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"Of course I'll show you everything." Taylor went into the small room off the kitchen that she used as her office and pulled several thick folders from the bottom of the filing cabinet. But she didn't give them to him immediately. "Promise me you won't freak out when you start reading."
"Too late." Even if he tried to tell her comforting lies, she'd see right through them. "I need to know what we're up against."
"Not we, Justin. You've already fought one battle for your mother. You don't have to fight mine too."
"Like hell I don't." He all but ripped the folders from her hands. When her eyes went wide, he inwardly cursed himself. "I'm sorry." The effort it took to keep himself together was almost more than he could bear as he looked at the woman he loved. The woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. The woman who had just told him about her diagnosis. "I just keep thinking that the sooner I start combing through everything, the sooner I'll find a solution."
"I knew that's what you'd do." She wrapped her arms around him, the folders between them like a bag of bricks. "I just don't want you to be upset when you don't find one." Too quickly, she kissed his cheek and stepped back. "I've got some errands to do and then some business to take care of in my office. We can talk more when I get back, okay?"
He wouldn't let her go without a kiss. A real one this time.
Her mouth was soft beneath his. And oh so sweet. Especially when she started kissing him back. A kiss that told him everything she felt for him, even if she thought she needed to push him away for his own good.
Before she walked away, however, she said, "I haven't changed my mind about what I said earlier."
"Neither have I."
He would have given her another kiss to prove his point, but she slipped away before he could. As though she hadn't yet realized that he'd stop at nothing to persuade her not only to be with him, but to also let him support her in her fight against her disease.
A fight he needed to arm himself for by being as informed as possible.
He began with her test results, his scientific mind whirring into overdrive as he read. Two hours later, when he finished the final set of reports in her files, he knew more about PKD than he'd ever thought he would.
And he was also more frightened than he'd ever been.
The literature made it clear that many people with the dominant PKD gene lived long lives with the disease. The majority, in fact. But for patients with autosomal recessive PKD...
No, damn it! He wouldn't let himself lose traction in helping Taylor by getting stuck in dark thoughts and dangerous statistics. No matter what, he needed to stay calm and clear-headed. Otherwise, he wouldn't be a help, he'd be a hindrance.
She came through the door carrying a large box, and he leaped from his chair to take it from her. "You shouldn't be carrying that."
She gave him a look like he was nuts. "It's just ears of corn. I carry heavier things all the time."
"Don't." Realizing too late that the word had shot from his lips like a bullet, he ran a hand through his hair. "Sorry." He had a feeling he was going to be apologizing a lot, like a panicked bull rampaging out of control in a china shop.
"I take it you read through everything?" she asked.
He nodded, bringing the box of fresh corn through to the kitchen. "Do you want me to help you shuck these?"
"That would be great," she said with a smile clearly meant to show that she wasn't upset with him for freaking out that she was carrying something heavy.
As he tore at the corn husks while he continued to mentally process everything he'd read during the past two hours, his jaw clenched so tight that it started to pop. He would have much preferred shredding her doctors' reports to pieces.
"I'll go toss the garbage bag so we have room for all of this." She had to shimmy around the island to get by him and ended up bumping into the corner of it.
"Careful!"
"Justin," she said, her voice carefully modulated, "I understand that all of this is a huge, horrible shock to you. But you need to stop freaking out."
"Stop?" He gripped the ear of corn he was holding so tightly that juice from the raw kernels started to run through his fingers. "How the hell am I supposed to stop freaking out? And how the hell could you not have told me before we made love? I could have hurt you!"
"You would never have hurt me."
"Of course I wouldn't have done it on purpose." The dozens of case studies he'd just read swam together inside his head. "But if I had jolted you the wrong way, or put too much pressure on your kidneys--"
"Making love with you was the best I've felt in months!" Her words stopped his in their tracks. "Don't you dare take last night away from me or make me feel guilty about it."
Softening his voice, he said, "I can't stand the thought that I could have hurt you."
"You didn't." She moved into his arms, and he held on to her as tightly as he dared. "You won't."
"If only we could be sure." He breathed in her fresh scent, letting it fill him up. "I just want to be sure."
Sure that she'd have a long and healthy life. Sure that they could share the life he'd dreamed of together. One full of kids and grandkids and love and laughter. And time.
Before she could respond, the front door opened and voices called, "Taylor? Justin?"
Taylor's eyes grew big, and she stepped out of his arms. "That sounds like Drew and Ashley." She hurried out of the kitchen to greet their unexpected guests. "What a lovely surprise," he heard her say right before she brought his brother and his fiancee through the door.
Justin gave them each a hug, noting that they were both glowing with pre-wedding happiness. Normally, it would be good to see them on the spur of the moment like this, but nothing was normal right now.
"Any chance we can convince you guys to come with us to Sullivan Winery to check out the final wedding preparations?" Ashley asked. But then she paused and took a careful look at their faces. "Of course, if you're in the middle of something, we understand."
Ashley had always had a knack for sensing when someone was hurting. It was part of the reason she and Drew had initially connected. She'd been invited to join Drew's concert tour a little more than five years ago to conduct research for a master's degree on the music business. Though Drew's music career had looked like it was going from strength to strength, the truth that he'd kept from all of them was that he wasn't happy. Ashley had seen through the walls he'd put up, and she hadn't hesitated to help him figure out what changes he needed to make to really enjoy making music again. Drew had done the same for her when he'd shown her how talented she really was, and he'd also helped to repair her relationship with her parents. Since then, they'd lived happily ever after--with their wedding this weekend making it official.
At present, Drew had his arm around Ashley's waist. He obviously couldn't stand for her to be anywhere but pressed closely against him. They were the most in-love people Justin knew, apart from Sean and Serena. Justin's parents had been that much in love too.
His chest clenched tight as he looked at Taylor. He wanted to hold her just as closely--and know that he'd never need to let her go. Which was why he didn't think it was a good idea to go off with his brother and Ashley right now. The two of them needed to hash everything out, no matter how tough the hashing-out was.
"Actually, maybe now isn't--" Justin began, but Taylor quickly cut in.
"We were just getting some corn shucked for cornbread and chowder, but that can absolutely wait until after we get a sneak peek at your wedding venue."
"And miss out on chowder and cornbread?" Drew looked seriously disappointed. He was always up for the chance to eat great home-cooked food.
"How about we take the muffins I made this morning with us to the winery?" She handed one to Ashley and another to Drew. "I've got to be back to put out afternoon tea for my guests, but that should still leave us plenty of time."
Drew's eyes all but rolled back in his head as he shoved half the muffin into his mouth.
"Mmff ggdd."
What would Drew's millions of fans think of him if they could see him now, with crumbs and unintelligible sounds coming out of his mouth? But Justin already knew. They'd love him more.
Just like there was nothing that Taylor could say or do that would make Justin love her less.
*
Visiting Sullivan Winery affirmed to Taylor yet again that she had made the right decision to move to Napa Valley. The landscape was beyond beautiful, and the sky was so blue it almost didn't seem real. She'd never be able to look out over the rolling hills covered in lush grapevines without them taking her breath away.
She was glad that Ashley and Drew had shown up unexpectedly. Being forced to stop thinking about her diagnosis for a little while was exactly what Justin needed. She wanted him to relax and enjoy his time off, not waste the rest of the week hunched over a computer on a desperate goose chase for a cure.
"The weather looks like it will be perfect this weekend," Nicola Sullivan said to Ashley and Drew with a cheerful smile. "Just as we discussed earlier, we're planning to set up the chairs for the ceremony over there." She pointed to a large section of manicured green lawn and rosebushes between the tasting room and the vines. "We'll set up everything for the reception just around the corner."
Taylor was having a hard time not being star struck as Nicola led them around to the other side of the building. She knew all of Nicola's songs--which had been written and released under her stage name, Nico--by heart. Sure, Drew was also a massive music star, but Taylor had known him before he hit it big, so he felt like a brother to her. Whereas Nicola was even more sparkling and beautiful and captivating in person than she was in concert and in her videos. Taylor had met Nicola and her husband, Marcus, a little more than five years ago when Drew and Nicola had done a combined acoustic tour together, but it was still hard to act completely normal around her.
"That's quite a girl crush you've got," Justin teased her in a low voice, obviously having noted her mute adoration, broken up by only a couple of awkward giggles when Nicola had tried to talk with her.
"Shhh." She felt her cheeks flush, mortified that Nicola might have heard him. But then she had to whisper back, "She's just so amazing."
