Her Sister's Child by Lilian Darcy

Author:Lilian Darcy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

The light flooding into her apartment and the throbbing of her bruised body told Meg that it was morning, and that her pain medication had well and truly worn off during the night. It was her second night home from the hospital, and she’d spent all of yesterday alone. She’d tried calling her parents in San Francisco, but had only gotten their answering machine.

And she’d received a phone call from a nursing agency, saying that Dr. Adam Callahan had arranged to send someone over to care for her. She’d knocked that idea on the head at once, very politely but very firmly. She didn’t need Adam himself or an agency nurse at his expense. That felt far too much as if he was trying to pay her off for what she’d done for Amy.

“As if he can’t accept that I could possibly have done it out of love. Why?”

But something else was nudging at the edge of her consciousness as well as bruises and morning light, and as she awoke fully, she realized it was the peal of the front doorbell. Adam, was her first instinctive thought. Come to apologize, explain, give her news of Amy, something.

She struggled to the door, trying to work out whether she was still angry at him, or hurt, or still just plain confused, and found it wasn’t Adam at all, it was Dad and Patty and three suitcases. They both looked a little travel-stained and bleary-eyed.

“You’re here!” Meg shrieked, pulling them into the apartment, then adding quickly, “No, don’t hug me too hard! I hurt!”

“Poor darling!” Patty soothed. “Everything’s all right, now. We took the red-eye and we’ve come to look after you.”

Typically, she had started doing it already, crossing to the couch and plumping up the pillows which still lay there from yesterday. Watching the energy and care expressed through her slim, pretty hands, Meg thought, not for the first time, that it was such a pity chance had robbed Patty of motherhood.

“But I thought you couldn’t get away, Dad,” Meg said to her father. She had planned to try calling him again as soon as it was a respectable hour in San Francisco, and still couldn’t quite believe that he was here.

“Yesterday was a nightmare. I couldn’t even get to the phone all day, and by the time we got your messages on the machine it was too late, eastern time, to call back. The take-over went through,” he answered. “It’s a done deal, now, so there was no point in staying.”

“Dad? Do you still have a job?”

“Don’t know, yet,” he answered cheerfully, running a hand through his hair. Fit and active, he didn’t look fifty-four. If the newly organized company let him go, they’d be making a huge mistake. “Probably,” he added. “But probably not in San Francisco.”

“You’ll have to move?”

“We don’t mind if we do,” Patty came in. She gave a loving glance toward her husband, and her golden-blond hair swung around her face. “Neither of us has strong ties there now.

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