"Don't even try to say you're fine."
The fact that she didn't argue with him said more than anything else.
She still wasn't talking. What was wrong?
"I came all the way down here to be with you," he said. "I can out-stubborn you for however long I need to. You don't have to give me details. What do you need? Do you want me to call your sister?"
"No! No, I..." Another breath shuddered through her. "I'm not ready to talk to Iris yet."
So there was something going on. He clamped down on the rogue emotions that shot through him.
"It's probably nothing. Something came up on one of the scans. The blood work won't come back for a few days. The doctor said she'll know more then."
Her voice went shaky at the end, as if she was near tears.
And he did the only thing he could do. He used his leverage on her elbow to bring her closer and folded her into his arms. She hung onto his waist, which is how he knew she was more upset than she was trying to let on. If she hadn't been so shaken, she would've pushed him away.
Probably nothingwasn'tnothing. After his mom had mentioned the C-word, Noah had been concerned. But he'd never considered the fact that the cancer might come back.
Having her in his arms again fired up all of the nerve endings that had gone haywire the other night. But all of them were doused by her potential bad news.
"What are you gonna tell your sister?" he murmured into her hair.
"Nothing for now." She pulled away, and he let her go.
She remained close, a nervous motion of her hands jangling a set of keys.
"You need to tell somebody. You can't carry this on your own."
"It might be nothing. Iris lost Mama too. The last thing I want to do right now is remind her of everything we went through when we were teenagers. She's been through it with me once. And this could be a false alarm."
He'd forgotten that their mother had died of cancer. Or maybe he'd been so self-centered back in high school that he hadn't really noticed when their mom had passed. At school, no one had really talked about it.
He could understand why Jilly wanted to keep this to herself for now. She was concerned for her sister and didn't want Iris worried over nothing.
But that meant that Jilly was going to bear the brunt of worrying on her own. Who was she going to talk to? Who was going to check on her?
