the silver hilt of a sword as if she were about to draw it and run him through.
He knew she had said something to him, but it was so extraordinary, so preposterous, it did not register. Perhaps he had dreamed it. Yet she seemed completely real.
“Churl,” she snarled. “Varlet.”
“What?” he asked, frowning.
The girl glared and started to say something more, but the Parker woman clapped a hand over her mouth. “Emerald—hush!” she commanded with such authority that whoever or whatever Emerald was, she hushed. But she kept her grip on the sword’s hilt.
With effort, Sloan turned his attention back to Darcy Parker. The effort, he realized hazily, was worth it.
She wore faded blue jeans and a dark red T-shirt with a batik design of armadillos. She was half a head taller than the girl, slender but nicely curved. She had a mane of jet-dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, but strands of it had escaped and framed her face like waving wisps of smoke.
Her face was not one of classic beauty. It was sprinkled with freckles, and the jaw was too square, the nose too snub. But her eyes were so liquidly dark, he had the dizzying feeling he could fall into them and keep falling until he disappeared in their depths. His chest tightened, and it burned to draw breath.
Darcy dropped her hand from the girl’s mouth, at the same time drilling her with a warning look. The girl stepped backward, as if forced by the other’s sheer will. Darcy looked at Sloan again. One of her dark brows cocked in what seemed a combination of curiosity and suspicion.
“Mr. Sloan is it?” she said. “I think you’d better state exactly what your business is.”
“English,” he said, his chest growing tighter. “Sloan English.” He offered her one of his business cards, holding it up to the screen door so she could see it before she took it.
It said Sloan J. English, Vice President, Development, PetroCorp Oil Company. It was an expensively printed card, meant to be impressive. She read it and looked as unimpressed as possible.
She didn’t open the door to accept it. “Thanks,” she said, “but we don’t need any oil.”
This straight-faced flippancy irked him. He stuck the card back into the breast pocket of his shirt. Okay, he thought. That’s the way you want it? Let’s go straight for the jugular.
He said, “Your mother is Olivia Ferrar?”
She folded her arms. There was neither anger nor shyness in the movement; it seemed coolly casual. “Yes. What about it?”
“My father is John English,” Sloan said. “He and your mother seem to have met on the Internet.”
“Our mother’s met someone,” said the girl in the chain mail. “We don’t know who. But he’d better watch his step.”
Darcy’s head whipped about, and once more she silenced the girl with a look. Then she faced Sloan again, her gaze measuring him with absolute self-possession.
Can she really be this calm? he wondered. Or is she bluffing? He himself was not at his best, and he knew it. His head ached, his temples banged, and a small man with a drill seemed to be trying to make an excavation in the center of his forehead.
“Tell me what you want,” said Darcy Parker.
Behind her, through the screen door, he saw a hallucinogenic welter of objects: kites, dolls, puppets, quilts. They made the background dance crazily.
He touched his fingertips to his forehead, then drew them away. He shook his head to clear it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is—perhaps too sudden. I shouldn’t have barged in here without warning.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Right. You shouldn’t have.”
“My aunt’s concerned,” he said. “My father’s sister. She—reacted strongly. She gets…overdramatic about things.”
Darcy’s mouth quirked slightly and a dimple played in her cheek. It was as if she were saying, Okay. I can sympathize with that.
What she actually said was, “What’s that got to do with my mother or us?”
His temples banged more clamorously. He found himself putting out a hand to lean against the door frame. He realized that the underarms of his shirt were soaked with sweat, and his knees felt as if they belonged to someone else.
He struggled to give a sensible answer. “My father,” he said, “and your mother are…involved. After a short time. An exceedingly short time. The Internet—they met there. My aunt was surprised. Shocked, actually. Perhaps this is also a surprise to you.”
“Not—completely,” Darcy Parker said. “You haven’t caught me off guard. Not at all.” Her smooth brow furrowed. “Are you all right?” she asked.
He ignored this question, trying to stay focused on the previous one. “As I said, my aunt reacted strongly. She told my father this relationship is—hurtling along too fast.”
“Ha!” said the girl in the knight’s suit. “See? I told you so.”
“Emerald, hush,” said Darcy over her shoulder. “You said you wanted me to handle this.” She peered more closely at Sloan. “Mr. English, you don’t look well. I asked if you were all right.”
He realized he was far from all right. But he felt compelled to finish what he’d started. “The two of them quarreled,” he said from between his teeth. “My aunt and my father. Now he refuses to talk to any of us about it. So I’ve been sent—as an emissary to your family. To see if you can…enlighten us about what’s happening.”
Her exotically dark eyes looked him up and down.
He hated himself for saying it, but he asked, “Would it be all right if I stepped inside, sat down a moment?”
“Don’t let him in,” said the girl dressed like a knight. “It might be a trick—like the Trojan Horse.”
Darcy’s face grew sterner. “Mr. English, I don’t let strangers in my house. Not under any circumstance. I’m sorry.”
He swallowed, suppressed a shudder. Her stare seemed to go through him like an ebony skewer, so he dropped his gaze to the bricks of her porch, which seemed to writhe and weave about in a most unnatural fashion.
“I understand perfectly,” he said as civilly as he could. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“That’s right,” she said.
He watched the bricks squirm and wriggle. He squared his shoulders and said, “Perhaps we can set up an appointment. Meet somewhere that you’d be comfortable. I don’t think I have your current phone number. I couldn’t find it. If you’d be so kind—I could call you, set up something.”
She was silent a long moment, as he watched the bricks slither drunkenly beneath his feet. His feet, it occurred to him, suddenly seemed a great distance from the rest of his body, and his pulse clanged like cymbals in his head.
She
