Where There's Smoke

He was worried sick about her. When he’d seen her lying on the floor of the Sak’n’Save, spittle on her chin, her dignity gone, he’d almost passed out himself. But he could hardly remain compassionate when his every attempt at kindness was met with a scornful tongue-lashing.

Hell, he could take Jody’s crap. He’d been taking it all his life. When weighed against her precarious health, their verbal skirmishes seemed petty. At issue now was that his mother refused to accept the seriousness of her illness. She could die if she didn’t undergo the treatment prescribed for her. Only a fool would flaunt mortality like that.

Then, smiling wryly, Key reminded himself that he’d been willing to fly into a stormy cold front and would have done so if the passengers who’d chartered the plane hadn’t nixed it.

But that was gambling, a game of chance with risks involved, the outcome uncertain. It wasn’t like being told by medical experts that you were a time bomb with the clock ticking and that if you didn’t take care of the problem you could die or, what to Key’s mind would be worse,

live in a vegetative state for the rest of your life.

The doctor at the county hospital had bluntly laid out the sobering facts of Jody’s diagnosis to Janellen and him. He would have liked a second opinion. He would have liked having Lara Mallory’s opinion.

“Shit.” He signaled Hap for another hit.

The last thing he wanted to think about was Lara Mallory. But, like the intoxicating whiskey, she had a way of infusing his head, permeating it, saturating it. Silent and invisible, she was always there, fucking with his mind.

Had his brother sired her child? Had her husband known? Had Clark known? Had knowing that his child died violently precipitated Clark’s suicide?

If so, didn’t he owe it to Clark—and to Lara—to go to Montesangre and find out the details of the child’s death?

Hell, no. It was none of his business. Nobody had appointed him Clark’s custodian. It was her problem. Let her deal with it. It had nothing to do with him.

But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that Ashley was his niece. He’d tried not to think about it at all, but that was impossible. Just as impossible was forgetting how devastated Lara had been when she recounted her daughter’s violent assassination. God, how did anyone retain his sanity after experiencing something like that?

A few weeks ago, he would have bet his last nickel that he would never waste a charitable thought on Lara Mallory. After hearing her story, he would have to be a real bastard not to feel charitable. So he had held her. Comforted her. Kissed her.

Angrily, he drained his drink, then stared into the glass as he twirled it around and around over the polished surface of the bar.

He’d kissed her all right. Not a little, meaningless, charitable peck, either. He’d kissed his brother’s married lover and the scourge of his family like it counted. She had accused him of taking advantage of her emotional breakdown, but she was wrong. Oh, he’d pretended that she had his motives pegged perfectly, but, honest to God, when he was kissing her, the last thought in his head was that she was a lying, cheating adulteress who had beguiled Clark. In his arms, with her mouth moving pliantly beneath his, she became only a woman he desperately wanted to touch. He’d abided by the ground rules he himself had stipulated—he’d forgotten her name.

“Haven’t you got anything better to do than watch ice cubes melt? Like, for instance, buy a lady a drink?”

Frowning over the unwelcome interruption, Key lifted his gaze to find Darcy Winston seated on the barstool beside his. “Where’d you come from?”

“Just stopped to get in out of the rain. Do I get that drink or not?”

Hap approached. Key nodded tersely, and the bartender took Darcy’s order for a vodka and tonic. Key declined when asked if he wanted another.

“Making me drink alone? How rude!” Darcy’s carefully painted lips formed a pout.

“That was the idea. To drink alone. You didn’t take the hint.”

She sipped the drink Hap slid toward her. “Worried about your mama?”

“For starters.”

“I’m really sorry, Key.”

He doubted that Darcy gave a damn about anybody’s well-being except her own, but he nodded his thanks.

“What else is on your mind?”

“Not much.”

“Liar. You’re sulking. Does it have anything to do with Helen Berry going back to Jimmy Bradley? I hear they’re more in love now than they were before you broke them up.”

He lowered his head until his chin almost touched his chest. The breakdown of communication was so absurd that he chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”