Til Death Do Us Part (43 page)

“Well, not for about eight more months,” Dr. Iverson said. “I doubt Cleo realized she was pregnant.”

“Did her fall jeopardize the pregnancy?” Cleo is pregnant, Roarke thought. Already.

“It doesn't seem to have caused any problems, but we'll keep her monitored,” the doctor told Roarke. “You can go in and see her for just a few minutes before we transfer her upstairs to a room.”

“Go on, dear,” Beatrice said. “You're her husband. Pearl and I will wait here for you, and we can all go upstairs together.”

Roarke followed Dr. Iverson into the E.R. cubicle where Cleo lay, her auburn hair gleaming red against the pristine whiteness of the sheet beneath her. She looked so small and helpless lying there with her eyes closed. Roarke neared the bedside, hesitating as he gazed down at her.

She was going to be all right. No internal injuries. Only a concussion.

He wanted to lift her into his arms and hold her. He wanted to kiss her awake and hear her sweet laughter. But he didn't even take her hand in his. He just stood there staring at her.

Did you know that Cleo is pregnant?

She was pregnant. Pregnant with his child. No! Not
his
child.
Her
child. Hers and hers alone.

“Talk to her,” Dr. Iverson said. “It's possible that she'll be able to hear you. It might even help her come around sooner.” The doctor put his hand on Roarke's back. “She should be all right. And there's no need to worry about the baby. Your son or daughter is safe.”

No, my daughter isn't safe, Roarke wanted to shout. She's dead. She died fifteen years ago, and I wasn't even there to say goodbye.

Swallowing the emotions that threatened his sanity, Roarke took a deep breath. “Cleo. You're going to be just fine. You took a bad spill off Sweet Justice, but that hard little head of yours didn't get much more than a scratch.”

A nurse and an attendant entered the cubicle. “We're all set to take Mrs. Roarke to the fourth floor. Her room's ready,” the nurse said.

Roarke stepped back out of the way and waited until the attendant rolled Cleo out of the cubicle and toward the inside exit leading to the private elevators.

“Give them a few minutes to get her settled in,” Dr. Iverson said, “then y'all can go on up.”

Roarke heard Beatrice's voice before he entered the waiting area. “She's going to be just fine. But no thanks to one of you,” Beatrice said sharply. “I wish I knew which one of you is trying to hurt Cleo. I'd—I'd—” She choked on her tears. “I'd strangle you with my bare hands.”

“Yeah, and I'd help her,” Pearl said.

When Roarke walked out into the waiting room, all eyes turned to him. Dammit, the whole Sutton clan had arrived, swooping down like a bunch of buzzards waiting for their next meal.

“What the hell's going on out here?” Taking each Sut
ton in turn, Roarke glared menacingly, giving each a deadly dose of his killer stare.

“How is Cleo?” Perry Sutton asked.

“Do you really care?” Roarke had just about had his fill of Cleo's bloodsucking relatives.

“How dare you question my husband's concern.” Oralie puffed up like a bullfrog. She titled her head and lifted her nose with a regal air.

“Aunt Beatrice says that Cleo has a concussion,” Daphne said. “Is she conscious?”

“Not yet,” Roarke said. “But Dr. Iverson thinks she'll come out of this with nothing more than a bad headache.”

“That's good to know,” Marla said meekly.

“What happened to her?” Trey asked. “When we arrived home, Ezra said that Cleo had had a riding accident.”

“Yeah, she did.” Roarke paused, waiting to see if he could discern any type of suspicious reaction from Trey and the others. “I'll wait and let Sheriff Bacon fill you in on the specifics of what caused the accident, but I will tell you that something spooked Sweet Justice and she threw Cleo.” Roarke looked meaningfully at Beatrice and then at Pearl, warning each silently not to reveal any specific information to the Suttons.

Oralie gasped and clutched her chest. “Oh, how dreadful. I've warned Cleo and Beatrice about riding those beasts. I despise the smelly creatures.”

“There's no point in y'all being here,” Roarke said. “I plan to stay with Cleo until she's released from the hospital. Aunt Beatrice, I know that you and Pearl want to see Cleo before you leave.”

“We'd all like to see Cleo.” Oralie strutted over and stood directly beside Beatrice, slipping her arm around her cousin's shoulder. “I, for one, will feel much better once I see for myself that she's all right.”

Beatrice eased herself away from Oralie and glanced over at Perry, then lowered her head and looked down at the floor.

“Nobody's going to go in and see Cleo except Beatrice and Pearl. Then I'll send them home in a cab,” Roarke told the Suttons. “The rest of you can leave now.”

“We have every right to—” Trey said.

“If Mother wants to see Cleo—” Daphne spoke at the same time.

“Let me make this perfectly clear.” Roarke's voice was deceptively calm and steady. A steaming volcano raged inside him, ready to erupt with the least provocation. “Someone has tried, unsuccessfully, four times to kill my wife. And each one of you is on my list of suspects. So there's no way in hell I'm going to allow any of you near Cleo until she's fully recovered. Do I make myself clear?” He spoke the last sentence slowly, enunciating each word.

“Well, I've never been so insulted in my life.” Oralie huffed indignantly. “Take me home this instant, Perry. I will pray for Cleo's recovery and ask the Lord to remove Mr. Roarke from our lives. He's been nothing but a heartless bully since the day Cleo brought him home.”

Confident that he'd made his point to the Suttons, Roarke dismissed them from his mind. He escorted Beatrice and Pearl out of the emergency room waiting area and into the hall. While they waited for an elevator, Pearl put her arms around Roarke and hugged him.

“I've been waiting a lifetime to hear somebody tell that bunch where they could get off.” Pearl grinned from ear to ear. “Poor old Perry's too timid to control his own children, and Lord knows he's never been able to handle Oralie.”

“Perry does the best he can,” Beatrice said. “He's far
too gentle and easygoing for a woman as high-strung as Oralie.”

“Yeah, you're right about that.” Pearl glanced sadly at Beatrice. “What he always needed was a sweet, kind, loving woman like you.”

The elevator doors opened and the three of them stepped inside. No one said a word during the ascent to the fourth floor.

 

C
LEO CAME IN
and out of consciousness several times during the afternoon. Once she called Roarke's name and smiled when he lifted her hand to his lips. He sat beside her bed waiting impatiently, his mind tormenting him with images of Cleo as her body gradually ripened with their child. As hard as he tried not to think of the child as his, he couldn't change the fact that he had ignited that tiny spark of life growing inside her.

Was the baby a girl? Would she have big blue eyes like Laurie's? Would she have the same loud, ear-splitting cry when she was a newborn and wanted attention?

Hell, what difference did it make if the baby
was
a girl? What difference did any of it make? He wouldn't be around to see her, to hold her, to rock and sing to her. He'd never see her smile or listen to her laugh or hear her call him “Daddy.”

He had to destroy any paternal feelings that he had, and do it immediately. He could not allow himself to take any interest in Cleo's baby. They had made a bargain. And he intended to see that Cleo kept her word and set him free.

She awoke in the late afternoon, coming fully alert by degrees. Roarke held her hand and watched her. She smiled at him.

“Hi, there,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“I've got a humdinger of a headache,” she told him. “What happened to me?”

“Don't you remember?”

She thought for a minute. “We were going on a picnic, weren't we? We went to the stables and… Something scared Sweetie. She threw me! Roarke, what…who…? Did someone deliberately spook Sweetie?” She lifted her head, then groaned when intense pain exploded inside her brain.

“Don't get upset, Cleo. Lie back and rest.” Taking her by the shoulders, he eased her down on the bed. “Dr. Iverson says you have a concussion, but no broken bones or internal injuries. You're going to be fine.”

Reaching out, she sought his hand. He grasped her hand, squeezing reassuringly.

“I'll lie still and be good,” she said. “If you'll tell me what really happened.”

“All right. If you have to know right now, then I'll tell you.” He sucked in a deep breath, held her hand tightly and looked directly at her. “Somebody stuck four whoopee buzzers under Sweet Justice's saddle, so that when you mounted her and put your weight on the saddle, the buzzers would give your filly a shock and make her go wild for a few minutes. Long enough, this person hoped, for Sweetie to throw you off. I'm sure the plan was for you to break your neck.”

“When is it going to stop? When they've succeeded and I'm dead?” Jerking her hand out of his, she turned from him and buried her face in her pillow.

“I know I let you down.” Getting up out of the chair, he stood beside her bed. “You could have been killed out there this morning. I had my mind on making love to you, instead of protecting you.”

She turned around slowly, intensely aware of the pain
in her head, and looked at Roarke's haggard face, his bleary eyes and slumped shoulders. He was blaming himself for what had happened to her. She couldn't let him do that.

“Simon, this wasn't any more your fault than the spiders in my bath towels or the poison in the tea Aunt Beatrice drank. There was no way you could have predicted any of those things happening and no way you could have prevented them.”

“You shouldn't be staying in that house. Hell, you shouldn't even be living in this town!”

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“The danger is here, in River Bend. The Suttons are dangerous. One of them. Two of them. Or all of them. When you're released from the hospital, I'm taking you away from here until I can guarantee your safety.”

“I can't leave River Bend. I can't go away at a time like this, when McNamara Industries is in trouble. People are counting on me. I can't let them down.”

“Dammit, woman, don't you understand that I can't promise you that another one of these unpredictable accidents won't happen? The person behind these accidents is covering his tracks well. The police haven't turned up any real evidence against anyone other than your uncle Perry in the poisoning incident. And that evidence was circumstantial.” Sitting down beside her, he leaned over and gently grasped her shoulders. “You've got to stop worrying about everyone else and start worrying about yourself.”

“You sound as if you want to put me in some sort of glass bubble and not let me have any human contact.”

“If I could do that, I would.”

She reached up and stroked his face. He pulled away from her caressing hand. “I promise that I'll cooperate
with you in every way possible,” she said. “No more horseback riding. No more risks of any kind. But I can't leave River Bend. McNamara Industries can't do without me. Not right now.”

“Damn McNamara Industries!”

“Roarke, how can you say such a thing when you know how much my company means to me?”

“If you can't leave your damn business behind in order to protect your life, then at least we can move out of the mansion and get you away from your ‘loving' family.”

“How will we ever catch the person or persons who are trying to kill me if I'm not available to them?” Cleo placed her hands over Roarke's where they gripped her shoulders. “Moving away isn't the answer. This isn't going to end until either they kill me or we catch them.”

Releasing his hold on her shoulders, he lifted her hands in his and held them against his chest.

Hell, he knew she was right. But he didn't want to admit it. What if this unknown assassin tried again and succeeded? What if, despite his best efforts, he couldn't stop them?

“No more horseback riding,” he told her. “At home, you'll eat and drink only what everyone else does. I'm going to do a thorough check of our suite every time we leave and return. At McNamara's, you'll run everything from your office and won't go out into the plant.”

“I won't like it, but I'll do it,” she said. “I don't want to be unreasonable about anything. It's just that I have obligations that I can't turn my back on, despite the risk I'm taking.”

“Well, from now on you won't be just putting your life at risk.” He released her hands.

She spread her palms out flat against his chest. His heart beat wildly. “What do you mean?”

“You're pregnant, Cleo,” he said.

“I'm… Already?” Instinctively she laid her hand over her belly. “Oh, Simon. It's too soon. It shouldn't have happened. Not yet.”

“I know. I was hoping our would-be killer would have tipped his hand by now. But whoever it is, is taking his own sweet time. He's not in any hurry because he knows he has a whole year.”

Cleo realized that Roarke had misunderstood what she'd meant, although he was right about the fact that not only was she now in danger, but so was her unborn child. And whoever had attempted to kill her would want to see her child dead, too.

But Cleo had meant it was too soon to have to worry about Roarke leaving her. He'd made it clear that he wouldn't stay with her through the duration of her pregnancy. How soon would he leave and turn her case over to someone else? Surely he'd changed his mind. He wouldn't leave her now, not the way things were between them.