Free For Better, for Worse, Forever by Lurlene McDaniel

wish this thing had a motor,” he grumbled. “Our boat has a motor. But my father won’t take our boat out of dry dock.”
    Brandon was talking to no one but thewind. Every time he looked down at the pale, motionless April, his heart lurched. She’d got sick so quickly. He’d been taken completely by surprise. His mother’s moods had been mercurial—one minute she was happy, the next depressed—but eventually depression had won her over to its dark ways. That was his only experience with sickness, and even though her sickness had been in her mind, it had affected her physically.
    He recalled days when she couldn’t pull herself out of bed. He recalled nights when she drank and walked the floors, crying inconsolably. He’d felt helpless. And he felt helpless now. April’s skin looked pale as paste, and she’d put a damp towel over her eyes. He didn’t want anything to happen to her. He loved her. Of course, he couldn’t tell her because he doubted she would believe him. And she loved the mysterious Mark. How did a guy compete with a dead person?
    Fortunately, a stiff breeze allowed Brandon to make good time, and as soon as he arrived at the Buccaneer, he tossed his friend Billy the lines and shouted that he’d be back later for the gear. He got April into his car and drove as fast as he dared to her house.
    He screeched into her driveway, leaped out, and ran to the front door. When her mother opened the door, he told her that April was sick.
    Janice’s eyes went wide, and the color left her face. “Help me get her into her room.”
    Again, Brandon carried her. Janice had thrown back the covers, and he laid April on the bed and stepped aside while her mother hovered over her. “Should you call a doctor?” Brandon asked. “You could call the one my mother—we use.” He corrected himself.
    “I’ll call her doctor back home,” Janice said, grabbing the phone.
    “All the way in New York? We have doctors here.”
    “It’s all right. He knows April.”
    “Whatever.” He surveyed the room, April’s room, filled with signs of April’s life. Perfume bottles on the dresser. Bathing suits, a whole collection, piled in a heap near the closet door. A framed photo on her bedside table of a grinning guy in an auto racing uniform.
Mark
. He knew it instinctively. A knot formed in his stomach, seeing the image of his dead rival. So this was the guy she’d planned to marry. Brandon had wonderedabout him, about why she’d fallen in love with someone with cystic fibrosis. Why would she consider devoting herself to caring for a sick person? What magic power had Mark held over her?
    Brandon heard April’s mother talking softly into the phone, using words he didn’t understand and phrases he couldn’t quite catch.
    She turned toward him. “Brandon, will you do me a favor? My husband is playing golf at the country club today. Would you go find him and tell him what’s happened?”
    “Sure.” Brandon was glad to have something to do. “She will be all right, won’t she? I mean, maybe you should take her to the emergency room. Maybe it’s more than eating bad fish. Maybe it’s food poisoning.”
    “Bad fish? Is that what she told you?”
    “Yes.”
    Janice nodded. “As soon as her father gets here, we’ll check it out.”
    “I’m on my way.” Brandon strode to the door.
    “Thank you,” April’s mother called. “Thank you for taking care of her.”
    He glanced back to see that her face wasstill pale but her expression was calm, almost serene. And incredibly sad. It startled him, but he didn’t have time to think about it. Brandon jumped into his car and drove like a madman toward the country club golf course.
    “Why didn’t you say something, April? Why didn’t you tell us what was going on?” The tremor in her father’s voice betrayed his attempt to be stern with her.
    “I didn’t say anything because I knew how you’d panic.” She felt fuzzy, still floating from the effects of the shot of