Rhys clenched his teeth, determined to give Reikart a pass. They were all edgy on the anniversary of the day their mother had walked out of their lives. Despite the police bluntly telling their father that there had been no sign of foul play on the day they’d last seen her and there had been every indication that she’d left of her own accord, their father remained determined to prove she had not abandoned them. With each year that passed, he withdrew further into his fantasy that their mom was a time traveler who’d been snatched back to her own time. And each year his efforts to prove it got stupider and more costly. God only knew what he’d done this time. Last year, he’d spent a fortune on some rare Scottish book about herbs that was purported to have been used by Highland witches.
Witches!Just thinking that word made Rhys want to roll his eyes.
He looked in the direction of his home with a wistful glance, then changed his course, turning toward Orleans Parish where the family home was. Rhys glanced at his brother. “I assume Ian and Greyson texted you, too?”
“Yep.” Reikart proceeded to read the texts he’d gotten, which were pretty much the same ones Rhys had received. When Reik was done, silence descended between them, even though the French Quarter was as lively as ever. Finally, as they walked away from the crowds of partiers, the noise lessened.
“Listen, about earlier—” Reikart started.
“Forget it,” Rhys cut in. His irritation with his brother’s natural desire to pick up women seemed foolish as hell now in light of whatever their dad might have done. “But for the record, I’m not gay.”
Reikart gave him a nod and a wink. “I know, bro. I just like razzing you. But I do wish you’d act like the wingman you used to be. You’re wasting that pretty face, and all your time, training at the boxing gym.”
Rhys shrugged. He couldn’t force what he didn’t feel, and he didn’t want a relationship right then. He’d had enough midnight hookups in his thirty-two years to know that a woman might say she only wanted sex in the heat of the moment, but when the heat cooled off, she wanted more. He didn’t have more to give, and he was self-aware enough to know that the problem was most definitely him. His ex-girlfriend would be the first to agree.
Over a year ago, when Jenny had given him the ultimatum to either propose or let her go, he had chosen to let her go. He was ashamed to say it hadn’t hurt, nor had he really missed what they’d been: a comfortable couple. They’d been together for four years. Jenny had wanted the life he could provide—or that his money could, rather—and he had wanted someone who didn’t demand a depth of feeling he never wanted to experience. He’d thought she was that person, but then she’d started wanting more.
What had she called it?He frowned.Big love?
He couldn’t even place the blame for his emotional shutdown on his mom leaving. He’d been like this for a lot longer than that. What he would talk to a therapist about—if he believed in therapy, which he didn’t—was his abhorrence of what his eighth-grade girlfriend had called “romance-movie love.” She had said it longingly while looking dreamily at his parents. She’d been right. His parents had been crazy in love. Or at least everyone, including his dad, had thought they had been. And maybe they had been once and Mom had fallen out of love. Or maybe she’d just been a superb actress and she’d gotten tired of playing the role of loving wife and doting mother.
As they walked, his mind drifted to when he was fourteen and his mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer. They had feared she might not survive it, and in the hospital one night, his dad had tearfully confessed to Rhys that he didn’t want to live if she died. Rhys would never forget that. He had thought then that he never wanted to be that dependent on or intertwined with someone else ever.
Just look at Dad now. Deranged. Delusional. Defunct.
Rhys ground his teeth. He was out ofDwords for the moment, but apparently, he still had enough emotion left to let the anniversary of Mom’s disappearance get to him. He hated that, too.
“Good talk,” Reikart said, his tone dripping sarcasm.
“Sorry, Reik,” Rhys replied, stopping to text the family chauffer, Patrick, who immediately responded that he was on his way from the hospital and would be there in three minutes.
“The hospital?” Rhys muttered and flipped back to the text from his brothers. “Jesus…”
“What?” Reikart asked.
Rhys flipped his phone so Reikart could see the text from Patrick. As Reikart read, Rhys said, “Greyson and Ian contacted us two hours ago. I just noticed the time.”
Reikart’s lips parted. “You don’t think—”
“That Dad hurt himself and is at the hospital? Yea,” Rhys said, amazed at the fresh anger his mother still inspired. Frustrated and worried, he yanked a hand through his hair. “That’s exactly what I think. Whether it was purposeful or a stupid mistake remains to be seen.”
“What happened?” Rhys asked as he pushed open the door to their dad’s hospital room. He swept his gaze over Ian and Greyson, who stood at the foot of the bed but had turned to look at him and Reikart as the door opened. A doctor stood to the right side of the bed, and he paused in writing something on his clipboard to glance up, as well.
“Are you relatives?” the doctor asked.
Rhys nodded and stepped into the room, noting that Ian and Greyson were wearing matching dazed expressions. Rhys swallowed, feeling doom and desperation clutch at his chest as he moved around his brothers to see his dad. Long IV tubes were coming out of his arms and hands, pumping him full of clear liquids, and his body was bloated and bruised.
“Jesus,” Reikart muttered behind him.
Yes, God’s blood,he thought to himself, invoking the curse his mother had used whenever she thought none of them were listening.
His mother had never cursed like a normal person. Why the hell he thought of that now, he couldn’t say, except perhaps shock. Was he in shock? He ran a suddenly trembling hand through his hair as he stared at his father’s injured body.
“What the hell happened?” he asked again, but this time, he looked to the doctor—Dr. Jameson according to his hospital name tag.
Dr. Jameson cleared his throat. “The patient—”
“Colin,” Rhys interrupted. “His name is Colin.”
