He took her hand, and they walked toward the driveway. “After I hit forty, every time I was with my nieces and nephews, I regretted not having children. I know it’ll be a big adjustment to go from being single to being a husband and father, but I want you, and I want kids with you. Not anyone else, just you.”
“What if we can’t have any?”
Without missing a step, he said, “We’ll find kids like Churchill who need loving families.”
She’d never considered adoption, but she had friends who were adopted and grew up in loving families, and one had even reconnected with her birth mother. “It just feels very sudden.”
“It probably does. Do you want us to slow down?”
She laughed. “It’s too late for that. Your little spermy-things could already be partying it up with my egg, and, as irresistible as you are, I’m sure they’ve been having a rip-roaring time.”
Then Charlotte honked at them from the driveway, and they hustled to the car.
Thirty minutes later, Charlotte led Rick and Penny into VCU Massey Cancer Center’s entrance. “The Bone Marrow Transplant Program has been operating since 1988. It’s one of the largest and fastest-growing programs in the nation. And it’s been a National Marrow Donor Program transplant center for more than a decade, so they know what they’re doing. You’ll be in excellent hands here.”
“As long as where I’m going is a little bit warmer.”
“They’ll give you a warm blanket.”
“I read that if a donor donates on a Friday, they’ll be back at work on Monday or Tuesday,” Rick said. “That’s faster than what you said.”
Charlotte stopped and looked at Rick and then Penny. “Normally, that’s correct. But most patients aren’t arriving almost straight from a battlefield or planning a wedding. You haven’t fully recovered from your trip, and you want to get pregnant. That’s a lot of stress on your body, so you need to take it easy for two to three weeks. I’d prefer three to four. Besides, the plantation is at your disposal, so you’ll have everything you need. Let’s play it by ear. Okay?”
Penny refrained from giving Charlotte a side-eye. She wasn’t Penny’s doctor, and whether Penny got pregnant or not wasn’t anyone’s business. But right now, she needed to shake it off and calm her mind before they wheeled her into the OR.
They walked down a long corridor and took the elevator up to the seventh floor to the outpatient clinic for the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit. After Penny checked in, she kissed Rick goodbye and left him in the waiting room.
“They wouldn’t tell me what expenses I’m responsible for over and above my medical insurance.”
“Don’t worry about anything. Elliott will pick up all expenses not covered by insurance.”
“This is my gift.”
“Of course it is,” Charlotte said. “And you shouldn’t be financially burdened because of it. There’s a wing here in Elliott’s name, and he’s already been in contact with the Development Office about a significant gift. He doesn’t want you to worry about it. Besides, you’re giving Rhona what none of the rest of us can, and it makes Elliott happy.”
“Why is it everyone’s main mission to please Elliott?”
“Because he’s given all of us more than we can ever repay, but we do what we can. Without Elliott, Braham and I wouldn’t be together today, and Elliott and I go back almost twenty-five years. I’ve given him hell, and he’s given it back, but we love, trust, and respect each other.”
“I don’t have the benefit of any institutional knowledge, which means I’ll push back when he pushes me.”
“He wouldn’t expect anything less.” Charlotte left her with a nurse and promised to check back before Penny went to surgery.
As soon as Penny was prepped, Rick came in to sit with her, and for the next three hours, she rested while he worked on his laptop.
“Don’t you need to go back to Napa to get some work done?”
He leaned over the bed and kissed her. It was hungry, impatient, and demanding, and she matched his every emotion. Finally, he broke away and smiled. “I do have work to do, but I can do everything from here.”
“Thanks. I’d go crazy if you left me here with all these controlling people. I do need to go to Napa soon, though, to figure out what I want to move and talk to a realtor.”
A woman pulled open the curtain to the cubicle, and two other women in scrubs came in behind her. “Ms. Malone, we’re ready for you.”
Rick kissed her again. “I love you, babe. I’ll be right here when you come back.” Then to the nurse, he asked. “I understand this could take one to two hours?”
“You can make yourself comfortable in the waiting room, and we’ll notify you as soon as Ms. Malone is out of surgery.”
Penny looked up. “Don’t worry. They do this procedure all the time.”
He kissed her one more time, his eyes glistening. “Take good care of her.”
“We will,” the nurse said with a smile for Rick.
They wheeled Penny out of the cubicle, down another corridor, and into surgery, and that was the last she knew until she opened her eyes to find Meredith sitting next to the bed.
“Hi, Meredith. Have you seen Rick?”
Meredith chuckled. “You don’t remember him telling you he was going out for coffee?”
“Ohhh. I guess not. Did they get my bone marrow?”
“Rick talked to the doctor. The procedure was textbook perfect, and they’ll freeze the stem cells until Rhona is ready for them. Are you in pain? Do you want me to call your nurse?”
“A little sore is all. I don’t remember much.”
“You’ve been waking up and talking and going back to sleep for the past hour. Everything went great, and you’ll be able to go home by late afternoon.”
“That’s nice.” Penny closed her eyes, and the next time she woke up, she was in a different room, and Rick wasn’t there. “Where’s Rick?”
“He just went outside to make a few calls,” Meredith said.
“You don’t have to stay.”
Meredith stood and fiddled with Penny’s blankets before handing her a cup of water with a straw. “I’d like to sit with you unless you don’t want company.”
Penny took a long sip. “No, I’m glad you’re here.” She closed her eyes and nodded off to sleep again. When she woke up, Meredith was typing on her phone.
“Where’s Rick?”
Meredith chuckled. “He’s still on the phone, but he sent me a text and said he’d be another ten minutes.”
Penny rubbed her forehead. “I can’t remember anything. It’s all jumbled up in my head. I don’t know what time it is or what day it is.”
“It’s only Tuesday. You were in surgery for two hours, and that’s a lot of anesthesia. You’ll be sleeping it off for a while.”
Penny found the bed controls and raised herself to see Meredith better. She was a classy, elegant, beautiful woman who must be getting injections and fillers because her skin was smooth and wrinkle-free. Her dark brown hair was shoulder-length and glossy, and she dressed as if she’d walked right off the cover of Vogue, set off by diamond and gemstone earrings, necklace, and rings that were understated but expensive.
She and Charlotte were bookends. Where Meredith had dark hair, Charlotte was blonde, plus she had the most beautiful old Southern accent, just like Jack.
“I don’t want to keep you away from your work.” Even though Penny wanted someone with her, why couldn’t it be Soph or Kenzie?
Meredith removed her tortoiseshell reading glasses. “If I wasn’t here, Elliott would be.”
Penny groaned. “Oh, God. Really? Then I’m glad you’re here. I couldn’t handle him right now.”
“He can be a handful sometimes, but he always has the best interests of the family at heart.”
“I’m not exactly family,” Penny said. “We’re just tied together because of the”—she lowered her voice—“brooches.”
Meredith flipped her glasses back and
forth like a swinging pendulum. “It goes deeper than that. I just received a report back from my genealogy investigators, and your family has a line straight to Lorna MacKlenna, who was James MacKlenna’s great-great-aunt.”
“Who’s he?”
“He and his father founded MacKlenna Farm in Kentucky in the late 1700s. Lorna married Michael Mallory, and they had several children. Jack and Charlotte’s line comes from one of their sons, and your family comes through one of their daughters, who married Liam Malone.”
Penny rubbed her eyes, trying to picture the family tree, but quickly gave up. “So I’m distantly related to Jack and Charlotte. What about Rhona and Soph? Are they cousins too?”
“Sophia’s line to the MacKlennas goes back through her Grandfather Seamus Digby, whose several-times-great-grandmother was Fiona MacKlenna, one of Thomas MacKlenna’s daughters. Rhona’s line also comes through Fiona. Her daughter married Alexander Baird, Rhona’s several-times-great-grandfather.
“That connects Rhona, Sophia, and me, but what about David? He was part of the vision-nightmare-mind-meld thing too.”
Meredith poured more water into Penny’s cup. “His Grandmother McBain was a MacKlenna with a direct line to Fiona.”
Penny was still grasping the complicated family tree when the door opened, and Rick swept into the room, carrying a bouquet of dusky pink lilies, roses, and frilly carnations, filling the room with their sweet, earthy fragrances. He stopped and smiled. “You’re awake again. I was hoping to have these next to your bed so you’d see them as soon as you opened your eyes.”
“It’s better to see you carry them in. I might remember that the next time I wake up.”
He kissed her. “How do you feel?”
“Pretty good. Meredith has been giving me a genealogy lesson.”
Rick growled at Meredith. “That’s a heavy topic for a woman coming out of an anesthesia fog. She doesn’t even remember that I’ve been here most of the day, holding her hand.”
“I probably won’t remember any of it.” She looked over at Meredith. “But how are Rick and I related?”
“Well, think of it this way. Lorna MacKlenna”—Meredith held her hand about eye level—“is here. Your line and the Mallory line go up and around”—she waved her hand up, then down. “Rick’s family, on the other hand, goes straight down from the MacKlennas to the Frasers. So after you two marry, it will loop those two lines together. Does that make any sense?”
Penny chuckled. “Not a bit, but it seems to make sense to you. I’m a visual learner. I’d love it if you’d draw it out or show me a chart at some point,” Penny said. “Preferably when I have my wits about me.”
The nurse came in. “Your doctor has signed your release, and as soon as I get you unhooked, we’ll wheel you out of here.”
Forty-five minutes later, Meredith drove them out of the hospital parking lot. And after another forty-five minutes, she turned into Mallory Plantation. But instead of driving up to the big house, she turned toward the cabin.
“Did we get a reprieve?” Penny asked, hopefully.
“I told Charlotte you wanted to go back to the cabin,” Rick said, “and that if you were feeling okay, I planned to take you there. She agreed but said she’d stop by this evening, and if you’re running a fever or need pain medication, you have to go to the big house.”
“Sounds like I’ll have to go to prison.”
Rick laughed. “It won’t be that bad.”
Meredith stopped in the driveway and got out of the car. “I’ll see you two tomorrow. Elliott wants to have a telephone conference to bring everyone up to speed. But if you need anything, call me.”
Penny hugged her. “Thanks for coming to the hospital and bringing us home.”
They waved goodbye to Meredith, and Penny hobbled to the porch.
“You look like you’re in pain. I’d pick you up, but I’m afraid I’ll hurt your hips.”
“My hips are sore, but if I go slow, I’m fine. I don’t think I can have sex tonight.”
An easy laugh rolled out of him before he kissed her. “We can survive twenty-four hours.” He held the door open, and she walked in and headed straight to bed.
“What’s going to happen on the conference call?”
“It’ll be a teleconference, with everyone tuning in or phoning in. The meeting will be like dinner the other night. When the rest of the family finds out about Elliott’s side trips, we’ll have a few angry people, but they’ll be glad to hear we’ve made progress in understanding the brooches.”
She stripped out of her street clothes, slipped on a nightshirt, and climbed under the covers. “Wake me in a few hours? I want to snuggle with you, but I’m too tired right now. My head is still spinning with all that family history.”
“Meredith is obsessed with genealogy, and she shouldn’t have unloaded it on you today. No one expects you to remember any of it.”
“Everything still seems a little soft and out of focus.”
“I can’t even focus on it after a good night’s sleep.” He leaned over, and the roughness of his whiskers brushed her cheek as the softness of his lips feathered against her temple. “I love you.”
“Ditto.” Then she fell asleep—again.
72
Mallory Plantation—Rick
The early morning fog rolling off the James River dissipated, and the dawn chorus of male birds chirping to attract mates became louder and livelier. Rick sat in an Adirondack chair, drinking coffee from a thermos while jotting down plot ideas in his journal. He was tuned in to the neighs of the horses in the paddocks and the scents of the magnolia trees and lavender gardens. The brackish, lapping river even changed in tone as the rising tide echoed in the space beneath the dock.
His agitation had faded with the fog, and he couldn’t remember ever feeling so at peace.
Earlier, he’d forced himself to get out of bed before he disturbed Penny. She slept straight through the night, although he woke up almost hourly to touch her forehead, checking for a fever, and reassuring himself that the procedure had gone well, and now she was sleeping off the anesthesia—and recovering from their previous all-night sex marathons.
“Rick!”
He turned, waved, and his heart lifted when he saw Penny standing on the porch sipping coffee. She was still wearing the silky pink nightshirt that had wisped across his skin all night, seducing him every time she rolled over while he struggled to keep his hands off her.”
“Come on down!” he yelled.
He was tempted to run to her and carry her down the path, but even more, he wanted to watch her come to him. The sun was at her back, and damn, every curve, and even her nipples and the triangle of brown hair between her legs were visible through the transparent fabric. The sight nearly took his breath away. No, make that, did take his breath away. He thumped his fist against his chest to jump-start his breathing.
How was it possible to love someone—to want someone—as much as he did her?
She kissed him. “I missed you when I woke up. Then I saw you sitting here, and my heart went thump, thump, thump.” He led her to the chair next to his, and she eased onto the slanted seat. “I had this vision of you as an older man with gray hair and a little slump around the shoulders, just sitting here working on your next novel, watching the river, and it was so overpowering I nearly dropped to my knees. I couldn’t believe it was possible to love anyone as much as I love you.”
His throat tightened and ached a little, and damn, he wanted to set his coffee aside and instead drink down every wicked inch of her. “I had the same thought when I saw you on the porch.”
A moment of silence passed while he listened to the surge and slosh of the rising tide, the thump of his heart, and the soft breathing of his ladylove sitting next to him.
“How long have you been down here?” she asked.
“Since right before dawn. I couldn’t stay in bed any longer. I wanted you, but I also knew I needed to let you sleep. Oliver’s been keeping
me company, but he’s grumbling. He didn’t understand why you were inside, and he wasn’t.”
“Inside the cabin? Or inside me?”
Rick threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, babe. Even if I could stay inside you twenty-four hours a day, it still wouldn’t be enough.”
She reached over and squeezed his dick, and he was proud of the ol’ boy for jumping to attention but also for not ejaculating. It was dangerous for her to keep her hand there, so he gently removed it, placing it on the chair’s wide armrest and covering her warm hand with his own.
“Guess that means you don’t want me to touch you.”
“I’m so horny right now I could come in a millisecond.”
She glanced around the yard. “Braham mentioned all the security, but how is the shoreline protected? Are there eyes in the sky watching us right now, so if we drop and roll and make love in the grass, we’d be viewed in real-time?”
“As tempting as that sounds, I don’t plan to share you with the guys in the security office. Early on, Braham realized the shore was the plantation’s most vulnerable access point, so there’s round-the-clock video surveillance with IR security cameras. But several times a year he also hires security experts to stage an invasion.”
“Really? How often do they get through?” she asked.
“They’ve broken through twice in five years. Braham fixes the weaknesses, plus he continuously upgrades with the latest advances in security technology. It’s been a couple of years since he’s identified any vulnerable points,” Rick said.
“So, we’re as safe as we can be?”
“Ninety-nine-point-nine percent safe.” He glanced back toward the cabin. “I forgot to show you the trap door in the bathroom closet. It leads to a tunnel that takes you directly to the basement in the big house.”
“That’s one helluva long tunnel. Where does it come out?”
“Under the stairs next to the safe room’s retinal scanner. It’s a straight line, and much shorter than the road, or even walking along the shore. The security center, all the residences, and the resource center are all connected by tunnels.”
The Topaz Brooch Page 80