Читать книгу P.s. Love You Madly - Bethany Campbell - Страница 10

“YOU HAVE TO PHONE MOTHER,” Emerald said. “Right now. This has gone too far. Rose Alice nearly hit that man with a golf club.”

Darcy turned to a mirror and tried to smooth her tumbled hair. Her heart still knocked unaccountably hard against her ribs, and the mirror showed her that her face was pale, but her cheeks bright pink.

“Da-ar-cee,” Emerald said with something close to a whine. “I mean it. You’ve got to call Mama.”

“Give me a minute,” said Darcy, fastening her silver barrette. She took a deep breath to calm herself.

The studio was quiet again. Rose Alice, still in high dudgeon, had stalked back to the house, obviously feeling un-appreciated. The ambulance had left; the police cars were gone.

Sloan English’s BMW still stood in the driveway, and Darcy supposed someone would be sent for it. It was the only sign the man had been there—except for his business card. It lay on the bookcase between a vase of fantastic silk flowers and a sock monkey.

The card was nothing, she told herself—a scrap of paper with fancy engraving, a boring corporate ID signifying nothing. Wrong, said something deep and unexpected within her. It signifies him. Why does that make my heart rattle like a trapped thing shaking the bars of a cage?

She shook her head to clear it, but his image wouldn’t go away.

Emerald sat in the armchair watching her closely. “You certainly fussed over him,” she accused. “Was it because he’s handsome?”

Darcy turned from the mirror with an innocent air. “Handsome? Was he? I didn’t notice.”

“Ha,” sneered Emerald, polishing the studs on her gloves. “He’s handsome and you noticed. But you’d better remember—he’s the enemy.”

“He’s not ‘the enemy.’ Don’t be melodramatic.”

“I don’t have to,” Emerald said with a superior look. “He was melodramatic enough for everybody. He roars up to the door like a fire-breathing dragon. He rants. He raves. And then he falls over.”

“He wasn’t himself,” Darcy said defensively. “He was ill. I don’t think he knew how sick he was. His fever affected his judgment.”

“It was kind of cool how he keeled over that way,” Emerald said, pulling on her leather glove and admiring it. “Like he had the plague or something. I wonder if that’s how they did it during the Black Death.”

“Oh, really,” said Darcy, turning from her in irritation.

She picked the bookworm up from the floor. She set him on the worktable and adjusted his antennae.

“Anyway, you have to call Mother,” nagged Emerald. “That man’s in the hospital—somebody’s got to tell his family. She’s the only one who knows anybody, so you’ve got to. Unless you want his people to just get a cold, soulless call from the police.”

“I thought you considered them the enemy,” countered Darcy. “Why all this tender concern?”

“Well—” Emerald shrugged “—I have taken a vow of chivalry and courtesy and all that. Besides, it sounds like some of them might be on our side.”

Our side. Their side. Darcy fought not to flinch. She didn’t want her mother hurt by a frivolous and possibly dangerous romance, but neither did she want battle lines drawn.

Nor did she relish being the bearer of bad news. When she called her mother, she would deliver bad news not once, but three times over.

First, she and Emerald had learned of Olivia’s headlong affair, something Olivia had obviously wished kept secret, at least for now. Second, BanditKing’s family was also upset about the romance, sufficiently so to send Sloan English. And third, Sloan had been carried off to the hospital—and who knew how sick he was?

“Of course,” said Emerald, “I could ask Rose Alice to call. She wouldn’t be scared. She doesn’t mince words.”

Darcy wheeled to face her sister. “I’m not scared. It’s just that this is—a delicate matter. I have to think how to do it.”

“Just spit it out the way you usually do,” Emerald said. “You’ve always been mother’s daughter in that.”

“All right, fine,” Darcy grumbled, hooking her thumbs in the back pockets of her jeans. “I’ll call. But I want some privacy. Go take a walk by the lake or something.”

“She’s my mother, too,” Emerald said, her chin high. “I have a right to stay and listen.”

Darcy drilled her with a look that would have made Attila the Hun obey. “Out,” she ordered.

With a resentful expression, Emerald went.

Darcy watched her leave. Then she gritted her teeth in uneasy anticipation and reached for the receiver.

OLIVIA FERRAR was a tall woman, slender and straight-backed, with her hair swept back in a chignon. Her face was still lovely, though not unmarked by time. Laugh lines crinkled the corners of her blue eyes and bracketed her mouth.

The mouth itself was usually set at an amused angle, and the eyes had a cool, irreverent twinkle. She was dressed in a cream-colored caftan that emphasized her graceful carriage, and the diamonds in her ears and on her fingers were tastefully understated.

Her condo overlooked a craggy strip of dark shore and a foaming sea. Spread on its rented sofa were wallpaper samples, fabric swatches and paint chips.

The smell of fresh paint hung heavily in the air. The old carpeting had just been, as her decorator said, “terminated with extreme hostility.” Olivia felt as if she were living in a five-room war zone.

But she had created a fragile island of peace in the front bedroom. She headed for it now, leaving the disordered living room. She was unusually pensive this afternoon, wondering how long she had before she heard from her daughters.

For she would hear from them. Of this there was no doubt.

They had been fine when dealing with a mother who had forsworn men. She doubted they’d be nearly so accepting now that she was having a passionate affair. Emerald, especially, would not.

For weeks now Olivia had come into the refuge of the bedroom with pleasure and excitement. It was where she usually communicated with her darling John.

She’d put a simple TV table next to the windows overlooking the harbor. On the table she’d set up the new computer, as if she were placing it on a shrine.

She did not, of course, think of the computer as a god. But it was as if she had miraculously been given a servant with magical powers—a benevolent troll, for instance. It existed to do her bidding, and at any time of the day or night, it fetched and sent love letters with breathtaking speed.

But today for the first time, the troll had whipped off its friendly mask and shown its ugly side. Its benevolence vanished in a twinkling—and it gave Olivia a frightening glimpse of its infinite capacity for mischief.

Olivia stared at the shiny little box squatting so proudly on her table. “Trickster,” she muttered. “Electronic toad. Traitor.”

She sighed and turned away, knowing the computer hadn’t betrayed her secret to her family. The fault was hers. Yet how was a woman to know that a machine so small would have so many confusing features? And that a simple tap of the keys could accidentally send one’s most private thoughts zipping around the stratosphere?

What made her feel worst was her fear of how the wayward e-mail message would upset her daughters. She loved her girls deeply and worried about them more than they knew. The last thing she wished to do was to worry them in return—especially Emerald.

Emerald had always needed the safety of her family, and until recently she’d needed it too much. The only friends she had were those in the Medieval Society, and the only time she seemed comfortable was playing a role. A senior at the University of Texas, she’d been offered dozens of scholarships, some quite wonderful. But Olivia knew Emerald would probably reject the best; the thought of going very far from Austin filled the girl with anxiety. For all her flamboyance, she was secretly shy.

Darcy, in contrast, was independent to a fault. She was talented, she was successful—but she seemed not to care a bit for money. She waved away fat contracts and sweetheart deals, determined to follow her own, often peculiar, interests.

Darcy was self-sufficient in other, more disturbing ways, as well. Men were interested in her, but she was seldom interested in return, at least not deeply or for long. She claimed she would never encumber herself with a husband. Lately Olivia had been beset by a nagging wish for grandchildren, but she was beginning to fear she would never have them. Perhaps both her daughters were too unconventional for marriage.

The phone rang, and she knew who it would be. Not John, who would be at work at this time of day. No. It would be her offspring, demanding to know if she’d lost her marbles.

The phone rang again, and Olivia squared her shoulders. She did not like confrontation, but after twenty years with Gus, she certainly didn’t fear it. She sighed, ran her hand over the perfect smoothness of her hair, and picked up the receiver.

“Mother, it’s me,” said Darcy.

Olivia was relieved to hear Darcy’s voice. Darcy certainly had her eccentricities, but she was a rock of stability compared to Emerald.

“Darling,” Olivia said with admirable calm, “I’ve been expecting to hear from you.”

“You have?” Darcy’s tone was cautious.

“Yes,” said Olivia. She looked out the window and watched the gray sea froth against the dark shore. “Did Emerald ask you to call?”

“Well, yes, actually, she did.” Darcy paused. “Do you know what this is about?”

Olivia drew in a calming breath. “I accidentally sent her a copy of a letter meant for someone else. The blasted keyboard has too many keys. I keep hitting things I don’t mean to hit. I suppose she went and read it.”

“Yes,” said Darcy. “She did.”

“And I suppose she came running with it to you.”

“Yes. She did.”

“And I suppose you read it.”

“Yes. I did.”

Olivia believed the best defense was a good offense. “In my day,” she said loftily, “we wouldn’t dream of reading another person’s letters. It would be considered the vilest form of snooping. The mail was sacred. Privacy was respected.”

“E-mail isn’t real mail, Mother. No law protects it. It’s about as private as a billboard. You shouldn’t say anything in it you wouldn’t want the world to know. I could take that letter and copy it a hundred times and tape it to every telephone pole in town.”

Olivia frowned. “That’s shocking violation of rights,” she said. “I will write my congressman.”

“You do that,” Darcy said. “It won’t change a thing. In the meantime, Emerald’s concerned over your involvement with this—this BanditKing person. I’m a bit concerned myself.”

“Do I intrude on your love life?” Olivia challenged. “No, I do not. Not since you were fourteen and came home with that dreadful hoodlum with the green hair and the nose ring.”

“He grew up to be an accountant,” Darcy said. “He belongs to the Conservative Voters League and the Rotary Club.”

“Obviously not your type, either way,” said Olivia. “Not that I’m a meddler. And I’ll thank you not to meddle, either.”

Ha—take that, Olivia thought. Darcy loved her freedom too much to be comfortable interfering with someone else’s.

“I don’t want to meddle,” Darcy said, and to her credit, she sounded as if she meant it. “But Emerald’s worried. She says you have to be extremely careful about getting involved with someone on the Internet. She knows her way around it better than you and me put together.”

“Emerald sat in her room talking to boys who pretended they were wizards and Vikings. She only knows about the fantastic, not the real.”

“Isn’t this romance moving awfully fast?”

“Fiddle-dee-dee,” Olivia said with blitheness she did not really feel. “I am an adult and, if I do say so myself, a woman of some sophistication and experience. I can handle my own business, thank you very much.”

Olivia bit her lower lip and waited for Darcy’s reply. In truth, she was herself amazed by how quickly she had fallen in love with John English. She felt she knew him better and more deeply than she had ever known another human being. And, miraculously, he felt the same about her.

Olivia had spent her adult life hiding her emotions behind an aloofly flippant attitude. But somehow John English saw through the facade to the vulnerability she had never let another person glimpse.

“Mother,” Darcy said carefully, “this is so unlike you.”

“No, it’s just unlike my marriages. No man’s ever treated me this way before,” Olivia said, and it was the truth. “He’s kind and affectionate and understanding. I can talk to him about anything, and he’s always interested. I truly did not know the male of the species could be so sensitive and caring. It’s a new experience.”

“But you haven’t really—” Darcy sounded uncomfortable “—you don’t really know each other that well.”

Olivia smiled and thought, You’ve got no idea, darling.

The letters between Olivia and John had opened into intimacy with amazing swiftness. It was as if, cut loose from earthly bonds, the letters let them explore each other’s mind and soul in supernatural detail. Such mingling of thoughts and emotion quickly led them to question if sex could have the same, almost perfect, intensity. It did.

“Mother,” Darcy said in the same uneasy tone, “this isn’t easy to ask. But this man—”

“John,” corrected Olivia. “He’s not ‘this man.’ John English. Of Key West, Florida.”

“Fine. Whatever. John English,” said Darcy. “Do you have any idea how his family feels about this?”

This question came as an unpleasant surprise to Olivia. She realized that although her closeness to John seemed absolute, he had been hesitant about discussing the exact nature of his recent trouble with his family.

“His kin have been good enough to spare me their opinions,” Olivia said.

“Unfortunately, they haven’t spared me,” Darcy said. “John English’s son came here to talk.”

Olivia was stunned, horrified. “He came there?”

“Yes,” said Darcy. “To the guest house. Emerald was here—she’d just gotten your letter. Then he showed up. Sloan English.”

Olivia felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. “Oh,” she said. “Yes. Well. Sloan. We’ve never met. But—I’m surprised. He just got back to the States. I thought he’d been sick.”

“He is sick,” said Darcy. “He passed out in the foyer. An ambulance had to come and take him away. He’s in the hospital.”

“The hospital! My God,” said Olivia. “Is he going to be all right?”

“I have no idea,” answered Darcy. “But you’d better tell your Mr. English. We had quite a scene here.”

“A scene?” Olivia asked, feeling suddenly queasy.

“Rose Alice wanted to hit him with a golf club. She couldn’t find the bullets for the guns.”

Olivia put her hand to her forehead.

“And Emerald was in full knight rig, ready to run him through—but nobody stabbed him, nobody shot him.”

“Dear heaven. He’ll think we’re all insane.”

“Mother, he wasn’t quite in his right mind himself. He had a fever of a hundred and four. He wasn’t in any condition to be checking out his father’s love life.”

“Oh, damn, oh, dear,” Olivia said, flummoxed. “It doesn’t sound like what I’ve heard about him at all—just the opposite. Well, he shouldn’t have done it. It’s an invasion of your privacy, and it’s a threat to his health. He’s been a very sick man. I’ll have to tell John. What a shock. Which hospital?”

Darcy told her. “What exactly is wrong with this man, Mother? He said he had a fever he caught abroad, but—”

“Malay fever,” Olivia said. “There’s no cure for it but rest. He was supposed to be convalescing. Oh, John will be so upset. Do make sure Sloan’s as comfortable as possible. Please. He’s our guest—in a way.”

“Me? Make him comfortable?” Darcy was obviously appalled. “He’s not our guest. He wasn’t invited. He just—just descended on us. Now I know he wasn’t himself, so it may not be completely his fault, but—”

“No buts about it,” Olivia said. “He’s the son of my very dear friend. There is absolutely no sense in you younger people having this Montague-Capulet mentality about our relationship.”

“Mother,” Darcy said with suspicion in her voice, “if you’re comparing John English and yourself to Romeo and Juliet—”

“True love can happen quite fast,” Olivia said with authority. “I used to think it was a myth. It’s not. You may find out yourself someday.”

“I might point out that Romeo and Juliet were kids and got in a lot of trouble by rushing into things. Utter disaster, in fact.”

“Only because their families wouldn’t act civilized,” Olivia retorted.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Darcy begged. “You’re turning everything around.”

“I’m in love with John,” Olivia said. “I hope to remain in love with him for the rest of my life. And I hope all of our children can learn to coexist like mature adults.”

“And I’m sure we all hope that our parents will act like mature adults,” Darcy said with unpleasant sharpness.

“A member of John’s family is ill in Austin,” Olivia said loftily. “My family lives in Austin. A member can look in on him and see to his well being. It is, Darcy, nothing more than simple courtesy.”

“Mother, it’s anything but simple.”

“It’s plain old-fashioned good manners,” Olivia returned. “And it is not, I think, too much to ask. Goodbye now, darling. I need to call John immediately. Love to you and Emerald, too.”

“Mother—”

“Kisses for you both,” she said, and hung up.

Olivia stared out at the ocean, the white surf breaking on the rocky coast. She rebuked herself for her cowardice. But she had meant to reveal things to the girls at her own pace, little by little. Darcy was strong, but Emerald was a different matter. Olivia feared springing things on Emerald.

So Olivia had said nothing about the brand-new engagement ring on her left hand. And she did not yet intend to.

She picked up the phone and dialed John’s number. “Oh, sweetheart,” she said apologetically. “I hate to call you at work. But this really is an emergency…”

SLOAN FELT LIKE A JACKASS.

He’d been wheeled into the emergency room with as much melodrama as if he’d been spurting blood from a dozen gunshot wounds. He’d been poked, prodded, squeezed, palpated, stripped, sponged and medicated.

Now he was trapped in a hospital room with a small, withered nun with cold hands. She had a thermometer in his mouth and was feeling the glands in his throat with her icy fingers. Her touch gave him an attack of the chills so severe that he feared he would bite the thermometer in two and die of mercury poisoning.

The phone beside his bed rang, but when he reached for it, she slapped his hand back. She picked up the receiver herself. “This is Mr. English’s room,” she said in a voice so brisk it crackled. “Sister Mary Frances Foley speaking. Mr. English can’t talk right now.”

“Yes, I can,” said Sloan around the thermometer.

The little woman glared at him. “No, you can’t,” she snapped. She addressed the caller again. “May I take a message?”

She listened, then covered the receiver and stared at him through her wire-framed bifocals. She had pale eyes that seemed to look directly into his brain and see all the sins he had ever committed and all that he would commit. “It’s a woman,” she said disapprovingly. “A Darcy Parker.”

Sloan felt his face flush, his shudder of cold replaced by a surge of heat. He didn’t know if it was due to his fever or to the mention of the Parker woman. If the woman caused it, he didn’t know exactly why.

Was it shame over how foolishly he had gone to her door, his judgment warped by fever? He supposed it was. Yet the memory of her dark eyes and slender curves stirred a warmth in him that he suspected had nothing to do with Kuala Lumpur and its mosquitoes.

“Miss Parker has a question, but—” The nun paused dramatically, then held up her hand like a traffic cop. “I do not want you to speak. I will give you a notebook. On it, you will write down your answer. Answer clearly, write neatly, and don’t ramble.”

Sloan gave her a stare that told her he was not pleased with her high-handedness. She gave him one that told him she did not care.

She withdrew a notebook from the folds of her black gown and set it down smartly on his bedside tray. It had a black pencil attached.

She said, “Miss Parker says your car is at her house. You left it open with the keys in it. She wants to know if you need anything from it. Or if you want the car taken somewhere.”

Sloan scowled and wrote There’s an overnight bag in the trunk. Tell her to put it in a cab. I’ll pay for it. I’ll send someone for the car later.

He paused and thought again of raven hair and a quirking, voluptuous mouth. He gripped the pen more tightly and added Thank her for her kindness.

The nun related his message, then listened again. “No, he’s doing well,” she said. “He’s having his temperature taken, that’s all. And he needs his rest. Goodbye.”

She hung up, glanced at her watch and took the thermometer from his mouth. She gazed upon it without emotion. “You’ve gone down a degree.”

“What did she say?” Sloan demanded. “Miss Parker.”

The nun marked his chart with painstaking care. “She said that she’ll bring your bag herself.”

“She doesn’t have to do that. I told her to send it by cab.”

“I wouldn’t object to a kindness,” the sister said primly. “There’s little enough of it in the world.”

“I mean, she doesn’t have to go to the trouble.” He hesitated, then tried to sound nonchalant. “She, uh, asked how I was?”

“I thought that was obvious from my end of the conversation.” Neatly she shut the notebook, restored it to the folds of her black garment, and turned away. She left the room so silently that it was as if she weren’t walking, but levitating just above the surface of the floor.

He looked after her, half wondering if she had been a hallucination. Why did half the women he’d talked to today seem as if they’d come from fever dreams?

There had been Velda with her jalapeño gumdrops, the girl dressed in chain mail, and the large woman who’d been built like a World Federation wrestler and who had brandished a golf club at him. It was tempting to dismiss them as creatures of a delirium.

On the other hand, there was Darcy Parker, just as unexpected and not at all easy to dismiss. He thought, I was lying in her lap. Her arms were around me. I was foolish and weak, but she tried to give me comfort. Her breast touched my cheek…

“Oh, hell,” he muttered, trying to thrust away the image.

He was a man used to being in control. She’d seen him when he wasn’t. He didn’t relish her seeing him again in circumstances just as pathetic—stuck in a hospital bed wearing a stupid hospital gown, having nuns and nurses descend upon him.

He opened the drawer of his bedside table, fumbled in his wallet for her card and found it. He would call her, tell her not to come. He reached toward the receiver. He would wait to see her until he was his old self, back to normal and once again in charge of his destiny.

But before he could touch the phone, it rang. He frowned and picked it up. “Hello?”

“This is your father,” said John English’s voice. “I don’t know what to ask first. How the hell are you? Or what the hell are you doing in Austin?”

Sloan gritted his teeth and fell back hard against the pillow. “Hello, Dad,” he said with resignation.

The last time they’d talked, his father had hung up on him. That, in a way, had triggered the entire circus of fever and folly in which he now found himself.

“I talked to the doctor who admitted you,” John English said gruffly. “He said that damn fever’s recurred. That you’ll be fine—if you’ll rest.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sloan said. He glanced around the barren hospital room. It looked as amusing as the inside of an empty eggshell. “I’m resting right now. I’ll be fine.”

“You were supposed to be resting in Tulsa—what happened?” John demanded. “This is how you got so sick in the first place. You wouldn’t slow down. Oh, no. Not you, the iron man.”

Sloan shrugged irritably. “It crept up on me. I didn’t realize it, that’s all. It’s no big deal.”

“You’re in the hospital, but it’s no big deal. I see.”

“I lost consciousness for a few seconds,” Sloan said, sneering at the absurdity of it. “They put you in the hospital for that these days—for observation. People overreact.”

“You weren’t supposed to be running all over creation,” John accused. “You were supposed to be recuperating.”

“I felt fine. I felt great.” It was the truth. He’d jogged the day before—five miles, like the old days. His body had sung like a finely tuned string. He’d felt like himself again.

But then he’d gone back to his apartment, and his aunt had called, and she, who for years had manipulated his emotions, had wept and begged.

Now he put his hand to his forehead, which was still hot. Remembering Trina made his temples throb again. He squeezed his eyes shut against this energetic new onslaught of pain.

“So you took off for Austin,” John said suspiciously. “And you went to see—to confront—the daughter of the woman I love. May I ask why?”

It seemed like a good idea at the time, Sloan thought, his head aching harder. “I was passing through,” he lied. “I thought it might be good to meet.”

“Ha,” snorted John. “Why? Because Trina’s ‘worried’? She put you up to this, didn’t she? Her and her goddamn emotional blackmail.”

Sloan massaged his eyebrows. The old man was plenty sharp in his way. Yes, Sloan had come to Austin half to placate Trina, half to appease his own demons. Trina had helped create those demons, and for years she had nurtured them.

He’d been a fool to come here. But she’d pleaded, and her pleading worked partly because he owed her. So, for that matter, did his father. Promises had been made. An honorable man kept them.

“Olivia’s a wonderful person,” John said. “Trina’s jealous, it’s that simple.”

“Dad,” he said wearily, “why’d you even tell her about this woman?”

“Because it’s the truth,” John shot back. “Hell’s bells. I get sick of pussyfooting around with Trina. She’s fifty-eight years old. Every time something doesn’t go her way, she pulls her martyr act. Think about it, boy.”

I can’t. A mosquito just pinned me, two falls out of three. Sloan touched his aching head. Lord, he was too tired to think anything, let alone of the complexities that Trina had created in his life—and in everyone else’s. Someday when he was old and gray, he would hobble off to a hermitage and meditate until he figured it out. In the meantime, he simply wanted his head to stop thudding.

“Trina asked me straight out if I was seeing a woman,” John said defensively. “I don’t know how she knows these things. Maybe she has flying monkeys that report to her, I don’t know. But I thought, Why should I lie? I told her the truth. She kept asking. I kept telling. Until she said, ‘God have mercy on your deluded soul’ and hung up on me. Me—her own brother. Her own flesh and blood.”

“Um,” Sloan said, massaging his brows again. “So when I called, you hung up on me. Your own flesh and blood. Why? Payback time?”

“Hell, you said you’d just talked to her. I knew she put you up to it. I refuse to play her games anymore. If you were smart, you wouldn’t let her catch you up in these things.”

Sloan grimaced. His father was right; he shouldn’t have let Trina pull his strings. If he’d been well, it never would have happened. Yet, for all her carrying on, Trina had a point. John should not plunge into another marriage. He had bad luck picking women.

His father’s tone changed to one of concern. “I told you we’d talk when everybody was calmer. That time is probably not now. You sound worn out. I’ll call again—later.”

“Dad,” he said, “my main concern is that you and Trina have an understanding about certain things. For instance, there’s—”

“Later, son,” John said with surprising gentleness. “Don’t worry about Trina. Take care of yourself.”

“Dad—”

“Goodbye for now. Get some rest.”

The line hummed meaninglessly in his ear. He opened his eyes long enough to hang up the receiver, then sank back against the pillow.

Oh, hell, he thought bleakly. That’s another bloody thing. I need to call Trina—or she’ll worry.

But for a moment he needed to lie there, his eyes shut against the erratic ebb and flow of the pain in his skull. He told himself he would choose his words carefully for Trina, rehearse them to perfection.

But he did not. Exhaustion covered him like a dark blanket. He slept.

DARCY GOT OUT of the hospital elevator lugging Sloan’s leather overnighter in one hand. In the other she carried a bunch of wildflowers, a gesture she now supposed was ridiculous.

She’d made a card with a foolish cartoon face on it and had tied it with a ribbon to the clay vase. She’d pondered fretfully over the message and finally settled on the highly unoriginal but dependable Wishing You a Speedy Recovery.

She had brushed her hair and let it hang loose. She had changed her T-shirt for a white silk shirt and a vest she’d made of interesting silk scraps. But otherwise, she hadn’t dressed up. Whether he found her attractive was of no concern to her, she told herself. None at all.

Yet she was nervous as she approached his room. It was an odd, silly kind of nervousness that she connected with very young girls who have just discovered the opposite sex. She hadn’t felt it in years, and it unsettled her to feel it now.

Maybe he won’t be in his room, she thought with edgy hope. Maybe they’ll have him off somewhere immunizing his blood or x-raying his head.

His room was number 1437, and its door was open only a few inches. She raised the hand with the flowers to give the door frame a hesitant knock, but the door itself opened. She found herself staring into the eyes of a tiny, wizened little nun.

“Oh,” she breathed, startled.

The nun looked her up and down without emotion.

“Mr. English,” Darcy said in a hospital whisper. “I’ve brought his overnight case and some—” she gestured self-consciously “—flowers. Is it all right to go in?”

“He’s sleeping,” said the nun. “He shouldn’t be disturbed.”

“Oh,” Darcy repeated. She felt both relief and a strange disappointment. Behind the little nun, she could see the hospital room, and it looked so bland and joyless that she was glad she’d brought the flowers.

In the bed, she saw Sloan English’s long form stretched out beneath a sheet and thin blanket. His face was turned away from her. His brown hair seemed dark against the stark whiteness of the pillowcase.

“I’ll take these things,” the little nun said firmly. She commandeered the flowers and tried to take possession of the suitcase.

“No, no,” protested Darcy, “it’s too heavy. Let me.”

For a moment, the nun’s cold fingers rested next to hers on the case’s handle. She studied Darcy’s face as if it were a book with large print, and she could read everything in it with no difficulty whatsoever.

“As you wish,” she said without emotion. Silently she turned and placed the vase of flowers on the bedside tray. She nodded at the bureau, and her meaning was clear: Put the case down there. Quietly.

Darcy obeyed. Carefully she set down the overnight bag so it would make no noise. Then she turned to leave.

On the bed, Sloan stirred, and his head turned. She could see his face, and although illness had whittled it too lean, there was still beauty in the strong, fine bones of it. The cheekbones were high and sharp, the jawline strong, the chin stubborn and marked by a deep cleft. His nose had an aquiline curve that reminded her of a Roman prince.

The face was almost in repose, but even in sleep the dark brows drew together as if trying to frown. His lashes were thick and black, like blades of jet.

Her heart seemed to spin out of her body, as if it were trying to hurl itself into some higher, more intense world. She took in a sharp but soundless breath. She lost herself in staring at him.

She was an artist, and she knew comeliness when she saw it, but she saw more than just handsomeness in his sleeping face. There was a solitariness about this man that was both touching and disturbing.

Then the nun motioned toward the door, and Darcy understood. She should go. She stole one last glance at Sloan, then ducked her head and left, feeling guilty.

The nun followed, easing the door shut behind them. She looked up at Darcy.

Darcy’s heart had come home to her, but it felt changed. “Will he—will he be all right?” she asked.

“If we can tie him down and make him rest,” said the woman.

“I never heard of Malay fever before,” said Darcy. “Is it bad?”

“He obviously had a bad case. It could have killed him,” said the little nun, looking her up and down again. “This relapse should be a lesson to him. Make sure he pays attention. He needs to learn to stop and smell the flowers. I’d take good care of him, if I were you.”

Darcy gave a small, embarrassed laugh. “He’s not mine.”

The woman gave her a look that told her not to argue.

“You brought the flowers, didn’t you? Maybe you’re supposed to teach the lesson, too.”

She turned and glided off, leaving Darcy standing alone.

The faintest scent of wildflowers still hovered in the antiseptic air.