A Reborn Bride Pearl Emerging from Dust by Sally Garcia

"I didn't let you see because I knew... there's nothing you can do to help, not with this."

Hudson let out a crooked, sad smile. "I really don't have much time left. If I had even one more day, I'd ask you for help-of course I would. But there's nothing left to do..."

He tried to keep his voice steady, but it wavered. "I promised I'd be there for him, for the rest of our lives. But it looks like I'll be the first to go."

"Callie, please, after I'm gone, look out for him, will you? Help him through this. Try to talk to him. I can't be there for much longer."

"I've got, at most... maybe a year. Maybe not even that. The doctor says it's gotten much worse."

Hudson looked down, pressing his palm to his forehead. The pain was there, sure, but what hurt most was the ache in his chest.

He was still young. Lance was even younger. Lance needed him. What would Lance do without him?

"Cancer?" Callie's voice was soft as she looked at him. She'd already suspected. There were so many illnesses you could read in someone's face, in the way they moved.

But cancer... sometimes it hid itself well. And this looked like one of those cases.

when he looked up at her, but he managed a shaky smile.

in a sharp breath. She'd operated on cancer patients before. Once, she'd managed to help someone live out a full life, growing old

every case went that way-sometimes, it moved

fields, but even they couldn't work miracles. Research

Callie said, her

so much sadness. He'd been through hell to

was barely in his thirties, for God's sake.

ahead of them. If Hudson left

had grown up

the best food, all the things kids dream of. He acted like nothing really mattered,

complicated, maybe, but no one had ever tried to stop

everyone else including Lancet.

parents. They'd all accepted

honestly, he was impossible not to love. If Lance was with Hudson, he was happy-and that

illness was