LITMIR.BIZ

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Hurry!”

      Dammit, Rose Alice, lighten up. Anger flashed through Darcy, but vanished almost instantly, swallowed up by the chaos spilling into the house.

      Paramedics swarmed inside. They pushed her away, they hovered over Sloan English, poking and prodding him. They barked terse, incomprehensible orders to one another. Darcy rose to her feet to watch them, but she felt limp and spent. Rose Alice and Emerald stood on the porch, talking animatedly to a tall policeman.

      Attendants were strapping Sloan to a gurney and unfolding a blanket to cover him. “What’d he say he had?” asked a boyish paramedic with a shock of blond hair.

      “Malay fever,” said a stocky Hispanic woman, stowing a blood pressure cuff in a black bag. “It’s an ugly bastard. It can come back on you.”

      “Ugh,” said the youth, cringing. “Can we get it?”

      “No way,” she answered. She turned to Darcy. Her brown eyes were coolly professional, yet not unkind. “He said he’d been in the tropics. That right?”

      “I think so,” said Darcy. “He mentioned Kuala Lumpur.”

      “How long ago did he get this fever? Doesn’t look like he really recovered from his first bout with it.”

      “I—I have no idea,” Darcy stammered. She looked at Sloan, strapped to the gurney, covered now, his blanket like a shroud. His head rolled back and forth as if the fever were riding him into a land of nightmare.

      “Will he be all right?” Darcy asked, touching the woman’s arm.

      “Should be,” the woman said shortly. “Needs rest. Here—” she said. “He seemed to want you to have this.” She handed Darcy the card she’d refused before. Numbly she took it.

      The two male attendants began wheeling the gurney toward the door. Darcy quickly moved to Sloan’s side. “Sloan—Mr. English—can you hear me?”

      “Stay back, lady,” the blond boy said. “You can’t come.”

      “Sloan?” she begged.

      His dark lashes flicked. He turned his head toward the sound of her voice. The green eyes opened. “I’ll make this up to you,” he said in a thick voice.

      “It’s all right,” she said.

      “We still have to talk,” he said, then sucked in his breath sharply.

      “Yes,” she assured him. “We do.”

      “I—I never got your phone number,” he said. “I dropped your card.”

      They were nearly to the ambulance now. She looked back at the porch. She saw her card lying at the policeman’s feet. “I’ll get it for you,” she promised.

      She turned and sprinted back to the porch, then snatched up the card. But by the time she ran back to the ambulance, Sloan’s gurney had been loaded. They were shutting the doors.

      “Please—please,” she begged, thrusting the card at the woman. “Give this to him. It’s important.”

      The woman looked at her, her expression unreadable, but reached out and took the card.

      “Step back,” said the ambulance driver. Darcy found herself pushed backward. The doors clanged shut. She watched as the driver climbed inside. He fired up the engine, turned on the hellish siren. He pulled away and left her standing there.

      She watched it go, until it disappeared around the curve of the long drive. She looked down at the card in her hand.

      It bore Sloan English’s name and corporate title. It told her his business address and phone number, gave her a company e-mail address, but nothing else. It told her nothing of the man himself.

      SUBJECT: WHAT HAVE I DONE?

      From: [email protected]

      To: [email protected]

      Oh, Lord, darling, what have I done? I hit the wrong button and accidentally sent a copy of the message I wrote you this morning to Emerald OF ALL PEOPLE!!!

      She’ll have kittens—medieval ones. She’ll run to Darcy and carry on and make it sound as if I’m the scarlet woman of the Apocalypse.

      Bloody computer. I could kick it around the block. Oh, hell—I could kick myself around the block. How could I pull such a fumble-fingered stunt?

      I can only hope my girls will be as understanding as your family. Otherwise they’ll think the little men in white coats should come and lock me up. Oh, sweetheart, I feel like such an utter fool. I hope with all my heart that this doesn’t make any trouble.

      Love and many desperate kisses,

      Your Repentant Olivia,

      Who now wishes she’d met you via carrier pigeon

      SUBJECT: Calm Down, My Lovely

      From: [email protected]

      To: [email protected]

      My Dearest Olivia—

      Not so much wailing and lamentation, dear heart. This e-mail is a new sort of magic loosed on the world, and like all magic, it can backfire as we try to master it. You are like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, my dear, only far lovelier.

      My love, no one should be allowed to wrest from us this sweet and delicate thing we have been fortunate enough to find. Not your family, no matter how beloved they are, and not mine.

      But, most treasured Olivia, I have a confession. My family did not take the news as well as I had hoped. We had, in fact, a bit of a set-to about it.

      I did not mean to deceive you, dearest, but neither did I wish to burden you. As the Bard says, the course of true love never did run smooth.

      We must take these challenges as they come, and calmly.

      A thousand kisses,

      Your Devoted John

      P.S. What are medieval kittens?

      SUBJECT: THE DARK AGES, OR SULKING AS A MILITARY ART

      From: [email protected]

      To: [email protected]

      Medieval kittens don’t just throw a fit; they set it on fire and catapult it across the moat. Trust me on this, I’ve been in the castle when it’s under siege.

      Darling, you say the wisest and most tender things, but exactly what do you mean—your family didn’t take the news the way you’d hoped? That there was “a bit of a set-to”?

      My sweet, handsome, sexy John, please don’t withhold things from me. You promised you never would. What, precisely, are your sister and son saying to you about this?

      Concerned But Trying To Be Calm,

      Your Own Olivia,

      Who Loves You Truly, Madly, Deeply

      CHAPTER THREE

      “YOU HAVE TO PHONE MOTHER,” Emerald said. “Right now. This has gone too far. Rose Alice nearly hit that man with a golf club.”

      Darcy turned to a mirror and tried to smooth her tumbled hair. Her heart still knocked unaccountably hard against her ribs, and the mirror showed her that her face was pale, but her cheeks bright pink.

      “Da-ar-cee,” Emerald said with something close to a whine. “I mean it. You’ve got to call Mama.”

      “Give me a minute,” said Darcy, fastening her silver barrette. She took a deep breath to calm herself.

      The studio was quiet again. Rose Alice, still in high dudgeon, had stalked back to the house, obviously feeling un-appreciated. The ambulance had left; the police cars were gone.

      Sloan English’s

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