Part 1 (2/2)

A tentative hand wrapped around my fingers. I smiled as I turned. ”Roger. You're so brave. I know how much this scares you.”

His fingers tightened on mine until they were squashed together in a rather intense embrace. I didn't say anything, though. At least he was holding my hand.

Through the barrier of the mask, I could see that sweat clearly dripped down the sides of his face. ”We talked about what I would do. With the money your dad's parents left you, and what I should do with my career.” The words tumbled out of him in a rush. ”I've made some decisions.”

”I don't think there's a rush, Rog.” I tried to squeeze his hand. ”I mean . . . you have your whole life ahead of you. We both know that snap decisions aren't your forte. Take your time.”

He reached to the back of his head protection as if to scratch at his neck. ”I'm going to sell your grandparents' house. Your mom and dad are going to buy it back from me. At a good price, mind you.”

I stared up at him, a slow curl of horror starting in the pit of my stomach. The house was worth over two million dollars; there was no way my parents could afford that. ”You're selling the house . . . to my . . . parents? Why?”

Apparently he didn't pick up on the nuances of my question. ”Yeah, it's great. They're actually paying me over market value to keep it in the family, not that your mom wanted to. I'm going to put that money in with the life insurance money after you die, and start up a new business. I even have a business partner lined up.”

My hold on his hand slipped, and I dropped my fingers to the bed. Whatever heat I'd imagined through the suit from his touch was gone.

”What kind of business?” There was no way he could run a business. I'd tried to get him to help in the bakery, and he'd bungled even the simplest tasks. He couldn't even man the cash register without fouling the entire day's transactions, a position I normally hired a teenager to do.

I stared at him, trying to understand what had happened in the s.p.a.ce of minutes.

”Dog grooming. It's a booming industry.” His words echoed in my ears, bouncing around like kids in a ball pit, screaming and laughing at my shock.

I had to be dreaming. Because this was the sort of weird twist that occurred only when I slept and the painkillers were heavy in my system. This was not reality.

There was no way Roger would start a dog-grooming business. No way he would sell the house that meant so much to me.

”You hate dogs,” I managed to get out. ”You always said we couldn't have one because they were too stupid to exist. They stink. And bark incessantly on top of being too needy. You chased Mrs. Whitmore's poodle with a shovel, threatening to brain it because it peed on our lawn.”

He took his hands and clasped them behind his back. ”That was then. I'm a changed man, and, well, I've changed my mind. We'll be grooming cats too.”

I stared at him with my mouth open, unable to fully process the speed at which the conversation had begun to tank. What the fricky d.i.c.ky was going on? Had he smacked his head on something and gone off the deep end?

I pinched the bridge of my nose as I struggled to get hold of the conversation and myself. I had to steer this the right way, or Roger would never pull himself out of the mess I could see him sinking into. And in not too many weeks I'd be gone and unable to help him.

”Okay, let's a.s.sume you really do this. Cats hate water, they have claws and teeth they aren't afraid to use. And if I may remind you, the last cat I had, I caught you dancing a jig when she got hit by a car.”

”I wasn't dancing, I was upset.” His eyes lowered and he sniffed loudly.

”What, you just decided at that moment to see if you could still do the Robot?” I snapped. This was ridiculous. Dying I might be, but I wasn't going to let him throw his life away on some harebrained-no pun intended-scheme. Sitting up was no small effort, but I pushed my deflated body upright and leaned back against the metal-tubed headboard. ”Roger, this is ridiculous. You're being stupid, and there isn't time to mince words.”

”Tell him how you really feel, Alena,” Dahlia said with a snicker.

”That's why I can't come here. I told her you would be like this. The needle to my hot-air balloon.” Roger spoke as though his business partner actually had some say in this conversation.

”You got that right, you're a hot-air balloon.” I took a slow breath and tried to contain my emotions. ”Roger. You hate animals. You know nothing about running a business; the bakery was all me. You couldn't even take the garbage out without spilling it all over my kitchen. Three times in a row.” I paused, summoning the courage to tell him the truth. ”Roger, my love, someone has seen that you have money, and they're taking you for a ride. They're using you. Whoever this business partner is, they-”

He stepped back, his whole body shaking inside his suit. ”That's exactly what she said you'd say. I told her you loved me and would want me to be happy. I guess I was wrong. There is something else too.”

I put a hand to my head, my whole body trembling. Whether it was with fatigue from sitting up, or from what Roger was spitting out, I wasn't sure. ”Who is this 'she' you are talking about?” Oh, G.o.d, the blonde in the doorway. ”Your business partner came with you? Wait, what else have you got to tell me?”

He drew himself up, and I knew in my belly what he was going to say. I held a hand out. ”Don't you dare sell my bakery to that woman. Don't you dare!” If he sold my bakery to Colleen Vanderhoven, I might die on the spot and be glad of it. She'd been the bane of my existence from the day I set my shop up. The closest thing to an archnemesis I'd had in my entire life. She'd done everything she could to sink my business, from setting up her bakery a street over, to attempting to steal my recipes, to actually stealing some of my employees.

”We're signing the papers next week.” The words started out of his mouth strong and ended on a sigh.

My bakery. I leaned back against the headboard, eyes aching as though tears fell from them. I loved Vanilla and Honey almost as much as I loved the house my grandparents had left me. Shaking, holding back the gulping sobs that leapt up to escape me, I managed another question. ”Tell me about this business partner. Who is she?”

What if he was partnering with Colleen in more than one capacity? Burn my sugar biscuits! If he partnered with fat-nosed, mean-as-a-badger Colleen in the dog-grooming business, I would strangle him myself.

Roger nodded. ”I don't know why you're surprised. You were the one who said I should move on with my life. To find love again so I wouldn't be alone.”

What was he going on about now? I opened my eyes and stared at him as his words settled around me.

Dahlia let out a low groan from her side of the room. ”Oh, you didn't, you dumb schmuck. Tell me you didn't.”

He acted like he hadn't heard her. As he leaned close, his helmet moved like a bobble-head doll on the dashboard of a car, giving the illusion that his head wasn't quite attached the way it should have been. Which in that moment I could believe. ”I love her, Alena. I know you understand because, really, this was your idea. But Barbie doesn't want me coming back to see you anymore. She's afraid I might get sick, and she has a point. Not to mention the cost of the ferry back and forth all the time. I have my whole life ahead of me. You said it yourself. So I'm getting on with it.”

”But I'm not dead yet,” I whispered, horror making my voice soft. Or maybe that was the growing anger that wrapped itself around my throat, cutting my words in half.

His suit crinkled as he backed away, and he lifted a hand in a f.e.c.kless, offhand farewell. ”A part of me will always love you, Alena. Take care of yourself. I mean . . . as much as you can now. You know.” He shrugged, cleared his throat, and left the room.

The door whooshed shut behind him, the click of the latch signaling it was closed tight. I stared at the metal panel with the square window as I attempted to process the last ten minutes of my life. A week? It took him a week to find someone new and decide he would leave his dying wife in her hospital bed alone because some woman named Barbie told him it was a good idea?

”Tell me you didn't hear that, Dahlia. Tell me I was dreaming.”

She sucked in a slow breath. ”I'm sorry, honey. That totally happened. He's a d.i.c.kwad.”

There were no tears, of course, but the sobs in my chest were real enough and my bones creaked with the force of the shaking.

”Don't cry over him, he doesn't deserve it. Alena, don't cry. You'll hurt yourself,” Dahlia said, her voice soft and gentle.

”Take care of myself? What does he think is going to happen in the next few weeks? A magic d.a.m.n cure? The doctors are going to come in here and wave a wand over us and that's it, we'll be all better?” The words exploded out of me, and while they hurt my throat, it was better than holding them in, letting them fester along with the pain in my heart.

Silence fell between us, or at least as silent as a hospital got. Outside our room the slap of feet on the cheap tile and the hum of voices drifted through the thick auto-closing door. Here the quiet was never real, rather an approximation of the big sleep that would soon come for us both.

Dahlia s.h.i.+fted and her bed creaked under her. ”There is a magic cure. If you can afford it, you know.”

Again, I wondered if I was hearing things. ”What?”

”It's expensive, but if you've got the money . . . a warlock can help you.” Dahlia's dark-green eyes locked with mine as they had so often over the last week.

”Dahlia, those are urban legends. I heard the rumors before I got sick too. I even saw that special expose on TV. The Supe Conspiracy. That magic is the cure, and it's only a matter of time before the world knows. But there is no way our government would allow so many people to die if they could help.”

She smiled, her pink gums s.h.i.+ning between the few teeth she had left. ”Really? Do you not pay attention at all? They're trying to corral all the Super Dupers above the forty-ninth parallel. Keep them contained. The fewer there are south of the border, the better. They did the same thing in Europe and Asia, put up walls to keep the Supes contained in the middle, away from the humans. Every time someone is found to be a Supe, they s.h.i.+p them. My house isn't far from the Wall, I've seen large vehicles cross the border more than once in the middle of the night.”