5
Darcy
My heart soaredinto the back of my throat as he began to shake. He drew in a breath and the rattling of his chest had me alarmed, even though he’d acted like this was all routine. It sounded like he was fucking dying. I went to rest a hand on him, but his warning that I might hurt him or myself still rang in my head, and I snatched it back.
Helplessness swamped me as I watched his strong arms convulse and flatten to his sides. Lemonade whimpered and rested her golden head on him as she crawled fully onto his legs. She stared at me like she was telling me this was normal and tofucking relax, but what the hell did a dog know, and more importantly, why did I think she would want to communicate anything? Also, she really shouldn’t swear. I shook the odd thought away. But she seemed very intelligent for an animal.
The shaking went on for so long that fear sank its fangs into me. I glanced at the watch that never left my wrist. It probably hadn’t been longer than twenty seconds, but it felt like an eternity. Tears choked my throat. Was there a time limit on these things? When should I worry? I had no clue. Suddenly, I was terrified. The enormity of what was happening crashed in around me.
“Momma!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Mother, are you out there?”
There was the sound of a door banging and feet pounding the floor, and then my door burst open, and Mother stood there in a gaping black silk robe. Someone, a man whose voice I didn’t recognize, said something behind her, and she waved them off.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you haven’t called me that since you were a little boy—Oh, Brooks!” She hustled over and dropped to the floor beside me, drawing her robe closed around herself and tying it shut. “Oh, sugar.” She brushed her fingers over his head, and I felt stupid that I’d been afraid to lay a hand on him.
“He said not to touch.”
“You just can’t try to hold him down.” She frowned and wrapped her arm around me. Her long hair tickled my cheek and I brushed it away.
As abruptly as it had begun, the shaking stopped, and he gasped for air like he’d been at the bottom of the ocean. His cheeks flushed pink and he relaxed against the pillow. I lunged toward his hand and cradled it between both of mine.
“Did you say his name is Brooks?” All at once I remembered I was furious at Mother and glared at her, even as I held his hand more firmly. “This self-entitled nitwit didn’t even tell me his name when he was on his way to a medical issue, because he was having too much fun with his little joke on me. What if you’d needed to go to the hospital?” I snarled at him, but he didn’t respond.Of coursehe didn’t. He was still out cold. I pressed my cheek to his wrist and was happy it was warm and not icy and dead.
She smirked. “He didn’t say at all?” She had the audacity to look fond of him as she brushed his hair off his forehead, then skimmed her fingertips lightly along his bearded jaw.
Huffing at her, I turned back to him and did my best to pretend she didn’t exist. “Brooks, can you hear me?” I rubbed my thumb over the back of his hand, but he didn’t answer. Fear clawed at me again. Even though I could see his chest rising and falling, I was taken over by the need to press my fingers to the pulse at his neck. His heart thudded, strong and sure, and I nodded along with it for a while before I drew my hand away. Mother rubbed calming circles onto my back. The morning sunlight spilled through the window and caught in his dark hair, and I pushed the sweat-damp strands off his forehead.
Mother pressed a soft kiss to my cheek. “He’s had this condition for a while, honey. He’ll be fine. I’ve seen him have two seizures.” She pursed her lips into a thinking pout, rolled her eyes from one side to the other, and then stared at him for a few seconds before she said, “No, three.”
“Whois he? Other thanBrooks.”
“He didn’t say? Truly?” Mischief twinkled in her eyes, and all the anger I’d felt last night reared up in me, ready to attack. She always thought she knew best, even when she was playing around in other people’s lives. Her face fell as her gaze darted to me. “Oh, baby boy, are you okay? I didn’t think—”
“Obviously you didn’t. Not now,” I grumbled, and I went back to trying to will Brooks to sit up and smile rather than lie limp with his mouth slightly open and his dog on his legs.
“Darcy.” Her tone shifted to the one I’d heard nearly every day as a teenager, the one that said I was being insufferable and she loved me, but if I didn’t adjust my attitude, she would find the worst job in the Courtesan and give it to me.
“Don’t you dare,” I snapped, and split my attention between her and Brooks, but he didn’t seem to be rousing yet. “I cannot believe you, woman.” I sniffed in her direction. “How long is it normal for him to be out?”
The twitching of her lips would have sent me stomping from the room, except I couldn’t bring myself to drop Brooks’ hand. “He still has a few minutes till I’m worried.” She shifted until her shoulder bumped mine. “You obviously needed a good time, and I believed he would give you one. Was I wrong?”
Fury unlike anything I’d ever experienced roiled in my gut, and my vision went gray for a moment as I swayed on my knees. I whipped around to face her. “I have never, as an adult, yelled at you. I don’t want to start today. But what you did will never happen again. Not ever.” There were a thousand and one reasons why what she’d done was wrong, and I couldn’t begin to list them all. “In the future, I don’t care how much I embarrass you. I don’t care what deals you have to break. You’re not to offer me to anyone again.”
She drew back and crossed her hands over her chest, where they fluttered like a bird for a moment before they settled over her heart. She leaned back toward me, and I held still as she swiped her fingers under my eyes. I ignored the dampness she brushed off my cheeks.
“I love you, baby boy.” She cupped my face. Angry or not, I couldn’t bring myself to do anything to dislodge her. “I hoped you would unwind with someone fun. Brooks is fun. Always was. In his own way, he makes the people around him happy. And… well, I’ll let him talk to you, but I thought more good than bad would come out of his wanting a chance to get near you.” Her bright blue eyes sparkled with sincerity, and it galled me that I couldn’t tell if she actually meant what she was saying or if she was selling me on what she wanted me to think.
“I know you love me.” I glanced at Brooks and refused to comment on the rest of her hogwash. “Will you stay until he wakes up?” I squeezed his hand in mine.
She hummed and glanced at him, and as she stared, I dragged the blanket from my bed down to cover him. He’d been shivering before this started, so maybe he was cold now and I just didn’t know? He didn’t move, so I tucked the blanket around him, and it took Lemonade whining for Mother to laugh and flip the blanket off her.
“Brooks is a proud man. I don’t believe he would enjoy an extended audience.”
Now that I wasn’t freaking out quite as bad, his name tugged at my memory. It was unusual. I willed myself to remember him as I stared, but still couldn’t quite place him.
“And I got one anyway, huh, Madam Winters?” he grumbled.
“Oh good, I’ll leave you to my son’s care.” She giggled, a low, earthy breeze of amusement, and I knew it was her natural laugh, not the fake happy trill she delivered to people she was trying to impress. That had me relaxing a little. If she was being a real person around him, she honestly knew him, and probably trusted him.
