Rose lifted her hand to him. She wasn’t sure if it was because he was scaring the hell out of her, or if it was the usual shakes she’d been having, but her hand shook more than usual now.

Dr. Michaels frowned. “Symptoms like this and what you described as tingling of your feet and fingers don’t even show up until it’s so bad that Vitamin-B12 supplements aren’t going to be enough. And the dizziness worried me because that could only mean you’re real low on red blood cells. Seeing these results only confirmed it. How long did you say you’ve been feeling like this?”

“A few months.” The doctor frowned, shaking his head then went back to consult her lab results again. Rose tried to be strong. She wouldn’t cry, not about this, too. She’d done enough crying in the past few months to last her a lifetime. She only wished now she’d taken Ben up on his offer to come with her. “So what does this mean? Can…can it be fixed?”

For the first time since he’d walked in, his expression eased up a bit. “We’ll have to be aggressive. I don’t like these numbers at all.”

After giving her a shot of B12, he explained the condition was too far gone for B12 supplements. She needed bi-weekly injections. “You can come in twice weekly.” She didn’t have time to do that. Neither did she think she could pull it off without Grace getting suspicious, and she’d already decided she wasn’t telling her. “Or I can prescribe the injections, but you’ll have to make sure you do it twice a week. It’s not that difficult.”

“I’ll do that,” she said quickly then shrugged. “There’s a YouTube video for everything. I’ll look one up.”

The doctor eyed her then began writing out the prescription. “I want you back here in a month. I need to see if twice a week is enough. But I want you to understand the seriousness of this, young lady. You can’t miss even one injection.” She nodded wide-eyed, hoping that would assure him she understood. “It’s my hope that after a month, we can bring the dose down, not up, but I’ll be honest with you. You’ll need to get used to this. You’ll probably need the injections for good. We can’t allow these numbers to get this low again. The consequences can be very adverse. The only reason I’m not more worried is because you’re so young.”

Rose made another trip to the lab. The doctor said he was almost one hundred percent certain what she had was pernicious anemia, but he wanted to rule a few other things out, so he had them do more blood work.

As she sat there unable to even look at the blood being drawn, she thought about the doctor’s last words of advice. “And don’t stress. That only makes things worse.”

Great.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Vince

It could’ve been a few hours, or maybe even a few days that he’d been lying there, still next to Will’s already cold body. Vince had lost track of time. He hadn’t realized until all the dust had settled that his leg had been cut pretty badly by the flying debris from the bombs. The pain in his leg throbbed, and though he was sure he could walk, even if it was a few steps at a time after crawling back to Will’s side, he’d lost all resolve to do so.

Either they’d come back and find him alive right there next to his good friend, his only friend, or Vince would share Will’s fate and die right there with him. Why should Vince have a second chance if Will hadn’t been given one?

Feeling the bitter tears begin once again, Vince lay down squeezing his eyes shut. Life sucked so badly. Vince felt drained. He was completely spent from all the worrying and torment he’d gone through this past year, wondering if he’d ever get Rose back.

He thought coming to Iraq had been his way of leaving the past behind him for good: finally accepting that things were so f**ked up that there was no way of fixing things. Rose was with someone else now. She’d moved on.

“She f**king moved on!” He spit out the words, slamming his fist into the sand and ignoring the pain. How could she have moved on? How was she not still feeling the very thing that tore his insides up? How could he have been so wrong thinking that she felt for him what he felt for her? A love that held no limits—no amount of time, no distance could ever sever it.

Foolishly he’d begun to believe that being this far from her would help him get over her, but he’d been unequivocally wrong in every sense of the word. He lay there, almost wishing he’d be killed rather than go back, knowing she wasn’t his anymore.

As usual his beat-up and dehydrated body gave into exhaustion, and he let it, falling into a deep sleep like he had been doing ever since he crawled back next to Will.

~*~

“You make me happier than I’ve ever been in my life.” Rose’s beautiful eyes stared into his. “Do you know that feeling in your stomach? That craziness you feel like the day you first held my hand?” Vince nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. “Then again when you first kissed me?”

“And every kiss after that,” he whispered staring deep in her beautiful eyes. The feeling, the one she’d just described overwhelmed his insides. Along with it an emotion he’d only ever felt when he was with her—when he kissed her. It was one of the most beautiful and most intense emotions he’d ever experienced in his life.

She squeezed his hand, her eyes suddenly frightened. “Don’t let go, Vincent.”

He shook his head, rapidly feeling her fear inundate him. “I won’t.” But the fear was still there, and he hated it. He hated her being frightened. “I won’t ever. I promise, Rose.”