“Tough kid,” Sailor said.
“Yes, she is.” Fierce pride. “Despite all the pain, all the needles, she was such a happy baby. She used to smile and giggle every time she saw me.”
ísa was smiling herself, Sailor could hear it.
“We’d cuddle for hours,” she added, “and when she had too many wires coming out of her to be moved, I’d sit there and play with her little fingers and toes, and she’d giggle at me in this contagious way that would set me off.”
As Sailor heard the ease with which ísa spoke about Catie’s hospital stay during infancy, he realized that period in their lives wasn’t the cause of her panic. “What aren’t you telling me, spitfire?”
He heard ísa swallow. “You’d think after all her problems as an infant, she’d have had more than her quota of bad luck. But two years ago, just after she turned eleven, Catie got bacterial meningitis.”
“Hell.” Sailor had seen television reports on the infection, was aware of the catastrophic damage it could cause. “How bad?”
“Bad, but not the worst,” ísa said. “My baby sister fought through with no brain damage, and the doctors managed to save most of her limbs.”
Most.
Sailor clenched his jaw, furious at fate on behalf of a thirteen-year-old girl he’d never met. “Which couldn’t they save?”
“Both her lower legs. She was a runner before, had dreams of going to the Olympics. Fastest girl in her school, already being considered for training squads. You’d never in a million years guess she’d had a heart issue as a baby.”
For an athletic child to become a double amputee… Fuck, for any child to wake up without limbs. “How did she handle it?”
“Better than I did.” ísa’s laugh was shaky. “After the first shock wore off, she said, ‘Can you do my homework while I grow some new legs, Issie? I don’t want to be that kid who says she didn’t hand in her homework because her legs got chopped off.’” A shake of ísa’s head. “That’s her father’s sense of humor.”
“And her sister’s grit.” Catie must have learned not to give up from someone, and from what Sailor had seen so far, he didn’t think it had been Jacqueline who’d taught her that resilience. Because to teach a child something, you had to be present and part of her life.
“She’s still set on heading to the Olympics,” ísa said with a smile.
“No growth issues?” Sailor asked. “Meningitis can effect bones in children, right?”
ísa nodded. “I was terrified about it, but Catie dodged that bullet.” She blew out a breath. “My sister was determined to get out of bed and learn to use prosthetics as fast as possible. And I’ll say one thing for Clive—he’s an unreliable flake most of the time, but he didn’t budge from her side at the hospital.”
“Your mother?”
“Jacqueline doesn’t deal well with sickness,” ísa said softly. “But by the time Catie left the hospital, Jacqueline had renovated Clive’s house so that it had everything Catie needed, including a gym where she could work on her rehabilitation—with the aid of a private physiotherapist. My mother can be a complicated woman.”
One who clearly relied on ísa to pick up her emotional slack, Sailor thought with a frown. And if ísa was the one who took care of giving Catie and Harlow the affection and love they needed to thrive, who the fuck had taken care of ísa when she’d been their age?
22
Oh Dear. Only One Spare Bedroom
íSA, UNAWARE OF HIS SILENT fury on behalf of the girl she’d once been, was still speaking. “Catie had everything down pat—you should’ve seen her go on those prosthetics.”
“Let me guess,” Sailor said, thinking about why an athletic girl comfortable with prosthetics would suddenly fall hard enough to end up in the hospital, “growth spurt?”
“Yep. I swear, she’s taller every time I turn around!” ísa threw up her hands. “But the constant changes are messing with her head. Each time Catie gets used to a prosthetic, it has to be adapted or changed out.”
“It’s tough for an athlete when their body doesn’t cooperate.” Sailor had grown up in a family of athletes, seen that frustration firsthand.
* * *
“EXACTLY.” íSA FELT A TENSION she hadn’t realized she was feeling, just fall away. Often, well-meaning people downplayed Catie’s dreams of being a champion runner, telling her it’d be better if she focused on creating an independent life for herself by studying for a position “she could handle.”
Quite aside from the fact that Catie was talented enough to create an independent life for herself with her running, the idea of anyone trying to limit her sister infuriated ísa. As if, unlike the rest of the world, Catie didn’t get to have big dreams to strive toward.
“It’s like containing the wind. You should see her in motion, Sailor.”
“Did she fall today because of an unfamiliar set of prosthetics, or did she just fall?”
ísa was startled by his perception until she realized this was a man whose brother was one of the top sportsmen in the country—he understood that, sometimes, performance didn’t have anything to do with the body. “I think she probably wasn’t paying attention because she was worrying about her father.”
She took a moment to think about it. “I’m going to have to strangle Clive. That’s all there is to it.”
“Is that why she’s not living with you? Because she worries about her father?”
“That, and she loves the moron.” ísa shoved a hand through her hair. “When I made noises about moving down to Hamilton, maybe getting a job in one of the local schools, Catie said a flat-out no. She thinks if I’m there, she’ll rely on me too much—and that I’d be too overprotective.”
An amused glance from Sailor. “You think?”
“Oh, shut up.” She pushed lightly at his arm, oddly comfortable with this man she’d only known for a short time—and far calmer than she’d been at the start of this drive. “She’s only thirteen, but she’s got this fierce need for independence.”
“Your sister sounds like a tough little cookie.” Sailor’s deep voice wrapping around her. “A chip off the old block.” His tone made it clear he wasn’t talking about Jacqueline.
The words felt like a hug.
* * *
SAILOR HAD PLANNED TO STAY outside the hospital room while ísa went in to see her sister, but the auburn-haired teenager in the bed within was having none of it.
“ísa,” she said, arching her neck to see more of Sailor, “who is that? Hey, mister!”
Unable to stop his smile, Sailor walked in. “Hey, yourself.”
“This is Sailor.” The tips of ísa’s ears turned pink. “My… friend.”