There was a protesting movement of her head as she surfaced groggily. “She’ll be fine,” the director announced. He was about to add more when he was interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.
After a disoriented second, Tara focused her eyes, black with grief, on Ty. “You came.” Her cry was almost a whimper as she reached out both arms to him. “Oh, God, hold me, Ty. Hold me.”
With that one simple gesture, she eliminated all need for words. Sitting on the edge of a cushion, Ty gathered her close. Tara wound both arms around his neck, buried her face in his suit jacket, and wept brokenly. “I needed you so much. So very, very much.”
A corner of her hat snagged on his jacket, knocking the hat askew. Ty slipped off the small hat with its attached veil, passed it to Cat, then stroked a smoothing hand over Tara’s silken black hair.
“It’s all right,” he murmured in comfort. “I’m here now.”
A second man appeared at Ty’s elbow, impeccably dressed in a dark suit and tie, a pair of steel-rimmed glasses precisely matching the sprinkling of gray in his neatly trimmed hair. “I’m Dr. Davis Parker,” he identified himself, his fingers already reaching to seek the pulse in Tara’s wrist. “I’ve been attending Tara since her father’s death.”
“No,” Tara moaned in protest and pulled her arm away from his searching fingers, then pressed even more tightly against Ty. “Make them go away, Ty. Please.”
“She’s distraught.” The doctor took a small, brown prescription bottle from his pocket and glanced at the hovering funeral director. “Could we have a glass of water?”
“I have one right here.” He handed a foam cup to the doctor.
“Tara, take one of these.” The doctor shook out a pill and offered it to her. “It will make you feel better.”
She shook her head then lifted her tear-wet face to Ty. “Make him leave me alone. Make them all leave me alone,” she insisted in a sobbing voice. “I don’t want all these people around me anymore. Make them go.”
“But, Mrs. Calder,” the funeral director interposed in his most soothing voice, “we still have the graveside services. You know your father would want—”
“My father is dead!” Tara practically screamed the words. “He won’t care whether I’m there or not. How could he? He’s dead.” She abruptly began to laugh and sob uncontrollably at the same time.
“She’s hysterical,” the doctor announced grimly. “I think it would be best if we took her home, where I can safely sedate her.”
“Is there a side exit?” Ty directed the question at the funeral director.
“There is.” The man nodded. “I’ll arrange for a car to be brought around at once.”
“Do that,” Ty said, then attempted to make Tara understand. “We’re going to take you home. Okay?”
But instead of being comforted, his statement seemed to throw her into a frenzy. “Don’t leave me, Ty. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.” The words came in panicked sobs that clutched at him as frantically as her hands.
“We aren’t going anywhere, Tara,” Cat assured her. “We’ll stay with you as long as you want.”
Ty stiffened in silent opposition to his sister’s unqualified promise. As broken and pitiful as Tara was at this moment, he was still very much aware of the familiar shape and warmth of the woman pressed so tightly against him. The heady, signature scent of Tara’s perfume swirled around him, evoking memories of the fire and passion they had once shared.
But for the time being, Ty said nothing to contradict Cat’s claim. That discussion could wait until later, when Tara was home and sedated. He concentrated instead on comforting the weeping woman in his arms.
The funeral director returned within minutes, accompanied by two assistants. With Ty carrying Tara and the others forming a phalanx around her, they whisked her out a side entrance to a waiting stretch limousine.
The minute Ty attempted to deposit Tara on the rear passenger seat, her clutching hands tightened their grip in panic. “Don’t leave me, Ty. Don’t leave me,” she whimpered in a sobbing, little-girl voice.
“I’m not,” he assured her. “We’re just getting in the car so we can go home.”
With reluctance, Tara relinquished her hold on him long enough for Ty to climb into the limo, but she was back in his arms the instant he was seated. The doctor held the door open for Cat while she scrambled into the rear seat next to them.
“I’ll meet you at the house,” the doctor told them and closed the door, slapping the roof of the limo twice, signaling the chauffeur to move out.
In the unnatural silence of the limousine, they glided along the streets, skirting the silver-skinned towers of downtown Fort Worth. Even the brick-topped Camp Bowie Boulevard was reduced to a nonintrusive purr.
Turning off the boulevard, they wound their way into the exclusive River Crest area, long favored by the Forth Worth elite. The chauffeur traveled a road that snaked along the hills that rose above the Trinity River, and eventually pulled up to a pair of iron gates. After the smallest of pauses, the gates swung open, admitting them to the private grounds of the Dyson residence.
After following the driveway’s looping curve, the limo rolled to a silent stop in front of the Dysons’ twenty-thousand-square-feet, Italianate mansion. Before the engine was switched off, a handful of servants spilled from the house, clearly anticipating their arrival.
With Tara cradled in his arms like a baby, Ty climbed out of the vehicle and found himself face to face with the ever-efficient head of the household staff, a balding man with the improbable name of Brownsmith. Of indeterminate age, the man no doubt looked fifty when he was twenty, and would still look like fifty at the age of eighty. He disdained the term “butler”, preferring the title of “houseman” to the Dysons.