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She used to enjoy infuriating him during their childhood games. He would turn up to rescue her, claiming to have boarded the submarine where she was being held hostage. She would claim to have overpowered her captor, escaped the sub, then grabbed on to a passing dolphin that delivered her to shore. A scenario no dumber than his, which involved him sneaking into a submerged submarine.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like being looked after, it was more that she’d never liked Lucas’s reasons for wanting to protect her and everyone else in his path. It was nothing personal…and that was the problem.
“Patrick doesn’t need to save the world to feel good about himself,” she said. Wonderful though he was with animals, there wasn’t much chance of Patrick overdoing the rescuer instinct.
Lucas opened his mouth as if to argue. Then he paused, and said, “Since we’re okay, can I ask you a favor? I just came from my parents’ place.”
“Did you see Mia?” Merry asked. “Isn’t she adorable?”
He blinked. “Yeah, sure. Dad wants me to talk to you about whether I should be trying to get back to the Gulf.” Lucas sounded as if he couldn’t quite believe his father was relying on any opinion other than his own.
They’d reached the end of the beach; they turned and started back.
“Your dad’s a changed man,” she said. “I like him a lot better these days.”
Lucas didn’t look excited. “Could you tell him you think I should get a retest on the physical?”
“What if I don’t think that? What if I think it’s time you accepted reality and figured out what matters?”
He rolled his eyes. “You sound like Dad. But it’s not like you’re big on reality yourself, with your romantic ideals.” He must have sensed her imminent objection, because he hurried on. “And it’s not like I haven’t helped you in the past. You used the fact we were ‘dating’ to make your father feel better about you turning down a full ride to Berkeley.”
Lucas had been hopping mad with her about that. But she’d wanted to stay with her father. They were each other’s only family, and family was important. But Dad wouldn’t have wanted to “hold her back,” so Lucas had grudgingly let her claim a closeness they didn’t have. While her dad had been disappointed she wasn’t going on to further study, he’d been happy that she and Lucas were together.
“I’ve already done my share of helping you out,” she said. “I was your decoy for six months when that captain’s daughter was after you. We didn’t ‘break up’ until you were assigned to the ship you wanted.”
“I know, but—”
“And what about when you were worried Dwight might use his influence to keep you out of a war zone? I gushed for three months about how thrilled I was that you were fighting tyranny on foreign shores. I did a great job.”
Their strategy had been simple, but effective. Since Lucas and his dad had a weird don’t ask, don’t tell policy on any number of subjects, Dwight would never discuss Lucas’s love life with him. Instead, Merry informed her own father of their latest status, knowing that he would pass it to Dwight over their weekly game of pool, or while they tended meat on the grill.
“In hindsight,” Lucas said, “I don’t think Dad would have intervened. So that one doesn’t count.”
“It counts,” she retorted. “Then there was that ex-girlfriend’s wedding I had to attend as your date.” Lucas had wanted to make it clear to the groom he wasn’t pining for the bride.
“You’ve been a trouper,” he said insincerely. “One more time, Merry, that’s all I’m asking. Then you and Patrick can ride off into the sunset spouting poetry or whatever it is you romantic types like to do.”
She smacked his arm before she remembered that touching him wasn’t a good idea. Too much room for confusion.
Boo yipped, as if questioning her intent; his Lassie face had lengthened in anxiety.
“Fine,” Merry said.
He stopped. “You’ll do it? You’ll ask my dad to request a retest?”
“Yes, I’ll do it,” she said. “What are friends for?” He was right; they did help each other out when they could. And if he went back to the Gulf, she wouldn’t see him for another year, by which time there was a faint chance they would both have forgotten Baltimore.
Not.
“Thanks, Merry,” he said.
For one horrendous moment, she thought he might kiss her.
Then he said, “I’ll ask your dad to put in a good word, too. I need all the help I can get.” Mission accomplished, he strode toward the workshop, distancing himself from her with every step.
He wrenched the iron door along its track, pausing halfway, then finishing the job with renewed vigor. He disappeared inside.
Ten seconds later, Merry heard a shout. And despite all the denials she’d issued to Lucas, in that instant, she knew.
She sprinted after him.
Her dad was lying on the floor of the workshop, next to the hull of the half-formed yacht. Lucas had one hand on his pulse, the other wrapped around his cell phone.
CHAPTER THREE
“WHEN WILL THEY TELL ME what’s going on?” Merry gripped the edge of her plastic chair in the ICU waiting room that the hospital had assigned to “Family of John Wyatt.”
“As soon as they know something.” Lucas was doing a good job of acting as if she hadn’t asked that question twenty times already. She wondered if the U.S. Naval Academy ran classes in Maintaining a Rocklike Calm in a Crisis. Lucas would have aced it.
“I called my dad,” he said. “He and Stephanie are waiting for a sitter for Mia, then they’ll be right here.”
“They don’t need to come.” Her father and Lucas’s had been there for each other at all the most important events of their lives. She wanted this to be a little glitch, not a defining moment.
She and Lucas lapsed into silence again. When a nurse stuck her head around the door, they both jumped.
“A doctor will be out to see you in about ten minutes, Ms. Wyatt.” Her gaze drifted sideways to Lucas. Her eyes widened and she smiled. “Thank you for your patience.” She left the room with a lingering glance over her shoulder. Not at Merry.
“If you’re looking for a date, you could be in luck,” Merry said.
“Not interested.” Lucas stretched back in his chair.
“I didn’t ask,” she said. “Are you seeing anyone at the moment? Other than me?”
It wasn’t much of a joke. Still, he smiled. “Currently single. There was someone last year, before I was shot down—a nurse on my aircraft carrier. She married another guy. Lucky for you, I wasn’t invited to the wedding, so I didn’t need a date.”
Merry forced herself to keep talking so she wouldn’t fall into a panic about her father. “That seems to be a recurring theme. Girlfriend breaks up with you, then marries someone else six months later. Do you think the adrenaline rush of getting away from you makes them crazy?”
“She proposed to me, and I turned her down. She found a man who wanted the fairy-tale wedding. End of story.”
Lucas stood and crossed to a poster of CPR instructions on the wall. He began reading, though Merry suspected he knew the details inside out from his military training. Her dad had still had a pulse when they’d found him, so CPR hadn’t been necessary. Maybe she should take a refresher course, so that next time…
She shied away from the thought. Yeah, Dad was sick, but the dialysis was working. Whatever this episode was, he’d get past it. They’d get past it. “Why didn’t you want to marry her? What was wrong with her?” Easier to analyze Lucas’s patchy dating history than her father’s health.
Lucas leaned against the wall, obscuring useful advice about clearing the airway before commencing CPR. “Nothing. She checked all the boxes.”
“Loves the navy, built like a Victoria’s Secret model…” Merry counted points off on her fingers.
He grinned. “Pretty much.”
So Merry’s small breasts had turned him off. The only kind of Victoria’s Secret model she could be was for one of those bras that transformed nonexistent boobs into almost-cleavage. “She sounds perfect.”
“She was turning thirty,” Lucas said.
Merry gasped. “An old hag!”
His mouth quirked. “Her biological clock was ticking. When I said I wasn’t ready for marriage, she asked me to be a sperm donor.”
“And you didn’t want to?”
“If I was going to procreate, I’d want to raise the kid myself.” He sat down again, this time several seats away from Merry.
Of course he’d want to do it himself. He would never shirk a responsibility. But there was more to parenting than that, or there should be.
“Being a dad is a big deal,” she limited herself to saying. John Wyatt was the only parent she knew. He’d not only been a wonderful father, he’d kept alive the mother she didn’t remember. If she lost him…
“Snap out of it, Merry,” Lucas said. “Don’t assume the worst.”
“Quit ordering me around.” Her reflexive reaction.
“You never could do as you were told.” He shook his head with mock disappointment.
“You never could explain why I had to be the petty officer third class, while you always got to be the captain.”
He blinked at the reference to that childhood resentment. But she felt suddenly like a child. Vulnerable to loss.
“It was for your own good,” he said. “I couldn’t promote you until you learned not to be insubordinate. You were even worse when you were the enemy—you could never accept that prisoner of war meant you were the loser.”
“You could never understand that I might have cooperated if you didn’t insist on being in command,” she retorted.
Though today had proved that a tendency to take charge wasn’t always a bad thing. While Merry had been paralyzed with shock, Lucas had found a blanket in the office, put it over her father, continued monitoring his pulse. He’d stayed so calm as they’d waited for the ambulance.
“You were great today,” she blurted.
“I didn’t do anything.” He folded his arms across his chest.
The door to the waiting room opened. A woman wearing scrubs came in. “Ms. Wyatt?”
Merry stood on legs that were suddenly leaden. “That’s me.”
“I’m Dr. Randall. Your father is stable in ICU.”
“Stable.” Merry clutched the word.
“I’m afraid that’s a temporary state,” the doctor said. “We’re still running tests, but we believe your father has dialysis-associated peritonitis.”
He’d had that before, though not so badly that he’d collapsed. Infection was a constant risk for peritoneal dialysis patients, usually resulting from a lapse in hygiene during the process. Merry made sure everything occurred in a sterile fashion during his lunchtime session, but she could imagine her dad “not bothering” in the evening.
“I’ll supervise him every time from now on,” she vowed. “I’ll move in with him—I’ll hold a gun to his head until he scrubs every last speck of sawdust from under his fingernails.”
Dr. Randall looked startled. Lucas grinned.
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” the doctor said. “If the infection’s as severe as we believe, Mr. Wyatt can’t continue on peritoneal dialysis…and the reason he switched to PD two years ago was because hemodialysis was no longer a possibility for him.”
Lucas’s smile vanished. “How long does he have?”
What did he mean, how long? That was the kind of question you asked about people who…
“We expect his kidney failure to become fatal in the next ten days,” Dr. Randall said.
“Dad’s going to die?” Merry’s knees sagged. Before she could keel over, Lucas’s arm came around her shoulders, held her up. Impersonal, but strong. “In ten days?”
“Given his current condition, I’d say more likely in the next four or five days. I’m sorry, Ms. Wyatt, not to have better news.” The doctor fingered the stethoscope protruding from her trouser pocket. “I know this won’t make you feel better right now, but kidney failure is considered one of the gentler forms of death. Very peaceful. Many medical personnel say it’s the way they’d like to go.”
Merry started to laugh. She knew she was becoming hysterical, but couldn’t stop it.
The doctor took a step backward.
Lucas tightened his hold on Merry’s shoulder. “There must be something we can do.”
“There’s still the possibility of a donor kidney becoming available,” the doctor said. “I know you’re not a match, Ms. Wyatt, but are there any other relatives or friends who might agree to being tested?”
“I will,” Lucas said.
Merry caught her breath. “You’d do that? For Dad?”
“Your dad saved my dad’s life. Time the Calders returned the favor.”
The doctor looked confused. “So…this isn’t your husband?”
“No!” They spoke almost in unison, with Merry just a tad faster.
“What blood type are you?” Dr. Randall asked Lucas. “That’s the first thing to consider before we move ahead to any tests.”
“I’m A positive. What do you need?” As if he could change his blood type to suit.
“I’m sorry.” The doctor told him what Merry already knew. “Mr. Wyatt is type O, so we need an O donor.”
“Maybe my father’s a match.” Lucas offered up one of Dwight’s kidneys without hesitation.
“Your dad already got tested back when Dad had to move off hemodialysis,” Merry said. “And Dwight made such a fuss about Stephanie doing it, she backed down. I think we’ve exhausted our pool of related donors,” she told the doctor. “Has Dad moved up the general transplant list?”
“It’s not a list, as such,” the doctor said. “Patients are assigned points based on several criteria. But, yes, your father has more points than he did yesterday.” She scrubbed at her eyes with her hands, looking exhausted. Merry almost forgave her the comment about a “gentle” death.
After the physician left, Merry realized Lucas’s arm was still around her. She moved away. “Lucas, thank you for offering to get tested. That was—” Her throat clogged.
“A safe bet,” he said with a shrug. “What were the odds I’d end up a match?”
But she knew he’d meant it. Merry found herself scrubbing her eyes the same way the doctor had. “Where am I going to get a kidney?” she said. “Could I buy one on eBay?” She was joking, but only just.
