Tycoon's Temptation: The Truth About the Tycoon / The Tycoon's Lady / HerTexan Tycoon. Allison Leigh

going with you,” he said.

      Her fingers closed more tightly around her keys. “Why?” she asked baldly.

      Dane stared down at Hadley’s confused face for a moment. Why, indeed? He had no love of hospitals, not having spent so much time in them recently. “Not because I don’t think you’re capable on your own,” he assured evenly. “Now, do you want to stand here on the steps arguing about it, or shall we get going?”

      For a second, he wasn’t all that sure she wouldn’t choose arguing, which surprised him. But she nodded, and they went to her truck, which she drove with extreme care, to the hospital. It was located on the east end of town, where the buildings didn’t appear to be stuck in a fifties time warp like so much of Lucius seemed to be.

      They went in through the emergency room entrance, and Hadley explained the situation to the receptionist.

      Then they waited.

      And waited.

      And finally he couldn’t sit in the molded plastic chair in the minuscule waiting room a minute longer, and he rose.

      “Are you all right?” Hadley looked up at him. The harsh light from the utilitarian fixtures overhead shined in her gleaming brown hair and ought to have made her natural features look pale. Yet there wasn’t a single flaw visible in her creamy skin. And her brown eyes simply looked deeper. More liquid. “Wood?”

      “My father’s in the hospital,” he said abruptly.

      Her soft eyebrows drew together, forming a tiny crease over her nose. “Oh, Wood. I’m sorry. You must hate being here. Is it serious?”

      “Enough. He’s had more than one heart attack in the past two weeks.”

      “Good heavens.” She pressed her hand to her throat. “It must be hard for you to be away from him right now.”

      “He’s been unconscious for most of that time.” He didn’t want her asking why he’d leave his father at a critical time. “My sister said he’s showing some signs of coming around again.”

      “She’s the one who called Tiff’s this afternoon?”

      He nodded. Darby hadn’t been able to reach his cell phone, because he’d been tied up on a conference call with Laura and the head of his West Coast operations. “Darby,” he said after a moment. It was a family name for her. Not the one most of the world had known her by. Debra White Rutherford, the little girl who’d been kidnapped right out of a crowded elevator, outraging the entire nation.

      The little girl who’d been kidnapped right out from under her brother’s nose, more like.

      He pushed aside the thoughts. It was being in the hospital that was doing it. Eroding his objectivity. His remoteness.

      “Well, that’s really good news about your father, isn’t it?”

      He supposed it was. Only if Roth did fully regain consciousness, he’d just continue fighting his doctors every damned inch of the way. Nobody could convince his father to do anything he didn’t want to do, particularly undergoing a surgeon’s scalpel.

      “Yes. It should be good news.”

      She ran her finger back and forth over the neckline of her T-shirt. To date, it was the snuggest thing she’d worn, yet it was still too big. He had an unbidden vision of her in threads designed just for her racehorse-lean body.

      “Wouldn’t you rather be with him right now?” she asked, blissfully unaware of his thoughts. “You can trust Stu with your car, you know.”

      “My father and I don’t see eye to eye,” he hedged. Roth had refused the quadruple bypass the moment he’d been able to speak after his first heart attack. “So, tell me about your nephews and niece. They the only ones?”

      She was distracted for a moment by the abrupt shift. “Yes. Evie had to go to Billings today and needed someone to watch them.”

      He wanted to ask how the oldest boy had come by the name Alan. But a nurse came out just then, asking for Hadley, and she gulped a little, and followed the nurse through the swinging double doors behind the reception area.

      He pinched the bridge of his nose. Evie and Charlie’s last names were Beckett. Not Michaels. It was probably too much of a stretch to think young Alan Beckett had some connection to Alan Michaels. Simply because of the similar first name?

      Nevertheless, he pulled out his cell phone and went outside to the parking lot for some privacy. And there, he called Mandy Manning. If anyone could ferret out a connection, it would be her. She’d been doing investigative work for Rutherford Industries for several years now.

      When he returned inside, Hadley was just coming out from the double doors again. She looked peaked and worried.

       “Well?”

      “It’s something with her pregnancy,” Hadley murmured. “The doctor didn’t share too much with me, other than that she’s in and out of consciousness, but the baby is stable for the moment.” She pulled on her coat. “I didn’t want to just leave a message on her answering machine at home. I mean, how cruel would that be to whoever gets it? I got the impression that her fiancé passed away. But I did leave a message on her work number to call me. Hopefully someone will get it since tomorrow’s Monday. In the meantime, I’ll just keep trying her home number.”

      They left the hospital, and Hadley’s feet dragged to a halt. “Good grief, look at the sun. I had no idea it was so late.” She looked up at him. “I guess supper’s going to be late tonight. I hope nobody is too inconvenienced.”

      As far as Dane was concerned, she had a houseful of people perfectly capable of scaring up a meal for themselves if need be. He pulled open the truck door for her and she climbed up on the high seat, which put them pretty much eye to eye.

      “You’re too nice,” he murmured.

      She pressed her soft lips together and rolled her eyes. “It’s okay. I’m a wimp. We both know it.”

      He shook his head. Looked out over the parking lot. In one direction he could see a brightly lit supermarket. In the other, nothing much but winter-bare land. “Do you have