Page 73 of Rescuing Mary

Mary didn’t know how to respond. She simply stared up at him.

“You’re not going to tell me,” he said in surprise after a moment.

Mary shook her head.

“Out of everyone, you’ve been the most honest with me from the start. You got on Ghost’s back for keeping shit from me. You’ve told me bits and pieces here and there, giving me my life back, and now you’re keeping something from me?”

“It has nothing to do with you,” Mary told him, knowing the bitch was creeping back into her tone, but she couldn’t help it. This was too soon. She was enjoying being normal with Truck. She didn’t want that to end. Not yet.

Truck took a step back at her words. “Nothing to do with me? Everything that affects you has to do with me,” he said, sincerity lacing his words.

“You’ve only known me a few weeks,” Mary said lamely.

“Bullshit,” Truck fired back. “We’ve known each other a hell of a lot longer than that. I might not remember details, but I know it here,” he said, putting a hand over his heart. “Talk to me.”

“Now’s not the time,” Mary told him.

“Then when is?”

“I don’t know!” Mary yelled—then paled when the conversation in the room died down. She looked around and saw that everyone was looking at them. Great, just great.

Feeling trapped, Mary fell back to her old ways. She did what she always did when things got too intense. She retreated behind the shields she’d put up and spoke without thinking.

“I’d think you have enough to worry about with your own health issues,” she said. “Your headaches aren’t going away. In fact, they’re getting worse. Have you talked to your doctor about that, huh? What about your commander? You can’t go back to work if your head feels like it’s gonna explode, can you?”

She could see Truck’s jaw flexing as if he was grinding his teeth together. She flinched, realizing that she probably shouldn’t have outted him like she had. No, she didn’t want to talk about her missed appointment, but she also didn’t want to throw him under the bus in the process.

“Your head’s been hurting?” Beatle asked.

“Shit, Truck. That’s not good,” Ghost added.

“The last thing you want is to lose any more of your memory,” Coach added.

Truck glared at Mary before turning to his friends and holding up his hands. “Easy, everyone. I’m fine. The doc said I’d continue to have some pain for a while. It’s not as bad as Mary’s makin’ it out to be.”

She felt worse and worse as Truck fielded questions about his health. The old her would’ve been glad she didn’t have to talk about her appointment and happy the attention was deflected from her. But she’d promised herself she would try to curb her bitch tendencies. She hadn’t meant to out Truck, but she had anyway. And now she felt like shit about it.

Rayne came over to her as Truck was reassuring his friends. “Did you do that on purpose?” she asked.

Mary didn’t even try to pretend she didn’t know what Rayne was talking about. “No.” When Rayne looked skeptical, Mary went on. “I didn’t. It just came out, I wasn’t trying to get him in trouble with the guys.”

“Why?”

“The nurse wanted to know why I hadn’t rescheduled the appointment I’d skipped.”

“And you haven’t told Truck about the cancer yet,” Rayne correctly deduced.

“Nope.”

“Oh, Mare. You need to.”

Mary sighed. “I will.”

“When?”

“I don’t know, okay? I want to enjoy being just me. Not the poor woman with no boobs who almost fucking died.”

Instead of being put off by Mary’s harsh words, Rayne glared at her. “Boo-fucking-hoo,” she said.