P.s. Love You Madly

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