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She offered him a small smile before placing the phone to her ear and wandering from the living area and into the kitchen, which was just as large and elegant. "Hey mom, I hope Lily hasn't been driving you crazy, she does that sometimes," Jennifer tried with a laugh.

"You know very well that I'm not calling because of Lily," Arabelle said. "When you told me you were sending Lily to bring me home from the hospital today, I thought it was because youfinally saw that I was right, or at least that you'd gone out to have some fun for yourself."

"You know I couldn't do that, mom."

"I saw that you signed the papers, and Dr. Carlton told me that my first treatment comes tomorrow. What did you do? How are you going to come up with all that money?"

Jennifer bit her lip. She was in a custom-built mansion that was designed and owned by the man who lived in it. Mark was amazing, and he seemed like a genuinely nice person. If she asked, she had the feeling he would help her—especially since they would be married any day now. But those were the same reasons she couldn't ask him.

"Lily isn't giving you trouble, is she?" Jennifer said.

"Jenny! Lily is the one who told me you were up to no good. Said your apartment was all emptied out, the people at your jobs told her you had left, and you're not answering your texts."

Right, Jennifer forgot that she gave Lily a key in case of emergencies. They'd only used it once before.

Jennifer sighed. There really wasn't any getting out of this. "Mom ... you need to follow the doctor's instructions perfectly. I have enough for the first four payments, which is more than enough time for me to sort out the details of my plan."

"But youdohave a plan?" Arabelle said. "One that's not going to end up with you working yourself to death?"

Tears pricked in Jennifer's eyes. Talking to her mom about life-saving medicine like it was optional always drove her crazy. In Jennifer's mind, there were no options. Her mom needed this treatment, and Jennifer needed to make it possible,becausesheneeded her mom, and she couldn't live in a world where she didn't try her hardest to make sure that happened.

"Yes, I have a plan."

Silence stretched between them, all but Jennifer's sniffles and the birds whistling in the trees just out of the nearby window. The song eased a bit of the tension in Jennifer's heart, but it wasn't enough to soothe her worries altogether. When it came to Mark, Jennifer didn'treallyhave a plan because she didn't know what was going to happen between them. Working three jobs wasn't going to cut it. Nor was trying to fund the treatment through donations.

So while Jennifer didn't know exactly how she was going to get the last $92,000 she needed to pay for her mom's treatment, coming to Marhan as a mail order bride still seemed like her best option.

But how was she going to explain that to her mom without her exploding?

The answer was she couldn't. Not yet, at least.

"You better start explaining, Jenny," Arabelle said, "because according to Lily, it looks like you moved out of your apartment."

"That's because I did." Jennifer bit her lip. She could just say that she was planning to move in with her mom permanently to save on the cost of rent and put that toward the medicine instead—which was true, to an extent—but Arabelle would see through the lie. "To get the money for your treatment, I had to get a bit creative, mom. I'm not in Portland right now, I'm in Pennsylvania."

"That's so far away ... hon, what are you up to?"

"What matters is that I'm hopeful I'll be able to find a way to cover the treatment. You'll just have to last a few days with Lily until I can find a nurse. Can you manage that?"

Arabelle laughed. "Yes, but as punishment, I will be sharing as many embarrassing stories as possible, starting with the time you were a little girl at the supermarket—"

"All right, all right, mom!" Jennifer laughed, "I'm glad you're still in good spirits. I have to go. We'll talk again soon, hopefully when I have more news."

They said their goodbyes, and Jennifer hung up. She leaned into the wall, not realizing until then just how much she'd been relying on it to keep her standing and steady. She felt like she could topple under her guilt ... she should have told her mom the whole truth, but she couldn't.

Even to herself, she sounded like a gold digger. But she didn't want to blindly take anyone's money. She didn't want to get marriedjustfor that reason alone, either. If she was going to marry Mark, it would be because she actually liked him. When the time was right, she would ask him to help her find a way to raise the funds. She wasn't going to ask for a gift. She wouldn't expect anything from him at all ...

But whenever she thought of Mark, the thought was swiftly followed by her imagining his strong arms around her, holding her close and telling her everything was going to be okay.

The survival rate of her mother's kind of lung cancer was only roughly 50%. They caught it before it spread from Arabelle's lungs, but it was still bad. She didn't like the odds of 50/50 that she'd never hear her mom's voice again.

So there were times where she thought it wasn't going to be okay.

But maybe, with Mark by her side, there was a chance that things would be okay. Just how he managed to make her feel that way ... well, she couldn't explain that yet.

For now, Jennifer wiped her eyes, gave herself another minute to calm her breathing, and then went back to join Mark in the other room.

Chapter 4 – Mark