Can't Let Go by Jessica Lemmon Read Free Book Online

just when he would have worried himself sick about it, or worse, shown up on her doorstep and demanded to know where he stood, Shane had called and asked him out for a beer. In the middle of the week.
    He’d been so shocked that his billionaire cousin was taking a mid-week break, he’d said yes and rode out to meet him.
    He reasoned on the way over that throwing back a few beers while watching sports on television wasn’t the worst way to get his mind off the petite blonde knotting his gut like a soft pretzel. Sadie was dodging him, and yeah, he understood why. He’d seen Harmony and that scared Sadie down to her sexy hot-pink toenails. But not telling her seemed worse, and defending himself would make Sadie think he was protesting too much. So his plan was to play it cool. Which was working on the outside.
    On the inside, he was doing a piss-poor job.
    Just when he’d relegated himself to guy time and compartmentalized his worries—Shane would give him hell if he found out he was this into a woman so soon—Aiden got a phone call from his mother that stopped his world on a dime.
    “It’s just a checkup,” Kathy had reassured him while he idled at a stoplight across from the bar. He’d asked her to hang on as he pocketed the phone, maneuvered into the bar’s parking lot, and shut off the engine.
    His heart beating like a wooden spoon against a copper pot, he’d dug the phone out of his jacket pocket and asked the question he didn’t want the answer to. “Are your symptoms the same as before?” He waited for her response, gripping the phone so tightly his hand hurt.
    “We don’t know anything yet,” she’d said, ignoring his question.
    He let it go, and promised to meet her at the doctor’s office the next day. Before he hung up, her final request clenched his heart and squeezed the guilt into his stomach until it was a festering pool. “Bring Harmony,” she’d told him. “Just in case.”
    Just in case.
    Since a doctor’s appointment to find out whether his mother’s cancer was back wasn’t exactly the venue to drop the “Oh, by the way, I’ve been divorced for six months” bomb, Aiden had an unpleasant call to make. A phone call to Harmony. Admitting he needed her after all.
    Folding her into the fray was the last thing on the planet he wanted to do. But he knew the score, and told Shane as much when he’d ordered a beer and brooded about it right after. If his mother was sick again, Harmony would have to show up on occasion, or his mother would know something was up. Harmony had been there for Kathy’s last two bouts with chemo. Harmony had brought her healing herbal tea and driven her to appointments. Harmony had a lot of flaws, but she’d always been there for his mother.
    Aiden had called to tell her about the doctor’s appointment, and Harmony agreed to meet him at the doctor’s office.
    The appointment was two hours ago.
    Aiden was still reeling from the shockwave when he and Harmony returned to his parents’ house and joined the rest of his siblings and parents in the living room. The air was thick with sorrow, the way it felt immediately preceding a funeral.
    The news hadn’t been good. The cancer had spread to several organs and her lymph nodes. His mother was filled with it; dying of it. Again.
    Kathy and Mike sat side by side on the couch clutching hands as they addressed their children. Aiden became vaguely aware of Harmony’s hand on his back, of how wrong her touch felt, of how lost and incomplete he was without Sadie next to him.
    “Think of all you can do in three months,” Kathy said, a shaky smile on her pale face. “Three months is a long time.”
    Angel choked back a sob. Aiden’s brother, Evan put an arm around his sister and pulled her close.
    Aiden’s father, Mike, stroked Angel’s hair. “There, now. Come on you guys.” His voice wavered, fighting tears with every ounce of strength he possessed. Mike flinched, the scar on his face puckering. “This is the