“Mother!” I whispered.
She continued tittering and patted me on the head as she stood. “Glad to see you in this world again, Mr. Sutherland. You were missed.” She lifted the edges of her robe in a sort of curtsy, in spite of the fact he couldn’t see, and Brooks laughed, just as if he knew exactly what she’d done. Mother sent me a sly look, and I shook my head at her clowning around but was glad I had a full name. The worst and best—that was Mother.
“Who am I?” she asked him.
“The lady of the castle.”
She laughed. “What year is it?”
He frowned and grunted, rolling his neck like it had stiffened up. “Pass. Next question?”
“Who did you spend the night with?” I rushed to ask, worried now that he didn’t remember the year. Was that normal? There was so much I’d never thought to learn about seizures, and now I felt like it was a gaping hole in my knowledge about the world.
“Oh, that’s an easy one. Lemonade. She always sleeps beside my bed.” He grinned and fumbled his hand down to try to pet her but made a face like moving hurt. She crawled her way to his hand, and her tongue lolled out at his “good girl.”
My heart nearly stopped, and jealousy burned through me. Of course, what did it say about me that I wanted him to be patting me and not the pup? Then he laughed, low and evil, and did reach out toward me. His hand landed on my knee and he rubbed a circle there. “Darcy, are you worried I’ll forget you?”
Growling, I went to stand, but he clutched at my leg and kept me at his side. “I’m tired.” He fought off a yawn, even as he said that. “I need a nap. I think I might have accidentally skipped some of my meds yesterday in my excitement to get here.” He winced. “Can I crash here for a short while? Until I’m on my feet?”
“Of course,” I said quietly. Between the two of us, it took a few minutes to get him upright and onto the bed, where he promptly collapsed and closed his eyes as if he’d been awake for years. “Do you need anything?”
“Nope,” he grumbled.
Lemonade whined near the door, and he startled as if he’d already been drifting off to sleep. “Shoot, sounds like she needs to go out. She’s trained to be good on a leash for strangers,” Brooks said quietly, like he was already on his way to falling back asleep again.
“Oh, I’ll take her,” Mother said and bounced in place. “Who’s a good girl?” Lemonade’s tail thumped against the floor, and she stared at Mother like she was the next best thing to kibble.
I goggled at her. “You will? When is the last time you cleaned up dog crap?”
She laughed and cuffed the back of my head almost hard enough to hurt. “Behave yourself.”
She snapped her fingers at the dog, and Lemonade went to her with her tongue hanging out, pleased to have her head patted. She went along with Mother, and they were both out the door before I spotted the harness on the floor.
“Mother! You can’t take her with no leash.” I wasn’t sure if it was okay to leave the harness, either, but she only laughed.
“I’ll borrow one from someone.”
The fact that it honestly wasn’t a hassle to find a leash in the hotel only had me sighing, but Brooks chuckled from his spot on the bed. He rested a hand over his eyes, as if they bothered him, and I stared after Mother. She obviously knew Brooks and hadn’t been surprised by the seizure. I wanted to storm after her and demand an explanation, but I knew her, and if she thought this was funny, I’d never drag one out of her. Adrenaline still thumped in my veins, and I ran my shaking hands over my face. “How are you feeling?”
“Worn out. Hurts,” he murmured, and I could already tell he was drifting off again. “I’ll take something for the muscle pain when I get home.”
“Mother obviously likes you or she wouldn’t have done any of this.” I left out theto mebut thought maybe he understood because he grunted in answer. “Who the hell are you, Mr. Brooks Sutherland?”
He smiled. “She didn’t say while I was out?”
“Other than a name, which perhaps she thought was enough, no.”
“Hmm” came his amused response. He shrugged his broad shoulders and got more comfortable in my bed by moving his legs around.
“I plan to grill her first chance I get.” But I didn’t sound too sure of myself, and the faint crook of his lips blazed to life into a smile that had my stomach pleasantly warming and squirming. Fuck, he knew her very well if he was confident any information I gained would need to come from him.
He rolled onto his side with his eyes closed, facing me. “Don’t do that. Let me take you out. Let’s get to know each other the old-fashioned way. Don’t research me. You always were overly careful.”
I sighed. “I’m a bit tired of you telling me about the way I was, since I haven’t changed at all. I still don’t trust anyone. Not even Mother. I love her, and I trust her with my life, but I also trust her to do exactly what she thinks is best and nothing else.” I sucked in my cheeks and bit at them to keep from saying anything else about Mother. I loved her, but I was still angry.
“This scared you off, huh?”
Flustered, I shook my head at him. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
