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.”
