Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Surprisingly, Morrigan didn’t forget a single thing, and helped me get set up. Only when everything was ready did I go back and get us back into our spot thanks to the waves pushing us off of it.
When I came back, Morrigan already had her hook baited and the line heading down into the water.
I watched from the doorway, frozen in action, and wondered how I’d let this go.
Danyetta hated fishing. As in, the very last thing she ever wanted to do was get onto a boat and head offshore to fish.
Meanwhile, there Morrigan was, not only agreeing with me, but getting her own pole out into the water before I’d even had time to set her up.
The sun glinted off her hair, and I cursed before heading back inside the cabin to grab the hat that I’d told her about. The same one that she’d worn all those years ago.
Coming back out, I placed it on her head, and she turned to me with a huge-ass smile on her face.
It was one of those core memories that would become ingrained in my head, and would never be forgotten. The feeling in my chest tightened, and I touched the tip of her nose with my finger before asking, “Let me know if you need a chair, okay?”
She shot me a wink. “I can usually feel it coming on. If I feel it, I’ll have a seat right there.”
She pointed to the chair that was in the middle of the deck that we used for the big fish.
Grinning, I trusted her to let me know when it got to the point where she needed a break, and went to the other side of the boat just as she shrieked and started reeling in the fish.
I put my pole against the side of the boat, then grabbed the net to get the fish out of the water.
The shiny orange scales of a red snapper made me smile.
“Keeper,” I said as I pulled it out of the water, got him off the hook, then dropped him down into the ice.
Before I could get my own bait in the water, she had another one on the line. A kingfish.
Again, before I could cast my own line in the water, her eyes came to me.
That’s when I saw her start to blink, her eyes going far away for a few seconds.
She grimaced, then handed the pole to me and said, “I have one coming on.”
Before she could say or do anything, she started to sway.
With one arm going out to catch her before she could hit the ground, the other went to the side of the boat, and then to the fishing pole holder.
Once the pole was put in the holder, I twisted, placed her into a chair, then reeled her fish in.
This time, I grinned.
Because she’d caught yet another snapper. This one a white snapper.
Her eyes slowly opened, and she stared into my own, letting me know that she was okay.
“You really have the worst timing,” I teased as she started to come to.
She blinked, and a ghost of a smile formed on her lips.
A few years ago when she’d first started exhibiting the signs of POTS, I’d had absolutely no clue about anything related to the disease. But over the last few days, I’d had a lot of time on my hands, and I’d done a hell of a lot of research into how it would affect her.
What I’d found was kind of horrible. Not in a “it’s going to kill you” way but in a “this is really going to disrupt your life” kind of way. There was no surprise she hadn’t been able to go to medical school. If she couldn’t stand up for long periods of time without passing out, there was no way in hell she could make it through the grueling years of medical training, and the long-as-fuck shifts they would have to endure.
Not only couldn’t she stand for long periods of time, she couldn’t exercise without possibly overheating. She couldn’t go anywhere, or do anything, without first planning out what she would and wouldn’t do in case she passed out. Not to mention, sometimes passing out just happened with no warning. At times, she couldn’t even plan for the inevitable.
“I looked into POTS over the last couple of days,” I said conversationally. “I wish you’d have come back to tell me.”
She grimaced.
“I tried,” she rasped.
My head tilted. “You tried?”
She nodded, not saying anything, as she slowly started to take more and more of her weight back. “I did.”
“When?” I asked, feeling my heart rate start to skyrocket.
“Right before you…” she grimaced. “Got married. I came.”
My stomach sank.
“I…” I didn’t know what to say.
She lifted her hand and placed it on my chin, her fingers going through my beard for a few seconds before the strength to hold her hand up left her. “Let me watch you fish.”