Barefoot in the Sun (Barefoot Bay)(61)

“Don’t even think about it,” Lacey warned. When all three of them turned to give her a look of disbelief, she didn’t flinch. “Sorry, but you never move a sleeping child. That’s a law of nature.”

Zoe studied Evan’s profile and felt a totally unfamiliar flutter in her chest. Was falling for this kid a law of nature, too? Because she was, and fast.

“What?” Jocelyn asked, concern in her voice.

“I didn’t say anything,” Zoe replied.

“You groaned.”

“Of course she groaned,” Tessa jumped in, squeezing her hand. “We’re holding vigil in a hospital. She’s terrified.”

“A vigil?” Zoe choked on the word. “Isn’t that when you wait for someone to die?”

“It’s when you wait for someone, period,” Tessa said.

“Exactly.” Jocelyn added pressure to Zoe’s other hand. “We’re waiting for Oliver to walk through those doors with good news. We have to hold that positive thought.”

Zoe opened her mouth to say something about Jocelyn’s platitudes but closed it again. Sarcasm had no place in this waiting room, with these friends who had left a warm bed, a dear husband, a hot lover, or a newborn baby to sit with her.

The impact of that sacrifice exploded inside her. “God, I love you guys,” she said, the admission coming out on something embarrassingly close to a sob.

Well, that was easy to say.

“We love you, too,” Lacey assured her.

“And I kind of love him,” Zoe added, her gaze still on Evan. It was like Oliver had unlocked the dams and love was pouring out everywhere. “He didn’t even complain when I pulled him out of bed. All he cared about was Pasha.” Affection twisted through her, wrapping around her throat and making it tight.

“He’s a great kid,” Tessa agreed. “So smart and sweet. He’s insane about getting that dog—”

“The dog!” Zoe slapped a hand over her mouth and sat bolt upright. “If we don’t get that dog today, he might be given away to someone else.”

“I can take him to the pound,” Tessa assured her, but then added, “ ’Cept I’ll probably pick one up myself.”

“You should,” Jocelyn said. “It would be good for you to have a dog.”

They were all quiet for a moment, the obvious, unspoken, and uncomfortable truth hanging over them: A dog was no substitute for that baby Tessa wanted so much.

“I’m getting coffee,” Lacey said quickly. “There’s no sleep in my near future.”

Zoe dropped her head back and looked up at her friend. “And by near future, you mean the next seventeen years.”

“At least.” Lacey gave Tessa a tap. “Wanna come with me? I’m sure we can scare up some organic tea.”

“Sure.” She stood slowly. “What do you guys want?”

“Coffee for me,” Jocelyn said.

“Hot chocolate,” Zoe added.

Tessa screwed up her face. “Seriously?”

Zoe jutted her chin toward Evan. “For him. I don’t want anything, but he’s going to wake up soon.”

Jocelyn and Tessa shared a look and Lacey sort of tilted her head and smiled.

“What?” Zoe said. “Why are you all looking at me like that?”

“You got it bad,” Jocelyn said.

“The mommy bug bit,” Tessa agreed.

“Mommy bug?” Zoe almost choked. “Because I feel bad that I yanked the kid out of bed and threw him on a hospital waiting room sofa and want to give him some hot chocolate? This is now a cry for motherhood?”

“Yeah,” Tessa said.

Zoe pointed at her. “You’re projecting. Isn’t she projecting, Joss? You were the psych major.”

Tessa shook her head and walked off with Lacey, no doubt to gossip about Zoe’s detonating ovaries.

“Jeez,” Zoe mumbled, crossing and uncrossing her ankles. “She can piss me off faster than anyone else.”

“You’re tired, Zoe,” Jocelyn said.

“And scared. And miserable. And lonely. And…” She closed her eyes. “Doesn’t matter. She can piss me off after a good night’s sleep and multiple orgasms. Which…” She slid a look to Jocelyn. “I was about to have before Oliver got the call.”

“That’s the least of your problems.”

“No kidding.” Zoe sighed for what seemed like the three millionth time since they’d arrived at the hospital in North Naples. “How do you do this, Joss?” she asked, referring to the many trips she and Will had made to doctors for Jocelyn’s father, who suffered from Alzheimer’s.

“We haven’t had an ER or ICU incident…yet.”

“But…”

Jocelyn nodded. “We will, of course. There’s no way to avoid the inevitable of his disease.”

“How do you deal?” Zoe asked. “How do you keep from imagining life without him?”

Jocelyn snorted softly. “You may remember that not so long ago I preferred life without him. But now…”

“Now you don’t, so it’s got to hurt to worry about him.”

“It does, but it helps to have Will.” She gave an easy smile that lit her eyes. “It changes everything to have Will.”

“Because he shares the worry?”

“Like everything else in life.”

“Wow, that sounds good,” Zoe admitted.

“Something you want?”

As much as her next breath. “I don’t…yeah. Sure. Who doesn’t? But that’s not the question.”

“What is?”

“I don’t know if I can give that kind of unconditional love back,” she admitted. “I don’t know if I’m capable of it. I’ve spent my whole life avoiding it. But I think Oliver wants it. He wants everything from me—my heart and soul and trust.”

“So what’s stopping you?”

“I’ve been stopping me.” Zoe turned away, the confession too raw and way too honest for this particular moment.

“How? Why?” Jocelyn turned, trying to force Zoe to look at her. “Have you made a list of all the possible reasons?”

“I would get stuck in the waiting room with a life coach.”

“Answer the question.”

Zoe plucked at a chip in the fake wood armrest, reliving the incredible breakthrough she’d had in Oliver’s office. “Every time in my life that I ever got even close to an attachment, it blew up in my face. A family I liked or a new friend at school and, wham, I had to move. Then with Pasha, I’d get settled in a place and put down one little root and, bang, it was time to go to the next place. I fell in love and the same thing happened.” She looked at Jocelyn through blurry eyes. “Why would it be any different this time?”

Jocelyn closed her hands over Zoe’s shaking ones. “You’ve kept us through all these years.”

“You guys work at that. If the three of you didn’t hound me with phone calls and e-mails, I’d have probably lost touch.”

“And you have had Pasha.”

Yes, she had. And now…

“Zoe.”

She blinked, the light blocked by a large figure coming through the doorway, in scrubs. “Oliver.”

He crouched in front of her, his face a wasteland of misery.

“Is she…” Dead? Zoe couldn’t make the word form.

He shook his head. “She’s stable, more or less.”

“What does that mean?

“It means you can see her now.”

Zoe practically leaped out of the chair. “Is she in pain?”

“No.” He stabbed a hand through his hair, exhaling pure exhaustion and frustration. “It was a massive attack, though, and her heart is weak. The real irony is that she isn’t rejecting the vectors. In fact, the very earliest indicators are that the gene therapy is working exactly as it should.”

“Oliver, is she going to…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“I don’t know.”

They walked down a long hall in silence, so fast the rooms and nurses and soft hospital colors blurred in Zoe’s vision. When they reached a room at the end of the ICU hallway, the nurse next to it looked up in greeting.

“Any change?” Oliver asked.

She gave her head a quick, negative shake.

He nodded thanks to the nurse and reached for the door. “Go ahead in, Zoe.”

But she stood, frozen in place, collecting the thoughts and feelings that ricocheted around her head and heart, unable to capture any of them long enough to know what she wanted to say to Pasha if this was their last time together.