The Best Way to Lose (5 page)

“It’s all so frustrating.” Pilar’s hands were balled into agitated fists of protest.

“I know.” The physician appeared regretful
that he couldn’t be more specific in his prognosis, but there was an eagerness in the way he pushed his hands on his knees. “If there aren’t any more questions, I’ll get back to my rounds.”

“I have just one request.” Trace spoke up to delay the man’s departure. “Mrs. Santee has been having trouble sleeping at night. Perhaps you could give her a prescription for some sleeping tablets.”

Her mouth opened to protest as the doctor’s inspecting glance swept the faint blue circles under her dark eyes. “I’ll leave some at the nurse’s station for you. We can’t have you collapsing from exhaustion.”

“It really isn’t necessary.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” he assured her and patted her hand before bustling out of the room.

It was true that she’d barely been able to sleep at all the past two nights—and the lack of sleep made her irritable. Knowing these things, Pilar was determined not to let them color her reaction.

“I know you’re just trying to be helpful,” she addressed Elliot’s son with a forced calm. “But if you had said something to me before you spoke to the doctor, I could have told you that sleeping pills don’t work. I’ve tried them before.”

“Then take twice the dosage,” Trace replied. “Maybe you don’t mind being deprived of a full night’s rest, but I do. It’s been very
difficult for me to sleep with you prowling the house until the wee small hours of the morning.”

“Maybe you should take the sleeping pills,” Pilar retorted.

“Maybe I should,” he agreed with a mild shrug.

Instantly she regretted being so sharp with him. “I’m sorry.” It was a stiff apology. “I hadn’t realized I was disturbing your sleep.”

“It’s extremely difficult not to be aware of you moving about in the next room, Pilar.” Dryness rustled through his voice, its tone seeming to put another meaning to his remark. Wariness flickered briefly through her before she dismissed it.

That evening, when she retired to the master bedroom for the night, the envelope of pills was sitting on her bedside table next to a glass of water. The instructions said to take one pill as needed. Pilar hesitated, then shook two from the envelope into the palm of her hand and washed them down her throat with water from the glass. She crawled into the bed, which seemed so large and empty without Elliot.

Her dark eyes were wide and staring as she lay on her side. It seemed a very long time before the tension in her body began to dissolve. Her eyelids grew heavy; she closed them, just for a minute, then remembered nothing else as she sank into a black, dreamless void.

In the next room Trace crumpled the empty pack of cigarettes and irritably threw it back on the bedstand. The silence was worse than the faint noises. He swung his legs out of bed to sit on the edge of it, his fingers digging into the mattress. The luminous hands on the clock dial showed the hour to be one thirty in the morning.

His shirt was draped over the back of a straight chair in the corner, an extra pack of cigarettes in the front pocket. Trace pushed off the bed and padded across the dark room, clad only in his Jockey shorts. After rummaging until he located the pack, he walked back to the bed, tearing off the cellophane wrapper around the pack.

With the first ring of the telephone, Trace grabbed for the receiver to choke off the sound before it wakened Pilar. He paused a beat, then carried the receiver to his ear.

“Santee residence,” he said, then listened to the voice on the other end of the line for a long, long while. He leaned an elbow on his knee and began to rub his forehead, pressing hard. “Yes. Yes, thank you. I’ll make the necessary arrangements.”

In a slow, halting motion he replaced the telephone receiver on its cradle, then rubbed his face as if trying to wake from a bad dream. His hand trembled when he reached for the pack of cigarettes he’d just opened and left on the bedstand. He lit one, but the lump in his throat wouldn’t allow him to inhale the
smoke. It billowed out from his mouth, rising to sting his eyes.

Her eyelids seemed so heavy when she tried to open them. Some kind of bright light was shining somewhere. Pilar attempted to roll onto her back, but her body felt weighted and thick. Her eyelashes finally dragged themselves apart. The room was filled with sunlight.

The sleeping pills had worked their magic after all. All her senses felt dull. The thought of Elliot prodded her into moving even though she wanted to do nothing more energetic than shut her eyes again. She fumbled for the clock on the antique bedstand and raised herself up on one elbow with an effort. A groan of dismay came from her throat when she saw that it was past nine o’clock.

The covers were thrown aside as she made a swiveling turn to sit on the edge of the bed. The drug-worn feeling made her pause to gather her wits. When she looked up, Pilar noticed Trace half sprawled in an armchair near the bed.

“Why did you let me sleep so late?” she complained in irritation and lifted a hand to the dull throb in her head. “I’ll never make it to the hospital in time to speak to the doctor when he makes his morning rounds.”

A small frown marred the smoothness of her forehead as Pilar absently brushed a hand over her mane of thick black hair and impatiently rose to her feet. The matching robe to
her rose-satin nightgown was lying across the foot of the bed. She reached for it.

“There’s no need for you to go to the hospital today.” The low and flat announcement by Trace seemed to freeze her with its ominous undertones.

Her fingers curled into the slick material of her robe, clutching it in front of her. With a turn of her head, Pilar stared at him, her eyes rounded and searching.

“What do you mean?” Pilar demanded in a low rush, her body taut.

He sat forward, drawing his legs up under him and leaning his arms on his thighs. There was a moment when he avoided her gaze and studied the roughness of his sun-browned hands. His thick, shaggy hair was rumpled, shining ebony-black in the sunlight that poured into the room.

“Elliot…” Trace paused to look at her. There were no easy words. “… had another heart attack in the night.” He let that statement settle in before he grimly continued. “They weren’t able to revive him.”

“No.” It was a small sound as she backed away from him, her head slowly moving from side to side in a rejection of his words. Shock had drained much of the color from her face. “You’re lying. It isn’t true.” The denial came quickly, her tone of voice frightened and half angry. She whirled around and grabbed for the telephone at her bedside in a desperate attempt to prove it wasn’t true.

In a single, fluid action Trace was out of the
chair and crossing the few feet that separated them. His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her upper arm to pull her around to face him while he wrenched the receiver from her hand. Her head was thrown back, long hair spilling down her back in ropes of black silk. Her arms were stiffly bent in resistance to his hold, her hands clenched into taut fists.

“Don’t put yourself through this, Pilar,” he insisted roughly.

“There’s been some sort of mistake,” she declared and attempted to twist away from him to reach the phone again.

“There’s no mistake. I took the phone call myself. Elliot was officially pronounced dead at one twenty-five this morning.” Trace bluntly pushed the cold facts at her and forced her to accept the truth.

“You’re lying!” Her teeth were bared to clamp down on the wretched pain.

Impatience shattered the attempt at gentle reasoning. “He was my father! Why would I lie about something like this?” Trace demanded, in rough anger at her persistent refusal to believe him.

For a long agony of seconds she stared at him, her dark eyes reflecting the awful pain and grief that were trapped inside. Her clenched hands loosened to curl her fingers into his shirt as if needing to cling to something. Trace understood that raw, inexpressible anguish. He wanted to hold her close and let the warmth of her body assuage some of his hurt while he absorbed some of her pain.
The touch of his hands became protectively gentle.

“The hospital called?” Her soft voice sounded dazed and weak.

“Yes, around one thirty this morning.” He slowly nodded a confirmation.

“But … I didn’t hear the phone ring.” It was a vague protest mixed with confusion.

“You were sleeping too soundly.” Trace let his hands glide to her pale shoulders and down her back onto the satin material of her gown.

Her chin dipped as her breath came quick and deep. All she could see was the front of his shirt, but she wasn’t looking at anything.

“It was those damned sleeping pills. I never should have taken them,” Pilar declared bitterly. Her head lifted so she could glare accusingly at that roughly virile face, tormented by this painful regret on top of her intense grief. “Why did I listen to you?”

“You needed to rest.”

But she wasn’t interested in his answer. Her thoughts were too disjointed, flitting from one thing to the next in a subconscious desire to avoid dealing with the reality of Elliot’s death.

“Why didn’t you wake me up when they called from the hospital?” Pilar was unconsciously trying to blame someone. “I should have known about it right away. You had no right to keep it from me!”

“There was nothing you could have done. Telling you right away wouldn’t have changed
anything. He was already gone when they called. I—” The dark thick brows came together. Trace was vaguely troubled by the decision he’d made in the early-morning hours, but his motive had been simply to spare her the pain and grief for a little while. “I didn’t think it was necessary to wake you and ruin the one good night’s sleep you’d had.”

“How dare you make that kind of decision for me!” Pilar raged with hurt. There seemed no release for it. Her eyes were so dry, they ached like all the rest of her—one mighty throb.

With a violent shove, she pushed away from him and turned. She found herself facing the antique rosewood bedstand. Her glance fell on the small envelope containing the few days’ supply of sleeping tablets. Pilar scooped it up and hurled the hateful thing into the brass-plated wastebasket. Then she stood rigid and motionless, so brittle that she felt like an eggshell that might shatter to pieces at the slightest jar.

“I’m sorry.” Trace’s husky male voice murmured the words.

At the light touch of his hands on her shoulders, Pilar stiffened still more and extended her arms from her sides, fingers spread wide.

“Don’t touch me.” Her voice was hoarse, rasping from the well of her agonizing grief. “Just go away and leave me alone.” It was a low and insistent demand for privacy.

Trace took his hands away, but he was
reluctant to comply with her second request. There had not been a tear, nor a single outcry of grief. Too much emotion was being suppressed. It was unnatural to be so controlled. This containment of her feelings bothered Trace more than a hysterical outpouring.

“I’ve already made preliminary arrangements for the funeral services to be held the day after tomorrow, pending your approval.” He tried to press the reality of his father’s death onto her, but there was no reaction. “You’ll need to speak to the funeral director later on to let him know where you’d like Elliot to be buried. It was a question I didn’t feel I could answer for you, since I wasn’t sure if you wanted him buried in the family plot next to my mother or whether you preferred a different gravesite.”

“Get out!” She choked on a hacking sob as terrible shudders racked her shoulders. A spinning pool of pain swirled around her. Pilar never heard the door close behind him when Trace left the room. It was the worst kind of crying—the type with no tears to wash away the awful ache.

The black wreath brushed against the mahogany front door as Pilar closed it on the last of the departing mourners. She paused to switch off the porch light, then turned to walk to the former parlor of the old house. Cassie was just leaving the room, carrying a tray of dirty cups and glasses.

“I’m just carrying these out to the kitchen,” she assured Pilar. “We’ll leave the cleaning-up until tomorrow morning.”

Satisfied that Cassie did not intend to do any more than clear away the dirty dishes, Pilar merely nodded a silent agreement with her plan and continued into the high-ceilinged parlor with its ornate moldings dominated by a chandelier. A smattering of antiques lent an air of authenticity to the room’s furnishings.

The clatter of ice cubes in a crystal glass drew Pilar’s glance to the side table where Trace Santee was standing. A black arm band encircled the sleeve of the dark jacket he was wearing. The suit and tie took away the ruffian look that had always made him seem coarse and uncultured to her. There was a polished, experienced air about him that reminded her of Elliot even if the physical resemblance to his father wasn’t there.

Trace picked up two glasses and crossed the room to hand one of them to her. While he sipped at the iced bourbon, his gray glance studied her over the rim of his glass. Although it wasn’t strictly necessary, she had elected to wear a plain black dress, chicly simple in style. Her neck and wrists were devoid of any jewelry; only the wedding ring adorned her fingers.

Her black hair was skinned away from her face and coiled in a sleek twist on the back of her head. Only a woman with Pilar’s strikingly classical features could get away with such a severe style and still appear beautiful. The
haunting shadows in her eyes appealed to him with the vulnerability they indicated. She was a picture of black and white perfection, from the jet-blackness of her hair, eyes, and dress to the marble-white of her skin.

The neat liquor burned her throat, making her cough, but the heat that coursed through her body took away some of the dead sensation. She wandered over to the fireplace with its mantel of Italian marble. Logs were stacked on the andirons in preparation for a fire that had never been lit. She rolled the glass between her hands, the precious metal of her wedding ring clinking against the crystal.

“We were going to bring down all the Christmas decorations from the attic this weekend,” she recalled absently.