It felt odd to refer to his dad by his first name, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to stand here and listen to the impassive-faced doctor refer to his dad as “the patient” as if he were just a number, as if his life wasn’t important enough for the cocky doc to know his dad’s name.
Dr. Jameson cleared his throat again, nodding, and shifted his chart to the other arm. “Yes, sorry,” he said, and Rhys watched as the man glanced down, probably trying to scan all the information he should have already read and learned about Rhys’s father. One thing Rhys had learned about running his family’s company, McCaim Shipping, with his brothers—under their father’s tutelage before he’d lost his mind, of course—was that the difference between someone who was successful and someone who wasn’t successful was knowledge of the details, hard work, and ruthless determination.
“Your father was brought in an hour ago and has been in and out of consciousness. Everything indicates that he fell and hit his head.” The doctor paused and glanced at Ian, who nodded. Ian must have been the one to find their dad. “Initial tests indicate dehydration, low sugar levels, malnutrition, and pneumonia,” the doctor continued. “His white blood cell count is very high, and we believe his pneumonia is bacterial.”
Disbelief was a funny thing. Rhys could hear the doctor still talking, but he sounded so far away. As if he stood at one end of a tunnel and Rhys was at the other.
“He’s been in and out of consciousness,” the doctor repeated, his voice still sounding as if he was whispering, even though Rhys was certain the man was speaking in a normal tone. “He gets very confused when he’s awake. He keeps saying he was trying to get to another time.”
That last sentence was loud, blaring like the horn of their yacht,the Shona, which their father named after their mother. Dr. Jameson swept a questioning, slightly probing gaze over the four of them, and Rhys exchanged uneasy looks with his brothers. He wasn’t ready to publicly admit his dad’s insanity to this doctor yet, and apparently, by the collective silence of his brothers, neither were they.
“Maybe the dehydration and malnutrition are making him delusional,” Rhys offered, hoping it was a believable possibility.
“Certainly,” Dr. Jameson agreed. “Once the tests come back, we’ll better know how to proceed. Right now, we’ve stabilized him, given him something for pain and agitation, plus fluids to hydrate him. I’ll return as soon as we have the results.”
As soon as the door closed on the doctor, Rhys moved to his dad’s side. Reikart simultaneously went to the other side. Ian and Greyson didn’t move, nor speak, and Rhys chalked it up to the fact that they’d had longer to process Dad’s condition and were giving them a moment. Rhys stared down at his father. Blue lips. Blue nails. Why was that? Lack of oxygen? He could feel his brow furrowing as he looked at the machines. There was no ventilator or tube coming from his dad’s mouth, so he was breathing on his own. The blue tint didn’t make sense. Rhys made a mental note to ask Dr. Jameson about that when he returned.
He glanced from the machines to Ian. “How could Dad be dehydrated and have malnutrition without you knowing?” Rhys asked, keeping his voice low. Dad looked like he was sleeping, but Rhys didn’t want to risk disturbing him.
Ian’s jaw tensed noticeably. “Didyounotice?” he demanded. Before Rhys could even respond, Ian continued. “Oh wait, of course you didn’t. You haven’t been to see him in amonth.”
Guilt was a bitch. She had a hard-core punch and true aim. Rhys clenched his teeth on the knee-jerk response sizzling on the end of his tongue. Instead, he inhaled a long, slow breath and said, “If you’ll recall, I was travelingfor workthree out of those four weeks.” He could tell by the parting of his brother’s lips and his uneasy shift that Ianhadforgotten. Rhys had been back in town for seven days. Yes, technically long enough to go see Dad, but there had been a lot of fires to put out at the office. The nights had been long and draining.
“Just because I live at home does not make me Dad’s babysitter,” Ian finally muttered, jerking a hand through his hair and scowling.
“True enough,” Rhys agreed. “But still. Haven’t you seen him? Noticed things were off?”
“Hell yes, I did!” Ian thundered, to which Rhys, Reikart, and Greyson hushed him.
Rhys glanced toward his dad, expecting his eyes to open. They were fluttering but with tightly shut lids, as if he was dreaming. “I’ve told you guys repeatedly over the last year that Dad stays holed up in his study more than he’s out of it. But you all brushed me off, told me I was acting like a woman with all my worrying.”
Rhys shifted uncomfortably. Hehadblown off his brother. Frankly, he’d just been happy that their dad had stopped showing up at the office insisting that Rhys and his brothers help him discover how to travel back in time to rescue their mom. Their employees had heard and talked, and then the whispers had gotten to some of the shareholders, who in turn had demanded Dad be removed as head of the company. It had been horrible, but what had been worse was the subsequent intervention Rhys had needed to orchestrate. They’d had to warn Dad that his outlandish behavior was not only hurting the company but could land him in a psych ward.
He’d mostly dropped the subject after that, and he’d become somewhat of a hermit, only bringing up his time travel theory now and again. Really, he only spoke of the nonsense when he’d been drinking scotch.
“What was Dad doing in the study?” Reikart asked, which brought Rhys’s attention back to Ian in time to see his brother shrug.
“I don’t know,” Ian said. “He kept the study locked down like it was an office of the Secret Service. I tried to find the key several times but couldn’t, and he got agitated and belligerent when I asked for it.”
Something dawned on Rhys then. “Is this why you stayed there? Why you didn’t move out?”
At Ian’s nod, Rhys felt the weight that was always pressing on him grow heavier. He was the eldest, and he’d tried to shoulder as much as he could by stepping into their dad’s shoes at the company, but it was clear now that he hadn’t paid enough attention to things on the home front, nor to the sacrifice Ian was making for the family. He opened his mouth to say they should break into the study when a loud beep filled the room and their dad started wheezing. Another monitor went off, then another, and Rhys’s blood went cold.
He bent over his dad, whose eyelids suddenly opened. His piercing blue gaze locked on Rhys. “I’m dying,” he rasped.
“Dad,” Rhys began, even as his brothers crowded around him, even as a hard ball of emotion lodged in his throat, “You are not—”
“Promise me,” his dad interrupted as he clutched Rhys’s forearm with surprising strength. “Promise me, you’ll find your mother,” he finished on a gasp.
Reikart shifted forward to stand beside Rhys. “Dad, she le—”
“We’ll find her,” Rhys cut in, glaring his brother into silence. The last thing their dad needed was to get more upset, and the contentious relationship Reikart had with him seemed to lead to that too damn often.
“I need to see her,” his dad said, his voice barely a whisper. “I need to know that she’s okay. I can’t—” His eyes rolled back into his head. More beeps joined the ones already going off, and he started to convulse.
For a second, Rhys stood frozen in shock, but then he turned to run for the doctors and nurses. They were already pushing their way through the doors, though, directing him and his brothers out of the room as they barked orders at one another. Rhys didn’t want to leave, but he knew they’d only be in the way. He followed one of the nurses as she led his brothers, who all looked just as shocked as he felt, out of the room and down the white, fluorescent-lit corridor tinged with the smell of antiseptic. They walked through a set of double doors and into a waiting room filled with black faux leather couches, flat screen televisions, and a handful of people who seemed to be switching from staring into nothingness, crying, and arguing with whomever they were with.
“He’ll be fine,” Rhys told his brothers, taking a seat at the same time he stepped into the role of comforter. He’d been doing this for so long now that he no longer believed his own words. The skeptical looks he received from his brothers confirmed that they no longer believed him, either. And why should they? It had been five years since their mom had left, and their dad was far from fine. He was apparently worse than ever. Something had to change.
