Dirty Sexy Alphas (Twenty Book Box Set) - Hannah Ford Page 0,22

liked to sleep late even on his best days.

But no one stirred, so I picked up the chair and scooped up my brother’s jacket that had fallen to the floor.

I was draping it over the back of the chair when a piece of paper scratched against my hand.

Sliding it out of his pocket, I saw Franciscan Medical Center printed across the top. My throat went dry. I never wanted to see those three words again, because that’s where my mother went… and didn’t come home again. I sighed and sat down. If her death hadn’t been enough to break us, the bills nearly did. The last thing we needed was yet another.

I slipped my thumb under the flap, sliding out the tri-folded paper. But as I flipped it open, I knew immediately it wasn’t a bill. The letterhead was an unfamiliar name, a Dr. Wallace.

My heart climbed into my throat as I saw my brother’s name. And then it stopped completely when I saw what the letter was about.

It was a diagnosis.

Lymphoma.

My brother had cancer.

The End of Book 1

Part II

Filthy Lust (Second Chance With My Brother’s Best Friend, Book Two)

Chapter 1

The paper fluttered to the ground, and I sank to the floor, pulling my knees up close and hugging them to my chest.

Cancer.

Images barreled through my mind. Me sobbing until my eyes felt like sandpaper. My mom, hooked up to way too many tubes and lines, until she looked more machine than human.

And when it was all over, my dad, holing up in his room and hardly coming out for days. The days had floated by, a long stream of nothingness as we all tried to figure out what shape to take when there was a giant hole in the middle of our lives.

Oh god, my brother. How long had he known he was sick?

I leaned over, grabbing the paper where it had fallen, face down on the linoleum. I flipped it over.

The date was a month old. He’d been carrying this thing around in his pocket all that time? He’d been smiling at me and acting like nothing was wrong?

A lump grew in my throat as tears shimmered in my eyes. How could he look me in the eye and not tell me?

And how could our family survive this a second time? It had almost torn us apart when Mom got sick. The fear and uncertainty was enough…no matter how hard we tried, the cracks started to show. And then losing the fight… burying my mother…

My father had to be in the dark too. He’d just been smiling and excited about a promotion—he wouldn’t have acted that way if he knew that Matt was sick.

Pain, jagged, knifed its way through me. My brother didn’t tell us because he didn’t want it to break us all over again. He was living with this alone to spare us. It made me love him and hate him in the same breath. He’d been telling us his job was keeping him busy, but it wasn’t that at all.

It was cancer treatment. Jesus.

A sob wrenched free and I scrambled to my feet. The letter was still gripped in my hand, so I smoothed it out, then carefully folded it and slid it back into the envelope, hoping my tears hadn’t stained the paper. Then I slipped it gently back into his coat pocket.

I raked in a shaky breath of air, trying to slow my heart, trying to steady my breathing. I dug my phone out, dialing Annie’s number.

“Pick up pick up pick up,” I said, panic swelling in my chest. What was I supposed to do? My internship started tomorrow. I had a plane to catch in four hours.

“ARGH,” I groaned, when her voicemail picked up.

I paced the kitchen, tears trailing down my cheek, unable to calm myself down. What was the right thing to do now? Tell my dad? Confront my brother?

The letter in my brother’s coat pocket practically screamed at me, like some telltale heart.

Impulsively, I did something totally instinctive. It just felt right.

I dialed Landon’s number, my heart in my throat as it rang four times, then went to voicemail.

I switched windows, to the web browser. It took three tries to find the number online for Prestige Sports medicine, but only one ring for a perky receptionist to pick up.

“Landon Hill, please,” I said, as smoothly as I could with the tears clogging my throat.

“May I ask who’s calling?” She was too chipper. Her world wasn’t crumbling.

“Taryn. Just tell him Taryn.”

My