Page 8 of Honeybees and Sexy Tees
“I hope so,” he whispered, and I noticed through my haze of tears the ones in his eyes. I wrapped both arms around his waist in a comforting hug.
“I’m sorry. I had no idea. I didn’t mean to add to your problems. I’m so sorry,” I whispered again, holding him tighter when he wrapped his arms around my back, accepting the solace I offered.
“You don’t have to apologize, Honey. I should have told you instead of acting like an ass. I tried, but I couldn’t force the words out,” he said, burying his face in my neck. “I can’t think about losing my parents yet. I’ve done nothing with my life.”
I leaned back and held his face in my hands. “What are you talking about, Mathias? You’re an extremely successful businessman. You have more businesses and property, not to mention money, than even your father had at your age. If that’s not successful, I don’t know what is.”
He lowered my hands from his face and held them on his lap. “Maybe professionally I’m successful, but am I successful as a man? No. No, I don’t think I am. I’m thirty and single. I have nothing other than a condo in a building I don’t even like and a bunch of fancy cars I don’t have time to drive. Women are an afterthought to me, something I’ll get around to someday when the next deal is closed, but it never happens. I see Gulliver and Charity planning their wedding, and I ache for the same kind of relationship they have.” He stood from the driftwood and paced back and forth in the sand. “Mor said the word ‘cancer,’ and it was like my brain stopped for a moment and then reset itself. Logically I know she’s getting the best care and she’s going to be okay, but emotionally I haven’t gotten past the word ‘cancer’ yet.”
I stood and walked to him, wrapping my arms around him again and holding him the way I had hundreds of times in the last twenty years. “How is Theo taking it?” I asked, his hands tightening on my back at the question.
“You know Far. He’s stoic but supportive. He’s taking Mor to her appointments and helping with the decisions, but he hasn’t accepted it yet. I don’t know how to either. I know I have to, but I can’t digest it.”
I rubbed his back slowly and let the sun soak into us, offering its warmth and comfort. “It will happen with time, Mattie. As you see her through her treatments and she gets the all clear from the doctors, you’ll be able to digest it as a life lesson and not a life taker.”
“Is that how you dealt with your mom’s heart surgery?”
I slowly lowered my head back to his chest, the beating of his heart strong against my cheek. “You can’t compare the two, Mathias. You know my relationship with my parents. In that household, I’m the only adult, and that’s not saying much.”
He shook me gently and gave me a warning growl. “You know how I hate it when you say that.”
“My point is, I’m far more worried about Birgitte right now than I ever was about my mother. The only reason I ran to Superior to take care of her was to get out of a dangerous situation here. I’ve always considered Birgitte to be my mom. She’s been there for me, and now I’ll do the same for her. Whatever she needs, I’m there.”
He tugged my head back by my curls and forced me to hold his gaze. “She needs you to go to the doctor and get your head and hand checked out. Now she’s worried about her cancerandyour situation. If you want to help her, take one worry off her plate.”
I held up both hands and stepped back out of his arms. “I already told you that I would. I’ll call them tomorrow morning and set up a time. Birgitte will not drive me, though. Why would you even say she would if you knew she was sick?”
A smile tipped his lips, and I stomped my foot in the sand. “You were playing me again to get me to agree. Errrgh, you would think I’d learn!”
He wrapped his fingers around my upper arm and held me in place. “I wasn’t playing you.” I glared at him and he chuckled. “Okay, I was playing you, but she threatened to end my life if I didn’t get you to agree.”
A snort of laughter escaped my lips. “I can hear her saying those exact words. God, I love her so much,” I whispered. “I don’t want to lose her. I can’t lose her.”
Mathias pulled me back into him in a tender hug with his arms around my shoulders, and his cheek resting on my head. “We just keep telling ourselves she’s going to be fine by the Fourth of July, and she will be. We stay positive, and we don’t let her see us upset. Whether we’re upset at each other or about her illness, we don’t show it when we’re with her.”
“Is that the doctor’s advice or Mathias advice?” I asked, my words garbled by his shirtfront.
“Mathias advice, but I’m pretty sure the doctor would say the same thing. We can have our disagreements, but I think the one thing we can agree on is working together to make sure Mor is happy and comfortable, right?” He held my chin again until I agreed. “Good, now, about the other day.”
My shoulders deflated like a popped balloon, and I sank to the log again, staring out over the lake. After hearing the news about Birgitte, I didn’t want to have this discussion. Hell, I didn’t want to have this discussion, period, the end. I kicked my shoes off, stood, and strolled toward the shore of Lake Superior. The Lady of the Lake was a siren I could never ignore. She called to me. No. She sang to me. She offered me a quiet, cold, and peaceful solace I often wanted to accept but never did. I never did because this man would never allow me to give up. He’d hold me and tell me I’d been a fighter since day one and nothing, no matter how massive or how trivial, would get the best of me. Little did he know, he would be the one to get the best of me.
The water was cold on my toes when I waded into the surf, and the tips of my capris got damp from the spray, but I knew they’d dry in the sunshine as soon as I left the water. The rocks under my feet were bumpy and some were sharp, but I walked on, searching for agates on the sandy bottom. Lake Superior was famous for its agates, the rocks tumbling round and round for years in the cold, tumultuous waters. My mind was often the same way, tumbling and tumultuous.
Mathias joined me, walking in tandem through the water. He’d taken his shoes off, and his chinos were rolled to midcalf. He was beach chic, as they would say. It hurt a lot to know I would never spend another leisurely Sunday afternoon on the lake with my hand in his.
He hooked his arm through mine but didn’t pull me out of the water. “I’m sorry for what I said. You took me by surprise by not showing up to work, and when I saw the diploma . . .” He paused as though searching for the right words. “I was hurt.”
I didn’t say anything, just continued my trek down the shore, the water freezing my feet the longer we stood in it. It might be the beginning of June, but the ice hadn’t been off the big lake for long, which made the cold water almost too much to bear. Slowly, I walked back to the driftwood on the beach and warmed my feet in the hot sand. Mathias joined me and buried his toes next to mine while he waited for me to speak. I didn’t plan on doing that.
“Are you going to talk to me about this?” he asked, leaning over to draw pictures in the sand with his finger. We’d done that since we were kids living in Superior. Wherever there was sand, we would sit and draw in it. I drew a picture of the sun, a smiley face in the middle of it, even if I didn’t feel overly smiley today.
“I don’t know how, nor do I know that it matters, Mathias,” I whispered, my words all but stolen by the rhythm of the waves on the lake.
“You don’t know how to talk to me? We’ve been talking to each other for twenty years, honeybee.”
I shook my head at the way he used my nickname again. I was going to have to fight to keep from breaking down if he kept this up. “I don’t know how to talk to the person you’ve become,” I admitted. “You’re no longer the Mathias I used to know.”
“Good or bad?” he asked, his head cocked, but his finger had stilled in the sand.
