Bethany Campbell - P.s. Love You Madly

“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.