Crash jumped in front of him, and pushed him back, while Red Dog grabbed his shoulders from behind, restraining him.
“What the fuck did you do?” Cole shouted at Mack.
Mack stared him down. “I didn’t do a damn thing. She went back to her life. What? You didn’t see this coming? She didn’t fit in here. We all saw it.”
Cole shook off Red Dog’s hold, and shoved Crash away. He headed upstairs. Opening the door to his room, he was half hoping it was all a joke, that he’d find her sitting on the bed, reading a magazine, waiting for him.
The room was empty. He looked around. No trace of her. No note. Nothing.
He sat down on the bed, and leaned his arms on his knees. He shook his head. It didn’t make any sense. She said she didn’t want to leave. Did she mean it? Did this life frighten her? Could he blame her? Isn’t he the one that told her this wouldn’t last? That she didn’t belong? So, why did this bother him so much?
She didn’t say goodbye.
He could find her, track her down…and then it dawned on him. In all these days they’d spent together, he didn’t even get her last name. How could that be possible? He’d never asked her last name.
She was gone. He’d never be able to find her.
Chapter Twelve
Three years later-
Angel sat in a leather armchair. Looking at her from behind his desk, was the latest in a long line of doctors she’d met with over the past year. They all had different titles and specialties, some she couldn’t even pronounce. But they all had one thing in common. They would build up her hopes, just to dash them the next time she met with them.
This one wasn’t so bad. At least he didn’t bullshit her. He gave it to her straight. The brass plate on the wall outside his door read Pediatric Oncologist.
“Ms. Wells, there’s no way to sugar coat this. You’re not a match.” He watched her reaction. “I’m sorry.”
She exhaled her breath. “And TJ?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m sorry.”
She felt like she’d had the rug pulled out from under her…again.
“If they’d been identical twins-”
“I know. Fraternal twins only have a one in four chance of matching. I know the statistics.”
“Again, I have to remind you, the father still has a good chance of being a match.”
She looked out the window. “The father…” she stopped. How does one explain that there was a fifty-fifty chance that he was either an outlaw biker she had no contact with anymore or he was a man that had raped her, and has been lying dead in a ravine for several years? She looked back at the doctor. “Yes. I had hoped it wouldn’t be necessary to…to find him. But this leaves me no choice.”
“Of course we will continue to try to find an unrelated donor that matches, but as you know, the number of people willing to even be screened for bone marrow transplants are very low and-”
“Yes. Yes, I know.” She looked down in a trance.
“Ms. Wells, can my staff help you locate the father? Perhaps an internet search or-”
She snapped out of it. “No, thank you, Doctor. He’s…he’s not the type to have one of those Facebook pages. I’ll try another way.”
“Are you sure?”
She got up to leave, but then turned back. “How long do we have?”
He looked her in the eye. “The sooner, the better. She’s in remission now, but there are no guarantees how long that will last.”
She nodded, and walked out.
Angel walked into Melissa’s room. There were pictures of kittens taped to the walls. The hospital bed made her daughter look that much smaller than her little two-year-old body should have looked. She was so small for her age, anyway. The illness did that to her.
Leukemia.
She hated that word. It had occupied her every thought for the last eight months that they had been fighting it. Ever since the day she had noticed the small lump on the back of her precious daughter’s neck.
The rounds of chemotherapy had left her little head bald, and the radiation had done a job on her, too. Her only hope now was a bone marrow transplant. But they had to find a donor that was a good match if they wanted her to have the best chance.
Angel leaned down, and kissed her daughter’s forehead. “Mommy’s here, Melissa. I have to go away for a day or two, but