s best to just let him go than make him have to go through that.”
Since I was the closest to the living room, I heard the creak of the couch behind me.
No one else did, though.
Thankfully.
“You’re dying by choice,” Romina said softly. “You’re only in stage two. That’s very beatable, Katana.”
“I’m pregnant. I have cancer. And I don’t want to go through what my mother went through.”
“You don’t fight this, and you might not make it to the end of your pregnancy,” I pointed out. “You could die before your baby is able to live outside of your body.”
Silence.
“Katana…” I said softly. “Get the mastectomy that they recommended. Do the first round of treatment. Make sure that your baby is healthy. Then go from there.”
She looked at me, tears in her eyes. “You don’t know what it’s like to watch every woman in your family die of a disease, horribly, then find out you have it, too.”
“No,” I confirmed. “I don’t. But I’m not a quitter. And neither are you.”
She closed her eyes and a single tear slipped down her face. “If I get bad enough…” She looked at her cousins. “If I get bad enough, you’ll have to let me go. Don’t let me live like they let them live.”
Heavy boots slammed to the ground and then Shaw was there. “Everyone, get out.”
Everyone got out.
Katana burst into sobs.
Hux caught my arm and led me outside.
Luckily, he grabbed my—his—parka before we got out there.
Blankets emerged from trucks. A fire was started in the fire pit in the middle of the front yard.
Hux held on to me while sitting in the creakiest chair I’d ever experienced.
It was both bittersweet and one of the best nights of my life.
Six years ago, I would’ve never thought that this would be my life.
Six years ago, I was buried so deep in depression that I thought that I might never see the light again.
And six years ago, I couldn’t have prepared for a man like Hux.
But as I fell asleep in his arms, face snuggled under his chin and nose pressed against his throat, I knew that there was nowhere else in this world I’d rather be.