With the vows completed, the minister said, “You may kiss your bride.”
Jon-Paul knelt in front of the chair, took Emma’s hands in his and kissed her softly through both masks, on the backs of both hands and on her cheeks. “I love you,” he said.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the minister when Jon-Paul stood. “May I present Jon-Paul and Emma Franklin.”
Emma waved to her wedding party and then to the camera. Raina heard clapping and cheering coming from all the way down the hall. Janie and Heather bent and kissed Emma’s forehead, and so did Raina. She caught the heavy chemical odor of the medications and felt a stab in her heart. “Not the best perfume, is it?” Emma whispered. “I was afraid to wear any perfume because I’m real sensitive to smells, and wouldn’t it be gross if I threw up on this beautiful dress?”
“Gross,” Raina said.
Raina stepped aside so that others could come up and congratulate the couple. She watched Vicki especially, saw that her eyes were filled with tears. She heard her mother say, “Thank you for letting me be a part of this.”
“You gave me life. How could I have not invited you?”
Dr. Wingate called, “Everybody out. There’s a party waiting. Let’s let the bride and groom be alone for a while.” And like a shepherd, he ushered the wedding party out of the room and down the hall while music swelled and nurses tossed handfuls of confetti on them.
“I cried like a baby,” Kathleen said over the top of her cola can.
“It was the most beautiful wedding ever,” Holly said, sniffing hard. “I want one just like it. Except not with the hospital, IV and wheelchair.”
“You’re so picky,” Kathleen teased.
Raina drew patterns across the frosting on her piece of wedding cake with the tines of her fork. She wasn’t hungry for the sugary concoction. She felt melancholy. What a way to begin a marriage—facing a bone marrow transplant.
“When’s your big day?” Kathleen asked.
“Monday. Dr. Wingate says it won’t take too long for the radiation treatments to destroy Emma’s marrow. I’ll do a couple of days of testing, and when Emma’s ready, Dr. Wingate will extract the marrow. While I’m in Recovery, they’ll begin infusing her.”
“And then?”
“And then I have to go home and we wait to see if it works.”
“How long?”
“About a month if there are no setbacks. If there aren’t any, she’ll transfer to an outpatient care facility where they’ll look after her until she can leave. I was told it could take a hundred days before she can actually go home.”
“Long time!” Holly said.
“Can we talk about something else?” Raina asked. She set the uneaten cake aside and turned to Kathleen. “How’s it going with you and Carson?”
Color crept up Kathleen’s neck. “I did something … brave. For me, that is. I—um, sent him a big bunch of flowers with a note saying, ‘Miss you.’ ”
Raina grinned. “Way to go, Kathleen! What happened?”
“I don’t know. We left to come here the day they were supposed to be delivered.”
“I’ll bet he’ll be waiting on your doorstep when you return,” Holly said.
“How about you? Anything new?”
Holly shrugged. “Same old, same old.” In truth, she’d received two more e-mails from Shy Boy, and she’d answered the last one. “Who are you? Can we meet?” But she’d left town too, so she didn’t know if he had answered. For all she knew, it was a hoax, someone’s idea of a sick joke.
Just then, there was a commotion at the door and they looked up to see a hospital security guard in the doorway. “What’s up?” Dr. Wingate asked as the guests grew quiet.
“I have a kid out here who claims he’s one of the wedding party. He’s real insistent. I brought him up just in case he’s telling the truth.”
The guard moved aside and Hunter came forward, looking rumpled and in need of a shave.
Raina cried out, jumped up, knocked over her chair, ran and threw herself into his arms. He locked his arms around her, buried his face in her hair. She began to weep, her whole body shaking with emotion. “You’re here! Oh, Hunter … you’re here!”
“I guess he was telling the truth,” the guard mumbled.
“Seems so,” Dr. Wingate said.
Hunter kissed Raina’s mouth, her eyes, her throat, and she returned his kisses, like a starving person suddenly thrust before a banquet table. She was oblivious to everything except the feel and taste of him, her love, her wonderful love. And even when Holly and Evelyn came over and hugged them both, neither let go. They just held on tight while the people in the room burst into spontaneous wild applause and camera flashes went off all around them.
twenty-one
THE PARTY was over, and the guests were gone. Raina and Hunter sat alone in the waiting room on a vinyl couch, the remains of the celebration all around them. The lights were low, the music silenced, the door closed for privacy. “How did you know how much I wanted you here?” Raina asked. “Did you read my mind?”
“Because I knew how much I wanted to be here. When Holly told me she and Mom were coming, I knew I had to come too. I finished a paper, told three professors I’d be missing their classes for a few days, borrowed my roommate’s car and started driving east. I drove all night.”
“How long can you stay?”
“Until you’re through your surgery and I know you’re all right.”
She nestled against him. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to meet Emma. I’ve told her about you, though.”
“I’ll meet her when she’s well.”
“Hunter, I’m scared for her. What if my bone marrow doesn’t work?”
He smoothed her hair, kissed her forehead. “She’s in God’s hands.”
“He’d better hold on to her,” Raina said fiercely.
“It’s his specialty.”
His faith buoyed her spirits. It usually did. “I’ve missed you so much.” Her voice cracked.
He squeezed her more tightly. “Not as much as I’ve missed you.”
“You’ve missed me?” She sat up and looked him in the face. “You sounded so busy with college, I wasn’t sure.”
“Why do you think I stayed so busy?” That made her smile. “I’ll be home as soon as the term’s over in May. I’ll have to work, but we’ll have the whole summer together.”
The thought warmed her heart. “Listen … I want you to know how sorry I am about Tony and all. How sorry I am that—”
He placed his fingers across her mouth. “Shhh. That’s ancient history. I’m the one who’s sorry that I made such a big deal about it.”
“But you wanted me … expected me …”
“Raina, what happens to a person’s body isn’t nearly as important as what happens to their heart. The good thing you’re doing with the transplant and all, that’s what’s important right now.”
“But she’s my sister.”
“You didn’t know that when you first agreed to do it. You wanted to help her when she was a stranger. You offered your help because that’s who you are. And it’s just one of the reasons why I love you.”
“Still?”
He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes, making her wonder if she would sizzle and melt. He said, “Still and forever.”
A sneak peek at Holly’s Story, the next book in the Angels in Pink series
Excerpt from Angels in Pink: Holly’s Story copyright © 2005 by Lurlene McDaniel
Published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House
Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
one
“IS THERE ANYTHING more fab than summer vacation?” Raina St. James’s question sounded more like a declaration. “No classes, no homework, nothing to look forward to except weeks and weeks of sunshine.”
Raina and her friends were spending the day at Carson Kiefer’s house, lounging by the pool, un
der a clear blue sunny sky. Burgers sizzled inside the mammoth grill on the patio, and the aroma mingled with the scents of sunscreen and chlorine.
“I heard the school board wants to have year-round classes,” Holly Harrison said. She was sitting on a towel at the side of the pool painting her toenails a flamboyant shade of hot pink.
“Forget it,” Carson said. “We need a break.” He took a running leap off the diving board and cut like a knife through the water. He swam the length of the pool underwater, coming up beside Kathleen McKensie’s float.
She opened one eye. “If you splash me, I’ll shoot you.”
“Crabby.”
“I’ve just covered myself with sunscreen and I don’t want it washed off.” She lifted her sunglasses to look at him treading water next to her. His brown eyes danced and droplets of water clung to his buttery tanned shoulders. “If I didn’t burn to a crisp without it, I wouldn’t mind,” she said. “But que sera, sera.” She resettled the dark glasses on her nose and rested her head again on the cushioned pillow of the float.
He tossed his head and slung beads of water over her body. “Did I get you wet?”
She ignored him.
“Want me to lick the water off?”
Instantly, her face flushed bright red. “Go away.”
He laughed. “Maybe you’d taste like coconut.”
“Pervert.” She wasn’t even mildly annoyed. It felt so good to be back with him, to be a part of his life again, she would have tolerated any amount of his teasing. The weeks she’d spent apart from him the past winter after she’d hung up on him over a spat about Stephanie Marlow had seemed like an eternity.
“I’m, like, so disrespected,” he announced. He put his elbows on the float, leaned over her and ran his cool, wet tongue across her mouth.
Shivers shot up her spine. “Scram!” she hissed.
He laughed, arched backward like a dolphin and dove under the water.
Raina watched, amused, from the circle of Hunter’s arms. They were sitting on a lounge chair together, Raina in front, and Hunter was smoothing lotion on her back. The stroke of his fingers was lulling her into drowsiness. He bent forward and nibbled on her earlobe. “He’s right about the coconut taste,” he whispered.
“I’ll buy you an Almond Joy,” she mumbled.
“You taste better.”
“I’m flattered.” Waves of contentment washed over Raina, mimicking the water lapping against the colorful tiled sides of the pool. Hunter would be home for the entire summer and she’d be with him every minute possible, between his job at the fast-food restaurant and her volunteer work with the Pink Angels program at Tampa’s Parker-Sloan Hospital. Every minute.
“What do you hear from Emma?” Hunter asked, leaning back in the chair and pulling Raina against him.
“I talked to Jon-Paul last night. Emma’s finally home. She was asleep when I called.” Raina closed her eyes, conjuring up the faces of her sister and her husband, a sister she had never known existed until February.
“But she’s doing all right?”
“She is now.” It had been touch and go as Emma’s doctors fought to stave off infections that threatened her new bone marrow, but after a hundred and ten days, she had been sent home to complete her recovery and begin her married life, cancer free.
“And you?” Hunter touched her hip in the area where bone marrow had been extracted to save Emma’s life.
“You asked me the same thing yesterday. The answer’s the same today. I’m fine. Just a small scar.”
“Can I see?” He nuzzled her neck.
“I’m shocked you would ask. I mean with all these people looking on.”
He laughed. One thing she could trust about Hunter was that he wouldn’t look even if she stripped on the spot. “I’m not a prude.”
“Yes you are.” She twisted around and kissed him lightly. “That’s what makes it work between us. I keep trying to jump your bones and you keep pushing me away.”
“This will change when we get married.”
Her heart did its usual stutter step. They talked about sex and marriage, but truthfully, huge hurdles lay in front of them. For starters, Hunter wanted to be a minister and had taken early admission to a small Christian college in Indiana the previous winter. She wasn’t sure she even believed in God. Only Holly, Hunter’s sister, realized the depth of their dilemma. Raina was worried about their having a future when they were such polar opposites in this area. Yet whenever she was with him, all she thought about was how much she loved him and about being with him forever.
“What if I get a better offer?” she asked playfully.
“Then I’ll just have to take the guy out.”
“That sounds pretty hostile—for a minister.”
“Think of Samson. Hey, I’m tough. I’m the guy who got into a fistfight over you, remember?”
How could she forget? Tony Stoddard’s bad mouth had almost destroyed her relationship with Hunter. “Don’t joke about that, Hunter,” she said quietly. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to joke about it.”
His arms tightened around her. “I was the idiot, not you.”
She knew he wanted to make it up to her for the way he’d treated her after Tony’s “revelation,” but he didn’t need to. She loved him and wanted to be with him forever—yet the hurdles remained.
Carson hoisted himself out of the pool. “I’d better turn the burgers.” He padded over to the grill, raised the lid and stared down. “Um—I think they’re burned.”
Holly went over and confirmed his suspicion. “Hopelessly burned.”
“Dad’s never burn.”
“He stands over them full-time,” Kathleen called. She had straddled the float and paddled to the shallow end of the water, where she used the steps to exit the pool. She walked over to the grill.
The three of them stared in dismay at the charred remains of their lunch.
“Too bad. I’m starved,” Kathleen said.
Carson turned off the grill. “So how does everybody feel about pizza?” The agreement was unanimous, so he picked up his cell phone and hit a single button.
Incredulous, Kathleen asked, “You have the pizza parlor on speed dial?”
Carson grinned. “A guy’s got to eat.” He slipped his arm around her.
Holly hung back, feeling as left out as she always did. She’d turned sixteen in May and now had her driver’s license, not that it did her a whole lot of good. Her parents only allowed her to drive Hunter’s beat-up car solo and only if and when he wasn’t using it, which wasn’t often. Her emancipation wouldn’t go into full effect until he returned to college in September—if then. But it wasn’t the car issue that bothered her the most. It was the lack of a boyfriend, a guy of her own, a boy who took her out on dates or came with her when she hung out with Raina and Hunter, Kathleen and Carson.
In mid-May, the e-mails from Shy Boy had stopped as suddenly and mysteriously as they had begun. Her e-mails to him bounced back to her mailbox, so she was no closer to knowing who he was than when he’d first contacted her in February. She’d printed out all their communications and kept them in a notebook stuffed between her mattress and box spring, because, of course, her parents knew nothing about Shy Boy. They would never have approved, so she’d printed and then deleted the messages as soon as they’d arrived. She’d read them so many times that she could quote them.
HOLLY: Are you some 35-year-old pervert, pretending to be sixteen?
SHY BOY: I’m seventeen, and not a pervert … well, I’m not most of the time.
HOLLY: Why don’t you want to meet me face to face?
SHY BOY: I know what your face looks like. It’s the face of an angel.
HOLLY: But I don’t know what YOU look like!
SHY BOY: My mother thinks I’m handsome.
HOLLY: I should believe her because …?
SHY BOY: Because mothers don’t lie. And because it’s what’s inside a person that counts, not what’s on the outsi
de.
HOLLY: So … are you saying that you have a face only a mother can love?
SHY BOY: My face is decent. Honest. And I only have eyes for YOU.
Then the e-mails had stopped. She felt irritated and impatient with him. And she felt sorry for herself. She finally had a boy interested in her, and he was like a phantom. She couldn’t see him or touch him. Raina had said, “Savor the moments. If he got hold of you once, he’ll do it again.”
And Kathleen had said, “Remember how long it took me to get it together with Carson. Be patient.”
Easy for them to say. They had their guys locked in their arms and their hearts. The only bright spot in Holly’s life this summer was the Pink Angels program. Volunteering at the hospital was what got her out of bed these bright summer mornings. That and the remote possibility that one day soon, she’d turn on her computer and Shy Boy would have sent her another e-mail, this time setting up a time and place for them to meet.
About the Author
Lurlene McDaniel began writing inspirational novels about teenagers facing life-altering situations when her son was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. “I want kids to know that while people don’t get to choose what life gives to them, they do get to choose how they respond.”
Her many novels, which have received acclaim from readers, teachers, parents, and reviewers, are hard-hitting and realistic but also leave readers with inspiration and hope.
Lurlene McDaniel lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Lurlene McDaniel, Raina's Story
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