by J. R. Ward
Also nothing.
No, wait.
His father's suitcase, the monogrammed one he used so often, was open and partially packed. But . . . packed badly. The clothes were messy inside, hastily thrown in by someone who had little to no experience in doing the duty for himself.
Rifling through the contents, Lane found nothing of note.
But he did notice that his father's favorite watch, the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, was missing from the lineup inside the velvet-lined watch case. And his wallet was gone.
Heading back into the bedroom, he surveyed the furniture, the books, the desk, but had no idea if there was anything out of place. He'd been in here only a handful of times . . . and not for at least a good twenty years.
"What are you up to, Father," he asked the quiet, still air.
Following an instinct, he went out, reshut the door, and jogged back down the staff stairs to the first floor. It took him less than a minute to get out to the garages and once inside, he counted the cars. The Phantom was still there, but two of the Mercedeses were missing. Chantal had obviously been in one.
His father had to have taken the other.
The question was . . . where.
And when.
FORTY-FOUR
"Y'all can't be doing this again. Come on, now, wake up."
Edward batted at the hand that pulled at his arm. "Lea . . . me 'lone."
"The heck I will. It's cold in here, and you're not up to this."
Edward opened his eyes slowly. Light was coming through the open bay at the end of the stable, catching swirls of hay dust and the profile of one of the barn cats. A mare whinnied across the way, and somebody kicked their stall--and off in the distance, he caught the low-pitched growl of one of the tractors.
Holy shit did his head hurt, but it was nothing compared to his ass. Funny how a part of the body could be both totally numb and in pain.
"Y'all need to get the hell up . . ."
All the chatter made him curse--and try to focus.
Well, what do you know. There were two Shelbys talking at him: His newest employee was standing over him like a disapproving teacher, her hands on her lean hips, her jeans-clad legs and booted feet braced as if she were considering soccer-balling his head.
"I thought you didn't curse," he mumbled.
"I don't."
"Well, I believe you just said a bad word."
Her eyes narrowed. "Are you getting up, or am I sweeping you out of here with the rest of the debris."
"Don't you know that 'hell' is a gateway word? It's like marijuana. Next thing you know, you'll be dropping 'fuck' bombs left and right."
"Fine. Stay there. See if I care."
As she turned and walked off, he called out, "How was your date the other night?"
She pivoted back around. "What are you talking about?"
"With Moe."
At that, he struggled to get himself up off the cold concrete floor of the stable. When he couldn't manage it, she lifted a brow. "You know, I do believe I will leave you there."
Above his head, Neb snickered like the stallion was laughing.
"I didn't ask for your help," Edward gritted out.
Without warning, his hand slipped and his body slammed down to the concrete so hard his teeth clapped together.
"You are going to kill yourself," she muttered as she marched back over.
Shelby picked him up with all the care one might offer to a fallen pitchfork--but he had to give her credit. Even though she came up to only his breastbone, she was more than strong enough to get him down the aisle, out of the bay, and across the lawn to his cottage.
Once they were inside, he nodded to his chair. "Over there would be--"
"Y'all hypothermic. That's not going to happen."
Next thing he knew, she'd sat him down on his toilet seat and was starting the bath.
"I'll take it from here," he said, leaning to the side and letting the wall catch him. "Thanks."
He was just shutting his eyes when she slapped him in the face. "Wake up."
The sting did bring him around, and he rubbed his cheek. "Did you enjoy that?"
"Yes, I did. And I'll do it again." She shoved his toothbrush into his mouth. "Use that."
It was hard to talk around the damn thing, so he did what he was told, working the left side, the right, the front, the under parts. Then he bent over and spit in the sink.
"It's not that cold," he said.
"How would you know. You're saturated drunk."
Actually, he wasn't--and that was probably part of the problem. For the first time in how long, he hadn't had anything to drink the night before--
"What are you doing?" he said as her hands went to his fleece.
"I'm getting you undressed."
"Really."
While she worked his clothes, he looked at her body. It was hard to see much of it, what with her sweatshirt, and he decided to reach for her to test out that waist.
She stopped. Stepped back. "I'm not interested in that."
"Then why are you taking my clothes off."
"Because your lips are blue."
"Turn that off." He pointed to the faucet. "I'll take it from here."
"You'll drown."
"So what if I do. Besides, you don't want to see what's under here."
"I'll be waiting out by your chair."
"And doesn't that give me something to look forward to," he said under his breath.
She shut the door behind her with a clap--and he didn't follow through on anything. He just went back to leaning against the wall and looking at the steaming water.
"I don't hear any splashing," she said from outside.
"It's not deep enough for me to swim in yet."
Knock. Knock. Knock. "Hop to it, Mr. Baldwine."
"That's my father. And he's an asshole. I go by Edward."
"Shut up and get in the water."
Even through the fog of his stupor, he felt a flare of something for her. Respect, he supposed it was.
But who cared--
Boom, boom, boom!
"You are going to break that door down," he yelled over the noise. "And I thought you didn't want to see me naked."
"Water. Now," she clipped out. "And I don't, but better that than you being dead."
"Matter of opinion, my dear girl."
And yet he decided to do what she said. For some insane reason.
Bracing his arms on the sink and the back of the old-fashioned toilet, he hefted his body up to his feet. His clothes were a pain in the ass, but he got them off . . . and then he was in the tub. Strangely, the warm water had the opposite effect that it should have. Instead of heating him up, it made him feel freezing cold, and he began to shiver so badly, he created chop on the surface of the bath.
Crossing his arms over his chest, his teeth rattled together, and his heart skipped beats.
"You okay in there?" she asked.
When he didn't answer, Shelby said more loudly, "Edward?"
The door burst open and she jumped into the bathroom like she was prepared to go lifeguard and save him from twenty-four inches of water. And it was horrible . . . as she looked down at him, all he could do was stare into the messy water--and hope that it covered up his spindly legs, his flaccid sex, his white skin with its purple scars.
He was pretty sure she gasped.
Smiling up at her, he said, "Pretty, aren't I. But believe it or not, I'm fully functional. Well, Viagra helps. Be a darling, would you, and bring me some alcohol--I think I'm detoxing and that's why I'm shaking like this."
"Do you . . ." She cleared her throat. "Do you n-n-need a doctor?"
"No, just some Jim Beam. Or Jack Daniel's."
As she simply stared at him, he pointed through the open door behind her. "I'm serious. What I need is alcohol. If you want to save me, get me some. Now."
*
When Shelby Landis backed out of that bathroom and shut the door, she fully intended to get Edw
ard what he'd asked for.
After all, she had a lot of experience with alcoholics--and even though she didn't approve of any of it, she'd brought her pops his booze a thousand times, and usually in the morning, too.
At least that was her plan. In reality, however, she couldn't seem to move, to think . . . even to breathe.
She had not been prepared for the sight of that man in there, his dark head bowed as if he were ashamed of his too-thin, mangled body, his man's pride as shredded and unhealed as his flesh. He had once been a great force; her father had told her the stories of his dominance in business, on the track, in society. Heck, she had heard about the Bradfords since she was young: Her father had refused to drink anything but their No. 15--and so had most of the horse people she knew.
Putting her hands to her face, she whispered, "What did you do to me, Pops?"
Why had he sent her here?
Why . . .
"Shelby?" came the demand from inside the bathroom.
God, it was just like her father: The way Edward said her name with that hint of desperation . . . it was exactly the way her Pops had when he'd needed the drink bad.
Closing her eyes, she cursed out her breath. Then felt guilty. "Forgive me, Lord. I know not what I say."
Looking across the space, she found a lineup of full liquor bottles in front of one of the shelves of silver trophies, and the idea of delivering that poision to him made her want to be sick. But he would just come out here himself--and probably fall and hit his head on the way. And then where would they be? Plus, she knew the way things worked. That terrible trembling wasn't going to stop until the beast inside was fed what it needed, and his body looked so frail to begin with.
"Coming," she called out. "What kind do y'all want?"
"It doesn't matter."
Blindly heading for bottles, she picked up some gin and went back to the closed door of the bathroom. She didn't bother to knock, just walked right in.
"Here." She cranked the top off. "Drink from it."
Except with the way his hands were trembling, there was no way he could handle the bottle himself without spilling it everywhere.
"Let me hold it for you," she muttered.
There was a moment of hesitation from him, and then he lifted his mouth like a newborn foal who had been left by its mother.
He took two or three deep swallows. And another. "Now, that's warm."
Putting the gin by the side of the tub so he could reach it if he wanted, she took a full-sized bath towel and submerged it in the water behind him. When it was soaked and dripping, she draped it over the protruding ridge of his spine and the strips of his ribs. Then she went to work on his head with a washcloth, getting his hair wet, slicking it back.
Without him asking, she brought the gin bottle up again and he took from it, nursing from the open mouth.
Washing him with the soap and the shampoo reminded her of caring for an animal not long rescued. He was flinchy. Mistrusting.
Half dead.
"You need to eat," she said in a voice that cracked.
I don't have this in me, Lord. I can't do this again.
She hadn't managed to save that miscreant alcoholic father of hers. Losing two men in one lifetime seemed more than enough failure to go around.
"I'm going to make you breakfast after this, Edward."
"You don't have to."
"Yes," she said roughly. "I know."
FORTY-FIVE
"So are we doing this again?"
At the sound of the male voice, Lizzie stopped in the process of transferring yet another Hedera helix spine into a fresh pot. Closing her eyes, she took a breath and ordered her hands not to shake or drop anything.
She had been waiting for Lane to come and find her. It hadn't taken long.
"Well?" he said. "Are we back at this thing where you hear something you don't like and shut me out? Because if that's the script we're running here, and it sure as hell looks like we are, I guess I should just hop back on a plane to New York and call it quits now. So much more efficient and I don't have to run up a phone bill leaving messages on your voice mail."
Forcing her hands to keep going, she put the root system into the hole she'd dug in the pot and began to transfer fresh soil in to fill things up.
"Something I didn't want to hear," she repeated. "Yes, you could say that finding out your wife is pregnant--again--is a news flash I would have preferred not to hear. Particularly because I learned about it right after I'd had sex with you myself. And then there was the happy news that you were being arrested for putting her in the hospital."
When he didn't say anything after that, she glanced over at him. He was standing just inside the greenhouse, by the workstation Greta would have been at had Lizzie not told the woman that she needed some time by herself.
"Do you honestly think I'm capable of something like that?" he asked in a low voice.
"It's not up to me to decide anything of the sort." She refocused on what she was doing and hated the words she spoke. "But the one thing I will say is that the best clue to future behavior is the way someone has conducted themselves in the past. And I can't . . . I can't do this with you anymore. Whether or not any of it is true isn't the issue for me."
After patting down the new soil, she reached for her watering can and tilted the thing over the ivy's feet. In another three months, the plant would be ready to move outdoors to one of the beds, or to the base of a wall, or to a pot on the terrace. They had great luck with this variant on the estate, but it was only good planning to have backups.
Wiping her hands off on the front of her potting apron, she turned to face him. "I'm leaving. I gave my notice. So you don't have to worry about going back to New York."
She had no trouble meeting his eyes. Looking him in the face. Squaring off at him.
It was amazing how clear you could become with others when you knew where you stood yourself.
"You really think I could do that to a woman," he repeated.
Of course I don't, she thought to herself. But she stayed silent because she knew that if she really wanted him to leave her alone, the insinuation would hurt his male pride and that, sadly, would work in her favor.
"Lizzie, answer the quesiton."
"It's not any of my business. It just isn't."
After a long moment, he nodded. "Okay. Fair enough."
As he pivoted and went for the door, she had to admit she was a little surprised. She'd expected some long, drawn-out thing from him. A torrent of persuasion she was going to have to deflect. Some kind of I love you, Lizzie. I really do love you.
"I wish you well, Lizzie," he said. "Take care."
And that . . . was that.
The door eased shut of its own volition. And for a split second, she had an absolutely absurd impulse to go after him and yell in his face that he was a colossal fucking asshole to have seduced her like he had, that he was a reprobate, that he was exactly who she feared he was, a user of women, a lying, cheating elitist sadist who wouldn't know--
Lizzie forcibly pulled herself back from the brink.
If that good-bye was anything to go by, whether she was in or out of his life didn't seem to matter to him in the slightest.
Good to know, she thought bitterly. Good to know.
*
Here was the thing, Lane thought as he got behind the wheel of his 911. There were times in life when, as much as you wanted to fight for something, you just had to let it go.
You didn't have to like the failure.
You didn't have to feel really fucking great about the way things turned out.
And you certainly didn't walk away from the shit scot-free, without being seriously damaged by the loss, crippled even.
But you needed to let that stuff go, because expending the energy wasn't going to get you anywhere, and you might as well get on with getting used to the loss.
It was the one lesson his relationship with his father had taught him. Would he have loved
having a male figure he could look up to, make proud, feel respected by? Hell, yeah. Would it have been awesome to not grow up in a house where the sound of loafers on marble flooring or the whiff of cigarette smoke didn't make him run for cover? Duh. Could he have used some fatherly advice, especially at a time like this?
Yeah. He really could have.
That wasn't the way things had worked out for him, however--and he had had to get used to it or go insane negotiating with a failure he was never going to be able to change or improve.
By the same token, if Lizzie King truly believed there was even a possibility, however slight, that he could have taken his hand to a woman like that? That he could have lied to her face about Chantal? That whatever baby the woman was carrying was actually his? Then there was no hope for the two of them. No matter what he said to her or how he tried to explain things . . . she didn't really know him, and more to the point, she didn't really trust him.
The fact that it was all bullshit? The fact that Chantal had cheated him, once again, of the woman he loved?
Tough breaks.
Whaaa-whaaaa-whaaaa.
Go ask Santa for a new father. Get the tooth fairy to bring you a new ex-wife.
Whatever.
Leaving Easterly in the dust, he hopped on the highway and doubled the speed limit on his way to the Charlemont International Airport--not because he was in a hurry or going to be late, but because, what the hell. The car could handle it--and at the moment, he actually was sober at the controls.
The entrance for private arrivals and departures was the first exit off the concourse that circled the enormous facility, and he shot onto a narrow lane that led to a separate terminal. Parking right in front of the double doors, he got out, leaving the engine on.
Jeff Stern was just walking into the luxurious space, and even though it had been mere days, it seemed like a century since Lane had played that poker game and become annoyed by that bimbo--and gotten to his feet to go answer his phone.
Unsurprisingly, his old roommate was dressed like the Wall Street man he was, with his structural glasses, and his dark suit, and his crisp white shirt. He even had a red power tie on.
"You could have worn shorts," Lane said as they clapped hands.
"I'm coming from the office, asshole."
That accent, at once foreign and familiar, was exactly what he needed to hear right now.
"God, you look like hell," Jeff said as his luggage arrived on a cart. "Family life clearly doesn't agree with you."
