The You I Never Knew by Susan Wiggs

suggestion in his voice both sexy and familiar.
    “Me too.” Out the window she could see Cody puffing away on a cigarette. Dear God. Her kid was smoking, and she had no idea how to stop him. She wanted to tell Brad everything—that her father still had the power to make her cry. That Cody was doing his best to drive her crazy. That she had met Sam McPhee again.
    That she couldn’t think of anything but Sam—oh, shit. She’d have to tell Brad. How was she going to tell him?
    “I’ll call you later, Brad.”
    “Yeah. Take care, babe.”
    She gathered up her coat and purse, pausing to glance into the mirror over the hall tree. What, exactly, did one wear to meet a transplant team? They sounded so important, so intimidating. Would they think her red wool blazer was too boldly colored? Should she have gone with the black angora instead?
    She shoved aside the ridiculous questions. She was nervous about the appointment. She was nervous about being with her father again. She was nervous about Sam. Clothes should be the least of her concerns.
    She stepped into boots and went out to find Cody. He tossed his cigarette butt into the snowy yard.
    Fixing a glare on him, she groped in her purse for car keys. “You know, you really should take up bungee-jumping from live power lines. It’s a lot less risky than smoking.”
    “Very funny.” He got in the car.
    She didn’t want to launch into yet another big lecture about smoking, not this morning. She had to be focused on her father.
    When she’d first found out about his illness and bullied Gavin into the transplant, she started some of the tests in Seattle. Once she’d qualified as a donor, she had donated some of her own blood for the surgery ahead of time, and it had been shipped from Seattle and stored. She had more blood and X rays taken, did a lung capacity test, and did the twenty-four-hour urine collection study, a delightful routine she hoped she didn’t have to repeat.
    She felt as if she had been holding her breath for twelve weeks, and she was about to let it all out soon.
    At today’s appointment, the team wanted to go over more details, schedule a renal angiogram, and make sure she was mentally prepared for this.
    She was not doing so hot on that count.
    “So,” she said, flexing her hands on the steering wheel. “What did you think of Mr. McPhee?”
    “He said to call him Sam. And the other guy said to call him Edward.”
    “So what do you think of Sam?” She tried to keep her voice light, casual.
    “He’s okay.”
    “Just okay?”
    “You want me to think he’s great for making me work in the freezing cold like a farmhand?”
    “Ranch hand.”
    “Whatever.”
    “I think, given the circumstances, you’re lucky to get off with a few days’ work. So you like him?”
    “Did I say that, Mom? And why do I have to like anyone around here? We’re leaving as soon as you finish this thing with your—with Gavin.”
    “I’m not leaving him until the critical period is over.” She shuddered inwardly, horrified by the possibility that the surgery wouldn’t work, that her kidney would be rejected. “It wouldn’t hurt to make a few friends.”
    Trying to push that worry aside, she watched the scenery. The morning sun on the majestic landscape brought out the harsh poetry of the high country. The sight of blanketed fields and soaring mountains filled her with a strange yet familiar yearning. The truth was, she needed the mountains, the air, the clarity of light found only in Montana in order to paint. And maybe she needed to be the person she had been all those years ago, too. A person who dared to love, dared to dream.
    But she knew of no way to recapture that young, naive self. The disappointment ate at her, a quiet dull pain, the surrendering of hope. Sometimes she believed her gift was only slumbering or maybe frozen inside, waiting. When she was pregnant with Cody, she had enrolled in a small liberal arts college, and for one glorious semester