Marry Me, Mackenzie!. Joanna Sims
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Название: Marry Me, Mackenzie!
Автор: Joanna Sims
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Контркультура
Серия: Mills & Boon Cherish
isbn: 9781474001373
isbn:
“Leukemia. What is that? Blood cancer?”
Mackenzie nodded. “At first I just thought that she was pushing herself too hard between school and the barn. She was tired all the time, losing weight. She just wasn’t herself. When she started to complain about an ache in her bones and a sore throat...” Mackenzie lifted one shoulder. “I thought she was coming down with the flu. I mean...who would immediately jump to cancer?”
Dylan sat down in one of the chairs encircling a fire pit. Mackenzie joined him.
“I remember being really stressed out that day...the day we found out. I had to rearrange my entire morning so I could get Hope to the doctor. Traffic was ridiculous, I was on the phone with the bakery...on the phone with clients...I remember thinking that it was the worst possible time for Hope to be catching something on top of everything else.” Mackenzie pushed strands of hair out of her face. “And all I could do was start adding things to do to my already gigantic to-do list—stop by the pharmacy, arrange for someone to stay with Hope...blah, blah, blah...”
Mackenzie stopped to take a swig from her beer. She shook her head as she swallowed the liquid down. “I had no idea how frivolous everything I’d just been obsessing over was about to become.”
Dylan listened intently, while Mackenzie talked. “The doctor sent us to the hospital, tests were run and she was diagnosed that day. And just like that...literally in what seemed like the blink of an eye...our world imploded. No parent is ever prepared to hear the words your child has cancer.” Mackenzie rubbed fresh tears out of her eyes. “But even more than that, I’ll never forget the look on Hope’s face when she asked me—ʽDid she just say that I have cancer?’ I’ve never been that scared in my life. Hope was admitted to the hospital, and ever since then, our lives just became this never-ending revolving door of chemo and steroids and tests and checkups and hospital stays...”
When Mackenzie realized that she was the only one talking and that she had said much more than she had ever intended, she stopped herself from blurting out more by taking a swig of her now-tepid beer. She picked at the label on the bottle, wishing that Dylan would do something other than sit in his designer lounge chair and stare at her.
“I don’t know why I just told you all of that,” Mackenzie said to fill the silence.
At first, Dylan really didn’t know what to say. He had been dragged from one emotional spectrum to the next in the span of an hour. At the beginning of their meeting, all he felt for Mackenzie was anger. But while Mackenzie was telling her story, and with the ocean wind blowing the wispy tendrils of her hair across her pretty face, she reminded him of the girl she had once been. The girl he remembered so vividly from his childhood—the chubby bookworm with thick glasses who used to read her books in the backseat of one of her father’s vintage cars. All the boys in the neighborhood ignored Jett’s sister, but he never did. Maybe it was because he liked how different she was than the rest of the girls. Or maybe it was because he had only seen her smile once after her mom died. He had never thought to analyze it. He had always just liked Mackenzie.
“Because we used to be friends,” Dylan said.
“Were we?” Mackenzie asked.
“I always thought so.” Dylan caught her gaze and held it. “And I tell you this, Mackenzie. If I had known that you were pregnant...if you had just trusted me enough to give me a chance, I never would’ve let you or Hope go through any of this stuff alone. I would have been there for you...both of you...every step of the way.”
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