She stopped abruptly, her lips trembling as she tried to regain her composure. He hated seeing that, hated seeing the hope that would only be dashed again. He knew that feeling, that dark and empty hole that just sucked you into it every time. “Don’t do this to yourself, Mia. There’s no percentage in it. If wishful thinking could cure her, she’d have been dancing a jig years ago!”
“She knocked a lamp over today,” Mia stated softly.
“Bullshit. It fell,” he countermanded. It wasn’t possible. There was no way in hell it was possible.
“It happened, Quentin,” she insisted. “Bennett and I were both on the stairs, and we heard it. When we went into her room to check, she was lying there in the bed, with the cord between her fingers, and for just a second…I swear she was looking at me.She wasseeing me,Quentin.”
He could feel the air being sucked right out of his lungs. It was like Thanksgiving all over again. She’d been there. He’d felt her presence, if that was even possible. It was almost like being haunted by a woman who was still living.
“Mia, this sounds completely crazy,” he protested. He couldn’t let himself believe it. None of them would survive the heartbreak and disappointment.
“There have been subtle changes,” Annalee insisted. “I’ve seen them. Movements, albeit small ones, especially of her facial muscles. I don’t know the extent of the damage from the head injury…none of us do. But I have been reading up on something called Locked-In Syndrome. And I think before you all make any decisions about Patricia’s care, you need to consider that as an option.”
Clayton was saying nothing, hanging back, weighing the options as always. After several minutes of silence, a silence that seemed to stretch on forever, he finally spoke. “We’ll get the best doctors. We’ll have her re-evaluated and see if there’s any change in her brain activity…I’ve had my own experiences in the last month or so. There has been a moment or two where I thought—well, that doesn’t matter. Right now, we put it in the hands of the doctors and let them point us in the right direction.”
“I still say it’s bullshit,” Quentin protested. “We’re seeing what we want to, and that’s all.” He couldn’t afford to let himself believe otherwise, even if the rest of the family had put on their rose-colored glasses. And he needed to go. He needed to get out before he lost it altogether.
Turning to Lowey, he said, “I’m ready to go if you are.”
“Sure,” she agreed before turning to Mia, “Thank you for dinner. It was a nice evening.”
“We’ll do it again soon,” Mia replied. “When someone gets his panties untwisted.”
Quentin flipped her the bird as they walked out into the night.
Fifteen
Ciaran rolled over in bed and ran his hand over the soft curve of Loralei’s hip. As he reached the tiny elastic band and began to slip his fingers beneath it, she gripped his wrist and pushed him away.
He sighed heavily. “I’d ask if you’re still mad, but I think you’ve made it abundantly clear.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Our first event with your family…the family you traveled halfway around the world to find! And you had to beat your half brother nearly to death in the front yard?”
Ciaran offered her an innocent expression. “I didn’t beat him that badly, love. Just worked him over a little bit…don’t be mad, love. Or be mad…and we can fight and make up.”
“You’ve only got one person to make up with, and it’s not me,” she replied firmly.
“I’m making amends!” he protested. “I’m helping him with his girl, aren’t I?”
“Only because it benefits you!”
“Us!”
“He’s your brother!”
Ciaran sighed and rolled onto his back. “I’m not doing it strictly because of the Russians. I’d have helped him regardless of Barnes’s connection to them. And in spite of handing him his ass, I like the bastard!”
Loralei rolled over and gaped at him. “You have a funny way of showing it.”
“There’s a pecking order in every family, love. In every clan, gang, or squad…there’s always a pecking order. I had to show that I don’t need them, and that I’m not going to be forever standing in the doorway with my hat in my hands like Oliver fucking Twist…that’s all it was. He’ll recover, and we’ll have a healthy respect for one another in the end.”
She scooted closer to him then. “That’s all it is? Just he-man, macho, alpha male bullshit?”
“We’re crude creatures, love. We like to blow things up, beat on each other, and then drink…it’s the manly way.”
He could tell she was softening toward him a little. Her body had relaxed, and he could feel the weight of her breasts pressing against him. If he could just get her to laugh, then they’d be back on track.
Before he could even figure out how to do that, his cell phone buzzed from the nightstand. Cursing under his breath,he looked at the screen. It was Matt, Loralei’s brother, and that was not a good sign.
