Hotblooded (3 page)

“No. I won’t take a lot of your time. I’d like to meet tonight. At the diner.” There were no question marks in anything he said.

The diner. Brooke shuddered involuntarily. That was enemy territory for her. Even if she wasn’t determined to avoid Jack Silver, there was no way she’d go to the diner. “I’m sorry, no.”

She heard his heavy sigh on the other end of the phone. His voice had dropped lower and he sounded very tired when he replied, “It’s very important. I came from San Antonio today just to see you.”

She sat up a little straighter. He’d driven across the state of Texas to see her? He was from San Antonio? No good news came out of the city where her husband had been killed.

Was he a cop? A detective? A collection agent? The significant other of one of Mike’s lovers? In any of those cases she couldn’t help him.

“What’s this about, Mr. Silver?” She didn’t have to try to put the tension in her voice when she asked.

“Your husband.”

Her eyes slid shut as he confirmed it. She didn’t want this, whatever it was. If it had to do with Mike, and most especially something that had cropped up since his sudden and tragic death, she didn’t want to hear it. She’d already had three calls like this in the past seven months.

The first had been to inform her of the car accident and Mike’s death.

The second had been from the lawyer who had confirmed that she was, indeed, the sole benefactor of Mike’s estate. Which amounted to pretty much nothing.

The third phone call had been from Mike’s lover who gave Brooke a lengthy and teary confession about how they had been planning to run away together. Their trip had been scheduled for a month from the day Mike died.

Which Brooke had already known since she’d found the confirmation for the airline tickets to Cancun—neither in her name—in Mike’s dresser when she’d been looking for black dress socks for the funeral home.

That had been a great day all the way around.

“Mr. Silver, I can assure you that there is nothing you have to say that I’m interested in.”

“Ms. Donovan—”

“I don’t care if he was involved in mob activity, Mr. Silver. I know nothing about it and that’s all I would be able to say even in a court of law. I don’t care if there are some outstanding debts in his name. Send the bill to my lawyer. And I don’t care if there are six children out there now without a father. The world is a tough place, they might as well learn it sooner rather than later.”

Then she hung up on him.

Jack sat staring at the cell phone in his hand and the words
call ended
.

“Son of a bitch.” He stopped himself just short of flinging the phone against the passenger-side window of his truck.

This trip just kept getting better and better. Jack parked his truck in front of the only motel in town. It didn’t even have a neon sign.

What did he really expect in a town of eight hundred and thirty-two people?

He sighed, swore again, though softer this time, and climbed out of his truck. He’d packed a bag that morning. That had probably jinxed him. He’d had no intention of staying in Honey Creek overnight, but he knew that he’d never make the nine-plus hour trip back to San Antonio without a break somewhere along the way. Preferably at least a hundred miles from Mike Worthington’s widow. Especially after what he’d anticipated being an emotionally draining meeting with her.

But emotionally draining or not, he had been putting this meeting off for seven months and he was finally ready to do it.

So, he was staying. Until he could track Brooke Donovan down in person and tell her he was sorry to her face.

And there was no way he was venturing out in the town. He didn’t need a bunch of locals getting curious about who he was or what he was doing there. Lying was much easier in small doses.

Besides, he was only stretching the truth with Brooke.

After checking in and finding his room, he propped two pillows behind his head and settled back as he dialed his brother’s number.

Five minutes later, he slipped his shoes off too. His younger brother was in the middle of a lecture and no one and nothing interrupted a Dr. David Silver tirade. Jack might as well get comfortable.

When their dad had died and their mother went into her emotional tailspin, Jack had become the fixer, the guy who got stuff done. David, younger by only ten months, had become everyone’s emotional support and cheerleader. Jack was too busy taking care of things to be able to take the time to ask anyone how they were feeling—or to hear their answer. Jack made sure the basics—food, shelter and so on—were handled. David was the one left with a shoulder for their mom to cry on. It didn’t really surprise anyone, least of all Jack, that David had become a psychiatrist.

But it could be a real bitch being a shrink’s brother.

For instance, the thesis of this particular lecture was the deeper meaning behind the fact that Jack had told neither his brother nor his mother about the trip to Honey Creek. Oh, he’d mentioned the possibility a few months back but had tried to talk himself out of it after both David and Ann freaked out on him.

Jack thought it interesting that David, nationally known expert and acclaimed author in the area of human behavior, didn’t see that their reaction to the
idea
of the trip was directly proportional to Jack not telling them about the
actual
trip.

Jack had intended to keep the trip to himself until he was back in San Antonio. But he couldn’t avoid calling David once he was laid-over. David was his brother—in spite of the psych degree. They saw each other at least twice a week. Jack couldn’t just disappear.

“But now that you’re there,” David said, his tone resigned. “Do something, whatever, and get out. End it. Tell yourself it’s over and as you drive out of town, remind yourself it’s finished and you have no more obligation.”

Jack didn’t comment, because he knew David wasn’t done. David had a way with meaningful pauses.

“And Jack,” he said a moment later. “Make it really count.”

Jack frowned. “Count?”

David sighed. “Whatever you do, make it matter. I know you. If you do something half-assed and not especially significant, you’ll never be satisfied. You’ll never feel done with it.”

Jack squirmed and tried to get comfortable against the pillows. He hated it when David proved how well he knew him. It was actually a little spooky how David could put words to things about him that
he
couldn’t even articulate.

He had promised himself he wasn’t going to do this, but he found himself unable—as pathetic as it felt—to refrain from asking his little brother his opinion. “So what do you think about me just handing her a check for the life insurance money?”

“No good,” David said without thought. “That’s not enough for you. Anyone could do that. Hell, if that was enough you could have mailed it from here with a letter.”

Jack gave up on trying to get comfortable against the pillows. He had a feeling he wouldn’t be totally comfortable as long as he was on the phone with David—or maybe until this whole thing with Brooke Donovan was taken care of.

David was right. Brooke turning the money down had been a blessing in disguise. It would have been very unsatisfactory to simply hand her a check and then get back in his truck and go on with his life.

“I thought about equipment for the clinic,” Jack said. “I thought I could buy something she could use.”

What Jack hated even more than David’s lectures and eerie insights into Jack’s mind was how much he liked having David’s affirmation. But he did.

Even at age fifteen when their dad died and Jack had stepped into those shoes as best he could, David had sensed his role. If Jack was more or less the quarterback of the family—deciding what needed to be done and then doing the job—David was the coach with the inspirational speeches and the undying optimism when the team was down by three touchdowns.

David kept them all going emotionally and made Jack think about it when he under-performed and cheered him on when he overachieved. David was also the only person who Jack knew would tell him he was being an ass if he was being an ass and that he’d done well when he’d done well.

Jack needed David’s support now more than he could remember ever needing it. To the point of actually asking for it. Which he would have never expected.

But this stuff with Brooke was emotional. The people Jack usually helped were physically sick and injured. He understood what was wrong and could fix it. He also saw poor people, hungry people, homeless people, and he gave them money, food and shelter…or at least a good social worker.

Brooke Donovan was not sick, as far as he knew. She wasn’t destitute either.

She was widowed. She was sad, lonely and grieving.

That was David’s department.

“The clinic isn’t personal enough,” David said. “It’s nice and she may want it, but it’s only indirectly for her. You won’t be happy unless whatever it is directly benefits her and makes her happy.”

Which was exactly why Jack was still in Honey Creek. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temple. It had to be personal.

Fuck.

“Okay,” he said, sitting up. “I’ll find something else. Something more. I’ve got plenty of money to work with. If the life insurance isn’t enough, I’ll use my own.”

David swore—something he generally refrained from—and said, rather calmly considering the expletive he’d used, “You’re trying to buy her forgiveness. Just tell her who you are, why you’re there and tell her you’re sorry.”

“No,” Jack said quickly and adamantly.

“Jack…”

“For one thing,” Jack said harshly. “I don’t expect her forgiveness. For another, what the hell good does my being sorry do her?”

“And for another,” David broke in. “You can’t stand having even a stranger know that you’re a regular human being who occasionally makes mistakes.”

This was another familiar lecture topic—Jack’s hero complex. “Go to hell, David.”

“That’s fine,” David replied, mildly. “Be pissed at me. But you need to acknowledge that this woman may need something you cannot give her.”

“That’s not an option,” Jack said, his voice low and tight.

“Or maybe she doesn’t need anything at all.”

“How can she not need anything?” Jack shoved a hand through his hair in frustration. “It doesn’t matter,” he said through gritted teeth. “I need to do this—something—for her.”

“This isn’t supposed to be about you,” David said. “It’s about her…isn’t it? About making things better for
her
?”

Jack surged to his feet and paced toward the window. “Yes, it’s about her. Dammit, David.”

“Just explain to me why this is such a big deal. You lose people in the ER sometimes. It happens. You’ve told me that it’s part of the job. They don’t all make it. But…” David paused, meaningfully, of course, “…you don’t go to all their widows and try to make things better for them.”

Jack felt the throbbing build behind his eyes. He couldn’t reply right away as he tried to figure out if David was playing shrink or concerned brother at the moment. It was so hard to tell the difference sometimes that the effort to distinguish between the two just increased the pressure between his temples.

“Why can you accept losing patients in the ER but you can’t let this guy go?” David asked, his tone gentle but insistent.

“Because.” He had to stop and clear his throat. “Because, when I lose them in the ER I know I’ve done absolutely everything I can. I’ve always given it the best effort I’ve got.”

“So, then…” David started.

But Jack broke in. “I haven’t done everything in this situation. I haven’t done anything to make it right.”

The pressure in his head lessened a bit as he spoke and his eyes came open. In spite of his pain-in-the-ass tendencies David was giving him the direction he’d needed. His initial plan hadn’t turned out as expected and it had thrown him a bit. His heroic efforts were usually right on. Those efforts, of course, primarily occurring in the emergency department. Evidently he wasn’t such a natural when he didn’t have a monitor telling him the condition of the heart he was working on.

Well, what did he expect? He’d tried to do the minimum here. In the ER he would have never tried to take the easy way out. He went above and beyond. That’s what he knew, how he worked. So, he knew what he was going to do now, in this situation.

Whatever it took.

“I’m not coming home until I’ve done something for Brooke Donovan that, in a brilliant psychiatrist’s words, really counts,” Jack announced over whatever his brother had been saying.

“Shit,” David muttered. Then, louder, “Don’t you have to be back in San Antonio at some point in the near future?”

“I have a ton of vacation time,” Jack said. He almost never took time off. The ER was where he needed to be.

“Well, remember, Jack,” David said, “as a doctor in a huge ER like you’re used to, you’re in charge of helping hundreds of people every year.”

Jack frowned. “Right.” He could admit, to himself, that the draw to the ER was exactly what David had just described.

“I’m just saying, if you have to make a choice here, Brooke Donovan is one life while there are hundreds of lives down here that need you.”

Jack groaned. “David, I hate it when you analyze me.”

“Then it’s a good thing I do it for free,” David said cheerily.

Chapter Two

“Hello?”

“Good morning.”

Brooke’s heart jumped before she reminded herself that the sexy voice on the other end of the phone was the man who had some news about Mike that would do nothing but add to her regrets. And the man seemed determined to tell her whatever it was.

She loved his voice, she thought before she checked herself. “Nothing has changed since last night, Mr. Silver.”

If she kept calling him Mr. she could ignore that he was also the man who’d kissed her senseless yesterday.

“I was hoping to change your mind today,” he said. “If you would meet me, I could explain that—”

“Would you say that what you want to talk to me about is good news?” she interrupted as she turned her car onto the county road that would take her to the Nelson’s farm.