Scarlet Fever - Hill Country 2 (20 page)

“I’m old enough to be . . .” She started talking, but then she didn’t know what she was going to say.
 
His eyes were the most incredible shade of blue.
 

“You’re old enough to be my sweet lover.
 
Is that what you were going to say?”
 
He tickled her gently, absorbing her laughter into his mouth.
 

“Yes,” she whispered.
 
“Yes,” she kissed him.
 
“My answer is yes.
 
I want to be your girl.”
  

************************

Alex’s teeth scraped and nipped the red rose on the curve of Scarlet’s hip.
 
“Scarlet Rose, you have the sweetest rear end that I have ever had the pleasure to bite.”
 
Laughter erupted from her throat and she tried to turn over, but he held her down.
 

“Can I ask you a question about the sword?”

“Sure, in fact, I have some documentation on it at home.
 
I’ll mail it to you as soon as I get back next week.”
 
She tried to smile, but it didn’t make it to her eyes.

“That’s not what I want to know.”
 
Alex turned her over; he wanted to see her face as she answered.
 
“The sword is valuable.
 
I did a search on it, and you could have sold it for forty to fifty thousand dollars.
 
Why didn’t you do that?
 
You could have paid for a year’s worth of dialysis treatments with that money.”

Scarlet lay very still.
 
She hated having to explain, she didn’t want his pity.
 
“I wish you could look at me and not think about my health problems.
 
We only have five more days, together.
 
Do we have to talk about this?”

“Scarlet. . . . .” he began.

“It’s true that the sale of the sword would have brought enough to pay for a year’s dialysis.
 
But I would have still have had to travel fifty miles, one way, every day, to take the treatments and I wouldn’t have been able to work.
 
At the most it would have only been a temporary fix.
 
And I don’t know how I would have survived without a job.”
 

It hurt like hell, but Alex continued to push.
 
“After the incident at the hospital, why didn’t your family sue?”
 
He was torturing her, he was torturing himself, but he needed to understand.
 

“Dad didn’t believe in it, besides when I developed this problem after getting my club foot fixed, it just reinforced his belief that my problems were meant to be.
 
God was in control and I was paying for my sins.”
 
Alex looked so stricken, Scarlet only sought to comfort him.

“Don’t you think that I’ve explored every avenue?
 
It’s not that I want to die, Alex.
 
I just don’t have any choice.”
 
He was making this so hard.
 
“Please let’s just forget about it.
 
Let’s think about something else.”

“You do have choices, Scarlet.
 
I’m working on a plan to ensure that you live a long and happy life.”
 
He sat up in the bed and physically picked her up, holding her in his arms, as if he never intended to let her go.
 

He was so serious, and so sweet.
 
Scarlet rubbed his cheek, “I love you.
 
Let’s just enjoy the time that we have left together, OK?”

She was asking the impossible.
     

************************

 
Four days before the wedding . . . . .
 

Alex didn’t want to have to deal with this.
 
Not now.
 
But he had no choice, not unless he was willing to watch his business go down the drain.
 
He walked into the kitchen, arms full of files, and sat down heavily at the table.
 
Ethan was making coffee.
 
“Where is everybody?”

Annalise is getting ready.
 
We have our final counseling session with the pastor.
 
It’s required, he’s adamant that we understand how serious matrimony is.”
 
Ethan looked at his brother with a smile on his face.
 
“Like I don’t realize what a big step I’m taking.
 
The meeting is at six, so we’re going to make a day of it.
 
Maybe, even stay for dinner.
 
Would you and Scarlet like to come with us?”

“I wish.
 
I’ve got a ton of work to do.
 
Where’s Bobby?”

“Practice.
 
Big Mack called a special session.
 
And Cecile went with him.
 
I think something’s going on with those two.
 
You know, it’s a good thing that the Longhorns have a bye this week, or we would’ve had to get married on a Sunday.”
 
Ethan looked at his brother with an indulgent look on his face.
 
“Aren’t you going to ask me where Scarlet is?”

“I know where Scarlet is.
 
I gave her a cell phone yesterday and insisted that she keep me informed if she had to leave the house.”

“So, you know that she has gone to the doctor?”

“Yes, she went to the clinic to get her birth control pills refilled.”
 
Alex admitted somewhat reluctantly.
 
“I tricked her, sort of.”
 
He rubbed a hand down his face, in worry.
 
“Doc Gibbs wanted me to get her in there for some blood tests.
 
He wants to know exactly where she is in her kidney function, how much time we’ve got to work with.
 
So, I hid her pills.
 
She thought she lost them.”
 
Alex looked up at his brother, with such sadness in his eyes that Ethan would have done anything for him.
 
“Ethan, I didn’t know what else to do.
 
We needed that information.
 
Doc Gibbs said that he has to be sure that there is a high probability of a tissue match.
 
If I told Scarlet the truth, she would have flat out refused to go in at all.”

“I don’t blame you; I would have done the same thing for Annalise.”
 
Ethan put a comforting hand on his brother’s shoulder.
 
“On a brighter note, I got you that underhanded wedding license.”

“Great news.
 
What did you have to do, bribe the judge?”
 
Alex wouldn’t have been surprised.

“I did something really wild.”
 
Alex looked confused.
 
“I told the truth.
 
Raymond Lanier, the county clerk is a good guy.
 
He understood.
 
I told him the situation with her health and how stubborn she is, and he didn’t even hesitate.
 
He told me that he didn’t think it would be a problem, that he would personally walk it by the judge.
 
But you need to level with her at the first opportunity.
 
Of course, if she balks on you, the judge would probably give you a quick annulment.”

“Over my dead body.
 
Once I get that ring on her finger, nothing or nobody will ever separate us again.”

Ethan could tell that his brother was hopelessly in love.
 
He knew the feeling.
 
“What’s with the pile of paperwork?”

“This is stuff that Rick left hanging.
 
I have to come up with a proposal for a plan to power Abilene Christian with wind power; and I’m way behind.
 
This is what I get for giving that idiot so much responsibility.
 
I don’t even have the lay-out drawn up for the wind farm.”

“I wish I could help, bro.”
 
Ethan sympathized.
 
’Unfortunately, it’s not my area of expertise.”

“You can help by pouring me a cup of coffee and keeping it coming.”
 
Alex bowed his head and went to work.

************************

    
 
Scarlet was a nervous wreck.
 
She should have known better than to try and visit a doctor in Austin.
 
Even if it was Alex’s personal physician, he had coerced her in taking every test imaginable.
 
There was no way that all that blood work was necessary to renew her birth control medicine.
 
But, because it was a friend of Alex’s, she had gone along.
 
He had wrote her a prescription, but told her that he would be getting in touch with her later about her blood work.
 
She left Alex’s cell phone number with the nurse, who promised to call once they had the test results.
  

To complicate matters, she felt weaker and noticed that she was getting short of breath.
 
It scared her to death, because she knew exactly what it meant.
 
She was getting worse.
 
If she could just keep it together for four more days, then she’d get home and deal with it the only way she knew how.
 
Closing her eyes, she wondered if she would have the courage to go through with her plan.
 
Over and over again, she had played out the scenarios in her mind.
 
But, what haunted her the most, was getting too weak and sick to take care of herself or slipping into a coma and not being discovered until it was too late.
 
The best solution that she could come up with was to speed things along.
 
It wouldn’t take too much ibuprofen to push her over the edge.
 
And she had already notified one of her best friends, the area funeral director.
 
He would take care of everything else.
 
They had bonded during the years that she had played and sang for so many funerals.
 
Actually, he was a comfort to her; he had her back.
 
Not a perfect solution, by any means, but the best one that she had come up with.
 
At least it gave her something to worry about besides how much she was going to miss Alex.

************************

 
She found him bent over a pile of papers, in deep concentration.
 
He didn’t even hear her come in.
 
She slipped up behind him and hugged him tight.
 
Immediately, he pushed everything aside and pulled her around to sit in his lap.
 
“Lord, I missed you.”
 

Knowing that time was quickly slipping away, she sought his lips and kissed him deeply.
 
“I missed you, too.”

“Did you get your pills?”

“Yes, so we’re back in business.”
 
She traced his eyebrows, burning the image of his face in her mind.

“I love monkeying with your business.”
 
Kissing the palm of her hand, he started day dreaming about what he planned on doing to her lovely body once the sun went down.
 
“As bad as I hate it, I have a ton of work to do.”

He turned toward the files, and she pulled a chair up close to his.
 
“Can I help?”
 
Before he could stop her, she opened a file and looked through it quickly.
 
“Wind farm.
 
Do you have a topographical map?
 
I can draw you a layout of the best grid connection possibilities and a feasibility study, if you have the wind assessment report.”
 
Alex turned completely in his chair and looked at her hard.
 
Then he smiled the biggest, prettiest smile she had ever seen.

“God, woman you are amazing!”
 
He split the papers with her, anxious to see what she could do.

“Don’t get too excited, yet,” she cautioned him.
 
“It’s been awhile since I’ve got a chance to work on this type of thing.
 
Although I’ve kept up with the newest techniques and technological advances in the turbines.
 
I’m really interested in the ’smart’ turbines that the Purdue researchers have developed, the ones that can react to changing wind conditions.”