LITMIR.BIZ

       One

      Tumor. Inoperable. Cancer.

      Jonathan Tarleton gripped the steering wheel, white knuckled, and stared unseeingly through the windshield. The traffic on the 526 beltway that surrounded Charleston was light in the middle of the day. Even so, he probably shouldn’t be driving. He was undoubtedly in shock. But all he could think about was going home.

      Like an injured animal seeking its den, he needed to go to ground. To hide. To come to grips with the unimaginable.

      Thank God, his sister was recently married and living with her new husband, Jonathan’s best friend. If Jonathan had come face-to-face with Mazie at the big house out at the beach, his sibling would have known instantly that something was wrong. The two of them were close.

      Under ordinary circumstances, neither Jonathan nor Mazie would still be living under the roof where they had grown up. But their father was all alone and getting more and more feeble day by day. Though a number of the old man’s friends had moved to communities where they had companionship and medical care close at hand, Gerald Tarleton clung to his fortress of a home on a barrier island.

      Jonathan pulled into the under-house parking and rested his forehead on his hands. He felt weak and scared and angry. How the hell was this going to work? He was the sole force that directed the family shipping company. Even though his father’s name was still on the letterhead, Jonathan carried the weight of the entire enterprise.

      His twin brother should have been here to help, but Hartley was nowhere to be found. After inexplicably stealing a million dollars from the company and then vanishing, Hartley had been written out of the will and out of their lives.

      The betrayal had cut Jonathan to the bone. It was a secret hurt that ate at him like the disease in his body. He and his father were the only ones who knew what had happened. They hadn’t wanted to break Mazie’s heart or tarnish her image of her big brother.

      With a shaking hand, Jonathan turned off the ignition. Instantly—now that the AC was unavailable—humidity began to filter into the vehicle. Jonathan was a South Carolina lowlander to the bone, but the summer heat could be brutal.

      He gathered his things and headed upstairs. Because of security concerns, the Tarletons had two high-tech offices inside the house in addition to those at Tarleton Shipping headquarters. Not only did the arrangement ensure privacy when necessary, but it meant that Jonathan could keep tabs on his father. The situation sometimes cramped his style, but he had a condo in the city where he could escape on occasion.

      For a man of thirty-one, almost thirty-two, his social life was a joke. He dated occasionally, but few women understood the demands he juggled. His family’s decades-old shipping empire was both his great privilege and his curse. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d felt close to any woman, physically or otherwise.

      But he made the sacrifices willingly. He was proud of what the Tarletons had built here in Charleston. Proud, and absolutely determined to see it thrive.

      He paused for a moment in the living room to stare out through the expansive plate-glass windows to the ocean glittering beneath a June sun. The view never failed to soothe him. Until today.

      Now, the immensity and timelessness of the sea mocked him. Humans were little more than specks in the cosmos. Grains of sand on the immense sandy beach of the infinite universe.

      All the old clichés were true. Facing one’s mortality turned everything upside down. Time, that nebulous resource that once seemed a cheap commodity, was suddenly more precious than anything he had ever stored in a bank vault.

      How long did he have? The doctor said six months. Maybe more. Maybe less. How was Jonathan going to tell his sister? His father? What would happen to the company, his family’s legacy? Mazie had her own interests, her own life.

      She would be the sole owner of the family business once Jonathan and Gerald were gone. Since she had never shown any signs that she was interested in being a hands-on partner in Tarleton Shipping, maybe she would sell. Perhaps that would be for the best. The end to an era.

      The thought pained him more than he could say. Until today he hadn’t realized exactly how much he was emotionally invested in the company. It wasn’t merely a job to him. It was his birthright and a symbol of his family’s place in Charleston’s history.

      Moments later, he found Gerald Tarleton dozing in a chair in the den. Jonathan didn’t wake his father. He felt raw and out of control. And his head hurt like hell.

      The debilitating headaches had started almost a year ago. At first they were infrequent. Then the episodes increased. One doctor said it was stress. Another wrote it off as migraines.

      A dozen medications had been tried and discarded. Today his doctor had given him a handful of sample pills, along with a prescription for more. Right now Jonathan could take one, climb into bed and hopefully sleep off the throbbing pain.

      But that wouldn’t solve the bigger problems.

      The prospect of drugged oblivion was almost irresistible. He didn’t want to face another minute of this wretched day. But when he reached the kitchen, he grabbed a tumbler, filled it with tap water and downed a couple of over-the-counter acetaminophen tablets.

      He had responsibilities. Responsibilities that weren’t going anywhere. The only thing that had changed was the time line.

      Jonathan always thrived under pressure. Give him a project, a deadline, and he would leap into motion. The adrenaline rush of achieving the impossible drove him to labor, to excel, to work harder than he had to.

      Those traits would stand him in good stead for the next few months.

      Grimly he leaned his hip against the marble countertop. In that instant, he made his first postdiagnosis decision. He would keep this news under wraps for now. There was no reason for his family and friends to be upset. To grieve. There would be plenty of time for that when he was gone. Right now, all he wanted was to preserve the status quo.

      The first order of business was to make a plan. He would figure this out. Vague, desperate ideas flitted through his brain, each one more flawed or untenable than the last. There had to be an answer. He couldn’t simply walk off into that final great sunset and let everything sink into ruin.

      He needed time to process, to come to terms with the sword of Damocles hanging over his head. His money and power and influence were worthless currency now. He couldn’t buy his way out of this...

      * * *

      Lisette Stanhope punched in the alarm code, waited for the

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