Writ on Water (26 page)

“We are going to get eaten by mosquitoes, you know,” Rory warned her. “Or you are. Mosquitoes don't seem to like me.”

“Too tough and sour, huh?” Chloe shook her head sadly, but watched from the corner of her eye to see if Rory smiled. He didn't, but she saw a definite lip twitch.

“In the old days,” he said reminiscently, “we knew how to deal with uppity women. There are only so many things a man could do to ensure good behavior from his woman, or children, or horses.”

“Ah! The good old days. And what do you do now that beatings have fallen out of favor?”

Rory stopped walking and turned to face her. “Why, I suppose that I will simply have to rely on the most tried and true method of all.”

“And that is?” Chloe grinned up at him, daring him to say something outrageous. But rather than answer in words, Rory cupped a palm beneath her chin and lowered his head.

For one moment, Chloe stared in confusion and then incredulity, but the moment his lips brushed over hers she relaxed and allowed the unexpected kiss to happen. With a soft sigh, she closed her eyes and permitted her lips to experience the moment. Around her, the lilacs applauded softly as though pleased with her decision.

Rory didn't invade her mouth, not even after she parted her lips. The kiss remained almost chaste. But for all its lightness and brevity, Chloe felt a strong magic all the way to her curling toes, and it was a moment after the kiss ended before she was able to refocus on the twilit garden.

“You Patrick men are dangerous,” she said softly, shaking her head.

Rory's white teeth gleamed briefly.

“Not me, sugar. I'm absolutely harmless.”

Harmless? How he lied!

“I must be rock stupid, agreeing to step out with a liar like you,” she went on, tucking her hand back into his fist as they resumed their stroll toward the herb garden.

He answered in an amused force: “I really couldn't say, though I have suspected as much for some time.” The smart remark earned him an elbow in the ribs, which he managed to evade, such retaliation being expected.

“What saved me from a full seduction?” she asked curiously, feeling safe to ask such a direct question in the growing cover of darkness.

“Your overindulgence at dinner,” he said wryly.

“And maybe the lack of a full moon. One must do these things right. Southern gentlemen have a tradition to uphold, you know.”

“Ah. Well, I suppose I shall have to remember to give thanks to the cook.”

“Are you really giving thanks for deliverance?” His question was lazy, as though her answer didn't matter. And maybe it didn't. With Rory, it was always hard to tell.

“For the moment,” she replied with equal conversational weightlessness. “I have been doing a bit of leisure reading about this, and I think that the outdoor seduction has been greatly overrated, along with barns, stables, and haystacks. I see nothing wrong with a bed and keeping my more vulnerable parts away from bloodsucking parasites.”

“Hm . . . I'll remember that.” Rory stopped at the small gate and lifted the latch. “Here we are. Let's find you some mint.”

Chloe sniffed gently at the medley of smells that bombarded the air. “Over here,” she said.

“I believe you are right.”

They walked past the knotted border of thyme and flat-leafed parsley, with Chloe taking only shallow breaths of the heavily herbed atmosphere. They walked quickly past the horehound, marjoram, and into the less scented yarrows and salvias where the selections of mint were grown in their own row.

“Mint is a fine aphid deterrent,” Rory remarked,
breaking off various stems and gathering them into the requested bundle. “It also repels cabbage moths and flea beetles.”

“How useful. Does it work against mosquitoes or ants?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Men?”

“Not at all.”

“Ah well! So much for a universal panacea.”

“You can, however, tuck a sprig of mint beneath your pillow and you will dream of your next lover.”

Dreams
. She almost shivered.

“You're making that up just to see if I am dumb enough to fall for it.”

Rory laughed softly.

“Put that mint beneath your pillow and we'll see what happens.”

“I'll consider it. I could certainly use a change of dreams.”

“Here. Try this.”

Chloe accepted her small bouquet, breathing deeply of the pungent mints. She doubted the herbs' efficacy as a love forecaster, but Rory was right about it helping to settle her large dinner. Her stomach immediately eased.

“What is this one?” she asked, sniffing at a particularly strong-scented twig. “I think I've smelled it before.”

Rory leaned close, to breathe in the leaves'
odor. It was nearly full dark and they could no longer rely on sight to guide them.

“That is a native species of
mentha
. You'll find it growing down by the river. It's a bit rangy when it isn't pruned back.”

“Ow!” Chloe slapped at her bare arm. “Damn. I think those mosquitoes have found me. Maybe they like your mint.”

Rory calmly unbuttoned his shirt and dropped it over her shoulders. The fine cotton lawn was short-sleeved, but the shoulders were big enough that it covered her to the elbows. Once he had her cloaked, he put a casual arm about her waist and urged her toward the house. In spite of the blood-suckers, they didn't hurry.

Chloe was keenly aware of the bare chest only inches from her cheek. It was warm and smelled like Rory. Sometime in the last few days she had grown accustomed to his scent and thought that she would recognize it anywhere.

The view was another matter entirely. She doubted that she would ever become completely accustomed to his bared body. The sight, however fleeting, interfered with her ability to think.

“Come this way.” The hand at her waist urged her to a ninety-degree turn.

“We'll go in through the kitchen. But no more pie for you tonight.”

Chloe could only trust that he knew the way into the working quarters of the house. They were walking toward four squares of soft light, but she
couldn't make out anything more than the white of the oyster shell path crunching beneath their feet and the small humps of fragrant greenery.

They arrived in the softly lit kitchen, only to find it abandoned except for the cat and the detritus of meal preparation still strewn on the counter. One bread basket was actually lying on the floor surrounded by an explosion of crumbs.

“Roger!” Chloe scolded. “What have you been doing?”

Rory frowned at the mess and headed for the hall door. Since he didn't let go of Chloe's waist, she hurried too.

“Morag!” He opened the narrow door and yelled louder: “Oleander!”

Chloe was puzzled until she realized Rory wasn't calling for a shrub, but for the cook.

“Damn.” Rory headed for the dining room. “It must be MacGregor!”

“What's wrong?” The pleasantness of their romantic stroll had vanished into the ether, and all that was left was Rory's alarm and the lingering odors from dinner.

“Rory!” a weak female voice called from the music room. “Come quick. Your daddy's had a fit.”

Morag's stooped figure appeared in the door. She might have been worried about MacGregor, but was not so distraught that she didn't notice Chloe wearing Rory's shirt and the arm he had wrapped about her waist. Her lips grew straight like the cut of a guillotine, and her expression became
disapproving and possibly even somewhat anxious. But why would she be afraid for Chloe?

“We didn't know where you were,” Morag chided, finally looking away.

“A fit?” Rory finally dropped his arm from Chloe's waist and pushed the staring Morag gently aside. “Have you called the doctor?”

“Oleander did. She said to call an ambulance. Your daddy has to go to the hospital this time.”

Rory grunted and went to kneel by his father. Someone had covered the reclining MacGregor with an afghan, as though preparing him for a snooze, but the gray face and wheezing lungs were hardly those of someone enjoying a nap.

“I'll be better in a moment, boy,” MacGregor rasped. “There's no need for the doctor. Morag's just raisin' a fuss, officious old trout.”

“You're lying on the floor, wheezing like a leaky accordion, and your skin is the color of cement. You need a doctor.” Rory's words were harsh, but his touch gentle as he tucked the throw more tightly about MacGregor's shoulders.

“Where's Chloe?” MacGregor gasped.

“Save your breath. You don't need to be talking right now.”

“I need to see her.”

Chloe, who had just been making a tactful retreat from Morag's stern eyes, stopped in her tracks and answered softly,

“I'm right here, MacGregor. Don't worry. Everything's fine.”

“Good. Come here, girl.” The painful breaths went on for several seconds. MacGregor managed to open his eyes and turn his head. He looked once between his son and Chloe and then smiled. “Come closer, girl. Did you like your magnolias?”

Rory stiffened.

“I settled for mint,” Chloe said, coming all the way into the room and also kneeling at MacGregor's side. She had a moment of déjà vu. It was like the morning when she and Rory had found him passed out on the floor, right down to the old buffalo plaid shirt he was wearing and the smell of crushed mint floating on the air.

As matter-of-factly as possible, she shrugged off Rory's borrowed shirt and draped it over his bare shoulders. She could feel the tension that gripped him in the knotted muscles beneath her hands. “You need to do something about those mosquitoes. Your son has rhino hide, so they leave him alone, but they were after me from the moment I stepped outside.”

“My mosquitoes have good taste,” MacGregor said, closing his eyes as though talking with them open was too much effort and he couldn't manage both things at once.

There came the distant sound of an ambulance siren. Chloe was willing to bet that there would be more numerous gnome casualties, since the drivers were unlikely to know what to expect.

“I'll go out front and show them in,” she said, rising to her feet.

“You stay here, girl. I'll set the dogs on them,” MacGregor muttered. His voice was getting weaker. His eyes closed.

“Go,” Rory said softly. “And turn on the lights along the drive. The switch is by the door.”

Chloe felt her eyes flooding with useless tears, and she hurried from the room.

If the mosquitoes bothered her while she waited on the front portico, Chloe never noticed them. She was too busy trying to wipe away the steady stream of saltwater that trickled from her eyes.

“He's too stubborn to die,” she said to Roger, who had stepped outside to keep her company.

She repeated the thought over and over again until the ambulance finally arrived, but in her heart she didn't believe it. Her continuing dreams of death had to mean something. MacGregor—ready or not—was going home to his Nancy, and she couldn't think of anything to do that would help him, or Rory, except to continue to keep her promise of silence about the cemetery.

As soon to kindle fire with snow as to seek
to quench the fire of love with words.
—William Shakespeare

The hospital was exactly like every other hospital Chloe had ever been in. They might change the type of tile on the floor, or paint the walls different colors, but all hospitals carried the same medicinal odors; and in the intensive care unit they had the same subdued lighting where frightening respirators hissed and clicked, and where nurses still wore serious white uniforms. Other hospital staff might sport colorful scrubs as they went about their work, but in the places where people were in danger of dying they seemed to always wear non-frivolous whites.

In ancient times, white had been the color of mourning and winding shrouds. The Gaels even had a color that translated into English as
the white color of death
. Chloe hated it. She made a mental
vow that if she ever got married, she wouldn't wear white.

The assumption was that MacGregor had suffered a heart attack, so the emergency room people had started therapeutic treatment immediately. The family physician arrived almost upon their heels, but after a quick look in on his patient, Dr. Emerson left MacGregor to the medical team in the ER.

Chloe had managed to shut off her tears by the time they arrived at the hospital, and Rory remained absolutely stone-faced, so other than the doctor talking to them about what was being done in the examining room, and one nurse offering them some coffee, no one approached with soothing words of encouragement, suggestions of watching TV in the lounge, or boxes of unneeded tissues. It was nearly one in the morning before word came that MacGregor had been transferred up to the intensive care unit. Rory immediately rose and headed for the elevator, so Chloe had trooped up to the third floor with him and started a fresh vigil there.

Rory was eventually permitted to see his father for five minutes, but after that they were urged to go home. MacGregor was stable and they wouldn't be allowed to see him again until morning anyway. And this could be a long stay, the white-suited nurse reminded them. The family would need its strength.

Chloe, though exhausted, didn't suggest any
course of action, leaving it to Rory to decide what he wanted to do.

Rory had taken a long look at the plastic chairs that lined the waiting room and then her face, which had lost all trace of the light makeup she had applied before dinner and probably showed the lingering effects of tears. She wasn't one of those lucky women who look cute when they cry.

“Damn it all.” His gaze in an otherwise calm face nearly scorched her with its blend of frustration, anger . . . and something else that made her breath catch. Something raw, which she had never seen on another person's face, but she recognized for all that.