The Last Letter

Letter #13

Ella,

I’m so sorry that you missed Colt’s play, and no, it’s not trivial. I get it, and I don’t know what I could possibly say—or write—that would give you the peace of mind you deserve. You’re being ripped in two different directions, and that has to feel impossible.

But I can say that you’re doing a great job. Yes, you missed the play, but Maisie needed you. There will be times as Colt grows up that he’ll need you, and you’ll miss something for Maisie. I think that’s just part of having two kids. You do the best you can by both and hope it all equals out in the end. The guilt means you’re a great mom, but you also have to let yourself off the hook sometimes. This is one of those times.

What you’re going through is a nightmare. You have to give yourself a little space to stumble, because you’re right—you’re not one of those two-parent households. So that means you have to take extra care of yourself because you’re the only one they’ve got.

Do me a favor and just hold on. Your brother is headed home as soon as he can. You won’t be alone for long, I promise. He mentioned that Colt wanted a tree house, and while I’m visiting, I’ll help him with it. Maybe it’s not much, but it will give him a spot just his own, and give you the peace of mind that he’s got something special.

I wish I had better advice, but I know you don’t need it, just an ear, and you’ve got mine whenever you want it.

~ Chaos

…

“105.3.” I read the numbers on the thermometer again, just in case I got it wrong the first time. Maisie was burning up. “I have to get her to the hospital.”

“We have to get her to the hospital,” Beckett corrected me from the doorway to the bathroom. “Get the Tylenol, wet rags, whatever you need, and let’s go. Colt, do me a favor and wake Hailey?”

I heard the familiar scamper of Colt’s feet down the stairs as I ripped apart the medicine cabinet looking for Tylenol. What could have caused this? The soccer game. It had to have been. But no one was near her, and her levels were great at her last appointment. What could she have caught in that short time?

I found the bubblegum pink bottle of fever reducer and poured the exact amount she needed into the tiny measuring cup.

“Ella,” Beckett called my name from the hallway, and I stumbled out of the bathroom, medicine ready.

He had Maisie in his arms, against his chest, wrapped in her blanket. I placed my hand on her forehead and choked back every swear word that came to mind. This wasn’t good. We’d been so lucky with her complications—the nausea, vomiting, hair loss, weight loss, it was all pretty standard, small stuff. But this was unknown.

“Maisie, love, I need you to open your eyes and take some medicine, okay?” I coaxed, running my free hand along her cheek.

Her eyes fluttered open, glassy from fever. “I’m hot.”

“I know. Can you take this?” I showed her the cup.

She nodded, the movement small and weak. Beckett shifted his hold, helping her upright, and I put the small cup to her heart-shaped mouth. Such perfect little lips. She’d never had so much as a cavity or a broken bone before her diagnosis, and now she didn’t bat an eye at medication.

She swallowed and jolted, her stomach muscles heaving.

“Baby, you have to keep it down, okay? Please?” I begged like it was her choice. Her jaw dropped, and she started to heave again.

“Outside,” Beckett ordered, and went, leaving me to follow after him.

He carried her down the stairs and outside onto the porch, barely pausing when he had to open the door. The man didn’t even give me a chance to get there first.

I stopped at the office, grabbing Maisie’s binder from my desk and running out after them.

“That’s better, right? Feel that air? Nice and cool. Take little breaths, Maisie. In through your nose, out through your mouth. That’s right. Just like that.” His voice was so soothing and calm, directly contrasting the rigid set of his jaw.

Maisie arched her neck, like she was seeking out the cool night air, and her breathing slowed as her belly calmed. She had to keep down the medicine, had to give us time to get to the ER.

“Better?” I asked, taking her little hand.

“A little.”

“Good.” I’d take a little. A little was better than throwing up the meds.

“Oh my God, Ella, what can I do?” Hailey ran out onto the porch as she tied her bathrobe, Colt just behind her in his bare feet.

“Can you keep Colt? Please? We have to get her to the ER.”

“Absolutely. Where are you going to take her? The medical center is closed.”

“Where’s the nearest ER?” Beckett asked.

“Montrose is the only one open at this time of night”—I checked my phone—“or morning, rather. It’s three a.m.”

“That’s an hour and a half,” Hailey said quietly, like her tone mattered, or could change the distance.

“Not the way I drive,” Beckett responded, already striding toward his truck.

“I’ll be right back!” Hailey shouted, running into the house.

“Mom?” Colt appeared at my side, Havoc at his.

“Hey.” I dropped down to his level. “You did great, Colt. You did exactly right.”

“It should be me.”

“What?”

“I should be sick, not Maisie. It’s not fair. It should be me.” His eyes were just as glassy as Maisie’s, but because of unshed tears.

“Oh, Colt. No.” My stomach lurched at the thought of going through this with him, too.

“But it’s because she came to my game, right? It’s my fault. I’m stronger than she is. It should be me. Why isn’t it me?”

I yanked him forward into my arms, nearly crushing him against my chest as I hugged him. “This is not because of you. Anything that brought on a fever like this would have taken way longer. Do you understand? This is not your fault. You’re the reason we can get her to the doctor. You’re the hero in this, bud.”

He nodded against my neck, and I felt tiny streams of wetness right before he sniffled. I rubbed his back until I heard the engine flare to life behind me, and then I pulled Colt back so I could look at him.

“Tell me you understand.”

“I understand,” he said, wiping away the traces of his tears. He straightened his little spine, looking so small and yet so old.

“I’m sorry that I have to leave you, but I gotta go, bud.”

“I know,” he said with a nod. “Please help her.”

“I will.” I kissed the promise against his forehead. “I love you, Colton.”

“Love you, Mom.”

“She’s in the back seat,” Beckett said from right behind me.

“Here,” Hailey said, running back onto the porch with a box and thrusting it into my arms. “Ice, water bottles, washcloths, Motrin, your shoes, cell phone charger, purse, some other stuff.”

“Thank you,” I said, hugging her with one arm. “I’ll keep you updated.” I raced from the porch and climbed into the back of Beckett’s truck, immediately surrounded by the smell of clean leather and Beckett. “Can you sit up?” I asked Maisie, who was in the process of unbuckling her seat belt.

“No.”

“Okay, come here.” I sat her in the middle seat, clicked the seat belt over her, and then had her lie across my lap.

Highway safety approved? No. But cancer was already doing its best to kill my kid, so I was just going to have some faith that we weren’t going to add a car accident to my recent list of tragedies.

I glanced out the window to see Beckett hunched down to Colt’s level. He pulled him in tight for a hug, engulfing Colt’s tiny frame in his massive arms. A quick word to Havoc and he was headed in my direction.

He passed through the glow of the headlights and then opened the driver’s door, climbing in and shutting it in one smooth move.

“You girls okay?” He adjusted the rearview mirror to see us instead of the road as he pulled through the circular driveway.

“We’re steady,” I told him, unable to think of another word to describe it. Was I okay? Was Maisie? No. But this was what it was, and I was solid.

“Okay.” He turned onto Solitude’s main drive. Everything was so quiet this time of morning. Where I was normally consumed with the noise of the kids, the radio, my own thoughts, all there was now was the sound of Beckett’s tires on the blacktop. Smooth and steady.

With Maisie’s head on my lap, I reached into the box at my feet, pulling out a washcloth and a cold bottle of water that had obviously just come from the fridge. “Think you can keep any of this down?” I asked her.

She shook her head.

Beckett’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror as we reached the Solitude gate. “Any objection to me breaking a few speed laws?” he asked as he turned onto the road.

“None.” His foot hit the gas, and the truck took off. “Do you know the roads—?”

“Ella, do you trust me?” he interrupted.

Seeing as I was currently holding my sick daughter in the back of his truck as he drove us into the night, I would have thought the answer was obvious. Duh. That’s exactly what he was getting at. “I trust you.”

“Just take care of Maisie and let me get you there.”

I nodded and got to work, pouring water on the washcloth and wiping her down.

Beckett had this, and I had Maisie.

…

“Margaret’s PICC line is infected, and she’s showing signs of sepsis,” the doctor told us six hours later.

I immediately balked, coming to stand at the foot of my daughter’s bed, where she was fast asleep. “No way. I keep that thing clean as…well, possible.” My brain would have fired back a wittier response if I hadn’t been going on about two hours of sleep. “I swab it, keep it wrapped, air it, everything that every doctor instructed.”

The middle-aged ER doc gave me an understanding nod. “I’m sure you do. We didn’t see any external sign of infection, which happens when it doesn’t originate in the skin. Don’t beat yourself up. This happens. But we need to treat her immediately. That means moving her to the ICU and starting antibiotics.”

I wrapped my arms around my stomach and looked at Maisie. She was still flushed with fever, but they had it down to a little over a hundred, and she was hooked up to an IV for hydration. “Sepsis? Wouldn’t I have known?”

The doctor reached over, grasping my shoulder lightly until I looked at him. “You wouldn’t have. She’s very lucky that she spiked that fever and you got her here so quickly.”

I glanced over at Beckett, who stood next to Maisie’s bed, leaned against the wall with one hand on her bed frame like he’d slay any dragons that dared to come close. I wasn’t lucky to get her here; I’d been lucky that Beckett had been driving. That he’d been with me when the fever spiked.

I’d never have been able to shave a half hour off that drive time like he did.

“Sepsis. So, the infection is in her blood.” I tried to recall everything I’d read over the last seven months, feeling like I’d just been thrown into the final exam for a class I hadn’t been aware I was taking. Her blood pressure was low, I knew that from the monitors, and her breathing had been a little labored coming in. Second stage. “Her organs?”

He got that look on his face. The one doctors got when they didn’t want to deliver bad news.

“Her organs?” I repeated, raising my voice. “She’s six weeks post-op, and the doctors spent twelve hours saving her kidney, so could you please tell me if that was all in vain?”

“We need to see how she reacts to the antibiotics.” His voice dropped into the soothe-the-mother-of-the-sick-patient tone.

Alarms as loud as church bells went off in my head, and my stomach dropped. “How worried do I need to be?”

“Very.”

He didn’t blink, didn’t soften his expression or his tone.

And that terrified me even more.

The next hour was a blur.

We were transferred to ICU, where we were admitted. They wristbanded me with Maisie’s information, and I nodded when they asked about Beckett, already digging through my binder for her history and insurance information.

Seeing as we were frequent-flyers at the affiliated cancer center, they had everything on file, so I could put the binder down. Until they started the IV antibiotics, then I picked it back up and started scrawling notes.

“Do we remove the line?” I asked the doctor, scanning his name tag. Dr. Peterson. Beckett moved to my side, quiet but solid.

The doctor scanned through his iPad before answering. “We need to weigh the pros and cons there. In the majority of cases, the line itself isn’t the danger, and if we remove it, you’re looking at the complications from inserting another one.”

“It goes straight to her heart.”

“Yes. But we’ve started aggressive antibiotics, and we’re monitoring her, especially her liquid input and output.”

“Kidney function,” I assumed.

He nodded. “We need to give the drugs a chance. If there’s no improvement, we’ll need to remove the line.”

“So for now we wait.”

“We wait.”

I nodded, muttered thanks, or something, and took the chair next to Maisie’s bed. Wait. Just wait. That was all I could do.

As usual, I was powerless, and my six-year-old daughter was fighting for her life. How was any of this fair? Why couldn’t it be me in that bed? With the IVs and the lines and the monitors? Why her?

“How about I grab us some coffee?” Beckett offered, halting my downward spiral.

“That would be great. Thank you.” I gave him a weak, forced smile, and he headed in search of caffeine.

The steady drip of her IV was my companion, the monitors letting out a comforting beep with each of her heartbeats. Her pressure was dangerously low, and I was quickly addicted to watching the screen as new measurements came in.

Wait. That was the course of action. Wait.

My phone rang, startling me, and I swiped it open to answer quickly when I saw Dr. Hughes’s name pop up as the contact.

“Dr. Hughes?” I answered.

“Hey, Ella. I got a call that Maisie was admitted in Montrose; how are you doing?” Her voice was a welcome breath of familiarity.

“Did they fill you in?”

“They did. I’m actually on my way in right now.”

“You’re here in Montrose? I thought you were in Denver for another week or so.” I flipped through the binder to find my calendar of when Dr. Hughes was scheduled.

“It’s Memorial Day weekend, so I came to spend the weekend with my parents.”

My relief at having her here was second only to my guilt. “I wouldn’t want you to give up your weekend.”

“Nonsense. I’ll be there in about a half hour. Besides, it gives me an excuse to get out of listening to my mom’s opinion on bridesmaid dresses. You’re doing me a favor, I promise.”

“You’re getting married?” How did I not know that?

“Six months to go,” she said, her smile shining through her voice. “I’ll be there soon, just hang tight.”

We hung up as Beckett walked in with a familiar white and green cup.

“You are a god among men,” I said, taking the cup and holding it between my hands, hoping some of the heat would transfer to my skin, would wake up my nerves. Numb seemed to be my default state lately.

“I’ll bring you coffee more often,” he promised, pulling up a matching chair to sit next to me. “How’s she doing?”

“No change. I’m not sure what I’m expecting. Instant results? Her to pop up and be magically healed from an infection I never saw? How did I not see it?”

“Because you’re not a walking blood test? You’ve got to be a little easier on yourself, Ella. If the doc said there was no way to see this coming, then you need to believe him. Beat yourself up about your choice of baseball teams, or the fact that you’re about two thousand miles overdue for an oil change, but not this.”

“What’s wrong with the Rockies?”

He shrugged. “Nothing if you like losing.”

“Hey, they’re the hometown team, and I’m not a fair-weather fan.”

“That’s what I love about you,” he said with a smile as he watched Maisie. “Your unwavering loyalty, even to a team that clearly sucks.”

“Just because you’re a Mets fan…” I motioned to the baseball cap he had on.

“Guilty as charged.” He looked at me and winked, and it became instantly clear: he’d distracted me from guilt-tripping myself.

I shook my head and sighed, grateful for the coffee and the split second I’d had to clear my head from going down the path of self-loathing that wouldn’t do Maisie any good.

“I’m scared.”

“I know.” His hand covered mine where it rested on my lap.

“This is bad.”

“Yes.” His simple acknowledgment meant more than any well-meaning platitude. With Beckett, I didn’t have to put on the brave face or smile when someone told me that they were sure Maisie would be okay when they really knew nothing of the sort. I could be horribly, bluntly honest with this man.

“I don’t want to bury my daughter.” I watched the rise and fall of her chest under the patterned hospital gown. “I don’t know how to plan for something like that, or even consider it. I don’t know how to look at Colt and tell him that his best friend…” My throat closed, denying the rest of my words the release they so desperately needed. I’d kept them inside for so long that they felt more powerful, like I’d fed the monster by keeping it hidden away.

Beckett squeezed my hand. Everything about him dwarfed me, including those long, strong fingers that held mine with such strength and care.

“From the moment they told me her odds, I refused to plan for that. Because planning for it felt like admitting defeat, like I’d already given up on her. So I didn’t. I simply refused to believe that could even be an option. And then…”

I closed my eyes as the memory slid over me, stabbing at me with a grief so sharp I should have visibly bled. Lowering his casket. The guns from the shore. The stern face of the soldier who had handed me a folded flag.

“Then I buried Ryan. What kind of God does that? Takes your only brother while toying with the thought of taking your daughter?”

Beckett’s thumb stroked over my knuckle, but he stayed quiet. There wasn’t anything he could say—we both knew it.

“Were you mad? When he died?” I asked, tearing my eyes away from Maisie to look at Beckett.

His focus shifted downward. “Furious.”

“With God,” I assumed.

“With myself. With every soldier in our unit who hadn’t saved him, taken that bullet. With the government for sending us there. With the…” He swallowed. “…insurgents who pulled the trigger. With everyone who lived after he died.”

“How did you get past it?” He was so calm, like the lake at five a.m. before a ripple of wind disturbed her surface.

“What makes you think I have?” His eyes met mine, and I saw it there, the pain he kept meticulously concealed. How deep was it? How much damage had been done to him through the years?

Beckett Gentry knew almost everything there was to know about me, and yet I knew nothing about him. Was it because I hadn’t asked? Because I was so consumed with Maisie? With Colt? Because I secretly didn’t want to know?

“Sometimes I think I don’t really know you,” I said softly.

A corner of his mouth lifted in a wry half smile. “You might not know much about my past, but trust me, you know me, and that’s more important.”

Before I could question him any further, the door opened, and Dr. Hughes stepped in. She had on jeans and a blouse with her standard white coat.

“Hey, Ella.”

“Dr. Hughes.” Her name came out as the rush of relief it was.

“How’s it going?” She picked up the chart at the end of the bed.

“We’re waiting for the meds to work, or not work.” For Maisie’s organs to shut down or not. For her to live or die.

“Ah, and you wait so well,” she said with raised eyebrows.

“Guilty,” I answered.

She looked at Beckett and then our connected hands.

“Ah, this is Beckett Gentry,” I said, slipping my hand free and patting his shoulder. Lame. “He’s…” Holy shit, what was he? How did I introduce him? He wasn’t my boyfriend. The guy wouldn’t even kiss me, even though he was pretty much around twenty-four seven.

“I’m her late brother’s best friend,” he explained as he stood, offering his hand. “I understand you’re Maisie’s neuroblastoma specialist. She loves you.”

Dr. Hughes shook his hand and smiled. “Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that. Maisie is a favorite of mine. And I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Gentry. Ella has definitely needed some support. I’m glad to see she’s getting it.”

“I’ll be here as long as she needs me.” He answered the question she didn’t ask, and her eyes went soft.

Another one bites the dust.

Then we got down to business. She asked a few questions and checked Maisie’s chart for the latest labs, her brows knitting together at times as she read everything over. She listened to her breathing, checked out her IVs, and watched her pressure.

“How worried do I need to be?” I asked, knowing she wouldn’t bullshit me.

Her sigh was deep, and she flipped through the chart again. “I don’t know, and I can’t say until we see how she reacts to the meds. I can tell you that she’s way better off than she would have been in a few hours. You saved her life.”

“Colt did,” I said softly.

“Those two.” She lightly chuckled. “One soul split between two bodies.”

“He said he’d heard her crying in his dream,” Beckett said. “He woke up and went into her room and found her burning up.”

My head snapped toward his, wondering when Colt had— While you were in the truck. When he’d talked to Colt on the porch. The gratitude I felt toward Beckett for his connection with Colt was tempered a little with jealousy that he knew my son in a way I didn’t.

Because Beckett was around more than I was.

“What’s next?” I asked, needing to look past this.

“It will take a few hours, but once we’re certain the meds work—”

“Not with this. With the treatments. Looking forward and all that.” I didn’t want to think about what I couldn’t control. I wanted to focus on what I could. What to research next, to prepare her for. That, I could handle.

Dr. Hughes nodded, like she understood, and then sat in the last empty chair in the room, leaning forward on the small table. “We were supposed to meet next week,” she said.

“Right.”

“You sure you want to do this now?”

I glanced at my little girl fighting a battle I couldn’t pick up a sword for, and instead chose another front. “I am.”

“That last round of chemo didn’t move her levels like we were hoping.”

Having the tumor gone was all well and good, but if her bone marrow was still overwhelmingly cancerous, another one would grow. We’d cut off the top of the tree, but the roots were still alive and fighting.

“Is she developing a resistance to the chemo?”

Beckett’s hand found mine again, and I gripped. Hard.

“It’s a possibility. We’d discussed the MIBG treatment, and I think it’s our best bet.” She leaned down and pulled a pamphlet out of her purse, putting it on the table. “I got you some information on a trial.” She looked over at Beckett, and I knew exactly why.

“You can talk about it in front of him. It’s fine.” Up until now, the only people who knew what my finances looked like were Ada and Dr. Hughes. And probably the cell phone company that had gotten used to me perpetually paying a month late.

“The trial will cover certain aspects, but not everything, and the only hospital in Colorado with the facilities to do this is Colorado Children’s.” She gave me a knowing look.

The cost was astronomical, and I had no way of covering it in cash. But I’d think about that later. “Submit the paperwork, and let’s get her in.”

“Okay. It needs to be soon.”

“Doesn’t everything?”

…

“Tell me about the MIBG,” Beckett asked seven hours later as we ate dinner in the small cafeteria. Maisie slept upstairs, her pressure hovering, her temp fevered.

She’d woken up once and asked to use the bathroom, which just about made me cry in relief. Her kidneys were still functioning.

I pushed the bland excuse for fried chicken to the side of my plate. Why was all hospital food bland? Because they needed it to be gentle on stomachs? Or maybe I was wrong, and it wasn’t, but I was too numb to really taste it.

Maybe all hospital food was really good, and we were just too preoccupied to ever notice.

“Ella,” Beckett said gently, pulling me from my thoughts. “The MIBG?”

“Right. It’s a relatively new treatment for neuroblastoma that attaches the chemo to the radiation that targets the tumor itself. It’s pretty amazing stuff, and they can do it in only eighteen hospitals across the country, one of which happens to be in Denver.”

“That’s incredible. The same hospital where Maisie had her surgery?”

“The same.” I poked at my mashed potatoes, dropping my jaw when Beckett shoved in forkful after forkful. “How do you eat that?”

“Spend a decade in the army. You’d be amazed at what sounds great for dinner.”

And there was some perspective that had me reaching for my fork.

“Any drawbacks to the MIBG?”

“The trial isn’t covered by my insurance.” And there it was, the entrance to the nightmare that was my finances.

“You’re kidding me.” He blinked a couple times, like he expected me to change my answer. “Tell me you’re kidding, Ella.”

“I’m not.” I took a bite of my chicken, knowing I needed the calories, no matter where they came from.

“So what do we do?” Two lines appeared right above his nose as he leaned forward.

“The same thing I’ve been doing. Figure it out. Pay for it.” I shrugged, pausing as I took another bite when I realized what he’d said. What do we do? We. Not you. We. I managed to swallow before I looked like an idiot with a chicken leg stuck in my face.

“What do you mean, the same thing you’ve been doing? How much haven’t they covered?” His tone was calm and even but a little frightening for the intensity.

I shrugged and reached for a roll.

“I’m trying really hard not to lose it, so if you’d answer, that would really help me out.”

I dragged my eyes from the roll, up his chest, to the vein bulging in his neck—yep, he was ticked—to his eyes. “A lot. They haven’t covered a lot.”

“Why haven’t you said anything?”

“Because it’s none of your business!”

He jerked back like I’d slapped him.

“Sorry, but it’s not.” I softened my tone as much as possible. “And what would I say? Hey, Beckett, did you know that I gambled my kids’ health last year? That my insurance plan doesn’t cover half of what Maisie needs? That I’ve blown through Ryan’s life insurance keeping my kid alive?”

“Yeah, you could start by saying that.” He raked his hand over his hair, clasping his hands at the top of his head. “Start by saying something. How much trouble are you in?”

“Some.”

We waged a silent war, each trying to stare down the other. A few heartbeats later, I gave in. He was the one trying to help, and I was just being stubborn for the sake of privacy that I didn’t really need.

“The hospital in Denver where she had her surgery is out of network. That means that anything done there, every time she sees Dr. Hughes there, or has surgery, or a treatment there, it’s not covered by my plan.”

“Is this? What’s happening now?”

“Yeah, this is fine. But the MIBG wouldn’t be. Or the stem cell transplant Dr. Hughes has already suggested.”

“So what are the options?”

“Financially?”

He nodded.

“I don’t qualify for government care, not with owning Solitude. I went through my savings the first month of her treatment, and her surgery wiped out the last of Ryan’s life insurance. I mortgaged Solitude to the hilt last year for the renovations, so that’s not an option, either. Even selling the property right now would barely cover paying off the mortgage. So that leaves me with becoming a super-stealthy bank robber or stripping online for singlecancermoms.com.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I’m not laughing.” A moment of silence passed between us as he digested what I’d said. He chewed slowly, like it was my words he was working over. “Look, I’m not the only one this happens to. Insurance companies deny treatments all the time. Or they tell you to go with the less expensive options they’ll cover. Generic drugs, different hospitals, alternative treatments, that kind of thing. There are payment plans and grants for those who can qualify, and some trials will cover drug costs.”

“Is there an alternative for the MIBG?”

“No.”

“And if she doesn’t get it?”

My fork hit the plate, and I slowly brought my eyes to his. “And if she doesn’t respond to these drugs?”

The muscle in his jaw flexed as his eyes turned hard. This wasn’t the guy who tenderly tied cleats or held my daughter—held me. This was the guy who killed people for a living. “You’re telling me that Maisie’s life isn’t just in the hands of her doctors…but her insurance company? They decide if she lives or dies?”

“In not so many words. They don’t decide if she can have the treatment, just if they’ll pay for it. The rest, that’s on me. I’m the one who has to look at her doctors and say whether I can afford the price tag on my daughter’s life.”

Horror flashed across his face, this guy who had seen and done things that would probably give me nightmares.

“Pretty screwed up, right?” I asked with a mocking smile.

“How much is it?”

“What part? The twenty-thousand-dollar chemo treatments that she gets once a month? The hundred-thousand-dollar surgery? The medication? The travel?”

He blew out a breath, dropping his hands to his lap. “The MIBG.”

“Probably fifty K, give or take an arm and a leg. But it’s Maisie’s life. What am I supposed to say? No? Please don’t save my kid?”

“Of course not.”

“Exactly. So I’ll figure something out. She’ll probably need two rounds of the MIBG, and then the stem cell transplant averages about a half mil.”

He paled. “A half a million dollars?”

“Yep. Cancer is business, and business is good.”

He pushed away his plate. “I think I’ve lost my appetite.”

“And you wonder why I’m losing weight,” I joked.

He didn’t laugh. In fact, he didn’t give me more than a one-word answer as we made our way back upstairs. I almost felt guilty for unloading on him, but it felt good in a weird way to share all of that, to acknowledge that so much of this wasn’t fair.

He sat by me through the night, never once complaining about the chairs or the monitors. He watched every level like a hawk, flipped through the MIBG brochure, paced the hall outside. He FaceTimed Colt and Havoc, brought more coffee, and read through Maisie’s binder, which at this point was more personal to me than a diary. He pulled his chair as close to mine as possible, and when I fell asleep around midnight, it was on his shoulder.

Beckett was everything I’d desperately needed these last seven months. What was I going to do when he inevitably left? Now that I knew what it was like to have someone like him in times like this, it would be a thousand times harder in his absence.

I woke with a start to find Beckett standing at Maisie’s bedside. He looked at me with a huge grin as the doctor walked in.

Stumbling to my feet, I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and gasped. Maisie was sitting up, her smile wide, her eyes clear.

“Hi, Mom!”

Blinking quickly, I looked at the monitors before responding. Her pressure was back up, her temp was down, her oxygen levels up. My hand flew to cover my mouth as my knees buckled, but Beckett caught me by the waist, pulling me to his side without missing a beat.

“Hiya, Maisie-girl. How are you feeling?”

“So much better,” she answered.

My mouth trembled as I looked back at the doctor, who was flipping through the chart, listening to the report of another doctor. It was seven fifteen in the morning. The night shift had changed to day while I was asleep.

“Well?” I asked.

“Looks like the drugs are working. She’s going to be just fine.”

I turned my face into Beckett’s chest before I lost it in front of Maisie. He wrapped his arms around me as I took deep, gulping breaths filled with his scent. I was literally expelling my fear and breathing him in.

“Did you hear that, Maisie? Looks like you’re not getting out of tutoring next week,” Beckett joked, his voice a gravelly, deep rumble against my ear.

He’d driven us here, taken care of me, of Maisie, of Colt. Uprooted his entire life to move in next door. He’d been steadfast every time I’d sworn I didn’t need him and there the moment I did without any hint of I-told-you-so.

I took one last breath and turned back to the doctor, who gave me the satisfied nod of a job well done.

“We’ll keep her here in the ICU another day, just to make sure, and then move her to pediatrics another few days for monitoring. Better safe than sorry.”

“Thank you.” There weren’t any other words to say.

“You’ve got a little fighter there,” the doctor said before heading out, leaving the three of us alone.

“I don’t have Colt,” Maisie said quietly, looking around her bed.

It took me a second to realize what she was saying. “I’m sorry, we left so fast that I didn’t think to grab him.” The bear was most likely sitting on Colt’s bed, the lone pink spot in a sea of blue.

“Don’t you worry, we’ll have your mom grab him when she runs home tomorrow for a little bit. Sound good?” Beckett offered.

“What? Me run home?” Hell no, I wasn’t leaving my daughter.

“Yep,” he said with a nod. “If you leave by ten, you can get home, shower the hospital off you, and get to Colt’s graduation by two.”

Colt’s kindergarten graduation. My mouth dropped, and my gaze flickered from Beckett to Maisie. How could I leave her here? How could I miss Colt’s graduation? Sure it was a little silly, but I knew how important it was to him. How could I leave her here when she was supposed to be walking across the stage with him? How was any of this fair?

Beckett cupped my cheeks, stopping the ping-pong battle with my concentration. “Ella. She’s stable. She’ll be out of the ICU. I am more than capable of hanging out with her for a few hours. You need to be there for Colt. Let me do this. Stop splitting yourself in two, and let me help. Please.”

“Yeah, Mom. You have to go. I don’t want Colt to be sad,” Maisie added.

“I don’t have a way to get back.”

“You take my truck.”

Wait. What? Trucks were sacred to guys. He might as well be offering his soul on a platter. “Your truck.”

“You do have a driver’s license, right?” he joked.

“Well, yeah.”

“Then it’s settled. You’ll grab Pink Colt when you go home tomorrow. In the meantime, Maisie and I will watch movies and hang out. What do you say, Maisie-girl?” He looked back at my daughter.

“Yes!”

“You’re sure?” I asked.

“Absolutely.” He took my hands and held them to his chest. “I swear.”

The sweetest feeling unfurled in my chest, only to plant deep in my belly. It stretched through my body until I swore my fingertips tingled.

“Take lots of pictures, okay?”

“Okay,” I replied, focused on the overwhelming emotion consuming me.

It had to be infatuation, right? Who wouldn’t crush on this man a little? That’s all it was, because there was no way in the world I was falling for Beckett.

Absolutely none.

He turned and high-fived Maisie, that little strip of white on his wrist screaming louder than my brain could deny. Because while my head had been panicked Saturday night, focused on forms and doctors and transfers, my heart had declared that this man was trusted. My heart had signed that paper while my head was consumed with other matters. This man was in my life, and in a way, mine. And Colt’s. And most definitely Maisie’s.

After all, that bracelet had her name written on it.

Oh God. I was in love with him.