"Sorry. Trish McAvery. I'm Walsh's assistant. He has a picture of you and your husband on his phone."
"Oh, you're working here, right?"
"Yeah, we're using space in the foundation's office while his mother is sick." Trish rose to her full height. "But Walsh can work from just about anywhere. Between teleconferencing and Skype, we get it done. And he flies out at least once a week."
"He's not here, is he?"
Kerris primed herself to flee. She couldn't chance seeing him, or being seen with him. She and Cam usually visited during the day when Jo assured them Walsh was at the office.
"No, he left about an hour ago. He forgot these papers and had a teleconference he couldn't be late for, so he sent me back for them."
"Are you staying in Rivermont while Walsh is working from here so much?"
"Yeah, I've relocated for the time being." Trish grimaced her distaste.
"I guess it's quite an adjustment, huh?" Kerris smiled at Trish's face. "I mean, I guess Rivermont is really different from New York City."
"Now that is an understatement." Trish shifted from one Manolo Blahnik – shod foot to the other, still straightening the disheveled papers. "The shopping alone."
"I've never been to New York, but I can imagine."
Trish eyed Kerris's bright orange vintage pea coat, wide-legged dark wash jeans, and wedge-heeled boots.
"You seem to be managing just fine. That bracelet is sick. You didn't get that from around here, did you?"
"I actually made it myself." Kerris couldn't stop the proud grin taking over her face.
"It's unique." Trish stroked the stone at the center. "I've got a friend in the Fashion District who would kill for pieces like that. You have any more?"
"You really like it?"
"I think it's über. I'm going back to New York for the holidays tomorrow. Let me take that to show my friend. I bet she'd sell your stuff in her shop in SoHo."
"SoHo?" Kerris's jaw dropped from shock before she slammed it shut. "But this … this isn't even that good."
"You telling me your other stuff is even better?"
"I think so." Kerris slipped off the bangle, offering it to Trisha. "Take it."
"Cool." Trish shared a quick smile, reaching for her phone. "Let's exchange numbers, and I can call you when I hear something back."
Trish slipped the phone back into her purse.
"I'm leaving tonight. I almost hate to go with Mrs. Bennett the way she is."
"How is she?" Kerris nodded her head toward Kristeene's open door with a concerned frown.
"Not good. She and Walsh met with Dr. Ravenscroft this morning. There's nothing more they can do."
"What do you mean?" Kerris refused to believe what she was hearing, afraid to consider how it would ravage the two men she cared about the most.
"They caught this too late, and just can't get to it fast enough. It's aggressive and has spread to her liver, kidneys, back, lymph nodes. It's literally eating her alive. All they can do now is help her manage the pain."
"No." Kerris felt the sharp sting of tears behind her eyelids. "How did Walsh take it?"
"He went to work." Trish twisted her lips with something approaching contempt. "He's more like his father than I thought."
"Don't misjudge him." Kerris narrowed her eyes at Trish's tone. "He went to work because he had to. If he stops, he'll fall apart. She needs him strong, so he'll be strong. He's not like his father. Work doesn't have him. Money doesn't have him. Power doesn't have Walsh. Walsh has Walsh."
"Oh." Trish raised her brows a curious inch. "You seem to know him very well."
"He's my husband's best friend," Kerris said before changing the subject. "I assume Walsh'll be here for Christmas then."
"Yeah, she wants to be home for Christmas, and Walsh is going to focus on her completely. He's given me time off till the new year. They don't know if she'll … "
Kerris was glad Trisha allowed her words to trail off. She wasn't ready to hear that the doctors weren't sure Kristeene would make it to the new year.
"You think it's okay if I go in to see her?" Kerris wasn't sure she was prepared to see Kristeene, but knew she needed to.
"I'm sure she'd enjoy the company. Well, Walsh'll be waiting for these papers. I better go."
Kerris hovered at the door to Kristeene's hospital room. She fought back a wave of panic, thinking of Iyani. Sweet Iyani who had fought so valiantly, and lost. And now it appeared that Kristeene's surrender was, though delayed, a foregone conclusion. Death would hover over the holidays.
She pushed the door open inch by inch.
"Can I come in?"
"Kerris," Kristeene whispered around a weak smile. "So glad you came by."
"Cam'll come on his lunch break." Kerris sat in the hard-backed chair beside Kristeene's bed.
"Walsh just left not too long ago." Kristeene pressed her lips together and frowned. "So they still aren't speaking?"
"What?" Kerris played dumb. She hadn't realized it was that obvious Walsh and Cam were avoiding each other. "I don't know what you mean."
Kristeene gave Kerris a long look before extending a thin arm, the bones of her hand prominent from weight loss. Kerris accepted her hand, squeezing it and pulling it to her head, bowing over it like a royal subject to this queenly woman whose compassion had changed her life.
"Kerris, has anyone told you what the doctor said this morning?"
Kerris stiffened, not expecting this direct tack, unprepared to fake or hem or haw. She nodded slowly, raising her head to find Kristeene's knowing eyes on her face.
"The time for lies, hiding, and faking is over." Kristeene lifted Kerris's chin with one finger, forcing her to meet the eyes of a sage. "You love my son. Both of them, actually."
Kerris closed her eyes, hoping the thin layer of protection her eyelids provided would block out the knowledge and, she was certain, the judgment she'd see in Kristeene's eyes.
"Look at me," Kristeene commanded with gentle force, tilting Kerris's chin another centimeter. "I'm not judging you."
"How can you not?" Kerris managed a tearful whisper, swallowing the tide of shame and guilt she couldn't subdue under Kristeene's weary, steady stare.
"Kerris, I wish I had known how you felt about Walsh before you married Cam." Kristeene ran her fingers across the coolness of the sheets on her hospital bed.
"I didn't see Walsh coming. Could never have predicted anyone would make me feel … " Kerris left the words unspoken, but the truth still blared into the silence. "I care about Cam and thought we were perfect for each other. We had so much in common. We made sense. Meeting Walsh made me question everything I'd believed about myself and about my feelings. About what I was capable of feeling."
Kerris paused, swallowing past the shame clogging her throat before she continued.
"Then I saw Walsh with Sofie, and I knew she was the kind of woman for him. That he'd never marry a nobody like me. They made sense as much as Cam and I did. I believed that." Kerris chewed at the corner of her bottom lip. "Has Walsh ever talked to you about me?"
"No, we've never talked about this." Kristeene gave a quick shake of her silk-covered head. "At least not directly."
"You seemed so certain. How did you know?"
"Do you really want me to tell you?"
"You said yourself the time for hiding is over."
"Yes, I believe it is." Kristeene released a heavy sigh. "I'm afraid it's very clear when the two of you are together that there is something between you."
"Is it that obvious?" Kerris moaned and dropped her head into both hands.
"Kerris, the way my son looks at you is like-" Kristeene started, briefly hesitating. "It's like a starved man. It's like he can't bring himself to look at anything else in the room."
Kerris felt her face heating and her hands shaking. She could not believe she was having this conversation with Walsh's mother.
"I had a man look at me that way once." Kristeene's wistful smile was reminiscent of the young beauty she had obviously been.
"Who was it?"
"It was my husband." Kristeene sat up straighter in her bed, leaning into her story. "I was in New York with my family. My father was there for a restaurateur's convention, and I met Martin at a hot dog stand on the street."
"I can't imagine Mr. Bennett eating a hot dog." Kerris's lips twitched at the image of Walsh's impeccably tailored, unyielding father eating from a street vendor.