Linc glanced at a folder on the seat next to him but didn’t bother to pick it up. He’d read it, absorbed it and his ultrasharp brain wouldn’t forget any of it. “Reame’s man in Austin tracked down a friend of hers. They’ve been roommates since Kari split up from Ellie’s dad.”
“Has she spoken to Kari lately?”
Linc shook his head. “No. Kari refused to allow anyone to visit her, to call for updates on her condition. She didn’t want anyone to watch her die.”
“We watched her mom die. It was horrible,” Tate choked out. “She’d hate people to see her like that.”
Tate crossed her legs. “Does she have cancer?”
Linc looked gutted. “Yeah. Stage-four brain cancer. She entered the hospice as soon as she came in from New York after seeing you.”
A shudder passed through Tate. “Dear God, that was only a month ago. How did she manage to travel with Ellie, to fly to New York and back?”
“Her friend was with her, apparently. And she was a lot better a month ago. Apparently she has one of the fastest, most aggressive cancers on record, and she went downhill fast.”
Tate wrapped her arms around her body and rocked in her chair. Lifting a hand, she gestured for Linc to convey all the information he had. Linc remained silent for a beat before speaking. “From what Reame managed to find out from the friend, she discovered a lump behind her ear when she was pregnant, and she ignored it. When Ellie was six months old, five or so months ago, she had the lump removed and they did a biopsy, and it was found to be malignant. That led to a battery of tests, and they discovered the brain tumor.”
“Inoperable?”
“Yeah. They closed her up and told her that she had, at the maximum, four to six months...if she was lucky.”
Tate felt her tears sliding down her face. “God, she must be so scared.”
Linc leaned forward, placing his forearms on his thighs, and Tate noticed the grooves beside his mouth, his narrowed eyes and his tense shoulders. Yes, Kari was her sister, but she was also Shaw’s mom. He’d loved her once. Linc was hurting, too.
She reached out and covered his bunched fists with her hands, sighing when his fingers linked with hers.
“Her main concern, apparently, was for Ellie’s welfare, and she was determined to leave the little girl with you.”
“Why didn’t she just ask me to look after her like a normal person? Why all this cloak-and-dagger stuff? Why involve you? I don’t understand her!” Tate cried.
“Kari never goes directly from A to B, Tate, she always makes a couple of detours. Why be simple when you can complicate the hell out of something?”
Linc made the observation in a voice saturated in frustration but devoid of criticism. Tate’s head snapped up, and she watched as he pulled his hands away from hers to rub his face. He swore bitterly, his curses reverberating off the cabin walls.
“I’ve cursed her six ways to Sunday, Tate, but I swear I never wanted this to happen to her.” Linc slammed his head back into the seat and closed his eyes, misery etched on his face. Of course he hadn’t, no more than she had.
“Cancer doesn’t care who you are, what you do or what you’ve done,” Tate said, standing up to move across to him. Draping an arm around his neck, she sank down on his lap and curled up against his chest, sighing when his arms went around her. She felt so warm here, so safe. But this was a haven she couldn’t linger in, a port she couldn’t harbor in for long.
A few months ago she would have imagined giving and receiving comfort from Kari’s ex, sitting in his masculine, powerful embrace, thinking that this was her favorite place in the world. She wanted this wonderful, amazing man and his love in her life, but she couldn’t ask for it and she certainly didn’t deserve it. Love had never treated her kindly. Sure, Linc enjoyed her, he might even like her a little, but she wasn’t the stay-at-home-mom, happy-to-be-his-wife woman he said he wanted.
She was never quite what anyone really needed, but at this moment she needed comfort and would settle for a little affection. She wanted to feel alive, to be grateful for what she had. But she did she have a right to take comfort from this man? He was Kari’s first, and Tate suspected that a small part of him still loved her. She was the mother of his child; they had a connection she could never have with him. Tate felt the lump in her throat expand and felt the tingle of tears.
This wasn’t fair, she raged. None of this was fair, and even less of what was happening made sense. Kari was facing the end of a life lived on her own terms, and, because of that, Tate had become a foster parent after years of being resolutely single. And she’d fallen in love with her sister’s ex.
She was questioning everything about her life. Did she really want to return to her busy, lonely, nomadic existence? Did she truly want a life without Linc and Ellie and Shaw? Was she still a rolling stone, or was she turning into a bit of a boulder?
This was all so complicated, Tate thought miserably, pushing herself up from Linc’s chest. And she had to start unraveling the mess. To do that she needed to start looking at the situation with clear eyes and a sensible attitude. Right now, she should be concentrating on Kari and her horrible situation. The sensible course of action was to distance herself from Linc, focus on Kari and Ellie and how she was going to navigate the next few weeks.
Tate tried to swing her legs off Linc’s lap, but his hand gripped her thigh, keeping her in place. Tate lifted her head to look into his face and saw his need, blazing in his eyes.
“I need you, Tate. I need to feel warm and alive and like the world is not spinning out of control. For some reason, I find that feeling when I’m making love to you.”
She heard the plea in his voice, felt the tension in his hand, saw it in his thin lips. She understood his need, she found peace in his arms, too, a solace that took her away from the here and now. And, God, they needed to leave the here and now, just for a little while.
Then Linc slid his hand up her cheek, tunneled his fingers into her hair, and his mouth was on hers, hot and demanding, a little desperate and a lot wild. His tongue pushed between her lips to mate with hers in long, hot, ravenous strokes that sent shivers and shocks over her skin. God, she needed him. She needed his heat and his virility, to feel the long play of his muscles under her hands, to touch his skin, to have him slide inside her, filling her, completing her.
Linc was the person she’d always want. It would be so easy to hand this situation over to him, to allow him to make the decisions for her, to relinquish control. So easy but that was a slippery slope, and soon she’d lose herself in him. She couldn’t do that; she’d worked too hard to find her true authentic self. Being independent allowed her to keep people at arm’s length. If she gave that up, she’d allow herself to be vulnerable, to risk her heart. She loved Linc, she did, but she couldn’t give him the power to destroy her.
She could only control the now and here, and they had this time, these few hours before they had to deal with a desperately ill Kari. In no time at all she’d have to make some tough decisions, one of which would be to walk away from Linc and Shaw and the life with him she fantasized about. The life she couldn’t have.
But for now, for the next four or so hours, she could love him. He was hers.
“Don’t walk away from me, Tate. Not now, not yet,” Linc said, his voiced gritty from emotion. She jerked her head up, and her eyes met his, filled with raw, palpable desire.
God, how well he knew her.
“I’m in a jet flying at thirty thousand feet,” Tate joked but it fell flat. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You know what I mean,” Linc growled. “I need all of you, all your hopes and fears. Give them to me, just for the next few hours. Give me you, all of you.”
She