He nodded slowly. “So you think the only way I could get a decent woman to marry me would be to pay her?”
She shrugged. “It was just a thought.”
Soft footsteps outside made Lucinda look up. The door opened and Lily peered inside. “Holden, Sheriff Grayhawk would like to speak to you now.”
He glanced at Lucy, then at the two in the bed. “I don’t really want to leave you here alone,” he told her. “If they wake up again…”
“I’ll stay with her, Holden,” Lily said softly. Holden looked at her, looked at Lucy, lifted his brows.
“We’ll be fine,” Lucinda assured him. “The sedative shouldn’t wear off for hours anyway.”
“All right. If you’re sure.”
“I am.”
Holden started for the door, then paused. “Lucy…do me a favor and don’t leave for a while. I’d really like to continue this conversation.”
She shrugged. “If my beeper goes off, I don’t have much choice in the matter,” she said. “But I’ll hang around as long as I can.”
“Good,” he said, looking at her oddly. “Good.” He left the room and closed the door.
Three
“Do you mind if I give you some unsolicited advice?” Lily asked in her soft voice.
Lucinda sat back in her place, watching Claudia and Matthew closely, though she didn’t expect either of them to wake anytime soon. “Advice? About what?”
“About Holden.”
Lucinda blinked and quickly averted her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“I’m not blind, Lucinda. And you don’t have what I would call a…poker face.”
Lucinda shook her head slowly. “You’re imagining things, Lily.”
“Be careful with him,” she went on. “He’s trying very hard to be just like his father. And his father was…not a nice man.”
Lucinda’s brows went up. “You knew him well, then?”
“Cameron? I knew him. Thirty years ago when I first came here to work for the family. He and Ryan—they couldn’t have been more different. Cameron used women and threw them away.”
Lucinda tilted her head, facing Lily squarely. “And you think Holden is the same way?”
“I think Holden has reached a crossroads. Time will tell which path he chooses. But right now, he’s dangerous, Lucinda. Particularly to a woman who might be…vulnerable to him.”
Lucinda lifted her brows. “Well, I certainly don’t fall into that category.”
With a gentle smile, Lily said, “Good. He can’t hurt you, then.”
Taking a deep breath, thinking twice before she spoke and then deciding she had no reason not to, Lucinda said, “I thought it was Ryan you fell in love with way back then.”
“It was.”
“Then why do I get the feeling it was Cameron who broke your heart?”
Lily’s eyes widened slightly before she averted them. Lucinda’s beeper went off in her pocket and she grabbed for it quickly, shut it off, and looked toward the couple in the bed. But the sound hadn’t pierced their drug-induced sleep. Glancing down at the beeper, she saw a familiar number on the digital readout.
“It’s the hospital. I have to go. They wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t an emergency.”
Lily nodded. And she looked almost…relieved. “Go ahead. I’ll be fine here.” Lucinda glanced worriedly at Matthew and Claudia. “If you’re concerned,” Lily went on, “then send Ryan up on your way out.”
She nodded. “All right. I’ll do that. Tell Holden…” She paused as Lily’s brows went up. “Never mind,” Lucinda said, and she hurried out of the room.
It was a crazy thought. An utterly ridiculous idea. Ludicrous. But Holden couldn’t get it out of his mind. It lingered there. Even while his mother was opening up the doors to admit Sam Waterman, a private security consultant Uncle Ryan had used before. Even while Sheriff Wyatt Grayhawk filled Sam in and the two of them concluded their questioning of the guests and gave the last of them the okay to leave. Even while the local cops were checking the trunks and back seats of the cars one by one before letting them pass out through the front gates.
As soon as the sheriff and Sam finished questioning him, Holden headed back upstairs to Matthew and Claudia’s room. But when he burst through the door, he saw Uncle Ryan standing near the window, Lily wrapped in his arms.
They looked up when he entered, and Holden could see the tear tracks on Lily’s face. Less evident, but still visible, was the worry in his uncle Ryan’s. “How are they doing?” Holden asked, glancing toward the bed.
“Resting. I hate to think about what will happen when they wake.” Ryan shook his head. Holden nodded in full agreement and took another look around the room.
“She had to go back to the hospital,” Lily said.
He glanced at her sharply. “Who?”
Lily just scowled at him. “You know perfectly well who. Lucinda Brightwater.”
“Oh. Her.” Holden averted his eyes. He disliked Lily’s opinion of him, though he did nothing to discourage it. She seemed to agree with his own conclusion that he was too much like his old man to be trusted. Especially with nice girls…like Lucy.
“Has the sheriff learned anything new?” Ryan asked.
“No, not yet.” Holden looked at his cousin Matthew as he began to stir. “It’s still so soon. Look, something’s going to turn up.”
Matthew’s eyes opened. He looked around, disoriented, blinking. Then he closed his eyes tight again. “Oh, God, Bryan…”
“It’s all right, Matthew.” Lily rushed to the bedside.
“It’s not all right. God, my son—” Matthew sat up in the bed, his head in his hands.
Holden went to him. Moving Lily gently aside, he took Matthew by the shoulders. “Listen up, cousin.”
When Matthew didn’t respond, Holden gave him a shake. Lily started to protest but Ryan held up a hand and she went still. “Dammit, Matthew, listen to me. You have to pull yourself together. Look around here. Look at your wife, for God’s sake.”
Matthew looked sideways at Claudia. She lay curled in the fetal position, her eyes moving rapidly beneath lightly closed lids, her hair mussed, her breathing uneven and jerky.
“She’s gonna need you, Matthew. She’s gonna need you solid and strong. This thing could take some time, and it’s gonna be rough on her. You go falling apart, and she’ll never get through it, you understand me?”
Matthew lifted his head slowly, eyeing Holden. “Yeah. I understand.”
“No more smashing glass or swinging shotguns around like a lunatic, then.”
Matthew nodded. “What the hell do you suggest I do instead?”
“Wait,” Holden said. “Your father has Waterman and Grayhawk turning over every rock. The FBI is going to be getting involved, as well. There’s not a damn thing any of us can do beyond what’s already being done. At least not until the kidnappers make contact again to set up an exchange.”
Matthew looked toward his father. Ryan nodded. “He’s right, son. I know it’s hard to take, but Holden is absolutely right.”
Finally, with a sigh, Matthew nodded. “Jeez, I’m dizzy. What the hell did Lucinda give me?”
“She didn’t say,” Holden told him. “I’ll ask her when I see her.”
Matthew’s brows went up. “You’re seeing her?”
“You got a problem with that, cousin?”
Matthew shook his head. “If she’s smart, she’ll get as far away from the Fortunes as she can. You included.”
“Well, let’s hope she’s not quite as smart as she seems, then.” Holden turned to Ryan. “Is there anything more I can do here?”
Ryan shook his head. “You’ve been a great deal of help today, Holden. Sometimes…sometimes I think you take after your mother far more than you do your father. And when you do, I’m glad of it.”
“I’ll drive Mother home, then.”
“I think she plans to say here tonight,” Lily said.
“Fine. I
f you need me, call the house. If I’m out, leave a message. I’ll check in often.”
Ryan nodded, and Holden left.
Getting into his car, he pulled out of the drive, and headed straight into Red Rock. Red Rock General Hospital was only a few minutes away, and that was where he was bound. Because until he followed this insane idea that he’d come up with earlier to its conclusion…it wasn’t going to leave him alone.
Lucinda was running, the newborn cradled in her arms. The tiny bit of a thing fit in the palms of her hands easily. Three pounds, two ounces. The nurses were running beside her, the baby’s father bringing up the rear. There had been no time to prepare, no warning. The girl had been giving birth even as Lucinda arrived. Before any background information could be obtained.
The neonatal resident, Dr. Edward Greene, came running from the other direction.
“Condition?” he shouted.
“Critical. She’s barely breathing!”
Greene took the baby from Lucinda’s arms like the second runner in a relay race. He turned and raced up the hall toward the neonatal intensive care unit. Lucinda stood there and watched him go. The adrenaline in her blood dropped drastically, and she braced her arms against the nearest wall, nearly sagging to the floor. Holding back the tears was choking her. She wasn’t supposed to get this involved… Wasn’t supposed to feel this strongly—
“Hey…hey, hold on…”
A pair of strong hands clasped her waist from behind. Holden Fortune’s voice surrounded her. She managed to stiffen her knees, stand up straight, swallow the tears, and turn to face him.
“Jeez, you look awful.”
“That baby looked worse. Did you see…?”
Holden nodded, sending a grim glance in the direction Dr. Greene had run with the child. “Will it live?”
Lucinda shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Holden looked down into her eyes. “What happened?”
There were shouts and crying from a room a few doors down, and Lucinda blinked herself back to reality. “Can I tell you about it later? I need to talk to the mother right now.”
“Not a job I imagine you’re looking forward to.”
“No. It’s not.”
“I’ll be here when you come out,” he said.
Now why should those words give her a surge of comfort? She wasn’t sure. She only knew that knowing he would be there after this ordeal, knowing someone would be there, made her feel just a tiny bit better.
Holden watched Lucy’s face across the table in the hospital cafeteria as she sipped stale coffee and poured her stress out. She cared. Doctors weren’t supposed to, he thought, at least not to this degree, but he didn’t think she could help herself.
“Premature,” she was saying. “At least nine weeks, maybe more. And his mother never saw a doctor until she was in the final stages of labor. The baby was crowning when I got to her. No neonatal specialist in sight. We had to call Greene in from home, and even then he was almost too late.”
Holden nodded, saying nothing. Just letting her talk it out.
“The baby didn’t breathe. We had to bag her to get her started, and then she was barely getting enough oxygen into her bloodstream to keep her lips from turning blue. Their lungs aren’t fully developed at this stage. If the mother had come in earlier, we could have given her a shot to help that along, maybe even stopped the labor altogether.”
“So why didn’t she?”
Lucy closed her eyes. “She figured the less time she spent here, the less it would cost her.” She sighed. “She started screaming when she saw that baby, so tiny, so limp, and just as blue as… She kept saying she’d have come sooner if she’d known… See, that’s just it. A lot of these women don’t know. They don’t know the first thing about prenatal care and the risks they’re running by not getting it. They need education…and once they have it, they need a place to go where they can get the care they need at low or no cost. Otherwise, the education will be useless.”
Holden nodded, seeing now why this clinic idea of hers meant so much to her. “You’ve had one hell of a day of it today, haven’t you, Lucy?”
She met his eyes. “I’m probably boring you to tears with all this. And it’s not as if you haven’t had a hellish day yourself.”
“I don’t think you could bore me if you tried. But I do think we could both use a little diversion.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Such as?”
“A movie? You name it.”
She lowered her head. “I’m too exhausted for that.”
“Well, you have to eat, don’t you?”
She nodded, sighing, knowing this was a bad idea.
“Don’t tell me you intend to do it here.” Holden glanced down at his cup. “Judging by their coffee, I’d say that would be a bad decision.” He sucked in a breath. “We could, uh, go to my place.”
“That orgy den you keep in San Antonio? Not on your life.”
He gave his head a quick shake. “You do have an expressive way with words. But I wasn’t talking about the apartment. I need to stick close to home tonight. So I was referring to the house on the Double Crown.”
“The mansion where you grew up, you mean.”
He nodded. “I, uh, don’t take women there. As a rule. In fact, you’d be the first. Since high school, at least.”
She lifted her brows. “Am I supposed to feel flattered?”
“You’re supposed to feel reassured. If I meant to add you to my, uh, babe buffet menu, I’d certainly be trying to get you back to the orgy den, wouldn’t I?”
“I’m really too tired to follow your logic.”
“So come to the house. We’ll get something to eat and relax for a little while. The mayhem will be waiting for us when we get back, I promise.”
“Unfortunately,” she said, “I’m also too tired to put up much of a fight. So, sure, why not?”
“Great. And, uh, thanks for the tip.” He sent her a wink. “About you being too tired to put up much of a fight, that is.” He made a wolfish face, and she felt herself smile.
It was a small enough thing. But it meant something to her just then. She hadn’t imagined anything could have made her smile tonight. Children—there was nothing she loved more. Yet today she’d seen one snatched from his home and another forced into the world too soon. And she couldn’t be certain either of them would survive.
They took both cars, which was the only logical thing to do. Either one of them could be called away at any moment. At any rate, a half hour later, Lucinda stood outside the huge, stately house, two miles from Ryan’s. It was still vivid white. Every window still had a balcony. And the two-story front porch still had columns that reached from bottom to top.
The place hadn’t changed since that night so long ago. It was as if not a day had passed. And just as then, it didn’t look as if anyone else was around.
“Come on, it’s not as imposing as it looks.”
She didn’t remind him that she’d been here before.
Holden took her arm and led her up the steps, across the porch, past its pillars, and through the double front doors. The inside was just as impressive as before, though not quite the same. The furnishings had changed and the color schemes were lighter now.
Holden just kept tugging her along as she swung her head trying to take it all in. Finally he was moving outside again, through glass doors onto a redwood patio that spread wide and enveloped a kidney-shaped pool.
“Now this is better.”
“I’m hardly dressed for lounging poolside,” she said, looking down at her clothes.
“Lucky for you there’s no dress code.” He was moving past the pool, following the deck around the corner of the house to where it narrowed.
She took a breath, blew it out again. A porch swing sat on the more modest back porch, and a gentle breeze blew here. “Better?” he asked.
She faced him as she turned to take a seat on the swing. “How did you know?”
He shrugge
d. “You seem to have a conscience. Stands to reason it would bother you to hang out in the lap of luxury while your patients can’t even afford their prenatal vitamins. And I don’t want you all tense and guilty. I want you to relax.”
He took a seat beside her and gave the swing a push with his feet. Lucinda leaned back against the plush cushions, her aching head pillowed by softness. In the distance, lush green hills and occasional clusters of woods unrolled as far as the eye could see. Dark shapes dotted the nighttime landscape here and there. And way off on the horizon she could see the hazy outline and lighted windows of the Double Crown, about two miles distant.
“This is a peaceful place,” she said.
“Yes. It’s my favorite spot on the entire spread.”
“Really? Even at 3:00 a.m.?”
He nodded. “Especially at 3:00 a.m. Listen.”
Lucinda let her eyes fall closed, let the breeze caress her into a state of calm she hadn’t felt in weeks, and listened. The gentle laughter of a stream not too far off. The call of a night bird to punctuate the unending whir of crickets and tree frogs. A bullfrog sang his deep baritone chorus. The wind made the leaves dance in the trees.
“Heaven,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he replied.
They never did eat.
Holden woke to softness and a scent he found intensely arousing. Within a moment of opening his eyes he identified it. It was Lucy. Her hair, her skin…something. They’d fallen asleep on the porch swing. And now she was curled up in his arms with her head on his shoulder, hugging his waist like a lover.
He stared down at her, wondering if he had ever in his life spent the night with a woman and not had sex with her.
Nope, he didn’t think so.
About that time Lucy’s head lifted until her eyes locked with his. She blinked, and those eyes got as big as saucers. She was just so damned cute in the morning. Hair all tossed around, eyes so big and confused and unfocused. Her arms were still locked around his waist. His held her tightly to him. And he supposed he must not be fully awake himself, because he suddenly moved the merest bit it took to settle his mouth atop hers.
Damn, that was good. He tilted her head and kissed her deeper, one hand creeping over her nape and into her hair until it cupped her head so he could move her into just the right position. He heard the soft sigh that stuttered out of her. He tasted it. And then he pulled her right into his lap, bending over her to kiss the living hell out of her.
Million Dollar Marriage Page 5
