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She raised an eyebrow. "How many fantasies have you had about me?"
"Hundreds." No, that wasn't even close. "Thousands." Even that wasn't true. "Millions."
She laughed, a sound that covered him with as much warmth as her body over his. "Promise me you'll tell me all of them. Promise me we'll do all of them."
"Starting tonight?"
She gave him a naughty little smile that got his motor revving again in an instant. "We've wasted enough time, don't you think?"
"Not anymore," he said, then began to kiss every beautiful inch of her, the way he'd always longed to in his fantasies.
Only to find out that the reality was so much better.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Last night had been pure fantasy. This morning felt closer to a nightmare.
So far today, they'd both had a dozen vials of blood drawn at the UC Davis transplant center, and then Justin had been taken into his donor-evaluation meetings. But before he left, he'd given Taylor a kiss so hot it was clearly meant to wipe her mind clean of everything except memories of their breathless lovemaking.
But though her body heated up all over, she couldn't shake her rampantly conflicted thoughts about Justin offering to donate a kidney to her.
Too antsy to sit still on one of the padded blue chairs in the waiting room, she headed outside into the sunny, slightly crisp air. The weather had only recently started to turn cooler, but thankfully, Justin had grabbed her coat when they'd left this morning. Nervous about their visit to the transplant center, she'd gotten ready on autopilot--she could barely remember taking a shower and getting dressed. Even seeing Justin's sister Maddie again after so many years had hardly registered. Under any other circumstances, Taylor would have wanted a big catch-up. Thankfully, Maddie had seemed to understand, giving Taylor a warm hug and saying, "Don't worry about a thing, I've got your B&B covered for as long as you need me." The next thing Taylor knew, she was in the passenger seat of Justin's rental car and they were on their way to Davis.
During the hour-long drive, he'd told her stories about his childhood, about scrapes he and his siblings had gotten into, about adventures they'd had together. She'd laughed in the right places, but she hadn't really been present, something he must have been aware of. It was, she assumed, why he'd kept up a running one-sided conversation--so that she would only be able to freak out with half a brain, rather than letting nerves take her over completely.
The sun warmed her while she walked through campus, and she unzipped her coat halfway. She'd been to UC Davis before--she'd met with doctors all over the Bay Area since her diagnosis--but she'd never been in any state of mind to appreciate how lovely the campus was. Looking up at the thick canopy of walnut branches, she forced herself to stop, to breathe, to notice the way the leaves were just starting to turn color, the green threaded with faint hints of red and orange and yellow.
Soon, the trees would be vibrant with fall color. She'd always loved autumn in California, the way the sky was almost always clear, which meant you could still hike and bike and have picnics outside, but then in the evening when the temperature dropped, you could light a fire and sit, warm and toasty, beside it with a mug of hot chocolate.
As she walked, she realized that somewhere along the way in these past few months, she had started to dread the coming of fall. She'd started to hate the passage of time, simply because she was afraid that time was the very last thing she had.
She'd always tried to be hopeful. Even when it had felt as though she was living a life that someone else had scripted, even after Justin had left for Germany, she'd never wanted to pull the covers over her head and not get up. She couldn't let herself fall to pieces now, not when she finally had the kind of love she'd never dared believe could be hers.
Just days ago, she'd told Justin how working on renovating her grandfather's home and turning it into a B&B had shown her that as long as she didn't give up, she could do anything she set her mind to. He'd seemed surprised that she hadn't already known that about herself, had acted as though she'd been foolish not to give herself credit for being strong.
This morning, she needed to hold on to that belief. Needed to hold on to her determination to never give up, never stop fighting for a long and healthy life!
Turning back, she headed toward the hospital, so she'd be waiting for Justin with a smile, with a hug, with a kiss when he emerged from his evaluation meetings. Yes, she was still deeply conflicted about him being her donor, but since they didn't even know yet if he would be a match, she wouldn't let herself borrow trouble.
One day at a time. That was how she needed to take things. And she was going to do her darnedest to appreciate each and every day that came, without letting herself sink into the trap of dreading potential problems that might, or might not, come.
She was about to step inside the hospital's double doors when her phone buzzed with her mother's ring tone. Knowing better than to ignore her mom's calls two days in a row, she picked up.
"I had a dream that you were in the hospital," her mother said with no preamble. "Please tell me it's just my mind playing tricks on me."
Wow, talk about mother's intuition. Taylor had never lied to her mom before, but over the past few months, she'd learned that oversharing wasn't a great idea either. She didn't want to keep her in the dark, but at the same time, it often seemed better to carefully and slowly dole out test results and prognoses. She could only imagine how distressed she'd be if she were in her mother's position.
"I'm actually at UC Davis right now--"
"Oh God, what's happened?"
"I just needed to get some blood work done."
She couldn't say that she was there because Justin wanted to donate a kidney to her. Regardless of the way her mother felt about him, Caroline would have no compunction about Taylor accepting his kidney. First and foremost, Taylor didn't want to get her mother's hopes up that Justin would be a match, when the odds were long against it. And if he did end up being compatible with her--her mom would probably hold him hostage until he was under the knife.
Still, Taylor knew better than to keep news of Justin's arrival in St. Helena to herself for any longer than she already had. It would only end up looking suspicious, as though she had something to hide. She'd already hidden her feelings for him for too many years. She couldn't stand the thought of hiding them another second.
"I'm not here alone," she said. "Justin is with me. He's actually staying in St. Helena this week, at my B&B."
"Justin Morrison is staying at your bed-and-breakfast?" Her mother sounded stunned. "I thought he was in Germany." Where Caroline had clearly hoped he'd stay forever, five thousand miles away from her daughter.
"He's in town for his brother's wedding this coming weekend," Taylor explained. But before she could say how wonderful it was to see him again--and that they weren't just friends anymore--her mother cut in.
"I thought you'd barely heard from him."
"That wasn't his fault, Mom, it was both of us. But we've talked everything through, and we're good again. Better than good, actually." Reminding herself that she was twenty-seven, not seventeen, she barreled on before her mother could interrupt again. "We're together now. As a couple."
"Together? A couple?" Horror rang out in her mother's voice. "Have you forgotten what he was like in college?"
"Of course not. He was my best friend."
"Who toyed with countless girls," her mother countered. "But even more than that, he loved stringing you along."
"That's not fair," Taylor protested. "Not any of it." Okay, so Justin had never lacked for female company. And she couldn't keep her gut from twisting when she thought about all the years she'd watched him go out with other people, even though she'd had a boyfriend the whole time.
Love, it turned out, wasn't always rational. Which was a large part of the reason she knew her mother didn't mean to hurt her. It was simply that love--and remembered loss--made her mother hold on a little too tightly sometimes. r />
Taylor suddenly found herself thinking about what Justin had said in the garden, how his mom was always after them to speak up, even if they were scared. If only Taylor could talk to her mother about the sister she'd never known--maybe then she could find a way to reassure her that Taylor would do everything in her power to ensure she wouldn't lose her too.
"He's why you broke up with Bruce, isn't he?" Caroline's voice broke into her thoughts. "Not because you wanted to start fresh in Napa with a new house and career, but because you could never get over your crush on him!"
