“Almost done,” he said cheerfully. “Two more to do after this.”
She looked at the stack of files and frowned. “I think it’s more than that,” she said worriedly.
“I’ll only deal with two ahead at a time,” he said.
She laughed and said, “Okay, we’ll do it your way.”
“I’ll need your help on this one though later,” he said.
“Sure enough, after lunch,” she said. “Unless you need my help now?” She stopped to look at him.
He shook his head. “I’ll just finish this section here,” he said. “Then, after lunch, I’ll get your help.”
She nodded and headed downstairs. Back in the kitchen she opened up the fridge, wondering what she would feed him. Not only did he have no appetite but his stomach was touchy too. The doctors had run a lot of tests, but he wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the results. That bothered her too. It was just the two of them. She wasn’t at all sure what she would do if and when he passed in the not-so-distant future. That was something she didn’t dare think about.
Resolutely she pulled out the ingredients for an omelet. If nothing else, he generally would eat eggs.
Chapter 2
After her father had eaten, Sammy went back up to the office with him, where she sat down at his side, and the two of them worked on the current project. She knew the projects would bother him, if they stuck around too long. The designs were great and had been sent off, came back with changes, were fixed and sent off again, and it was an ongoing process. And the one that he was currently working on was particularly troubling. He had stopped taking new orders because, as he said, he was backed up. And he was.
She just hoped beyond hope that maybe they could get through the whole stack before he left her behind. By the time late afternoon hit, she looked up at the wall clock—four-thirty already. “Wow,” she said, “we did well today.” She looked over, and her father was in the recliner, snoozing gently. She sighed, got up, grabbed a blanket, and threw it over him. She leaned over, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and said, “I’ll go see what we are doing about dinner,” she murmured. He, of course, gave no response.
She walked back to the desk, shut down the task lights, carefully rolled up the blueprints, set them off to the side so they were safe, and then headed downstairs. Once out of the office, her mind immediately went back to the tire, and she wondered just what she was supposed to do about that. She could call the shop to get it fixed, but, in the meantime, she didn’t have a spare; so, if something else happened, she’d be stuck on the road. That, of course, brought her mind around to the tall, dark Eton. “No,” she said to herself, laughing, “he’s a tall blondie.” But that tall, dark, and handsome thing rolled around in her mind because it fit in every other aspect.
Giving her head a shake, she went to the kitchen and pulled out chicken and made a light stir-fry for her father. The doctors, what little they’d told her, said that his nutritional needs were not being met because he wasn’t eating, and to make sure he ate lots of vegetables. By the time dinner was cooked, she set it on the dining room table, two plates with lids on top, and went to get her father. She was halfway up the stairs when she heard him call down, “I’m coming. I’m coming.”
She smiled and said, “Good. It’s all served up and ready.”
“You can call me before you serve, you know,” he said in exasperation.
“Oh, quit your grumping. As usual I always like to have it dished up and ready for you,” she said, with a chuckle. Really, it was her secret strategy to get him to eat more. Left to dish up for himself, he barely took any food at all.
They sat down at the dining room table, staring out over the view. “I love this house,” he said contentedly.
“Me too,” she said, as she reached over and patted his hand.
“It will be yours one day,” he said, then added, “soon,” a word that made her heart break.
“Well, hopefully not for a few more years,” she said lightly, not wanting him to get into that conversation.
“Maybe,” he said, “but you know we’ve been offered a decent price for it.”
Her heart froze, and she stared at him in shock. “Are you thinking about selling?”
He immediately gave a headshake. “No, not at all,” he said. “I want to be here right to the end.”
She let that one slip past her too, because to open up a discussion about that would just bring up what he saw as his impending death. “Besides, it doesn’t matter how good an offer it is,” she said. “This is your home. And it’s not like you need the money.”
“Isn’t that amazing?” he said, with a chuckle. “I hope you make it as big as I did.”
“I hope so too,” she said.
“What will you do … after?”
She swallowed hard. “I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t even begin to think about that. I won’t. I don’t want to be without you, Dad.”
“I know, sweetie.” He reached over, linked his fingers with hers, and said, “But it’ll happen.”
She nodded. “It will, but it doesn’t have to be today or tomorrow.”
“Understood,” he said, with a smile.
“Come on now. Let’s eat.” She turned the conversation to other topics, chattering as they ate to keep him distracted. Finally she looked at the kitchen and said, “Well, that was tasty. But I need to clean up.”
“Sounds good,” he said. “Is there any more of that cake?”
She laughed. “Absolutely.”
“Well, I’ll go sit in the other room,” he said. “Tea and cake—that sounds perfect.”
And, with his mind once again set on that cake and his tea, she watched as he slowly made his way from the dining room. Every step looked painful. She sighed, turned on the teakettle, and proceeded to wash the dishes. As much as her heart didn’t want to face it, she knew that the day was coming, and it was coming very quickly. She didn’t know what she would do when she lost him. It was just too heartbreaking to consider.
*
It didn’t take long to get Eton installed in the small chalet, particularly since Garret had arrived here a good eight hours ahead of Eton and already had the electronics set up.
“Okay, so what did I miss?” Eton asked, shaking off the stiffness from his travels in the car.
“What did you miss? God, getting caught up with the news after I woke up and got my wits about me, now that was an adventure,” Garret said, smiling wryly. “This will be a piece of cake, especially since there isn’t much to tell.”
“That must have been a trip. One minute you’re in a plane, and, the next thing you know, you wake up in the hospital, and they tell you how you’ve crashed at sea, floated around on wreckage with Ryland, got rescued by a hot girl, nearly drowned in a storm, and had been in a coma ever since.”
“Worse yet, while I was unconscious, Ryland somehow got the girl to fall for him. What the hell?”
“So I heard. Wait until you see Cain though. Ryland’s not the only one.”