Читать книгу Irresistible Attraction: Scenes of Passion / Midnight Seduction / Beyond Control - Justine Davis, Bronwyn Jameson - Страница 16

Twelve

After putting the kettle on the stove, Matt pushed the kitchen windows closed. The night air had gone from cool to cold, with the wind blowing off the sound. Maggie had a sweatshirt on over her nightgown, but she still shivered slightly.

He sat down at the table, across from her, fiddling with the napkin holder as he tried to figure out how to start.

“Now that we’re down here,” he said with a laugh, “I’m not sure how to say this.”

She reached across the table, putting her hands on his. “Whatever you have to say, it can’t be that terrible, can it?”

He met her eyes. “Mags, it’s about when I went into the hospital. And yes, it’s terrible.”

She looked down at their hands for a moment, and when she looked back up, into his eyes again, there was so much love on her face, it nearly took his breath away. “You know there’s nothing you can say that will make me stop loving you. Nothing.”

“I had cancer,” he told her. There. He said it.

Maggie couldn’t breathe. She stared across the table at him, waiting, hoping, praying for it to be a joke. Any minute now he’d tell her the punchline.

“I was diagnosed,” Matt said softly, “with Hodgkin’s disease.”

“Oh, my God,” she whispered. It was indeed a joke, a cruel, horrible joke of fate. “Was? Past tense?”

“Well, yeah,” he said. Then he shook his head. “No, I don’t want to lie to you.” He looked up at her, his face apologetic, his eyes dark with unhappiness. “The truth is, I hope it’s gone, but I don’t know for sure. It’s been almost a year since I had my last treatment of chemo. The odds of a recurrence are pretty high for the first year—”