“Then why haven’t you?”
He stared at the drawing, his lips forming the words he’d only recently come to acknowledge. “Procrastination, I guess. I figured there’d always be time.”
“And now?”
“I know better.” He cleared his throat of its sudden gruffness and gestured toward the line of framed pictures. “Looks to me like the dreamer who drew these hit a grand slam.”
Her silence made him turn just in time to see her open her eyes and force another smile to her lips. “Considering my sentimental friend uncovered a fifth, which I opted not to hang, I’ll settle for a home run.”
“Oh? What happened to that dream?”
She waved his question aside. “To borrow your words, Mr. Reynolds—I mean Mark—now I know better.”
Momentarily unsure of what to say, he shoved his hands into his pockets and reclaimed his spot against the wall opposite her desk. “Well, four out of five is nothing to sneeze at. Hell, when I was ten, all I thought about was being a firefighter and trying to kiss the redhead who sat behind me in math.”
“And how’d you do?”
“One for two.”
She laughed. “You’re a firefighter, then?”
“No. An accountant.”
“So the redhead inspired your academic path?”
“She inspired me to quit putting off until tomorrow.”
“Oh?” Emily’s eyebrows rose. “Does she need a job? We could use a spokesperson.”
“No. No, she doesn’t need a job.” With his good mood rapidly spiraling, Mark tipped his head forward and pushed himself from the wall. “I’d better get out of here. Lunch-making duties await.” He took two steps toward the door and stopped, a flash of color out of the corner of his eye hijacking his attention to the floor. “Oh … hey, you dropped something.”
Squatting down, he retrieved a tattered pamphlet from the carpet beside the trash can and turned it over in his hands, the headline, Multiple Sclerosis, catching him by surprise. “You know someone with MS?”
When she didn’t answer, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a business card. “I volunteer with an organization called Folks Helping Folks. We help people with disabilities by building wheelchair ramps, installing handrails in bathrooms, funding specially equipped automobiles, and that sort of thing. You know, whatever can make their day-to-day life a little easier.”
Placing the card on top of the pamphlet, he held them out to Emily. When she didn’t respond, he held them out farther. Again, she didn’t take them, her hands remaining on top of her desk as if glued to its surface. And in that instant he understood why she sat there and said nothing, why she looked at the pamphlet and business card as if they were poison capable of seeping through her skin and into her soul.
He understood because he’d been where she was. He’d loved someone who was sick, too. He knew the fear. He knew the sense of denial that came on the heels of such a bitter experience. And he knew the gut-wrenching pain that came with pulling back.
Leaning across her desk, he set the paperwork in front of her, his heart aching for this beautiful woman who’d allowed him to shed his well-worn cloak of regret and live in the moment for three glorious hours. “I understand where you’re at, Emily. I really do. But please, take this anyway. Pass it on to whoever it is you know that’s sick. By denying what’s going on, all you’re doing is hurting yourself and your loved one. Trust me on this.”
Then, without realizing what he was doing, he gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze, the warmth of her skin beneath his hand lingering in his thoughts long after Bucket List 101 had faded from his rearview mirror.
Chapter Two
Tossing her paddle to the shore, Emily maneuvered her way out of the kayak and tugged it onto the sand, the satisfying soreness in her upper arms a welcome relief. No matter how hard she’d tried to bury herself in work the rest of the day, the images spawned by Mark’s words had risen to the surface again and again, gnawing at her convictions like a beaver hell-bent on toppling a tree. She’d resisted, of course, but the doubts had claimed a foothold, reappearing throughout the remainder of her workday.
When she’d been teaching her introduction to rock climbing course, she tried to imagine dangling over the side of a cliff in a wheelchair.
When she’d taken a call inquiring about an upcoming white-water rafting trip, she envisioned herself piercing the raft with the end of a cane.
And when she’d locked up her office for the evening and actually considered the notion of wallowing in pity from the confines of her bed, she knew she had to do something. Fast.
Now, two hours later, she felt like herself again. Ready to conquer anything and everything that crossed her path.
Raising her arms in the air, she stretched, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at her lips as she spotted the pint-size towhead feverishly digging in the sand some thirty feet from where she stood. Curious, she closed the gap between them to take a closer look at what the child was doing.
“That’s a really nifty castle you’re building,” she said.
The little boy’s hand stilled long enough for him to look up and smile, the deep, penetrating blue of his eyes bringing a momentary hitch to her breath. “Thanks, lady.”
She forced her attention back to the castle. “I like all those turrets you built onto the corners.”
His cheeks lifted farther as he dropped his shovel in favor of directing Emily’s attention toward the tower on the back left corner of his creation. “See that one? That’s the princess’s room. She’s real nice. And this one here—” he shifted his finger to the right “—that’s where my room would be if I lived there, too.”
Dropping onto the sand beside the boy, Emily retrieved a stick from the ground and secured a nearby leaf to the top. When she was done, she spun it between her fingers while he eyed her across the top of his sand pail. “When I was little, I used to dream about living in a castle, too,” she told him. “Only instead of a princess, mine had a handsome prince who would sweep me off my feet every morning and carry me around the castle all day long.”
At the child’s giggle, she, too, cracked a smile. “That sounds funny,” he said.
“Now it does, but when I was young, I thought it sounded romantic.” Shaking her head free of the images that threatened to ruin the innocence of the moment, she poked her makeshift flag into the sand by her feet and scrunched up her face. “But don’t worry, I don’t intend to be carried around by anyone. Ever.”
The little boy rocked back on his heels, then jutted his chin in the direction of her stick creation. “That sure would look nice on my castle, don’t you think?”
She plucked it from the sand and handed it to him, the answering sparkle in his eyes warming her from head to toe. “But just because my dream was silly doesn’t mean you can’t share
