doctor’s eyebrows shot straight up. Tira had never raised her voice to Simon before. Her face was flaming red, like her wealth of hair, and her green eyes were shooting bolts of lightning in Simon’s direction.
“Tira,” Simon began uncertainly.
“Get out!” she repeated, ashamed of being accused of a suicide attempt in the first place. It was bad enough that she’d lost control of herself enough to get drunk. She glared at Simon as if he was the cause of it all—which he was. “Out!” she repeated, when he didn’t move, gesturing wildly with her arm.
He wouldn’t go, and she burst into tears of frustrated fury. Dr. Gaines got between Simon and Tira and hit the Call button. “Get in here, stat,” he said into the intercom, following the order with instructions for a narcotic. He glanced toward Simon, standing frozen in the doorway. “Out,” he said without preamble. “I’ll speak to you in a few minutes.”
Simon moved aside to let the scurrying nurse into the room with a hypodermic. He could hear Tira’s sobs even through the door. He moved a little way down the hall, to where his brother Corrigan was standing.
It had been Corrigan whom the housekeeper called when she discovered Tira. And he’d called Simon and told him only that Tira had been taken to the hospital in a bad way. He had no knowledge of what had pushed Tira over the edge or he might have thought twice about telling his older brother at all.
“I heard her. What happened?” Corrigan asked, jerking his head toward the room.
“I don’t know,” Simon said huskily. He leaned back against the wall beside his brother. His empty sleeve drew curious glances from a passerby, but he ignored it. “She saw me and started yelling.” He broke off. His eyes were filled with torment. “I’ve never seen her like this.”
“Nobody has,” Corrigan said flatly. “I never figured a woman like Tira for a suicide.”
Simon gaped at him. “A what?”
“What would you call combining alcohol and tranquilizers?” Corrigan demanded. “Good God, Mrs. Lester said she had a loaded pistol in her hands!”
“A pistol…?” Simon closed his eyes on a shudder and ran a hand over his drawn face. He couldn’t bear to think about what might have happened. He was certain that he’d prompted her actions. He couldn’t forget, even now, the look on her face when he’d almost flatly accused her of killing John. She hadn’t said a word to defend herself. She’d gone quiet; dangerously quiet. He should never have left her alone. Worse, he should never have said anything to her. He’d thought her a strong, self-centered woman who wouldn’t feel criticism. Now, almost too late, he knew better.
“I went to see her yesterday,” Simon confessed in a haunted tone. “She’d made some crazy remark at the last cattle auction about trying to make me jealous. She said she was only teasing, but it hit me the wrong way. I told her that she wasn’t the sort of woman I could be jealous about. Then, yesterday, I told her how I felt about her careless attitude toward the divorce only a month after she married John, and letting him go off to get himself killed on an oil rig.” His broad shoulders rose and fell defeatedly. “I shouldn’t have said it, but I was angry that she’d tried to make me jealous, as if she thought I might actually feel attracted to her.” He sighed. “I thought she was so hard that nothing I said would faze her.”
“And I thought I used to be blind,” Corrigan said.
Simon glanced at him, scowling. “What do you mean?”
Corrigan looked at his brother and tried to speak. Finally he just smiled faintly and turned away. “Forget it.”
The door to Tira’s room opened a minute later and Dr. Gaines came out. He spotted the two men down the hall and joined them.
“Don’t go back in there,” he told Simon flatly. “She’s too close to the edge already. She doesn’t need you to push her the rest of the way.”
“I didn’t do a damned thing,” Simon shot back, and now he looked dangerous, “except walk in the door!”
Dr. Gaines’s lips thinned. He glanced at Corrigan, who only shrugged and shook his head.
“I’m going to try to get her to go to a friend of mine, a therapist. She could use some counseling,” Gaines added.
“She’s not a nutcase,” Simon said, affronted.
Dr. Gaines looked into that cold, unaware face and frowned. “You were state attorney general for four years,” he said. “You’re still a well-known trial lawyer, an intelligent man. How can you be this stupid?”
“Will someone just tell me what’s going on?” Simon demanded.
Dr. Gaines looked at Corrigan, who held out a hand, palm up, inviting the doctor to do the dirty work.
“She’ll kill us both if she finds out we told him,” Gaines remarked to Corrigan.
“It’s better than letting her die.”
“Amen.” He looked at Simon, who was torn between puzzlement and fury. “Simon, she’s been in love with you for years,” Dr. Gaines said in a hushed, reluctant tone. “I tried to get her to give up the ranch and all that fundraising mania years ago, because they were only a way for her to keep near you. She wore herself out at it, hoping against hope that if you were in close contact, you might begin to feel something for her, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. All I had to do was see you together to realize she didn’t have a chance. Am I right?” he asked Corrigan, who nodded.
Simon leaned back against the wall. He felt as if someone had put a knife right through him. He couldn’t even speak.
“What you said to her was a kindness, although I don’t imagine you see it that way now,” Dr. Gaines continued doggedly. “She had to be made to see that she couldn’t go on living a lie, and the changes in her life recently are proof that she’s realized how you feel about her. She’ll accept it, in time, and get on with her life. It will be the very best thing for her. She’s trying to be all things to all people, until she was worn to a nub. She’s been headed for a nervous breakdown for weeks, the way she’s pushed herself, with this one-woman art show added to the load she was already carrying. But she’ll be all right.” He put a sympathetic hand on Simon’s good arm. “It’s not your fault. She’s levelheaded about everything except you. But if you want to help her, for old time’s sake, stay away from her. She’s got enough on her plate right now.”
He nodded politely to Corrigan and went on down the hall.
Simon still hadn’t moved, or spoken. He was pale and drawn, half crazy from the doctor’s revelation.
Corrigan got on the other side of him and took his arm, drawing him along. “We’ll get a cup of coffee somewhere on the way back to your office,” he told his older brother.
Simon allowed himself to be pulled out the door. He wasn’t sure he remembered how to walk. He felt shattered.
Minutes later, he was sitting in a small café with his brother, drinking strong coffee.
“She tried to kill herself over me,” Simon said finally.
“She missed. She won’t try
