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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.”