“John English’s son came here to talk.”

Olivia was stunned by Darcy’s news. “Sloan came there? I’m surprised. 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 wasn’t in any condition to be checking out his father’s love life.”

“Oh, dear. Do make sure Sloan’s as comfortable as possible. He is our guest.”

“He’s not our guest. He just descended on us. He—”

“Now, 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. I used to think it was a myth—but it’s not. Maybe you’ll find out yourself someday.”

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

Dear Reader,

This is a story about old-fashioned romantic things: flirting, love letters and courtship. But sometimes old-fashioned romance takes surprising, newfangled turns.

If Cupid loves mischief (and he does), he must adore e-mail. It gives him zingy new darts that are far-ranging, super-speedy and very, very potent.

Darcy, the heroine, is shocked when her beautiful mother falls in love with a man she’s met on the Internet. She’s even more stunned when that man’s son shows up on her own doorstep.

He’s determined to find out the truth about this unexpected love affair. So is she. The last thing they expect is a love affair of their own.

I hope you enjoy P.S. Love You Madly, and that it will bring you a smile or two.

Happy reading!

Bethany Campbell

Books by Bethany Campbell

HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

837—THE GUARDIAN

P.S. Love You Madly
Bethany Campbell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To My Roommate at Bentley’s

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS A SATURDAY MORNING in May, and the Texas Hill Country was in bloom. Wild roses clambered up the fences, violets blossomed along the creeks, and the bluebonnets blanketed the fields so thickly, it was as if they were turning the earth into a second sky.

The Hill Country was celebrating spring, and at its heart, the city of Austin celebrated, too. It was the time of the yearly Old Pecan Street festival.

But on his long drive here, Sloan English had paid no mind to the beauty of the countryside. Now in the festival’s midst, he cared nothing for the city’s revels. He wanted simpler things: to get back to Tulsa, find some sorely needed peace, and start putting his life back together.

Instead, he had come to Austin against his will to track down a woman he didn’t want to meet. And she was not where she was supposed to be—right at the festival’s center. She had vanished.

Not only had she disappeared, so had her shop. At the address where it should have been was a candy kitchen. It advertised, among other things, The Best Little Horehounds in Texas.

Sloan went in, glad to escape the insanely churning crowd outside. There was no one else within except an attendant behind the counter, a chubby woman with an eager-to-please air. She wore a white apron spotted with colored sugar sprinkles, and a name tag that said Velda.

She told him she hadn’t lived long in Austin and had but an imperfect memory of the shop called The Prickly Poppy. “They lost their lease or something,” she said. “They been gone a couple months. You want to try the gumdrop of the day? It’s jalapeño flavored.”

He didn’t want the gumdrop she offered, which was neon green and shaped like a chili pepper.

He shook his head. “You said ‘they.’ There was more than one person involved?”

She nodded, which made her multiple chins bob. “They were a cooperative or something. All women.” She offered him a sample tray of nuts. “You want a spiced pecan? They just came out of the oven.”

He didn’t want a pecan. “These women—they were all artists?”

She took one herself and chewed it thoughtfully. “I guess. One made jewelry, and one did paintings, and one blew glass, and the other one—I don’t know what they call what she did.”

He narrowed his eyes, which were as green as a cat’s. “What would you call it?”

Velda gave an expressive shrug. “She made weird things. Scarecrows. Kites. These sort of doll things.”

“You mean like toys? For kids?”

She shrugged again. “Some of ’em was, some of ’em wasn’t. She sort of did her own thing, you might say.”

I’ll bet she did, he thought. He said, “You know where she went?”

Velda helped herself to another pecan. “I don’t know where any of ’em went. They’ve scattered. Like to the four winds.”

He was tired, he felt feverish, and the too-rich scent of chocolate made his stomach squirm queasily. He set his jaw and said, “Who might know where she is?”

Velda licked her upper lip thoughtfully. “They might know at one of the galleries. These artist types, they come and go. She might even be out on the street—it’s festival. Lots of booths and vendors. Just ask around. Somebody’ll know. You want to try a honky-tonk surprise? They got tequila filling.”

The last thing he wanted was a honky-tonk surprise. The pain was tripping in his temple like a tiny hammer. He thanked Velda and went back outside into the glare and the noise.

Sixth Street, with its bars and galleries and shops and restaurants, was considered the heartbeat of Austin, and today the heartbeat had gone mad with spring.

The arts festival was in full swing. The streets were roped off and bursting with tents that were cornucopia-full of Texas food and Texas merchandise. The scent of tacos and chili floated on the sun-warmed air. Young couples drinking champagne mimosas strolled the sidewalks, looking at the paintings, the pottery, the jewelry, the T-shirts.

The onslaught of the sun magnified the pain drilling at Sloan’s skull, and he slitted his eyes against the brightness. His eardrums danced with the street’s din. There were Native American dancers and lively Tex-Mex cajuno bands, country fiddlers, and even a harpist in medieval robes. A clown on tall stilts walked down the street with the swaying grace of a giraffe.

Fortune-tellers told fortunes. A face painter, crowned with flowers, painted the faces of children. Jugglers juggled. A large man with a bald head walked a pair of albino ferrets on a leash.

From a truck, a yellow dog wearing sunglasses watched the street with kingly indifference. Slowly, it turned its face toward Sloan, as if recognizing a fellow spirit. Its aloof expression seemed to say, Lord, what fools these mortals be.

Sloan thought, You’ve sure as hell got that right, dog.

But he set off on his own foolish errand, which was to find the woman.

The dog, looking more superior than before, stared after him a moment, then turned his attention back to the human carnival around him.

IN HER MAKESHIFT STUDIO beside the river, Darcy Parker worked alone. She had a deadline, and that meant she was spending her afternoon with a worm.

He was a bookworm, a comical soft sculpture that she had been commissioned to make for the children’s section of the main library. He was four feet long, his flexible body composed of cuddly green-and-yellow globes.

He had a yellow head with a benevolently mad smile. He wore red spectacles and sported twelve pliable lavender legs. He was not exactly a handsome worm, but he was a winsome one, and Darcy was pleased with him.

This morning she had finally got his antennae right. Now she experimented, trying him in different poses. Worm—reading studiously in an armchair. Worm—standing on a library stool, reaching for a book on an upper shelf. Worm—stretched out on his belly on the floor, his head cocked over the Sunday comic papers.

You look good, Worm, she thought. You just might be a star.

She took snapshots for her files. Around her, the room was crammed with her other projects: stuffed toys, quilts, puppets, experimental clothing, fabrics she had dyed and silk-screened by hand. It was a happy hodgepodge that probably made sense to no one but her. But there was method in her madness—a great deal of method, in fact.

In Darcy Parker’s nature was an equal mix of whimsy and practicality. She was successful at what she did, although she could not explain exactly what her profession was. Sometimes she was an artist, sometimes a craftswoman, sometimes a seamstress. She had a questing curiosity, and she followed where it led.

She was a whip-slender woman with a quick mind, lively eyes and clever hands. She was thirty years old. From her father she had inherited the midnight darkness of her hair; from her mother, her quick-silver smile and fair skin. Unlike her mother, she didn’t hide from the sun, so she had a dapple of freckles sprinkling her nose and high cheekbones.

Her studio was makeshift, temporarily set up in the guest cottage of her mother’s weekend house on Lake Travis. She hadn’t wished to impose on her mother. But when the lease in downtown Austin was lost, she’d had no choice.

The lake property was for sale, so Darcy didn’t want to grow overly fond of the little house. It was airy and full of brightness, and she loved the sweeping view of the lake and the looming limestone cliffs.

There were no neighbors. She lived in splendid isolation. On Saturdays, Rose Alice, the housekeeper in town, drove out to vacuum and dust the lake house. She was a tough-looking woman with tattoos on both biceps, but she was hell on every sort of dirt. Her spanking white pickup was parked in the service driveway today.

Rose Alice didn’t touch the guest house; it was Darcy’s responsibility as long as she stayed. Besides, she didn’t like anyone disturbing the disorderly seeming order of her studio, and Rose Alice attacked clutter with the energy and ferocity of a pit bull.

Rose Alice had taken one look at the studio room after Darcy moved in, winced, and shook her head. “No offense, kid,” she said. “I love ya. But I don’t think I ought to look in here again until you’re gone. I got delicate sensibilities.”

Before Rose Alice left the main house today, she would telephone Darcy and invite her over for coffee. She had known the family for almost twenty years, and, in her rough-spoken way, was fond of them.

“In the meantime, it’s you and me,” Darcy told the worm. “Want to curl up with a good book?” She wound him into a coil and put an oversize picture book in his grasp.

Darcy was kneeling to snap his picture, when her phone rang. It was Rose Alice.

“Hey, Darcy,” she said in her sandpapery voice, “storm warning. The kid just drove up. She don’t look happy. Something’s wrong.”

Darcy stiffened in apprehension. She loved her sister, but Rose Alice’s tone was full of foreboding. “Oh,” said Darcy. “Thanks.”

“Batten down the hatches,” said Rose Alice, and hung up.

With a sigh, Darcy set down the receiver and put aside her camera. There’d be no work done if Emerald was having a crisis. It had seemed lately to Darcy that perhaps both her sister and mother were calming down, getting their lives in order at last. Nothing could please her more. But Rose Alice’s message was clear: it wouldn’t happen today.

She heard Emerald stamping across the concrete service drive toward the guest house. Curtain going up, thought Darcy. Let the drama begin.

Emerald didn’t knock. She burst through the door, clanking. She wore a good deal of chain mail and a buckler and sword. Her short hair was tousled by the spring wind, and her cheeks were red as flame.

She had been at the Pecan Street Festival with her fellow members of the Medieval Society. The Medieval Society usually turned out for the event in full costume, as knights or damsels or wizards or monks or warlocks. Emerald was presently in her warrior maiden phase, which she had described as “sort of Joan of Arc without the religion or politics.”

Darcy crossed her arms and allowed herself the smallest of smiles. “This is unexpected. Why aren’t you at the fair, jousting or minnesinging or whatever you do?”

“Somebody stepped on my lute, the clod,” Emerald said with passion. “I had to go home for my other one.”

“Hmm, sounds serious. When a man breaks your lute, doesn’t that mean you’re engaged—or should be?”

Emerald flashed her a resentful look. “You always want to make a joke out of everything. This is serious.”

Darcy shrugged. “I’m sorry. Can it be restored to its former virginal state? Do you need a lute-repair loan?”

Emerald put her gloved hands on her hips. “This isn’t about the lute, Darcy. This is about Mama. I’m very worried about her.”

Darcy gave her sister a skeptical look. “Mama’s fine,” she said. “She just had her physical. The doctor said she’s in wonderful shape.”

“Mom’s in fabulous shape,” Emerald said, tossing her head. “That’s never been the problem—has it?”

“No,” Darcy admitted, but she thought, It hasn’t been much of a solution, either.

Their mother, Olivia, had been a great beauty in her day. She was still stunning, tall and shapely, with platinum-blond hair she wore in a sleek chignon.

Emerald was small and wiry and brown-haired, like her father, and she had inherited their mother’s blue eyes. Darcy had her mother’s height, but she was dark-eyed and slim like her father.

Olivia had married three times. Now she was a widow, and if she was not exactly merry, she seemed content with her lot. She’d lived in Austin for the past twenty years, but had grown up Portland, Maine. When her third husband had died last autumn, she’d waited a decent interval, then bought a vacation condo back in Maine.

She wanted to spend her summers on the seacoast she’d loved as a girl. For the past month she’d been in Portland, working on the condo with a decorator.

“Oh, God,” Emerald said in exasperation. She threw herself down in the studio’s one armchair. This caused more clanking, and her sword stuck out at an awkward angle. “I don’t even know how to tell you this.”

“Would you take off that sword? You’re going to run it through either my cushion or yourself.”

Emerald ignored her. She threw back her head and stared at the ceiling dramatically. She sighed.

“I mean,” Darcy said, brushing back a dark strand of hair, “if you went home, why didn’t you take off the sword? Why didn’t you change clothes? You didn’t have to come stomping in here sounding like a bag of hubcaps.”

“I was too upset,” Emerald said, and scowled harder at the ceiling.

“Upset why?” Darcy demanded. “You said it’s about Mother. What is it?”

“I’m trying to tell you,” Emerald said righteously. She put her gloved hand over her mailed heart. “Oh, Gad.”

Darcy cleared the scraps of Velcro from the corner of her worktable and sat on its edge. “Yes?” she prodded.

“I don’t know where to start,” Emerald said. Her voice quivered.

Darcy wanted to snap just start, dammit! But she knew this tactic never worked. Instead, she mustered her best semblance of kindly patience. “Well—why don’t you just begin?”

Emerald slumped more deeply into the chair and gazed more fiercely at the ceiling. “Do you know that laptop computer you bought Mama?” she asked. She gave the word computer a sinister fillip.

“I should,” said Darcy. “I’m the one making the payments.”

She had bought the computer so their mother could e-mail them from Maine. It was cheaper than ordinary mail and than phoning, and Darcy, who was new to the computer world and excited about it, had thought it an inspired idea.

“Well,” said Emerald, “you know how she said she had a phobia about it?”

Darcy waved away the thought dismissively. “Once she gets used to it, she’ll wonder how she lived without it. That phobia’ll fly out the window.”

“It has flown out the window,” Emerald said ominously. “And guess what’s flown in?”

Darcy lifted one brow. “I can’t guess. Just tell me.”

“A man,” wailed Emerald, sitting up straight again. “She’s got herself a gigolo! This—this e-mail Don Juan. She’s head over heels. She’s gaga—she sounds like a teenager—our mother!”

Darcy looked at her sister and shook her head. “No,” she said with certainty. “Not Mother. Not Olivia.”

“She has,” Emerald said, her cheeks flaming even more hotly.

“She’s only had the computer six weeks,” Darcy argued. “I don’t think she’s ever turned it on.”

“She took it to Maine,” Emerald said accusingly.

“Only because I nagged her. She hasn’t sent a single message yet.”

“Maybe not to you, she hasn’t,” Emerald said, her eyes suddenly glittering with tears. “But to him she’s sent plenty. I’ve got proof—she sent me one by mistake. It’s this—this steamy love note.”

“What?”

Darcy did not want to believe this improbable news. Yet Emerald’s tears were disturbingly real, and despite her sense of drama, she truly hated for anyone to see her cry.

Emerald got to her feet and began to forage in her scabbard. “Damn!” she said. She stripped off her black leather gloves and threw them to the floor. She groped in the scabbard again. “I’ve got the letter,” she said. “I’ll show you.”

“You could,” Darcy said dryly, “carry a purse, like other women.”

“Joke all you want,” Emerald retorted. “You won’t think it’s so funny when you read this.”

She thrust a folded paper at Darcy, then angrily dashed the tears from her eyes. “Mama’s too old for this kind of thing,” she said bitterly.

The paper crackled as Darcy unfolded it—it clearly was an e-mail printout—but she told herself that Emerald had to be exaggerating; she always did.

But as Darcy read the message, she felt the blood drain from her face and her brain dance dizzily.

SUBJECT: I Saw You in My Dreams

From: Olivia@USAserve.com

To: BanditKing@USAserve.com

Copy To: MaidOfOrleans@USAserve.com

Hello, you big sexy thing—just a little mid-morning hello (and a hug and a kiss and a squeeze and another hug and another kiss…I could go on and on!!)

Last weekend was too fabulous; you’re too fabulous. I dreamed of you again last night, of your green eyes, your slow hands, your deep chest, and your divine Etcetera.

I had a thought for your free week—what do you say to coming here? I got the brochures you sent on lower Florida. You’re right; it looks like an excellent buy.

Oh, darling, I’ve got to figure out when to tell my girls about this, but I think it’s way too soon. They don’t even know I’m online yet. You’re so-o-o brave to tell your family.

But I will try to drop Em a short note today. I worry about her. I know she’s twenty-one, and it’s time for me to let her fly on her own, but it’s hard for a mama to let go. You know, darling—you’re a parent yourself.

Love to you (and your Etcetera)

Olivia, whose mouth waters for another taste of her BanditKing.

P.S. Thanks again for the anniversary roses. Who could believe we met only three weeks ago? Blessed be the name of the Chat Room. Oh, darling, we do live in an age of miracles!!

Darcy stared at the message in bewilderment. “Ye gods.”

“Well,” demanded Emerald. “Still think it’s funny?”

“Maybe we’re reading too much into this,” said Darcy. “Maybe we’re—misconstruing it.” But the explanation struck her as pathetically weak, even as she said it.

Emerald snatched back the paper. “How do you misconstrue something like this—? Her ‘mouth waters for another taste of her BanditKing’?”

“Maybe he’s a chef,” Darcy said lamely. “Maybe he cooked for her.”

“Something’s cooking, all right,” Emerald retorted. “Mama’s libido. She’s spent the weekend with this man. She’s going to do it again. And she barely knows him—it’s here in black and white.” She rattled the paper under Darcy’s nose for emphasis. “Three weeks—and she’s having an affair. She met him in a chat room. God—a seventh-grader would be more careful.”

“Let me think,” said Darcy. She raked her hand through her hair and tried to control her wildly spinning thoughts.

None of Olivia’s marriages had been happy—certainly not the ones to Darcy’s father or to Emerald’s father. But the third and last, to Gus Ferrar, had at least been tolerable—some of the time.

Gus had been good-hearted, but oversexed and quarrelsome and brash. He had clearly adored Olivia, but just as much, he loved bickering with her. He had honed complaint into an art form, and the older he got, the more he demanded to be the center of Olivia’s universe.

After Gus’s death last year, a well-meaning friend had told Olivia that she was still young and attractive, that someday “someone else will come along.”

“I’m through with marriage,” Olivia had said with cynical conviction. “I’m through with men. I’m going to get a Pekingese. A Pekingese doesn’t argue, it doesn’t nag you about how much you spend, and you can make it sleep in a separate room.”

Olivia had been true to her word. Because she was beautiful and well-off, eligible men tried to court her. She’d rebuffed them all.

“In my golden years, I’m going to be as chaste as a nun,” she’d told Darcy. “Besides,” she’d added thoughtfully, “sex has never been as much fun as shopping. Not really.”

Olivia bought the Pekingese, got it neutered, and named it Mr. Right. Mr. Right was spoiled rotten and had an engraved collar of silver links and ate from a silver dog dish. But he made her sneeze, so she gave him to Rose Alice, saying that apparently she was allergic to all things male.

“Mama said she was through with men,” Emerald fumed. She began to pace. “I don’t want another stepfather. One was enough.”

More than enough, thought Darcy, who had lived through two. But someone had to be calm, she thought with wry resignation. It wouldn’t be Emerald—she’d spent too many years competing with Gus for attention; his tempestuous ways had rubbed off on her.

“She’s not going to marry anybody,” Darcy said, almost certain it was true. “She’s having a little fling, that’s all. This thing will run its course, and she’ll snap out of it. She’s not a stupid woman. Or a naive one.”

Emerald stopped pacing and drew herself up to her full height of five feet one inch. “She is naive. She knows nothing about the Internet or these chat room Casanovas. She’s like a little child—a total innocent.”

Darcy crossed her arms again. “Emerald, that letter was hardly written by a ‘total innocent.”’

Emerald threw out her arms in despair. “But don’t you see? She’s at a terrible disadvantage here. She’s only had experience with real men.”

Darcy frowned, trying to digest this logic.

“This man is a fantasy,” Emerald persisted. “He can pretend to be anything she wants. That’s what she doesn’t understand. I grew up with the Internet. But she has no idea what it’s about—do you?”

Darcy felt an uncomfortable sense of disadvantage. She could use the computer for basic things, but she knew only a fraction of what Emerald did. Emerald had spent most of her teenage years cloistered in her room, communing with cyberspace.

“Well, do you?” challenged Emerald.

Darcy looked down at the library’s bookworm, curled up at her feet. She thought about books and research and computers and networks of knowledge.

Defensively she said, “It’s about communicating. And information. It’s about accessing vast reserves of—”

“No, no,” Emerald said with emotion. “The Internet is about lying.”

Darcy gave her a skeptical look. “That can’t be true. Al Gore wouldn’t like it so much.”

“It is—it’s about lying,” Emerald repeated emphatically. “You get in these chat rooms. You write messages to people you don’t know. You can’t see them and they can’t see you—so what does everybody do? They lie.”

Darcy shook her head stubbornly. “That’s an exaggeration.”

“It’s not,” Emerald tossed back. “Suppose I’m wandering around the Internet, and I meet a guy who seems interesting. Do I tell him I’m short, that I have a thirty-one-inch bust? That I’m blind as a bat without my contacts? That I’ve been on Prozac for four years? Of course not!”

“Well—” Darcy said. “Withholding a few facts at the start isn’t lying…exactly.”

“Right,” Emerald replied sarcastically. “So this guy doesn’t tell me that he weighs four hundred pounds and has the social skills of a clam. Or that he’s a fourteen-year-old horny geek. Or worse, a horny old married man. Either way, he’s horny. Because, first the Internet’s about lying. And second, it’s about sex.”

Darcy blinked in displeasure. “Maybe that’s true for some people. But Mama’s an adult—”

Emerald narrowed her eyes. “Mama’s a babe in the cyber-woods. And she’s a rich widow. You think there aren’t men out there waiting to pounce on women like her? Oh, they’ll sweet-talk you, these guys. They’ll make themselves sound like God’s gift to women. Darcy, I’ve been there.”

Darcy’s confidence took an unsteady stagger. She realized that she had entered a realm where, for once, Emerald was far worldlier than she was. Emerald might be dressed as a creature of fantasy, but her words had the ring of cold reality.

“He’s talking to her about investing,” Emerald said ominously. “In Florida—swampland, probably. He’s already sweet-talked his way into her bed. Next it’ll be her bank account.”

Darcy’s muscles tightened. Olivia wasn’t exactly conservative with money. To protect her, Gus had left her a generous monthly allowance dispensed from a trust fund, as well as a large sum to tide her over. But Olivia had already spent almost a third of the ready money on the property in Maine.

The rest of her inheritance was tied up in bonds and real estate. But not so tightly that a clever and determined man might not untie it—the lake house was already for sale.

The nickname of Olivia’s new paramour echoed in her mind like an evil prophecy: BanditKing. Darcy thought, My God! He could be a con man. He could ruin her. Take everything she’s got.

Emerald said, “Mama’s never had much luck with men. This could be, like, the final insult. He could take all her money and destroy her pride.”

The two women looked at each other, and Darcy knew they were thinking of the same thing: Gus’s will.

To each of my stepdaughters, Gus had decreed, I leave the sum of $10,000 in cash and the solemn charge to watch over the welfare of their mother. She’s a wonderful woman, but stubborn, and frankly, sometimes she doesn’t know her ass from a muffin.

Only Gus would have slipped such a phrase in as staid and somber a document as a will—but there it was. Olivia, of course, had been furious, and the girls had only shrugged and smiled sadly.

Neither of them had expected to exert any control over Olivia, or to even have to. The purchase of the house in Maine was inevitable. She had talked about it for years. Gus, of course, had hated Maine. “It’s cold, it’s spooky, it’s full of bears. Stephen King lives there. What does that tell you?”

Emerald squared her shoulders and put her hand on the hilt of her sword. “We were given a solemn charge to watch over mother. It’s a matter of honor. You’ll have to do something—right now.”

“Me?” Darcy said, startled. “Do what?”

“You figure it out,” said Emerald, raising her chin. “You’re the oldest. Call her. Talk some sense into her. Call her now. Do you know her number?”

“I can’t jump into it just like that,” Darcy said. “I’m going to have to think of a way to do this tactfully. If that’s possible. Good grief, the situation couldn’t be worse—”

The phone rang again.

“What now?” Darcy sighed and plucked up the receiver. “Yes?”

Rose Alice’s voice was rich with suspicion. “There was this man just drove up, come to the front door. He wanted you. He wouldn’t identify himself. He’s on his way around there now. I said to him, ‘Hold it, buster,’ but he wouldn’t stop. Gus’s rifles are still in the gun cabinet. You want me to load up, come over there, show this guy the way out?”

Darcy struggled not to flinch. Rose Alice had once been imprisoned for shooting off a man’s ear. “No, no,” she said. “I’ll handle it. Don’t worry.”

“I’ll keep my eye on him,” Rose Alice promised. “Don’t you worry, honey. Rose Alice is right here.”

The line went dead. Darcy heard footsteps stalking up the front walk to the cottage. She and Emerald both turned toward the living room door.

There was a furious knock, so forceful that the very air of the studio seemed to shake.

“Who is it?” Darcy demanded.

There was no answer except another hail of knocking, even more earsplitting.

“All right, all right,” Darcy called, anger rising. “Don’t bang the door down.”

“What is this?” Emerald asked apprehensively.

“I don’t know,” Darcy said, stalking to the door. “Rose Alice says it’s some man.”

She flung open the door.

A tall man stood there. He was expensively dressed, but his black tie was askew and his suit coat was off. His white shirt looked crumpled, and its sleeves were rolled up unevenly on his forearms.

With a jolt, she realized he was an extraordinarily handsome man—or would be, if he were not so lean that he was almost gaunt. His thick brown hair was unruly, and the fore-lock fallen over his brow gave him a dangerous air. His lips were unsmiling. His brows were dark and stern. His eyes were a feline green.

He looked at Darcy, then Emerald behind her, then at the bookworm curled on the floor. “Which one of you is Darcy Parker?” he demanded.

“I am,” Darcy said. Her eyes locked with his. His gaze glittered with a frightening intensity. “Who are you?”

“My name is Sloan English. I’ve come from Tulsa. Your mother and my father are…acquainted. They seem to have met on the Internet. I think you and I had better talk.”

A kaleidoscope of disjointed impressions reeled through her mind.

This man is hostile—

His father? My mother?

What does he mean?

This man is wild—

Emerald stepped to her side and took a militant stance. She gripped the hilt of her sword more fiercely. “Zounds!” she said between her teeth. “It’s the son of that cur, the BanditKing.”

CHAPTER TWO

SLOAN BLINKED. The light was playing tricks—or he was sicker than he thought.

Another woman had appeared beside Darcy Parker, a woman who was little more than a girl. Yet she was dressed as a knight in a black leather doublet and breeches. She wore a jerkin of chain mail and ornate metal guards protecting her shins, shoulders and elbows.

Her hair was cropped short like a boy’s. She was a delicate little thing, but anger flashed from her eyes. Around her waist was buckled a scabbard, and she gripped 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 said, “I had to change the number. I’ve just had some new cards made up. I’ll give you one.”

“That would be excellent,” he said. Alice in Wonderland, he thought. Didn’t she get a long way from her feet? A very reckless thing for her to do…How could a person explain such a thing?

“A mosquito,” he said. The statement made perfect sense to him.

“Excuse me?” said the woman’s voice. It was low and soft, but it echoed. Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me.

“A mosquito,” he repeated. “In Kuala Lumpur.”

“What?” said the woman, and her lovely voice echoed the word again and again, as if his mind had turned into a cave.

“A mosquito in Kuala Lumpur,” he said with great effort. “I picked up some sort of fever. Not contagious. You needn’t be concerned. It’s not catching. I—I’ll phone you.”

The bricks were doing an interesting sort of polka now, way down there in the distance, whirling around his feet.

“I haven’t given you my number yet,” she said in her multiple voices. “Here—take it. Then I think you’d better go.”

She opened the door. On rubbery legs, he stepped back to allow it. The edges of his vision darkened and kept darkening until only she was left at the center of his sight. She seemed to glow like a flame.

She held a card toward him. He reached for it.

“You’re very beautiful,” he said. She had become luminous, and the words seemed so truthful that they were mystical. They liberated him.

He tried to take the card, but it fell, fluttering to the bricks. She looked at it, then at him, her dark eyes widening.

He looked into those eyes and began falling. He felt he was falling down into something without end.

DARCY WATCHED IN HORROR as he took one step, then another, and began to collapse.

He would have pitched face forward onto the marble of the entryway if she hadn’t broken his fall. He was a big man, but she managed to catch him in her arms.

She stumbled backward with the awkward burden of him. For a few seconds they were caught in a frightening dance in which gravity led.

She staggered, still desperately embracing him, and tumbled to her knees. But she did not relinquish him, and she kept his head from striking the marble. Clumsily she managed to turn him as she let his body ease to the floor.

“My God,” she breathed. She had felt the heat of his body; it had been as if the man had a fire in him.

Now he lay at her knees like one dead. She put her hand on his forehead. It burned and was moist with fine sweat. His breath was shallow.

“What’s wrong with him?” Emerald asked in a tremulous voice. “Did he have a fit?”

“He’s got a fever,” Darcy said. “Get me something to put under his head—now—quick.”

With apprehension, she put her hand over his heart. Its beat beneath her fingers was strong and regular. But the white shirt was damp to the touch, and through it she could feel the hotness of his flesh.

She studied his face in bewilderment. The high cheekbones had hollows beneath them, and she saw that his tan was recent and not deep, as if he wore it as a mere illusion of health.

She wondered if he was having a fever dream, for there was a frown line between the dark brows. He had long lashes for a man, and they gave minute jerks as his eyelids twitched. The corner of his mouth twitched, too, as though some tormented impulse in him fought to speak.

She resisted the urge to touch that restless mouth, to try to sooth it. It was sensually shaped, yet the lines that bracketed it seemed to have been engraved by years of discipline.

He was handsome, but too thin. She remembered the feel of his ribs jutting beneath his shirt when she had held him for those few moments.

Almost guiltily, she smoothed his hair from his forehead.

Emerald, clanking, came to her side, dragging something. “Lift up his head,” she said.

Darcy gritted her teeth and slid her hand beneath the man’s neck and up to the back of his skull. His brown hair felt moist at the roots. She lowered his head to rest against the cushion Emerald had brought—before she realized it was the bookworm.

“Not that,” Darcy rebuked, and threw Emerald a sharp glance.

“You said to get something for his head,” Emerald said defensively.

Oh, what the hell, thought Darcy.

“Should I call an ambulance?” Emerald asked.

“Yes,” Darcy said. She touched his brow again. “He’s burning up.”

Emerald arose with the clinking of chain mail. Darcy bent over the man to loosen his tie and undo his top shirt buttons.

Rose Alice burst through the front door. “I saw the whole thing,” she thundered. “I called 9-1-1. Don’t touch him, Darcy. Get back. I’ve got him covered.”

With a shock, Darcy saw that Rose Alice had one of Gus’s golf clubs and was brandishing it at the fallen man.

“Rose Alice,” she cried. “Put that down. He’s unconscious. He’s ill—this is a sick man.”

“Probably drugged to the gills—” Rose Alice sneered “—I thought he had a funny gleam in his eyes. Never should have let him come over here. Get back, Darcy. I’ll teach him to mess with my girls.”

Emerald, halfway to the phone, had stopped dead and now stared fearfully at Rose Alice.

The man stirred. He gave a small groan, and a muscle played fitfully in his jaw. His head rolled back and forth against the bookworm.

“Stand back,” commanded Rose Alice, her grip tightening. “He’s coming to. If he tries anything, I’ll knock his butt to kingdom come.”

“Rose Alice,” Darcy said in her most menacing tone, “put that down, dammit. Right now.”

She put her arms around the man so that her body shielded his, and she glowered furiously at Rose Alice. “I mean it,” she said. “We’re fine. He’s the one in trouble. He’s got some sort of fever.”

Reluctantly, Rose Alice lowered the golf club. “I would have got a gun,” she said. “But I couldn’t find any bullets.”

“Thank God,” Darcy said. “Emerald—call. Make sure an ambulance is coming.”

Emerald went to the phone, dialed and began to talk excitedly.

The man moved again. The frown line between his brows deepened. The dark lashes flickered restlessly.

Suddenly, his hand rose and clamped hotly on her forearm. His grip was surprisingly strong, and she stifled a gasp of surprise. Instinctively she tried to pull away, but he held her fast.

She found herself staring into a pair of green eyes that were narrowed in pain. He raised his head so that his face was close to hers.

“How’d I get on the floor?” he demanded. His voice was a harsh whisper.

“You fell,” she said.

He sank back against the bookworm. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Give me a minute. Then I’ll get out of here.”

He didn’t relax his hold on her, but she hardly noticed. With her free hand, she smoothed back his hair. “No,” she objected. “You’ve got a fever, a bad one. We’ve called an ambulance.”

He groaned. “I don’t want an ambulance. I’ll be fine. Just let me rest a minute.” His eyes squeezed shut, and he grimaced.

“You need to take it easy,” she cautioned.

He opened his eyes and studied her face with perplexity. “You’re the Parker woman, right?”

She nodded. She had a strange, swooping sensation in the pit of her stomach. “Right.”

He put his free hand to his forehead. “And I showed up on your doorstep demanding we talk about our parents, right?”

“Right,” she breathed. His hair had fallen over his brow again, but this time she fought down the impulse to stroke it back into place.

He made a sound of disgust. “I shouldn’t have come. This thing—it sneaked back up on me. I wasn’t in my right mind. I’m probably not in my right mind now.”

He swore and pressed her hand against his chest, and once again she felt the surging beat of his heart.

“Take your mitts off her,” ordered Rose Alice.

He raised his head and looked at her in pained disbelief. Rose Alice was a large, stocky woman with peroxided blond hair. She wore ragged shorts and a T-shirt with the sleeves torn off. She did not pull the golf club back in a threat to swing, but she gripped it more tightly, and her arm muscles tensed. The movement made the tattoos on her biceps ripple.

“Who’s that?” he demanded.

“My mother’s housekeeper,” Darcy said. “Please—lie back down.”

Rose Alice said, “He shouldn’t be hanging on you that way. It’s too damn familiar.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, but he kept her hand pressed against his heart. “You keep the room from spinning round.”

“I don’t mind it,” Darcy told Rose Alice. “Please,” she said, turning back to Sloan English, “don’t exert yourself.”

“I think I hear sirens,” said Emerald. “Hark.” She stalked to the door with a jingle and metallic clatter.

Sloan gave her a puzzled scowl. “And who’s that?”

“My sister,” she said, trying to coax him to lean back again. “You said something about Kuala Lumpur. Is that where you caught this fever?”

“Yes,” he said, sinking back. “And it’s a devil. But you won’t catch it. Humans don’t pass it to humans.”

Rose Alice curled her lip. “Says you. How do we know you’re not running around spreading your cooties?”

“It’s only transmitted by mosquitoes,” he said.

“Girls,” said Rose Alice combatively, “when he’s gone, spray. Darcy, I wouldn’t touch him.”

“Rose Alice!” Darcy said, offended. “He just said it wasn’t contagious.”

“What’s he know?” Rose Alice sniffed. “Him staggerin’ around like Typhoid Mary, flingin’ his germs this way and that.”

“It’s sirens, all right,” said Emerald, staring out the door with interest. “It sounds like a lot of them.”

Sloan English let go of Darcy’s wrist. He struggled to rise. “I don’t need an ambulance. I’ll leave. I’m just causing trouble here—”

He heaved himself up enough to prop his weight on his elbows. Even that exertion made him gasp, and his chest rose and fell alarmingly. Darcy saw a vein in his temple banging like a small blue hammer.

“Please,” she begged, grasping his shoulder to restrain him, “don’t…Please.”

His flesh was hard beneath her hand, the muscles lively. But his skin was still unnaturally hot and his shirt damp with perspiration. He struggled to a sitting position, and she could not stop him; for a sick man, he showed an astonishing amount of strength.

But then his strength failed him. He tried to pull himself to his feet, but instead toppled like a marionette whose strings have betrayed it. He would have struck the marble, but once again Darcy caught him.

He fell back, his head in her lap, his eyes clenched shut in frustration and pain. “Sorry,” he rasped, “sorry.”

The vein in his temple beat more violently. Darcy cradled his head helplessly. The sirens’ whine grew higher, louder. “Help’s coming,” she whispered. “Just stay still.”

His eyes opened tiredly. His head turned, and he stared into the grinning face of the bookworm. “My God,” he breathed hoarsely. “What’s that?”

“It’s only a bookworm,” she soothed, pushing it away.

“Shouldn’t I be protecting you from it?” he asked, and tried to smile. Instead he shuddered, as if racked by a chill.

“It’s harmless,” she said. He squeezed shut his eyes, frowning, and shuddered again. She used the hem of her T-shirt to wipe the mist of sweat from his forehead, his upper lip. “Shh. Easy.”

Sloan’s hand fumbled to find hers again, then closed over it.

“Room’s spinning again,” he said through his teeth. “Anchor me.”

She laced her fingers through his, held on tight.

The skirling of the sirens became unbearable, overwhelming. They filled the air, they beat on Darcy’s eardrums, they sounded like all the hounds of hell about to close in.

Then came a moment of miraculous silence, so absolute she thought she’d gone deaf.

“They’re here,” Emerald said with excitement.

A flurry of sounds—metallic doors slamming, people’s voices, hurried footsteps. Darcy thought she could hear a police radio in the background.

“Here!” yelled Rose Alice, opening the screen door. “He’s in here! He’s declared germ warfare on us! Hurry!”

Dammit, Rose Alice, lighten up. Anger flashed through Darcy, but vanished almost instantly, swallowed up by the chaos spilling into the house.

Paramedics swarmed inside. They pushed her away, they hovered over Sloan English, poking and prodding him. They barked terse, incomprehensible orders to one another. Darcy rose to her feet to watch them, but she felt limp and spent. Rose Alice and Emerald stood on the porch, talking animatedly to a tall policeman.

Attendants were strapping Sloan to a gurney and unfolding a blanket to cover him. “What’d he say he had?” asked a boyish paramedic with a shock of blond hair.

“Malay fever,” said a stocky Hispanic woman, stowing a blood pressure cuff in a black bag. “It’s an ugly bastard. It can come back on you.”

“Ugh,” said the youth, cringing. “Can we get it?”

“No way,” she answered. She turned to Darcy. Her brown eyes were coolly professional, yet not unkind. “He said he’d been in the tropics. That right?”

“I think so,” said Darcy. “He mentioned Kuala Lumpur.”

“How long ago did he get this fever? Doesn’t look like he really recovered from his first bout with it.”

“I—I have no idea,” Darcy stammered. She looked at Sloan, strapped to the gurney, covered now, his blanket like a shroud. His head rolled back and forth as if the fever were riding him into a land of nightmare.

“Will he be all right?” Darcy asked, touching the woman’s arm.

“Should be,” the woman said shortly. “Needs rest. Here—” she said. “He seemed to want you to have this.” She handed Darcy the card she’d refused before. Numbly she took it.

The two male attendants began wheeling the gurney toward the door. Darcy quickly moved to Sloan’s side. “Sloan—Mr. English—can you hear me?”

“Stay back, lady,” the blond boy said. “You can’t come.”

“Sloan?” she begged.

His dark lashes flicked. He turned his head toward the sound of her voice. The green eyes opened. “I’ll make this up to you,” he said in a thick voice.

“It’s all right,” she said.

“We still have to talk,” he said, then sucked in his breath sharply.

“Yes,” she assured him. “We do.”

“I—I never got your phone number,” he said. “I dropped your card.”

They were nearly to the ambulance now. She looked back at the porch. She saw her card lying at the policeman’s feet. “I’ll get it for you,” she promised.

She turned and sprinted back to the porch, then snatched up the card. But by the time she ran back to the ambulance, Sloan’s gurney had been loaded. They were shutting the doors.

“Please—please,” she begged, thrusting the card at the woman. “Give this to him. It’s important.”

The woman looked at her, her expression unreadable, but reached out and took the card.

“Step back,” said the ambulance driver. Darcy found herself pushed backward. The doors clanged shut. She watched as the driver climbed inside. He fired up the engine, turned on the hellish siren. He pulled away and left her standing there.

She watched it go, until it disappeared around the curve of the long drive. She looked down at the card in her hand.

It bore Sloan English’s name and corporate title. It told her his business address and phone number, gave her a company e-mail address, but nothing else. It told her nothing of the man himself.

SUBJECT: WHAT HAVE I DONE?

From: Olivia@USAserve.com

To: BanditKing@USAserve.com

Oh, Lord, darling, what have I done? I hit the wrong button and accidentally sent a copy of the message I wrote you this morning to Emerald OF ALL PEOPLE!!!

She’ll have kittens—medieval ones. She’ll run to Darcy and carry on and make it sound as if I’m the scarlet woman of the Apocalypse.

Bloody computer. I could kick it around the block. Oh, hell—I could kick myself around the block. How could I pull such a fumble-fingered stunt?

I can only hope my girls will be as understanding as your family. Otherwise they’ll think the little men in white coats should come and lock me up. Oh, sweetheart, I feel like such an utter fool. I hope with all my heart that this doesn’t make any trouble.

Love and many desperate kisses,

Your Repentant Olivia,

Who now wishes she’d met you via carrier pigeon

SUBJECT: Calm Down, My Lovely

From: BanditKing@USAserve.com

To: Olivia@USAserve.com

My Dearest Olivia—

Not so much wailing and lamentation, dear heart. This e-mail is a new sort of magic loosed on the world, and like all magic, it can backfire as we try to master it. You are like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, my dear, only far lovelier.

My love, no one should be allowed to wrest from us this sweet and delicate thing we have been fortunate enough to find. Not your family, no matter how beloved they are, and not mine.

But, most treasured Olivia, I have a confession. My family did not take the news as well as I had hoped. We had, in fact, a bit of a set-to about it.

I did not mean to deceive you, dearest, but neither did I wish to burden you. As the Bard says, the course of true love never did run smooth.

We must take these challenges as they come, and calmly.

A thousand kisses,

Your Devoted John

P.S. What are medieval kittens?

SUBJECT: THE DARK AGES, OR SULKING AS A MILITARY ART

From: Olivia@USAserve.com

To: BanditKing@USAserve.com

Medieval kittens don’t just throw a fit; they set it on fire and catapult it across the moat. Trust me on this, I’ve been in the castle when it’s under siege.

Darling, you say the wisest and most tender things, but exactly what do you mean—your family didn’t take the news the way you’d hoped? That there was “a bit of a set-to”?

My sweet, handsome, sexy John, please don’t withhold things from me. You promised you never would. What, precisely, are your sister and son saying to you about this?

Concerned But Trying To Be Calm,

Your Own Olivia,

Who Loves You Truly, Madly, Deeply

CHAPTER THREE

“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.

CHAPTER FOUR

SLOAN AWOKE to a fragile, foreign perfume that he couldn’t identify. It was so delicate that he at first thought he was having some sort of rare hallucination of the nose.

It would go away, he thought; all he had to do was open his eyes.

A hard job, but he was the man for it.

Yet when he forced his heavy lids to raise, the scent did not fade, and his vision was filled by an unexpected kaleidoscope of color.

Flowers. He frowned. Someone had brought him flowers. But not from a florist. This was no formal and formulaic bouquet, its design picked from a catalog and its flowers arranged by rote.

No, the flowers were a wild profusion of untamed color—brilliant scarlets, vivid yellows, and blues as profoundly deep as the spring sky.

They spilled out of a strange clay vase painted with a bright design that wasn’t quite like anything he’d ever seen. It was not elaborate—just the opposite. But it was the perfect complement for its rich cache of blossoms.

A rainbow-striped ribbon had been tied around the vase. From the ribbon hung a card with a charming cartoon face. He groaned, raising himself on one elbow. Merrily colored letters spelled out Wishing You a Speedy Recovery. It was signed with the initials D.P.

The card was made by hand, but the hand had an expert and impish touch. D.P.—Darcy Parker. He thought of the tall woman with the offbeat beauty and the tousled dark hair.

He looked at the bureau. His overnighter rested there. She’d been in his room. She’d left this unlikely bouquet as if it were some sort of souvenir of a Midsummer Night’s Fever Dream.

He fell back to the pillow, squeezing his eyes shut against the blaze of color. He’d have to thank her. He’d have to apologize to her. How? He didn’t want to think about it, and he was momentarily saved from the task—his telephone rang.

He groaned and hoisted himself back up. His head still ached, and his joints still throbbed, but neither pain was as epic as before.

He lifted the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hello, you stupid horse’s neck,” said a familiar male voice. “Who in hell told you to drive clear to Austin?”

Sloan sank back against the pillows with a harsh sigh. The voice, which had a permanently mocking edge, belonged to Tom Caspian. Tom, a former fraternity brother, was now his doctor in Tulsa.

“I felt fine,” Sloan said. “For the first three hundred miles.”

“Dammit, there shouldn’t have been a first three hundred miles,” Tom chided. “I told you to take it easy for at least another six weeks. Malay fever’s tricky. You take care of yourself, or the angels’ll be scattering posies on your grave.”

One already has, Sloan thought, opening an eye and regarding the bouquet of wildflowers.

“Where’d you get the bright idea of a trip?” Tom persisted. “I told you to stay put.”

“I was tired of staying put,” Sloan grumbled.

“Follow doctor’s orders, buddy. Or you’ll be staying put under a tombstone.”

“I’m sick of hearing about it,” Sloan said with distaste. And he was. He’d convalesced two endless months in Southeast Asia. When they’d finally let him come back to the States, he’d been given the impossible command to rest and mend for another three. He was a man built for action, not relaxing. Physical idleness was hellish.

“You been running?” Tom asked, his tone accusatory. “I told you to take it easy on the running. Jog a mile a day, at most. Have you been holding it down to that?”

Sloan thought of the five miles he had done the day before. His body had felt whole again, a strong, efficient machine, all pistons pumping and powerful as ever. “I did a little more,” he admitted.

“Hell, Sloan,” Tom said in disgust. “Have you got a death wish?”

“No. A life wish,” retorted Sloan. “I used to have a life, and I want it back, dammit.”

“It won’t happen overnight, Superman. Lord, Sloan, you’ve always pushed yourself harder than anybody I know. That’s not how you beat this fever. You’ve got to respect it. The Angel of Death passed you over once, buddy. Don’t give him the chance to make a U-turn.”

Sloan put his hand to his forehead, which was hot and sweaty and had started to bang again. “All right, all right,” he said impatiently. “How’d you find me, anyway? Did you implant a microchip in my ass last time you gave me a shot?”

“I ought to, you knothead. No. The hospital down there tracked you through your insurance card. I’ve talked to the admitting physician. He’s referred your case to a specialist in tropical diseases from the university.”

“I don’t want a specialist in tropical diseases from the university. I’ll stick with you. You play bad tennis and have good scotch. What more could a man want?”

“Listen, pal, you’ve already got a specialist. The name is Dr. Nightwine, and we’ve talked. You’ll get a visit by late this afternoon.”

“I want to be out of here this afternoon.”

“No way. You’re under observation.”

“Observation, hell. Come on, Tommy. Make them release me. I’ll come straight home. I’ll get in bed and pull the covers up to my chin. I’ll watch soap operas all day and take up knitting. Just get me out, will you?”

“You don’t travel until Nightwine says you can.”

Sloan swore, but Tommy was adamant. “Nightwine’ll keep you around a couple of days at most, it’s for the best. Another thing—I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’ve put off saying it long enough. I don’t think you should keep taking these extreme assignments. You get in these dangerous environments and—”

“It’s what I do,” Sloan said, cutting him off. “Changing is not an option. Don’t even mention it.”

There was a moment of awkward silence. Tom cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind my asking—exactly what made you take off for Austin like a bat out of hell?” He laughed. “A woman?”

Sloan looked at the vivid wildflowers in their odd yet perfect vase. A woman, he thought. He said only, “Family matters. That’s all.”

He said goodbye; he hung up. But in his mind hovered the image of Darcy Parker, her pert face and her cloud of dark hair.

What, in the name of all that was holy, was he going to say to her?

SUBJECT: Notes on a Prodigal Son

From: BanditKing@USAserve.com

To: Olivia@USAserve.com

Olivia, Beloved—

It was so good to hear your dear voice.

But you must stop apologizing about your housekeeper. If a strange man invaded my premises, I might brandish a golf club myself. It is altogether understandable behavior.

As for my son’s actions, I can only repeat, my sister has always tried to manipulate him, and this time she obviously caught him with his resistance down—both physical and mental.

I’ve talked to him just now for a second time. He still regrets the whole, embarrassing incident (and he damn well should).

Physically, he’s on the upswing, thank God. He’s seen a specialist, a Dr. Nightwine. With luck, he’ll be out of the hospital tomorrow, but he’s not to travel for a few days. Dr. Nightwine wants to do some blood work and to monitor a new medication.

I offered to go and keep him company, but he’ll have none of it. He says he’ll be fine, and the situation’s embarrassing enough without having his old man flying in to hold his hand.

Ah, would that I were closer to you to hold yours, my love, to take you in my arms, to kiss your deliciously kissable lips (and every other part of you, for you are infinitely kissable and delicious). I recall the sweet taste of you and feel as if I have savored the wine of the gods.

My dear, my own incomparable Olivia, I love you endlessly.

Devotedly,

John

P.S.—You were really only joking about your housekeeper once shooting a man—right?

SUBJECT: Arrangements, Winchesters, Etcetera

From: Olivia@USAserve.com

To: BanditKing@USAserve.com

To the darling bandit of my heart—

So glad to hear your son is better. And don’t apologize for him—it’s not his fault. That wretched mosquito made him do it.

Hope he’s out of the hospital as soon as possible. I’ve been in that very one. There used to be the tiniest little nun there with the coldest hands—even the memory chills me—brrr. Wish you were here to warm me, my sweetheart. You do light my fires, you know. (Yes, you know, you sexy devil.)

Oh, dear, I must watch what I say. This is how I got us in trouble in the first place.

So—explain to me about Sloan. If he’s released but has to stay in Austin, where will he stay? Does he have friends there?

Kisses and Caresses from

Your Own Olivia

P.S. No, I was not joking about Rose Alice. She shot off a man’s ear with a Winchester rifle. She’s never told me why, exactly, but apparently he irritated the very hell out of her.

SUBJECT: Hotel Rooms are Wonderful Places

From: BanditKing@USAserve.com

To: Oliva@USAserve.com

Darling Girl—

Just a note before I’m off for the evening’s work.

Your housekeeper is beginning to sound rather fearsome. Don’t you think your household might be more peaceful if you hired someone a little more, well, mellow? And without a felony conviction? Just a thought, sweet girl. I don’t mean to interfere.

Sloan says he’ll check into a hotel near the university. Don’t worry about him. Hotel rooms can be wonderful places—as you have proved to me beyond the shadow of a doubt.

I can’t wait until we can be together again. I will gladly come to Maine. Shall I tell you in minutest detail, the tender and pleasurable things I want to do with you?

Missing you body and soul—

John

SUBJECT: The Most Marvelous Idea!

From: Olivia@USAserve.com

To: BanditKing@USAserve.com

Dearest, most marvelous man—

You in Maine—how wonderful! I’ve got a new four-poster bed with a mattress soft as clouds. Would you like to play in a cloud?

As for Rose Alice, she’s mellowed considerably since her gun-slinging days. I’m sorry that when she backslid, your son was the target. I’ve already spoken to her about that.

And darling, about your Sloan—I have the most marvelous idea. I’ll call Darcy right away…

DARCY CLUTCHED THE PHONE so tightly that her fingernails paled. “What?” she asked in alarm and dismay. “What did you say?”

“I don’t want Sloan stuck in some impersonal hotel room,” Olivia said firmly. “I want him to stay at the lake house.”

Darcy was appalled. “But I live here,” she said.

“No, you don’t,” Olivia corrected. “You live in the guest house. Nobody’s in the big house. It’s just sitting there, going to waste. He’d be so much more comfortable there—he could spread out, read, listen to music, use the hot tub, the pool.”

Darcy pictured Sloan English’s nearly bare body sweating in the hot tub, glistening in the pool. Her nerves skittered to a higher level of anxiety.

“He’ll have a nice view,” Olivia went on. “He can take the boat on the lake if he wants, walk in the garden, get some nice, fresh, healthy air…”

Emerald came into the room from the kitchen. She had taken off her chain mail and sword and boots. She had a peanut butter sandwich in her hand and a curious look on her face. “Who’s on the phone?”

Darcy didn’t answer her. “You can’t just give a stranger the run of your house,” she told Olivia.

“He might not be a stranger long,” Olivia said. “He might be your stepbrother.”

“Stepbrother?” Darcy asked, stunned. “Mother, surely you’re not thinking of getting married—you hardly know this man.”

Emerald’s face went white and her mouth dropped open, forming an O. The peanut butter sandwich fell to the floor. She clutched the edge of Darcy’s worktable as if she needed support.

“I know John intimately,” Olivia said. “I know him better than I’ve ever known any other human being. And yes, we’ve talked about getting married. It’s like that ‘September Song.’ Our days are dwindling down to a precious few, and we want to spend them together.”

“Mother,” Darcy said desperately, “don’t do anything rash—please. If you’re going to get engaged, at least make it a long engagement. Be sure that he’s right for you—”

“He’s perfect for me,” said Olivia. “And I want his son to stay at the lake. It’s a sort of peace offering from our family to his.”

“The lake house,” Darcy said tonelessly. “Our future stepbrother in the lake house.”

Emerald looked even more stunned. She reeled away from the table and flung herself into the easy chair. She bent her head and covered her face with her hands to hide the tears glinting in her eyes.

“Why should our family make a peace offering?” Darcy demanded. “He owes us an apology, not the other way around.”

“Darcy, he’s deeply sorry. I’m going to tell him I insist. I won’t have it any other way. If he really wants my forgiveness, then he can prove it by accepting my offer.”

Oh, Lord, Darcy thought, her stomach twisting sickly. She knew that tone in Olivia’s voice. Her mother had made up her mind, and nothing, nothing, nothing on earth could change it.

Darcy felt overwhelmed. Olivia was about to rush into a foolish marriage, Emerald was distraught and Sloan English was moving in practically on top of her. The thought of having him so near was unsettling, even somehow menacing.

“I’m e-mailing you a list,” Olivia said with her same blithe air of certainty. “I want you to stock the refrigerator for him. He needs nice, healthy foods to build his strength back.”

Emerald hunched in the chair, eyes still covered, her shoulders heaving with silent sobs.

Darcy shook her head in frustration. “Mother, I’m not going to play nursemaid to this man. I’m not going to get all chummy with him just because you’re—you’re under the delusion that you’re in love—”

“Darcy, it’s my house, and he’s my guest. As are you, I might point out. When you lost the lease on your studio, I was glad to let you use the guest house.”

Darcy ground her teeth. It was true. Olivia was generous to a fault. She would accept no rent from Darcy, not a cent.

“Now,” Olivia said, “I’m asking you a simple favor, that’s all. He’s a sick young man in a strange town. How can it be wrong to offer him food and shelter?”

Damn! Now Olivia was making her feel guilty. Darcy raked her hand through her hair in exasperation.

“I’m asking you,” Olivia said, “for very little. Create a hospitable setting for him. Be polite. Get to know him as well or as little as you like. But remember, he’s going to be my stepson. In all probability, that is.”

Darcy winced. She had a horrid premonition that there was no “probability” involved. That Olivia would become Sloan English’s stepmother.

“Can I count on you?” Olivia asked.

Darcy pressed her hand against her midsection, which was suddenly queasy. She looked at her weeping sister. “Yes,” she said unhappily. “You can count on me.”

“Give him a chance, darling,” Olivia said. “You might actually like him.”

Right, Darcy thought bleakly. I’ll love him like a brother.

She hung up and turned to her sister. “Emerald,” she said as kindly as she could, “don’t cry—please.”

Emerald, who hated to be seen crying, stared at Darcy with swollen, brimming eyes. “She’s going to do it, isn’t she?” she said bitterly. “She’s going to marry that man—isn’t she?”

Darcy tried to keep her expression composed. She nodded. “It sounds like it.”

“It’ll be terrible,” Emerald said, and burst into a new freshet of tears. “It’ll be a disaster. He’s probably just after her money, and he’ll spend it all and make a fool of her—” Emerald gave a strangled little wail and hid her face in her hands again.

Stay calm, Darcy cautioned herself. Somebody around here has to. She went to Emerald and knelt beside her. She put her hand on her sister’s slender arm. “It may not happen. This thing may end as quickly as it started. These intense romances are like that. I’ve seen it happen before.”

Emerald straightened, dug a tissue from her waistband and wiped it across her nose with an angry gesture. “And that man—that churl who passed out on the floor—Mama wants him to come live in the lake house?”

Darcy shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “For just a few days. You don’t even have to see him. It’s all right.”

Emerald rolled her teary eyes heavenward. “I can’t believe it. His family’s already moving in and mooching off her. He’ll probably go through all her closets and drawers and steal the silverware—”

Darcy took Emerald’s chin between her thumb and forefinger. “Em, look at me. Calm down.”

“I don’t want to calm down,” Emerald shot back. “I don’t want a stepbrother. I don’t want a stepfather. I don’t want a step anything. Why can’t we just have Mama to ourselves? Why does she have to get mixed up with him? She can’t really know him. He could be a gigolo. Or a bigamist. Or one of those lonely hearts killers. Or—”

“Shh,” Darcy said, and laid her finger across her sister’s lips. “Listen. We don’t know anything about him—good or bad. But if the son comes here, we can find out. This is an opportunity.”

“Some opportunity,” Emerald said disdainfully.

“No. I mean it. I can find out things, feel him out.”

“He’ll probably feel you up,” Emerald retorted. “He’s probably a wolf like his father.”

“Whatever he is, I can handle him.”

“Ha! You don’t know that,” Emerald scoffed. “You don’t know a thing about him.”

“He may be just as suspicious of us as we are of him,” Darcy reasoned. “But I’ll gain his trust, win his confidence. Bit by bit, I’ll draw him out, and then we’ll know—”

“We won’t know anything,” Emerald argued. “He could lie his head off. I’ve got a better idea. Let’s not be nice to him. Let’s make him hate us. That’ll stop them.”

Darcy squeezed her sister’s arm. “No. Mama’d be appalled. We can’t—”

“We can’t let her go through with it, that’s what we can’t do,” Emerald said passionately. “I say that we break it up. Whatever it takes, we do.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Darcy warned. “My way’s best.”

Emerald narrowed her eyes. With a fierce gesture, she scrubbed away the last of her tears. “We’ll see whose way is best.”

Then she stood and walked to the fallen peanut butter sandwich. She picked it up, dropped it into the wastebasket, turned and left the room. She came back, almost immediately, wearing her boots. She carried her armor, her sword in its scabbard. Her back straight, she walked out the front door.

Darcy followed her as far as the porch. She put one hand on her hip and watched her sister stalk to her car.

“Emerald, where are you going?” she demanded. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going home,” Emerald said sulkily. “I’ve got to think.”

Once again, foreboding filled Darcy. “Then think over what I said. We have a great deal to gain from being nice to this Sloan person, and nothing to lose—”

“Except the silverware,” Emerald said sarcastically. “And, of course, Mama.”

SLOAN HAD STUDIED Darcy’s business card as diligently as a fortune-teller studying a tarot card for the answer to an impenetrable mystery.

The mystery, of course, was what he would say to her.

Roses are red.

Violets are blue.

I behaved like a jackass—

Now what do I do?

Three times he had picked up the receiver to call her. Three times, he had set it down again, suddenly convinced the words he’d rehearsed were inadequate, utter tripe.

The clay pot of wildflowers sat on his bedside tray like a perfectly constructed rebuke to his foolishness. He had burst in on her rudely, full of suspicion and self-righteousness. In return, she had given him courtesy and a gift of beauty he did not deserve.

He stared at her card and eyed the flowers. He wondered how she had put such simple elements together in a way that was so striking and original—just as she seemed to be.

He was usually an articulate man, but he found himself tongue-tied. He was normally confident, but now he brimmed with indecision. He hated it, and, irrationally, he resented Darcy Parker for reducing him to this state.

A pretty Hispanic nurse looked in on him. She had raven black hair, which made him remember Darcy even more keenly. She had dark, bright eyes that had the same effect. She tilted her head and gave him a smile.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked.

An eraser that rubs out the whole day, he thought.

It occurred to him that he had a small electric notebook in his suitcase. It was powered by batteries and had Internet capability.

He could write Darcy, not phone her. It would be far less complicated. He could send her an e-mail—short, succinct and highly polished. He wouldn’t have to take the chance of bumbling and stuttering on the phone like an awkward schoolboy.

“Yeah,” he said with a feigned easiness. “In my overnighter, there’s a little computer in a leather case. One of the super-compact ones. Could I use it to send some e-mail?”

“Sure,” she said without hesitation. “At least I think so. They wouldn’t allow one in Intensive Care—it could interfere with the machines. But here? I don’t see why not.”

He started to rise, gripping the IV stand so he could roll it with him. Gently she pushed him back. “I’ll get it for you. Relax.”

She brought it to him. “I never saw one like that,” she said with delight. “It’s so little, so cute—like a toy.”

He nodded, but the thing was no toy; it was a five-thousand-dollar PowerBook, upgraded to the max.

“I hope you’re not going to work,” she joked. “You’re here to rest, you know.” She adjusted the IV dripping chemicals into his bloodstream.

“I’d rest better if they’d unhook this thing. It’s like being caught in a spiderweb.”

“Soon,” she said soothingly. “Another couple hours or so. Then we’ll have you up in no time.”

He nodded grimly, but thanked her. She left, and he switched on the computer. He typed in his password and pulled up his e-mail service. He hit the command to write, then stared at the blank screen. He drew a long breath from between clenched teeth. He began to type.

He tried to choose his words with such precision that it made his head ache again. He discovered his forehead was damp with sweat and his body taut with tension. He rearranged sentences, changed words, added phrases, deleted them, put them back.

He wrote and rewrote until the words danced like drunken elves in his brain. They chittered, idiot-like, and made no sense. Finally, in despair and fatigue, he gave in. Imperfect as the message was, he sent it. He switched off the computer and put it in the drawer beneath the bedside tray.

He lay back and closed his eyes. His head banged a doleful cadence like a funereal drum. He saw a silent fireworks show on the backs of his eyelids. For the thousandth time, he cursed Malay fever and every mosquito that had ever sipped blood.

His phone rang, and the noise was like a nail being driven into his skull. He winced and opened one eye. He picked up the receiver.

A perfectly charming voice spoke in his ear. “Hello, Sloan. My name is Olivia Ferrar. Your father’s friend. I’m so sorry to hear you’re ill.”

Oh, my God, thought Sloan. “Ms. Ferrar,” he said miserably, “I’m sorry I interfered in your personal business. I wasn’t myself, but that’s no excuse. Please accept my deepest apolo—”

“My dear, are you truly sorry?” she asked. The question took him aback.

“Absolutely,” he said with conviction. “If there were anything I could do to—”

She interrupted, but her voice was so warm and honeyed, he hardly noticed. “If there were anything you could do to make up for it, you’d do it?”

“Absolutely,” he repeated. “I’d do anything that—”

“Anything at all?” she cooed.

“Yes. Certainly. Anything,” he babbled. “Your wish is my—”

“Command?” She laughed. It was a bewitching laugh, low and genuine. “Is that what you were going to say?”

“Precisely.” He stifled a groan, closed his eyes and watched the fever fireworks. A particularly lovely cascade of dots exploded across the darkness. He watched them fall and die away.

“Your father says you have to stay in town a few days,” she said in her nectar-like voice. “My wish is that you stay at my house by the lake. As my guest. If you grant that wish, then I’ll know your apology is sincere.”

Sloan’s eyes snapped open, and he sat up in bed so fast it dizzied him. “Ms. Ferrar, I can’t—”

“Olivia,” she corrected. “And you must. If you won’t accept my invitation, you’ll simply break my heart, that’s what—”

“I can’t—” he tried again to say it. She wouldn’t let it be said.

“It wouldn’t be—” he tried to explain. She wouldn’t let it be explained.

She reasoned and teased, she begged and beguiled, she turned logic on its head and argued so sweetly and relentlessly, he ended up saying, “Yes,” in spite of himself.

“You’re a darling man,” she crooned in his ringing ear. “You sound just like your father.”

When she at last said goodbye, he fell back against the pillow, exhausted. She’d rolled right over him like a freight train full of charm.

His father, he realized, had never had any chance of resisting this woman.

Neither had he. A man could fight Malay fever and he could fight Olivia Ferrar—but he couldn’t fight both at once.

He closed his eyes and wearily thought, Let the fireworks begin.

They did, a whole rainbow of them, colorful as Texas wildflowers.

CHAPTER FIVE

RESIGNED, DARCY SAT at her desk and switched on her computer.

She typed in her password to open her electronic mailbox so she could read Olivia’s instructions. It was galling, really, to be expected to fetch and carry for Sloan English, as if she were the lowest scullery maid.

“I am my brother’s keeper,” she grumbled to herself. “My stepbrother’s keeper.”

Then she read her list of new mail and blinked in astonishment. There was a message from him—the dreaded stepbrother-to-be.

SUBJECT: All in the Family

From: SloanJEnglish@PetroCorp.com

To: DesignByDarcy@USAserve.com

Dear Darcy Parker:

My father is a good man, but he sired a fool. Your mother is obviously an extraordinary woman; she raised a daughter who is lovely, cool-headed and kind.

I brought only anger and sickness to your door. In return, you gave me compassion. I was intolerable, but you tolerated me; I was insufferable, yet you suffered me.

From the bottom of my heart, I apologize. And for the way you received my folly and gave me only good in return, I can but sincerely echo Shakespeare’s words, “Thanks, and thanks and ever thanks.”

Sincerely yours,

Sloan English

P.S. Can you forgive me? We may, after all, become family. If so, I would do all in my power to make it a happy one.

P.S. 2 Tell the bookworm, “Hello.” Right now I feel like a worm myself, although a lower form…

“Oh, damn!” Darcy whispered in frustration. He sounded…decent. He sounded reasonable. And he sounded sincerely repentant. How much easier it would be if he remained a toad and didn’t turn into a prince.

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