I don’t get any more out before he turns deadly serious. “Something happened? To who? Is it Ronan? What happened?”
So much for being the one who’s calm and cool to tell him the news so he doesn’t get upset.
“No, it’s not Ronan. He’s fine. He’s here, in fact, out at the house. No need to worry.”
Kellen lets out a heavy sigh. “Then if it isn’t Ronan, what happened? Clearly, you’re fine. It isn’t one of the kids, is it? Ronan told me little Theo got out of his crib and they couldn’t find him a few weeks ago.”
“No, it isn’t Theo or Matty. That was something else entirely.” I swallow hard and continue. “It’s Eleanor, Kellen. I found her passed out on the kitchen floor a little while ago. She’s awake now, but the doctor wants to run some tests.”
I swear I can hear my younger brother’s sadness come right through the phone, even though he’s not saying a word. Kellen has always been Eleanor’s favorite. His charm never fails to work its magic on her. Losing her would be like losing our mother all over again for him too.
“Thank God she’s okay. Is she talking? What did she say happened?” he asks, his voice full of emotion.
“She didn’t know. One minute she was doing something at the sink, and the next she was blacked out and waking up on the floor. Matthias spoke to her doctor. He thinks it has something to do with her blood pressure, but they won’t know until they run tests.”
His words come out shaky when he says, “I’m going to come out to the house right now. I’ll see you in a few, Marius.”
Before I get the chance to say anything more, the phone goes dead. I don’t know if it was the right thing to do by telling him, but if any of us should know about how Eleanor is doing, it’s him.
This has been one hell of a day. And here I thought I’d get to relax since one of the kids was out of the house with the other one spending time with the nanny.
I must have beentired since I don’t even remember falling asleep. I look outside and see it’s still daytime, so I couldn’t have slept for long.
Stretching my limbs, I feel like someone’s been beating on me repeatedly for hours. Unsure why, I sit up as I try to figure out if I was restless when I slept. I’m not the type to have nightmares—never was even as a kid—but as I try to piece together what could be making my body hurt like this, a vague memory of something I must have dreamed comes to me. I was in Ronan’s apartment. At least I think I was in the dream. It’s all very hazy, but I think I was looking for the light. He kept asking me to find the light switch and turn on the lights, but I couldn’t find it.
Weird. I rarely remember my dreams, but I never remember nightmares. Not that being unable to find a light switch is the stuff of horror, but knowing Ronan was in the dream and he wanted me to help him makes me think it might have been a nightmare.
Rolling off my bed, I make sure I’m dressed since I usually don’t sleep with clothes on and then head downstairs. All the emotional upheaval of the day must have worn me out.
Since I hear noises coming from the kitchen, I make my way there to find Ronan, Kellen, and Matthias sitting around thetable eating something that looks like apple pie. They all look up when I walk in but don’t say anything.
“Jesus, is Eleanor feeling that much better that she made an apple pie? By the way, I hope you left me some. I’m starving.”
I sit down next to Matthias while my younger brothers shake their heads. “She’s still in bed, asshole,” Kellen says, clearly still upset.
Holding up my hands, I say, “Sorry. I was just trying to make a joke. You know, lighten the mood?”
“Well, it wasn’t funny.”
I shrug and walk over to get a fork out of the drawer. “Not every one can be a winner, you know.”
“Kellen’s just worried,” Matthias says. “You know how close he is with Eleanor.”
As I sit down again, I throw Kellen a smile. “Don’t worry. She’s going to be fine. Eleanor is a tough lady, and I’m sure Matthias here has the best doctors in the world to take care of her. You watch. In no time, she’ll be back up on her feet and making you those butterscotch cookies you love so much.”
That puts a smile on his face, and he chuckles. “She does make me some great snacks.”
Ronan laughs and says, “Do you remember the time she found Theo in the game room with that girl? She came running down here, and Kellen and I were sitting right where we are now. We were too young to know what was wrong, but I swear when she walked back upstairs with the can of Pledge and that dust cloth, we heard someone scream. The girl came running past us right out the door with him following. Then when Eleanor came down, all she said to the two of us was, ‘The game room is clean, in case you boys want to go up there.’ And that was it.”
“That was a few months after Mom died,” Kellen says. “I asked her about it one time, and she said she felt it was herresponsibility to keep Theo’s reputation intact. I didn’t have the heart to tell her he’d probably ruined it by that time.”
The four of us throw our heads back and laugh at the very thought of Theo ever having a respectable reputation. Out of all of us, he made sure to leave a past full of deeds Eleanor would have blanched at.
“Poor Eleanor,” Matthias says as he stops laughing. “She had no idea about who Theo really was.”
“Or maybe she did,” I say, sure Eleanor wasn’t as naïve as it seemed.
“She was probably trying to help the girl out more than him,” Ronan says. “Something tells me Eleanor knew exactly who our brother was.”
