Trouble (22 page)

And they'd have to discuss birth control. His supply of condoms hadn't been a pressing concern lately, but now he'd have to invest in the biggest box he could find—

A muted buzz disturbed his thoughts.

Hang on. Was that a phone? Was that
his
phone?

Frowning, he listened. Heard it again. Checked the lighted display on his watch:

Two seventeen.

Who the fuck would be calling anyone at this hour?

Dara's head moved fretfully and she murmured something indistinct.

“Shhh. It's okay,” he told her, rubbing her back. “Go back to sleep.”

More incomprehensible murmuring.

With a final kiss to her forehead, he cursed with regret and gently eased her off him and onto the bed. She immediately rolled to her other side, turning her back to him as her breath evened out.

Mike got out of bed and dove for his slacks on the floor. A quick glance at his cell's display showed both that it was Sean—
Sean!
--and that he'd received about ten texts in the last few hours, none of which he'd heard because he'd had his phone turned off during the gala.

Moving as quietly as he could, he strode down the hall and into the kitchen.

“Hello?”

“Jesus, Mike! Where've you been at?”

Mike froze, guilt and dread washing over him like the winning coach's Gatorade bath at the Super Bowl. “What's up, man?” he asked cautiously.

“It's Mama,” Sean told him. “She's in the hospital.”

The
second the elevator doors dinged open, Mike hurried out and strode down the corridor to the eighth floor information desk, resisting the urge to run.

A woman looked up from her computer and smiled at him. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I'm looking for my mother's room—”

“Mike,” called a voice behind him. “Down here.”

Mike wheeled around and saw Sean standing next to an IV stand outside a patient room. Sean's haggard face was a perfect reflection of Mike's feelings: shocked; scared; helpless. Being back in a hospital with his brother was such an eerie reminder of tragedies past—their father's long battle with cancer had seared its brand right across his heart, where it still burned—that, for a moment, Mike felt as though he'd stumbled into a time machine and been spat out in an era when he and Sean were united in youth and fear.

So there was no hesitation when Mike strode up to his brother and embraced him in a back-slapping bear hug. Then they pulled back but hung onto each other's forearms.

“How is she?” Mike asked anxiously.

Years seemed to have dropped off Sean's face, reverting him to the scared little boy who'd scurried into Mike's bedroom to hide under the bed during the monthly tests of the tornado sirens.

“She's hanging in there. The nurse was helping her to the bathroom, so I came out here for a minute to give her some privacy.”

“What the hell happened?” Mike demanded, his racing thoughts veering into all sorts of nightmare scenarios, most of which involved Mama's cancer spreading to every inoperable corner of her body and her rapid decline.

They let each other go and Sean steered him over to a small and deserted seating area, where they sat. Sean scrubbed his hands over his head and took a couple beats to gather his thoughts.

“She got up to get some water, tripped, caught her head on the corner of the nightstand and bled like a stuck pig. Called 9-1-1 and got herself here. They ran their X-rays and scans and whatnot to make sure she hadn't had a stroke or anything. Stitched up her head. That's it. She waited till she knew all that before she texted us to let us know what happened. I was at the club with my boys when I got the word.”

Disbelieving, Mike checked his phone. Sure enough, there was Mama's text, sent two hours ago:

Good evening, Michael. Everything's fine, but I tripped and fell. Got a couple stitches. Nothing to worry about. I'll call you tomorrow with all the details. Sleep tight!

Mike blinked down at the text, rereading it several times. “‘A couple stitches'?” he echoed blankly.

Sean snorted. “Yeah. If you call fifteen a couple.”

Mike frowned, thinking hard.

So … the whole incident had nothing to do with Mama's cancer? Had Mama told Sean about the recurrence?

Didn't seem like it.

And Mike wasn't about to mention it.

Heaving a huge sigh of relief, he read the text again. “‘Nothing to worry about,' she said. ‘Sleep tight.'” Looking up, he raised his eyebrows at Sean. “Is she insane?”

“That's your mother,” Sean said wryly. “She had a fit when I called her. Really flipped out when I showed up here to check on her.”

“Unbelievable,” Mike muttered, shaking his head.

“Remember that time she missed the step on the porch and broke her arm?” Sean asked. “Her arm was damn near twisted around backwards, and she was like, ‘It's a little sprain. It'll be fine once I ice it!' Remember that?”

Mike, who'd forgotten that Sean did such a wickedly accurate Mama impersonation, laughed. Sean laughed. And suddenly they were boyish coconspirators again, one of them diverting Mama by making a commotion down the hall while the other snuck into the kitchen to steal some fresh-baked peanut butter cookies.

Mike slung his arm around Sean's neck and squeezed it. These laughing, poignant moments between them were way too few and far between, and he hadn't realized, until this very second, how much he'd missed them.

Their laughter trailed off and they settled back to wait.

Mike shot an uneasy look at Mama's closed door and checked his watch. “Wonder what's taking so long?”

“It'll be okay,” Sean said, waving a hand.

“Yeah. You're right.”

“So. How'd the gala go?”

Mike's brain flashed to Dara smiling at him, the slits in her sexy black dress sliding past her bare thighs.

“It was good.”

“Good?”

“Yep,” Mike said, ears burning.

“Was Dara there?”

“Yep.”

“Anyone sniffing around her?”

Mike squirmed, thinking of Dara nearly nude on the bed beneath him, the sweet taste of her kisses in his mouth, the supple velvet of her skin imprinted on his bare flesh, the musky scent of her arousal lingering on his fingers. He though of how they'd touched each other. Made each other come. Cried each others' names. How only the news about Mama being in the hospital could have blasted him from Dara's bed, and how he'd intended to go back to her as soon as possible. How, if Sean leaned closer, he'd probably be able to smell Dara's floral scent on Mike's clothes.

How he'd betrayed his brother and violated the most basic ethical code between male friends:

Don't go after a woman who's off-limits
.

And Sean, the younger brother he loved, watched him with innocent eyes and didn't have a clue.

“Nope,” Mike lied as lightly as he could.

Sean nodded with grim satisfaction just as the nurse came out of Mama's room.

“You can go back in,” she told them.

They did, discovering Mama propped up in bed with an IV and a forehead bandage covering what was unmistakably a nasty cut. She looked drowsy, but brightened when she saw the two of them together.

“You didn't need to come, Michael,” she said as he leaned down to kiss her.

“You fall on your ass and land in the hospital, I come. It's a rule.”

“Language, Michael,” she sighed, reaching for them both.

They each took a hand, forming a triangle with what was left of their family. Mama's eyes shone with teary contentment.

“My handsome boys,” she said, her eyes drifting closed. “I'm so proud of you. I knew you'd work things out. It's almost worth being in the hospital to see you together like this.”

Mike dredged up a smile, miserably avoiding both their gazes.

His glaring hypocrisy made him sick to his stomach.

Early that next afternoon, a Sunday, Mike stepped out his front door onto the porch and started to stretch for his jog. It was the kind of late fall day he normally loved: crisp and clear, the sky a brilliant blue, almost too bright to look at. But today the weather mocked him. This was a day for lovers to walk in the park, then come home and sip hot chocolate and make love in front of a crackling fire. He and Dara weren't lovers and never would be.

Last night could never happen again.

Mama's accident was the well-timed tap on the shoulder from God to give him the dose of reality he sorely needed. Now he was back to his senses.

Bottom line?

He'd never be able to break his brother's heart and tell him he'd touched Dara.

The thought of Sean's horrified face was ice water in his veins. Sean would never forgive him. Not now, not in five years, not in twenty. And he couldn't throw away his relationship with his brother, strained though it was. He wouldn't do it to Sean, and he wouldn't do it to his mother, who'd had this health scare on top of her cancer. Cancer that, by the way, might still kill her. And the one thing she'd asked of him was to make up with Sean.

What kind of selfish person would put his needs in front of theirs?

Not him. He wasn't that man. Didn't want to be that man.

As for his feelings for Dara? He was managing them one miserable second at a time. She'd be gone when the semester ended, he kept reminding himself. Until then, he'd …

Stifle them.

He knew all about stifling them, didn't he?

That decided, he thought he'd try a run, not that he expected it to help. But he had to do something, and he might as well try to burn off a little of his edginess and sexual tension. And maybe, if he ran really hard, he could go thirty seconds or so without seeing Dara's face.

When he heard a car pull into his driveway, he straightened from his lunge and realized, with a start, it was Dara.

She killed the engine. Got out. Walked up the sidewalk to the porch.

He watched her, paralyzed inside a concrete block of torment.

She stopped short, looking shy, and smiled. “I should've called first.”

“No. It's okay. Are you … How are you?”

She flushed prettily, then looked away. After a moment she looked back at him, a satisfied, sensual half smile on her sweet lips.

“I'm good.”

He grinned idiotically, enormously pleased with himself. “Good.”

A flash of heat, hotter than ever, pulsed between them, and his heart contracted, hard. Then the panic rose in his throat. He quickly looked away, his smile dying.

“It's beautiful here, Mike.” She turned away, making a show of looking at his white brick colonial. “You have a pretty house.”

“Thanks,” he said faintly, his thoughts spinning.

Why had she come? Having her here was exquisite torture, partly because his body reacted so violently to her presence. He was like Pavlov's dog at this point; he caught sight of her, and his mouth began to water, his blood to heat. But mostly, it was upsetting because
here
was where he wanted her. Watching TV with him in the great room, eating at the kitchen table, sleeping snuggled up to him in the big king-sized bed with the new down comforter he'd bought for the winter. Having her here reminded him of all the things he wanted that he shouldn't want and would never have. And suddenly, he was furious with her for turning his life upside down and for almost turning him into that man he didn't want to be:

The one who'd betray his brother in a heartbeat.

“How's your mom?” she asked.

He'd woken Dara up with a call from the hospital first thing this morning to let her know what'd happened. He'd ended the call with a vague promise to call her later. They hadn't talked about anything else.