The Merciless Travis Wilde

Chapter ELEVEN



IN THE END, finding Jennie’s doctor didn’t help.

Peter Kipling didn’t know where she’d gone, either.

“I wouldn’t break patient confidentiality if I actually knew,” he said, “but I’d at least tell you she was safe.”

But she wasn’t safe.

His Jennie was desperate and alone, probably in excruciating pain, with a death sentence hanging over her.

Hours later, an exhausted Travis finally stumbled into the bar where he was supposed to have paid a pleasant visit to his brothers.

They saw him come through the door, signaled him to their booth...and turned grim-faced when they got a closer look at him. His face was gray, his hair was standing up in little tufts.

He looked like he’d aged a dozen years.

“What’s happened?” Jake said sharply.

Travis looked at them.

“Are you sick?”

“No. I’m not sick. It’s my Jennie who’s sick.”

His brothers exchanged looks. His Jennie?

“She’s missing.” Travis sank into the booth. “I’ve been looking for her for hours but I can’t find her.”

Caleb and Jake exchanged another look.

A lover’s quarrel? Something more serious?

“Listen,” Jake said slowly, “if she doesn’t want to see you—”

“She’s gone, Jacob. She’s vanished.”

“What do you mean, vanished?”

“Vanished,” Travis said wearily. He put his elbows on the table, rubbed his hand over his eyes. “I can’t find her anywhere.”

Caleb’s jaw tightened. “I have contacts,” he said. “The police. Some private guys I’d trust with my—”

“You don’t understand.”

“No,” Jake said gently, “we don’t. How about explaining?”

Travis grabbed the beer bottle that stood in front of Jake. He took a long, thirsty swallow. Then he put it down, looked from the concerned face of one brother to the equally concerned face of the other, and did exactly that.

It took ten long minutes.

When he’d finished, his brothers were silent. It was the kind of silence that means nobody can think of anything useful to say.

Finally, Caleb cleared his throat.

“Telling you we’re sorry won’t cut it.”

Jake nodded in agreement. “What we need is to do something that will help you. And your girl.”

“Jennie,” Travis said. “Her name is Jennie.”

“Jennie. Of course.” Caleb rubbed his forehead. “I need her full name. Her cell phone number. Her address. The department she’s in at the university.”

Travis shook his head.

“I told you,” he said, his voice hoarse with exhaustion, “she’s turned off her phone. She isn’t at her apartment. I checked her office on campus. She’s gone.”

“I understand,” Caleb said carefully. “Still, give me the info. Everything you know about her. Places she likes. People she knows. Where she’s from.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Travis gave a sharp, sad laugh. “It’s something to do, anyway.”

Caleb took a small notebook and a pen from his pocket, shoved them both toward Travis.

“I want the name of her doctor. His phone numbers. And Ben’s number. I haven’t spoken to him in years.”

Travis nodded as he jotted down the things Caleb had requested.

“Trav?”

Travis looked at Jake.

“When I was hospitalized in D.C., you know, after I was wounded...I got to know some of the other patients. One was this Special Forces guy. He had a—he had a brain tumor.”

“Jennie’s is inoperable. The tests—”

“Yeah. So was his.” Jake paused. “But there was this neurosurgeon...His family brought him in as a consultant. The next week, they moved the Special Forces dude out of Walter Reed. I don’t know where they took him, but a couple of months later, there he was, stopping by for a visit, and he looked like a new man.”

“Jake. What’s this have to do with—”

“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. I have the guy’s number. Why don’t I give him a call?”

“Holden says the neurologist treating Jennie is the best in Dallas.”

“I’m going to give my friend a call anyway, okay?”

Travis nodded. “Sure,” he said, but his eyes were dull with discouragement.

Another silence. Then Caleb slapped the table top and rose to his feet.

“Okay. Let’s get started.”

Jake rose, too. So did Travis. He looked from one of his brothers to the other.

“I feel so useless...” His voice broke. “There must be something I can do.”

“There is,” Jake said briskly. “Go home. Eat something. Get some sleep. You need to stay strong, for Jennie. And stay put, just in case she comes looking for you.”

“Hell. You’re right. I never thought of...” He took a long breath, then exhaled it. “Call me. Both of you. Even if it’s only to tell me you haven’t come up with anything, okay? Just—just keep in touch.”

The brothers embraced.

“Don’t give up hope,” Caleb said softly.

“Caleb’s right,” Jake said. “This is a long way from over.”

“Yeah,” Travis said, but they all knew he was lying.

* * *

It took Caleb less than two hours to find Jennie through his network of contacts.

He phoned Jake with the news as he drove to Travis’s condo.

“She’s on a flight to Boston, where she’ll change planes for Manchester, New Hampshire.”

“Excellent,” Jake replied. “That’ll put her within spitting distance of Boston Memorial.”

“What’s Boston Memorial?”

“A major hospital—and the place where that Special Forces guy tells me the world’s most prominent neurosurgeon is running a hush-hush experimental program.”

“Why do those words scare the crap out of me? Hush-hush. Experimental.” Caleb, who was driving far too fast, swerved around a truck. “Even that phrase, ‘the world’s most prominent neurosurgeon...’ According to who?”

“According to whom,” Jake said, automatically correcting his brother’s grammar which was, Caleb know, a really good sign that Jake was feeling upbeat, even hopeful. “According to my guy, and I believe him.”

“Okay. But if it’s so secretive, if it’s experimental, how do we get Jennie into the program? There’s no time to waste, Jacob. We all know that.”

“She’s already in,” Jake said. “My guy called the Boston neurosurgeon, faxed him her medical file. He phoned me.” Jake gave a little laugh. “Turns out, there are times it pays to be a wounded warrior with a shiny medal.”

Caleb nodded, as if Jake could see him. He knew how his brother hated to talk about what had happened to him during the war, how he shunned all publicity about the medal he’d won. That he’d shared such a thing with a stranger, used it for leverage, was filled with meaning.

“Good job, man,” he said softly.

Jake cleared his throat. “Hey, it’s for Travis, right? And there are no guarantees.”

“You mean,” Caleb said, “anything could happen.”

“I mean,” Jake said bluntly, “that first the surgeon has to check Jennie out and agree to do the operation. And even then—”

“Right.” Caleb hesitated. “Travis will have to know that.”

“He’ll know it. And he’ll go for it. Hell, man, it’s all we’ve got.”

“Sure. But will she?”

“Good question,” Jake said. “Only one way to find out.”

“I’m on my way to Travis’s place right now,” Caleb said.

“Me, too. Meet you there in ten.”

“In five.”

Jake made a sound that approximated a laugh.

Maybe, just maybe, things were looking up.

* * *

They arrived at Travis’s condo less than a minute apart.

They’d told him to shower. Eat. Rest. The only certainty was that he’d showered: his hair was still wet, and he’d changed his clothes.

Aside from that, he looked like a man who’d been pacing the floor and slowly going crazy.

The way he greeted them confirmed it.

“I cannot go on doing this,” he said. “Just standing around here, my thumb up my—”

“Calm down.”

“Calm down?” He spun toward Jake, eyes blazing. “The woman I love is out there alone, a—a monster consuming her brain, and the best you can do is tell me to—”

“I have one of the Wilde jets standing by.”

Travis blinked. He looked at Caleb.

“You found her? How? Where? Is she okay? Did she ask for me?”

“One question at a time, Trav. I pulled some strings. Called in some favors. She’s okay, she’s on a plane heading for Boston, and she couldn’t ask for you because she doesn’t know we found her.”

“Boston,” Travis said. “She’s going home. To New England.” His face twisted. “Doesn’t she know I’d want to be with her?”

Jake and Caleb glanced at each other in unspoken agreement that there was no sense in trying to answer that question.

Obviously Travis knew it, too.

“Okay,” he said, “let’s go after her. She’s from New Hampshire. How will she get there? Has she rented a car?”

“She’s changing planes in Boston. Actually she has two changes—”

“Which gives us time to get to Boston before she does.”

Jake and Caleb looked at each other.

Travis’s voice was stronger. He was taking command. It gave them hope he’d come through this, no matter how it ended.

“I love her,” he said, his voice filled with certainty. “I won’t let her face this alone.”

“Yeah.” Caleb laid his hand on Travis’s shoulder. “There’s something else.”

“What?”

Jake cleared his throat.

“It’s a long story,” he said, “but it turns out there’s an experimental program. A surgery to treat—what the hell do you call these things? Inoperable meningiomas.”

“An oxymoron,” Travis said angrily. “If the thing is inoperable, there can’t be a surgery for it.”

“I’m not a doctor, okay? Maybe I’m saying it wrong but the guy I knew at Walter Reed...I told you, it’s a long story. The bottom line is that there’s a surgeon—a team—doing this stuff.”

The hope that suddenly glowed in Travis’s eyes made both his brothers want to take him in their arms.

They didn’t.

They knew Travis had to stay focused. And strong.

“First, they’d have to agree Jennie qualifies for the operation. And then,” Jake said with brutal frankness, “it doesn’t always work. Some patients die during the procedure. Some never come out of the anesthesia and end up on life support. Some survive but they’re—they’re damaged.”

Travis gave a bitter laugh. “That’s your good news?”

“What I said was, it doesn’t always work. But when it does...” Jake drew a breath. “When it does, those patients resume normal lives.”

“Oh, God,” Travis whispered. “Oh God, Jennie...”

“Don’t get your hopes too high,” Caleb said bluntly. “This is one huge risk. Jennie will have to understand that.”

“You don’t know her. My Jennie never met a risk she wouldn’t take.” He glanced at his watch. “Why are we still standing here? We’re wasting time.”

Jake and Caleb nodded. They could hear the courage, the energy in their brother’s voice.

“Go on,” Jake said. “Pack while we get things going. Then we’ll get the hell out of here.”

Travis nodded, headed for his bedroom.

Jake and Caleb would buy what they needed in Boston.

Both men phoned their wives, offered quick explanations of what was going down.

“Tell Travis I love him,” Jake’s wife said.

“Tell Travis we’re all with him,” Caleb’s wife said.

Two minutes later, the Wildes were on their way to the airport.

* * *

They reached Boston an hour before Jennie’s plane was due, and stood at the gate, waiting.

Travis had never imagined time could move so slowly.

Whenever he looked at his watch, the hands were in the same place on the dial.

After the fifth or sixth time, he figured it was broken—except, Jake’s watch read the same as his.

Jake said, “How about coffee?”

Caleb said, “How about a sandwich?”

Travis shook his head. All he wanted, all he needed, was to see Jennie.

They waited. And waited.

At last, a plane taxied to the gate. A disembodied voice announced the arrival of the flight Jennie had taken.

The ramp door opened.

The first of the disembarking passengers appeared. Most of them hurried into the terminal.

After that, nothing.

Travis’s heart was racing.

Where was she? Was Caleb’s information wrong?

His breath caught.

There she was.

Walking slowly, her face white, her eyes huge. He could almost feel the pain throbbing in her head.

He wanted to run to her, sweep her into his arms...

She saw him.

And froze.

He had not let himself think about this. About how she would react on seeing him. She had left him, after all.

“Jennie,” he said, and opened his arms.

She sobbed his name, and flew into them.

He held her to his heart. Rocked her in his embrace. She lifted her face to his and he kissed her, kissed her again and again.

She was weeping. He was, too.

Behind them, Jacob and Caleb looked at each other, then turned away.

Their eyes were damp.

It was turning into one hell of a day.

* * *

Jake had taken a suite at a hotel in Boston.

Caleb had arranged for a limo.

They drove to the hotel in silence after a brief conversation, Travis saying, “Honey, these are my brothers, Jacob and Caleb,” Jennie saying, “Hi,” Jake and Caleb saying Hi in return.

Then she’d looked at Travis and asked him why his brothers were with him, how had he found her and where were they going?

Travis had considered everything he had to tell her.

Yes, but not here.

Instead, he’d drawn her closer to him—he hadn’t let go of her since she’d gone into his arms—kissed her temple and said, “Will you trust me, sweetheart?”

Jennie knew there was only one possible answer, and she’d given it.

“Yes,” she’d whispered, because what else could she tell the man she had already trusted with her heart?

* * *

The suite was spacious. A sitting room. Three bedrooms. Three bathrooms.

Caleb and Jake vanished into two of the bedrooms.

Travis led Jennie into the third.

She was wobbling. Her eyes glittered. He knew it was with pain.

He sat her down on the edge of the bed. Knelt and slipped off her shoes.

“Do you want to sleep for a while, honey?” he said softly.

She shook her head, winced when she did.

“No. I want you to tell me what’s going on. Your brothers are with you. Why? And why are all of you behaving like you have a big secret?”

He sat down next to her and clasped her hand.

“I refuse to let you die,” he said in a low, fierce voice.

“Travis. I know you want to deny the truth. For a long time so did I. But—”

He silenced her with a tender kiss.

“Listen to me, just for a minute. Will do you that?”

Jennie sighed. “Okay,” she whispered, “but—”

“I tried to find you,” he said. “When I couldn’t, I turned to my brothers for help. Caleb located you.” He smiled. “Sometimes, it’s useful to have a former spy in the family. Jake—Jake did other things.”

Her eyes searched his. “What other things?”

“Remember, I told you he’d been wounded in Afghanistan. Badly wounded. He was hospitalized at Walter Reed, and while he was there, he met somebody, another soldier who—who had a tumor. Inoperable, like yours. At least, they said it was inoperable.”

Jennie tore her hand from his and got to her feet.

“No,” she said. “No more! I’ve tried a dozen cures. Nothing worked.” Her voice broke. “I can’t do it again, Travis. Believing there’s—there’s some kind of—of medical miracle, only to find out that—that...”

Travis rose and stood before her.

“Jake’s friend was accepted into an experimental program, right here at Boston Memorial.”

Jennie turned away and clapped her hands over her ears.

“I’m not listening!”

“Honey. Please. Hear me out.”

“I’ve done it all. Tests. Shots. Drugs and more drugs. I’ve seen a thousand doctors. All of it led to one thing.” She swung toward him, her mouth trembling. “I’m dying, Travis. It’s why I did all those—those crazy things. Why I wanted to experience as much of life as I could. I knew, sooner or later, I’d have to accept what was coming.”

“Jennie—”

“And I did. I accepted it. Until I fell in love with you.”

She’d said the only words he’d ever wanted to hear.

“Leaving you was the hardest thing I ever did.” Her eyes searched his for understanding. “I love you so much—”

“Then why did you run away from me?”

“Because I love you! Because I didn’t want you to be there to see—to see what’s going to happen to me. Because I didn’t want you to look back years from now and—and remember me broken and lost and drained of life—”

Travis pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

“What gives you the right to make those decisions for me?” he said gruffly. “I love you, dammit! I adore you. I want to be with you whatever happens.”

“Even to see me die?”

“Even that,” he said, his voice breaking. “But you won’t. I’m trying to tell you about this surgery—”

“No.”

“Jennie. Don’t say ‘no’ until you hear me out.”

“How about you hearing me out?” She stood straight within his embrace, her eyes locked to his. “I’ve done everything they told me to do, everything they said would work. Nothing did. Nothing will. And—and I can’t go through it again. The hope. The desperate, awful hope and then the letdown.” She took a breath. “It’s over. I’m dying and there’s no way to stop it—unless you believe in miracles and I have to tell you, I don’t.”

Travis framed her face with his hands.

“What I believe in,” he said, “is you. Your strength. Your courage. Your determination. Add in some damned good science, a surgeon who’s found a way to save lives. Would you walk away from that?”

“It’s useless, don’t you see? Useless!”

“I thought you were the girl who believed in taking risks.”

Tears were flowing down Jennie’s face.

“You’re not fighting fair.”

“No. I’m not. Why would I, when it comes to wanting you with me forever?”

“You’re merciless,” she said, but her eyes, her voice, said otherwise.

Travis forced a smile.

“That’s me. The merciless Travis Wilde. A man who won’t give up his woman without a fight.” He stroked his hand down her back. “I’ll be there. With you. I’ll be at your side the whole time. My love, my heart, all that I am will be with you.”

Jennie bit her lip.

“Suppose—suppose I said yes. Do you know the odds of me coming through something experimental?”

“When we meet the surgeon, he’ll tell us.”

“And—and if I didn’t come through, if I didn’t survive, I wouldn’t know the difference. But you would. I know you, Travis. You’d eat yourself alive for having had even the smallest part in this.”

“I’ll eat myself alive if I just let you leave me.” His eyes darkened. “Fight for your life, honey. I’ll fight for it with you. The doctors will do their part. We’ll do ours. Just don’t give up. I need you to be the girl who loves roller coasters, because that’s the girl you really are.”

Jennie didn’t answer. He wondered if she’d really heard him, if she understood how much he adored her.

At long last, she laid her head against his shoulder.

“All right,” she said quietly. “I’ll meet with the surgeon.”

Travis started to speak. She put her hand over his lips.

“I’ll talk with him, but I can’t promise more than that.”

“Okay. That’s good. It’s fine. We’ll talk to him.”

“We?”

“Yes. Because we’re one unit, honey. I’m you. You’re me. Unless, of course, you don’t want me to—”

She kissed him.

“Take me to bed,” she said softly.

“Honey. You’re so pale. And I know your head hurts.”

“Take me to bed,” she said. “Just hold me.” Her voice trembled. “I need to feel your body warm and hard against mine.”

He took her to bed. And held her.

And when she turned toward him, kissed him, stroked him to life, he made tender love to her.

She fell asleep.

Then he rose, dressed, went quietly into the sitting room where his brothers were waiting.

“Make the appointment,” he said. “To meet with the doctor.”

Jake smiled. “Already done. Tomorrow morning at

8:00 a.m.” He went to Travis and held out his hand. “She’s one hell of a woman,” he said, and Travis, not trusting himself to speak, nodded as he shook Jake’s hand, then Caleb’s.

They were right.

His Jennie was one hell of a woman.

* * *

And if he needed proof, which he surely didn’t, he got it the next morning when he and Jennie met with the surgeon.

She answered dozens of questions clearly and calmly.

Underwent endless tests, some of which looked like they’d been dreamed up by aliens.

At noon, the surgeon met with them again.

“Okay,” he said briskly, “as far as we’re concerned, it’s a go.”

Travis squeezed Jennie’s hand.

“The odds on my making it through the operation?” she said.

“Fifty-fifty.”

Travis winced but Jennie nodded.

“Thank you for being honest.”

“No sense in anything else, Ms. Cooper. It’s important you know as much of the truth as I know.”

“And what about coming through but—but being a vegetable? What are the odds on that?”

“Honey,” Travis said.

Jennie shushed him.

“I need to know,” she said, “because I think I’m even more afraid of that than I am of dying. Doctor? What odds will you give me?”

“Better ones. Better, in your favor.” The doctor smiled; then his smile faded. “But it’s always a possibility.”

Silence.

Jennie’s face revealed nothing.

Travis, who had pushed her to get this far, hated himself for it. A fifty-fifty chance she would die. A slightly lower chance she’d survive with severe brain damage.

“No,” he heard himself say. “No, honey, you can’t—”

Jennie reached for his hand.

“When’s the soonest we can do this?” she said. “Because now that I’ve decided to do it, I really don’t want to sit around and wait.”

“Actually,” the doctor said gently, “we can’t afford to wait. How does tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m. sound, Jennie?”

Travis felt like a man standing at the edge of an abyss.

“Wait. We need to—to talk. Do some research—”

Jennie looked at him. “I want to do this,” she said calmly. “And I need you to be strong for me.”

She was right. They both had to be strong. And, suddenly, he knew exactly how they would get that strength.

“Marry me,” he said.

Jennie’s smile trembled. “If I can, when this is over—”

“Not then. Marry me now. Tonight.”

“No. No! What if—”

“I love you,” Travis said. “I’ll always love you.” He took her in his arms. “When you go into that operating room tomorrow, you’re going in there as my wife.”

Jennie cried. She laughed. She kissed the man she loved.

“Do I get a say in this, Mr. Wilde?”

“No. You don’t.” His eyes took on a suspicious glitter. “Get on the roller coaster, honey,” he whispered. “Take this ride with me.”

She kissed him.

And she said, “Yes.”