Page 80 of Rescuing Mary

He slowly lowered his hand from the fridge and stepped toward her.

His heart broke when Mary moved away from him, rejecting the comfort he wanted—no, needed to give her.

“Do you want something to drink?” he asked.

“Did you hear me?” she asked, and Truck could see her hands shaking. “I had breast cancer. There’s a chance it could come back a third time.”

“What do the doctors say?”

She shrugged. “They don’t know. They think they got it all this time, but no one knows. I’ll have to take drugs for the next eight to ten years to manage it. They’ll do tests every year to check to see if it’s returned.”

Truck struggled to find the right words that would comfort her. He loved her. The thought of her not being here, not standing in front of him right this second, was so abhorrent, he grimaced. “How are you feeling?” he asked inanely.

“Fine. Well, except for the numbness in my toes, which is fucking annoying. And before you ask, I prefer my hair short. I was bald for a while, but I’m not trying to grow my hair out longer than this. I like it short.”

“I like it too. It’s cute.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Just what I want. To be cute. Gag.”

His lips twitched at that. He took another step toward her, and she either didn’t notice or didn’t feel the need to keep the distance between them. He liked that. “I take it I helped out when you were sick.”

She nodded. “Yeah. You…you helped a lot.”

“Good.” Another vision of walking into his apartment after work and finding Mary sprawled on the living room floor flashed through his brain. She’d fallen and hadn’t had the strength to get up. She’d tried to pretend as if she’d purposely decided to take a nap on the floor, but he’d seen right through her. “You’re amazing,” he said softly.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yeah, Mare. You are. Cancer sucks. Fighting it once breaks people. But you not only beat it once, you beat it twice. That’s amazing.”

“I didn’t want to do it the second time,” she admitted. “Rayne was there for me the first time, but I decided I couldn’t do it again. I was ready to give up.”

“But you didn’t.”

She shook her head. “No. Because you wouldn’t let me.”

The words hung in the air for a moment…

* * *

“No! You’re talking crazy!” Mary yelled.

“I’m not, and you know it. It’s the only way,” Truck returned as calmly as he could. He couldn’t believe she was arguing about this. Not now. Not after everything that happened recently.

“No!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

Truck could’ve argued all night, but seeing the tears in Mary’s eyes, coursing down her cheeks, was his undoing. “Say yes, Mare,” he cajoled. “Please. For Rayne. For Annie. For me.”

Mary stared at him for the longest time, and Truck forced himself to stand still, even though he wanted to haul her into his arms and hold her tight. She had to say yes. But he couldn’t force this, no matter how badly he wanted to.

Finally…she nodded. Truck immediately went to her and gathered her into his arms and held her as she cried.

* * *

He blinked as he abruptly came back to himself and realized that Mary was staring at him nervously, obviously waiting for him to say something. He had no idea what they’d been arguing about in his flashback, but it didn’t matter.