“Where people are concerned, rarely. And where the running of the paper is concerned, I look to the primary source.”
“Good of you, but you’re in the minority these days. In any case, it seems that cancer makes no distinctions,” she announced with a harsh laugh.
“It’s true, then?”
“Those rumors you never abide?” she smiled unevenly as a sharp stab of pain underscored her words. “Yes, well, they’re true, all of them. All those wasted years exercising, eating all sorts of unspeakable green things, never smoking—not even breathing in secondhand smoke—and mortality laughs in my face. Ironic, don’t you think?”
“Mortality?” Lincoln frowned, wishing she would not parry the question.
“It’s pretty evident that when your doctor avoids your eyes, the news isn’t good. I had to force it from her. You don’t seem surprised.”
“You’re wrong,” Lincoln protested. “I’m shocked. I just don’t know what to say. I’m not very good in this sort of situation but I’m sorry, Alexis, I really am.”
“Lincoln Cameron, sorry? Now there’s a rare moment,” Alexis observed wryly. “Well, you may lose the pity, Mr. Cameron. I have no patience for that sort of thing.”
Even at her most vulnerable, Alexis was insolent, but Lincoln simply nodded. “I’ll do everything I can, of course. I’ll go to Africa, in August, in your stead,” he offered, stifling a sigh.
Alexis’s laughter was dry. “Knowing how much you hate to travel, I appreciate the offer.”
“A major drawback to this job.”
“The only one?”
“I like to sleep in my own bed,” Lincoln said with a shrug.
“Ah, yes, your nocturnal habits, again. Well, thanks, but I don’t need you to go to take over my job, not just yet. What I do need is for you to run an errand of another sort that does mean giving up your fancy feather bed for a few days. Of course, it’s up to you….”
“Just tell me what you want, and it will be done.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” she said, giving him a long look. “It’s about my sister, Valetta.”
Lincoln sat up quickly. The mention of Valetta Keane was one of the few things that could touch him. “Vallie? Is something wrong?”
“Absolutely not,” she reassured him. “On the contrary, I want her to come home.”
An imperceptible sigh of relief escaped Lincoln. “And of course you tried calling?” he asked, striving for detachment.
“Actually not.”
For the first time in their conversation, Lincoln thought Alexis looked uncomfortable.
“Valetta won’t return home without some very strong encouragement.”
Lincoln’s black brow was high. “Your illness isn’t enough?”
“She doesn’t know. Oh, stop looking at me like that! It’s not the sort of thing you say over the phone, and we haven’t spoken in over a year. What am I supposed to do, pick up the phone and say, Hi, Valetta, it’s me, Alexis, I don’t have long to live, can you come for dinner? Not to mention the fact that our last conversation wasn’t too winning.”
“A year is a long time. Why have you let it go for so long?”
“She thinks I’m too controlling. It’s her favorite word for me. Many such angry words have passed between us since she left home, a great many nasty words.”
“Before she ran away, you mean.”
Alexis sank back in her chair. “You’re right, of course. She did run away. A childish note left on her pillow, then out the window and down a ladder at three in the morning. Yes, I suppose that constitutes running away. The good part was that our aunt Phyla, my mother’s sister, took her in. I don’t think you ever met her, Phyla Imre. She lived in an obscure town called Longacre, in upstate New York. The bad part was Aunt Phyla died a few years later, but by then Valetta was—” Alexis left off abruptly. “But you’ve heard all this before.”
He most certainly had not, and she damn well knew it. Once, he had been a small part of the Keane family, attending the occasional Friday night supper, Christmas dinners and the like. The Keane parents having died tragically, he had tried to be a brother to the orphaned child, a pleasure, because, much younger than Alexis, Vallie Keane had been an adorable little girl. The devil of a teenager, though. Always mooning about, star- struck. Living on another planet, Lincoln used to tease. But grown to a great beauty.
Extraordinary how it had happened so quickly, too. Sixteen, seventeen, then suddenly, shortly before Valetta turned eighteen, his informal guardianship had ended. Giving no explanation, Alexis had made it clear that Lincoln was no longer welcome at the Keane mansion, nor to the Friday dinners he was used to attending, much less Christmas. Hard-pressed to understand why, Lincoln was heartbroken, but he didn’t ask questions. It was not his style.
Pride is a harsh taskmaster. They all drifted apart, the lines clearly delineated: employer…employee. It suited him fine. Alexis had never been one of his favorite people. But Valetta was something different. The poor child had held a special place in his heart.
And then that extraordinary phone call from Alexis, late one night. It had been raining heavily, certainly not a night to venture out, except that Valetta apparently had. Yes, the sisters had had another argument, Alexis admitted. Yes, all right, maybe it was a little louder than usual. Unfortunately, the end result was that Valetta had packed a bag, left a short note and climbed out the window while Alexis was sleeping. She had run away.
She was a runaway.
Alexis had immediately called in private detectives and soon made it known that her sister was safe. But as to the cause of their fight, she would not be specific. Lincoln figured—of course—there was a story to be had. Valetta had been a typical, melodramatic teenager, so there was always a story, and because of that, he had never listened closely to her complaints. Valetta’s sudden departure was the price he paid for being inattentive.
Any further news of Valetta Keane was doled out by her sister grudgingly over the years, but he had missed the curly-haired beauty. Now, it seemed, he was being given the opportunity to make amends. “What happened to Vallie when Phyla died?”
“Oh, a little of this and a little of that,” Alexis said vaguely. “She’s fine, she’s holding her own.”
Alexis’s sparse information was frustrating, but Lincoln didn’t press the matter. The fact that he had never heard from Valetta was a cut that ran deeply. If he had been blindsided by the notion that the Keane sisters had thought of him as family, hadn’t his heart been in the right place? How had they ignored that? The loss of their affection was a hard-won lesson he took to heart, and who could blame him? If his laughter died the night Valetta left, no one noticed. Now, a decade later, the idea of seeing Valetta was an awakening, a temptation that brought, if not quite a smile to his lips, certainly a faster beat to his heart. But mastering his feelings, Lincoln didn’t ask any more questions. Instead, he unfolded his long legs and leaned forward, dangling his long hands between his knees. His five o’clock shadow made him seem even more threatening than his growl. “What happens if I persuade Val to return?”
Alexis’s lips thinned with anger, but she framed her answer carefully. If Lincoln refused her, she would have nowhere else to turn. “There is no if. I intend to hand the reins of the L.A. Connection over to Valetta. As my sister,