Page 9 of If She Only Knew (The Cahills 1)

“Forget it.”

“But—”

“This isn’t about money, okay?” Nick climbed into the cab, shoved Tough Guy to his spot near the passenger door and jabbed his keys into the ignition. Knowing he was making a mistake he’d regret for the rest of his days, he said, “I’ll be there, okay?” Angry with himself and his fierce, misguided sense of loyalty, Nick added, “I’ll look over your damned books, make nice-nice with Mother and I’ll visit Marla, but you don’t owe me a dime. Got it? I’m coming to San Francisco out of the goodness of my heart, and I’ll leave when I want to. This isn’t an open-ended deal where I stay on indefinitely.”

“The goodness of your heart, now there’s an interesting concept,” Alex said, skipping over Nick’s concerns.

“Isn’t it?” Nick grabbed the door handle. Wind and rain lashed the cab. “That’s my best offer, Alex. My only offer. I’ll be there within the week. Take it or leave it.” Pumping the accelerator, Nick turned on the ignition and didn’t wait for an answer. The Dodge’s engine coughed, sputtered, then caught.

Cross with the world in general and himself in particular, Nick slammed the door shut and flipped on the wipers. Nothing his brother could say would make any difference one way or another.

Like it or not, he was on his way to San Francisco.

“Hell,” he ground out as the wipers slapped away the rain and he threw his pickup into reverse. Gravel sprayed and, on the bench seat beside him, Tough Guy nearly lost his balance.

“Sorry,” Nick growled as he jerked the truck into first and glowered through the foggy windshield. Alex stood in the puddle-strewn lot, his wool coat catching in the breeze, his expression as dour as an undertaker’s. Nick snapped on the wheezing defroster, then flipped the stations of the radio, but he heard only static.

He thought of Marla, and his gut tightened. He still wanted her. After fifteen years. Fifteen damned years. There had been more than a dozen women in his life since then, but none of them, not one woman had left the deep impressions, the scars upon his soul that she had. His gaze narrowed on his reflection in the rearview mirror. Harsh blue eyes glared back at him. “You’re a fool, Cahill,” he growled under his breath. “A goddamned fool.”

Chapter Two

“Will Mom remember me?” an impertinent girl’s voice demanded, and Marla strained to open her eyes. The pain had abated, probably due to some kind of medication, but she couldn’t move her mouth. Her tongue felt thick and tasted awful, her eyelids were too heavy to open and she had no sense of time. She knew only that she’d floated in and out of this state of semiconsciousness, her mind a jumbled blur. But she wanted to see her daughter. Marla fought to lift a lid but couldn’t.

“Of course your mother will remember you,” her mother-in-law said softly, her sharp, staccato footsteps snapping loudly as she approached the bed, the soft chink of jewelry accompanying the scent of that same elusive perfume. “Don’t worry.”

“But she looks terrible.” The girl again—her daughter. “I thought she’d be better by now.”

“She is, but it just takes time, Cissy. We’re all going to have to be patient.” There was a tiny hint of reproach in the older woman’s voice, almost a warning.

“I know, I know,” Cissy said with a theatrical sigh.

In the past few days floating in and out of semiconsciousness, Marla had come to recognize the nursing staff, Dr. Robertson and her family members by their colognes, their footsteps, and their voices, though often she was confused, in that nether state between waking and sleeping, never knowing if she was dreaming or if the medication was keeping her mind foggy.

She had pieced together that the older woman, her mother-in-law, was Eugenia Cahill and that Eugenia’s husband wasn’t around, maybe dead or incapacitated or just not interested; at least he’d never been to visit that she could remember . . . but her memory was the problem. A major problem.

Her mother-in-law seemed sincere, caring and had visited often . . . or at least Marla thought she had. Cissy hadn’t been here before . . . or had she? Marla couldn’t remember. Then there was her husband. Alex. A stranger and a man she should feel some tender emotion for, yet didn’t. Her head began to pound again, setting off a pain so intense it felt as if skaters were turning triple axels on razor-sharp blades in her brain. The powerful medication that helped her drift in and out of consciousness but kept her groggy definitely had its pluses.

“What if she doesn’t . . . you know . . . remember . . . or the scars don’t go away or . . . she’s not the same?” Cissy whispered, and inwardly Marla cringed.

“You’re worrying again. From here on in she’s going to get better and better.”

“I hope so,” the girl said fervently, though there was a hint of disbelief in her voice. “Will she need more plastic surgery? Dad said she already had a ton.”

“Just enough to repair the damage. Now, really, we shouldn’t talk about this any more.”

“Why? Do you think she can hear us?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

There was a pause, but Marla sensed someone edging closer to her bed, felt warm breath waft over her and realized she was being studied much like a single-cell organism under a highpowered microscope. Again Marla struggled to lift a finger. If only she could indicate that she was aware.

“She can’t hear nothing—”

“Anything, ‘she can’t hear anything,’ is the proper way to say it,” Eugenia was quick to reprimand.

“Oh, is it?” the kid countered, and Marla figured the girl was jerking her grandmother’s chain. “I’ll try to remember, okay?”

“Just remember, your mother’s lucky to be alive after that nasty accident,” Eugenia intoned. “And of course she doesn’t look the same, but you’ll see, once she wakes up and they take the wires out of her jaw and the swelling subsides, she’ll be good as new.”

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