Overnight Heiress. Modean Moon
Ma, you goin’ to sleep all day?”
Ma? Meg raised one eyelid and glanced across the oversize pillow she had hugged to her as she slept. A dream floated back into her subconscious as she focused on Danny standing at the side of the bed. Since when did her son call her Ma? She squinted at him through sleepy eyes. Since when did her son look like an escapee from a Dumpster?
“Didn’t I throw that T-shirt in the rag bin this fall?”
Danny looked down at his shirt and grinned. “Yeah, but I figured, what the heck? They’re probably expecting the Beverly Hillbillies. Why not give them what they want?”
Meg closed her eyes, but all thought of sleep had fled with Danny’s words. Sighing, she unwound her arms from the pillow and scooted up against the headboard, taking the sheet with her. “He’s my brother, Danny. Do you have any idea what this means to me?”
“Yeah,” her son told her. “It means that after today you get to sleep in silk instead of that reject from the thrift store.”
She would have liked to wait until she was more awake and more sure of her own emotions before having this conversation, but it looked as if the time for waiting had fled with the last of her elusive dream.
“Are you angry with me, Danny?”
“You? No. Why?”
“Then maybe you’re angry with Edward and Jenny. You do understand that they didn’t know about us until the day before we found out about them, don’t you? They came for us right away.”
“They came for you. No. They sent for you. They sent a cop for you. I just got dragged along because—”
“Because I’d cut off my arm before I’d leave you behind?”
At that Danny ducked his head. “Yeah,” he mumbled.
“And of course they’ve been really mean to you since you got here,” Meg continued in a companionable tone. “Made you sleep in the basement, fed you gruel and water for supper last night—”
At the mention of gruel, her stomach gave an audible complaint She looked away from Danny’s answering grin and saw the delicate, ornate clock on the nearby desk. “Ten o‘clock? I slept until ten o’clock? Good grief. Breakfast? Are you starved?”
“Nah. I ate hours ago. There was some old lady in the kitchen when I found it. She was cryin’ when I got there, but she fixed me pancakes. I don’t think you’re going to get food though, not unless you cook it yourself. There’s something really weird going on in this house, people going and coming, an old guy that looks like the actor that played Santa in Miracle on 34th Street and some sort of a preacher with one of those tight white collars up to here. And, oh yeah, the sheriff’s back. Do you suppose they’re going to kick us out?”
Meg shook her head. Danny’s insecurity was even worse than her own, probably with good reason. She’d tried. Oh, how she had tried. Apparently her efforts so far hadn’t been enough, but that didn’t mean she could give up. “Edward and Jennie are family.”
“Yeah. Well, so was Dad. And so were all those grandparents I’ve never even seen.”
Now Meg was the one to duck her head. “Yeah.” She chuffed out a sigh and studied her son. He was so young and so cynical, and right now, even though he’d never admit it, so scared. And so was she. “But you’re right about one thing,” she told him. “I suspect that we’re at least part of the reason those people are here this morning. Us and the trouble that’s going to come down on our heads when the press gets hold of this story.”
She slid her long legs in the almost-long-enough nightgown over the side of the bed and quirked a grin at Danny. “Give me a hug so I’ll have the strength to face what the day has m store, and then scram and let me get dressed so I can go face it.
“And, Danny,” she said when he just stood there, “I don’t think we’re going anywhere, but just remember, if we do, you and me kid, we go together. Got that?”
Meg found Lucas and Edward in serious conversation in the same small sitting room they had used the night before. Edward looked up, stricken, when she entered the room.
“Meggie...”
“What’s wrong?”
“Do you and Danny have passports?”
Passports? Why would they need passports? Concerned, she shook her head.
“No. Of course not,” her brother said. “Or we would have found you much sooner. Lucas?”
Hearing the thread of panic in her brother’s voice sparked an answering one in Meg. “What’s wrong?” she repeated.
“It’s Jennie She needs surgery. We’d hoped to be able to avoid it—she’d seemed to improve—or at least to postpone it, especially since you’ve just arrived, but she had a relapse last night. Dr. Freede contacted her neurologist finally, about six this morning, and we need to take her...now.”
“Someplace where I would need a passport to accompany you?”
He nodded. “Switzerland.”
Meg found a chair simply by backing into it, and collapsed. What kind of wealth had she stumbled into? Jennie needed surgery so they woke up a couple of doctors in the middle of the night and scheduled a trip to the other side of the world.
“Is she—How is she?”
“In pain.” Edward looked at her with his unbelievably familiar eyes. He’d told her the night before how close he’d come to losing Jennie, in a kidnap attempt. Now she knew he had never shed the fear of losing her to the effects of the serious head injuries she’s suffered in that attempt. “Frightened,” he said, “but trying not to let me see just how much. I wouldn’t leave you if this wasn’t critical.”
Unbelievably familiar. But not quite real.
Meg sought out the only thing, the only person, in the room who was truly real to her. “Are you going, too?” she asked Lucas.
He gave her a grim smile. “Only as far as the airport.”
“When?”
“Within the hour.”
Within the hour. It was that critical, then. She forced her practical self to take over. “What can I do to help?”
Edward crossed the room and dropped his hand onto her shoulder. “Just be here when we get back, Meggie. Don’t let us lose you again.”
She sensed a deep pain in Edward’s words, an echo of too many losses. Uneasy with the intimacy and the sharing that was so different from the isolation she had always known, Meg looked away—and found Lucas watching Edward’s hand on her shoulder. Losses. She and Edward weren’t the only ones to have felt them.
“You will be here?”
She dragged her attention back to Edward. “Yes.” She knew he needed to hear her say the words. “Yes, of course.”
Edward turned to the other man in the room. “And you’ll take care of her?”
Lucas’s eyes met hers. Reluctantly? Meg couldn’t really be sure of anything but his words. “Yes,” he said, echoing her promise. “Yes, of course.”
They weren’t truly alone in the house; at least Meg didn’t think they were. But it seemed that way. For such a large house, Edward kept a very small staff. A very small, tired staff, who had been up most of the night while she and Danny slept. After assuring the cook that she would be all right, and sending her off for a much needed nap, Meg installed herself in the kitchen.
Here, at least, she felt at home.
The room was huge, with marvelous, if ancient, commercial fixtures. Except for the numerous sparkling windows, it reminded her of the kitchen at Patrick’s