Stockwell might be sexy as sin itself—he stood over six feet tall and he was possessed of lean hips, shoulders that went on for days and truly arresting deep blue eyes. An aura of excitement surrounded him. Even Hannah, who certainly ought to know better, couldn’t help but feel the power of his presence every time she was forced to deal with him. And on top of the sex appeal and the charisma, he did have pots of money, money he was willing to lavish on Becky.
But did he know how to love and raise a sweet little girl? Hannah seriously doubted it.
Cord Stockwell sipped from his drink again. “Well?”
Right then, the telephone on one of the inlaid side tables buzzed.
Cord set his drink on the liquor cart. “Excuse me.”
He strode to the phone, noting before he got there that it was his father’s private line that had rung. He punched in the line and picked up. “What is it?”
“Mr. Stockwell, I’m sorry to bother you.” It was a male voice with a slight Scandinavian accent, the voice of one of the nurses who attended his father round-the-clock—the big blond one named Gunderson. “But, sir, your father is insisting…”
In the background, Cord could hear the hoarse commands. “Get him in here. Get my boy in here. Now!”
The nurse reported the obvious. “He demands to see you, sir.”
The cracked, rough voice shouted louder, “Now, I said. Are you deaf? Tell him to get in here on the double.”
“I’m so sorry, sir.” Nurse Gunderson made excuses in Cord’s ear. “But right now, our problem is that he refuses to take his medication until you—”
“Get me Cord now!” the old man shouted.
A woman’s voice—the other nurse—spoke up then.
“No. Please put that down, Mr. Stock—”
Whatever it was, Caine must have thrown it. Cord heard what sounded like breaking glass.
The nurse on the other end of the line released a sigh. “Sir, maybe you should—”
“Try to keep him from hurting himself,” Cord said. “I’ll be right there.” Cord set the phone back in its cradle and started for the door. “Something’s come up.” He said as he strode past the wing chair where the social worker sat staring at him. “I’m afraid I have to deal with it now. I won’t be long. You can think about my offer.”
The door closed behind him before Hannah could say a word.
Cord could hear his father barking orders as he entered the old man’s private sitting room.
“I don’t need you poking me with needles. I can still swallow a damn pill if I need one. And right now, I don’t need one. Not till I talk to my son, you hear me?”
One of the maids had joined Cord in the central hallway and followed him into the room. She carried a broom and a long-handled dustpan—probably under orders to clean up whatever mess Caine had created in his rage. The maid cringed when she heard the old man shouting.
“Don’t worry,” Cord said. “He’s not yelling at you.”
“Cord?” Cancer might be eating Caine Stockwell alive, but his hearing remained as acute as ever. “Cord, that you?”
Cord stepped through the wide arch that framed his father’s oppressively opulent bedchamber—a replica, Caine always claimed, of Napoleon I’s bedroom at the Château de Fontainebleau, the magnificent hunting lodge of sixteen and seventeenth century French royalty. The room, like the antechamber through which Cord had entered, boasted gilt medallions in classical motifs adorning the walls, a massive crystal and gold chandelier overhead and gilded furniture upholstered in carmine-and-green brocade. The huge velvet-draped bed, shipped from France a decade ago, was the room’s crowning glory. And it stood empty. Caine would no longer trust the body that had betrayed him not to soil the dazzling stamped velvet bed coverings.
The room, in spite of its overbearing beauty, smelled musty and strangely sweet. Like sickness. Like encroaching death. The velvet curtains had been drawn closed against the hot Texas sun outside.
“Here. Here to me.” Caine, who lay in a hospital bed in the center of the room, hit the mattress with one claw-like clenched fist, a gesture reminiscent of one summoning a dog.
Though Cord had always been his father’s favored son, there had been a time when such a gesture would have had him turning on his heel and striding from the room, Caine’s curses echoing in his ears. But that time had passed. In recent months, Cord had learned what pity was—and learning that had made it possible for him to put his considerable pride aside.
He approached the bed. Gunderson and the other nurse, a statuesque redhead, fell back to lurk near the rim of equipment—an oxygen tank, footed metal trays on wheels, an IV drip and the like—that waited several feet beyond where Caine Stockwell lay. The maid dropped to her knees and began picking up the pieces of a shattered antique vase, as well as a number of long-stemmed blood-red roses, which lay scattered across the gold-embroidered rug.
“Everyone out,” Caine commanded. “You two.” He flung out an emaciated arm at the nurses. “And you!” he shouted at the cowering maid.
Cord nodded at the others and instructed quietly, “Go ahead. I’ll buzz you in a few minutes.”
Caine’s bed had been adjusted to a semisitting position. He lurched forward, as if he intended to leap upright and chase the others from the room. But then he only fell back with a groan. “Just get them out. Get them out now.”
The three required no further encouragement. The maid jumped to her feet and scurried off, not even pausing to pick up her broom and dustpan, which lay where she’d dropped them, among the roses and broken china on the gold-embellished hand-stitched rug. The two nurses followed right behind.
Caine waited until he heard the outer door close. Then he patted the bed again, this time more gently. “Here,” he said, his voice now a low rasp. “Here.”
Cord did what his father wanted, taking a minute to lower the metal rail so there would be room for him.
“Have to tell you…” Caine coughed, a spongy, rheumy sound. “No more drugs. Until I tell you…” Caine coughed again. This time the cough brought on wheezing.
“Got to tell…” He wheezed some more. “Have to say…”
Cord got up, but only to pour a glass of water. He brought it back to the bed, sat again and helped his father to drink, sliding a hand gently behind his head, feeling the heat and the dryness, the thin, wild wisps of hair. All white now, what was left of it. Once it had been the same deep almost-black color as Cord’s hair was now. Dark, dark brown, and thick, with the same touch of gray at the temples.
But no more.
Caine’s red-rimmed blue eyes glittered, sliding out of focus, vacant suddenly, shining—but empty. Cord carefully lowered the old man’s head back to the pillow. Caine’s eyelids drifted shut over those empty eyes. A ragged sigh escaped him, and a thread of saliva gleamed at the corner of his mouth.
Cord
