“You practically ran me into a wall. Where’d you learn how to drive?”
Letty burst into noisy tears. Her father turned his head and saw her, and his gaunt, pale features lit up with joy.
“Letty. You came.”
Throwing her arms around his thin frame in the wheelchair, she choked out, “Of course I came. As soon as I heard you were sick. Then when I didn’t see you in the bed, I thought…”
“Oh, you thought I was dead? No!” Glancing back at the nurse, he added drily, “Not for some people’s lack of trying.”
“Hmph.” The nurse sniffed. “That’s the last time I agree to help you win a wheelchair race, Howard.”
“Win! We didn’t win anything! Margery crushed us by a full ten seconds, in spite of her extra pounds. After all my big talk, too—I’ll never live this down,” he complained.
Letty drew back with astonishment. “Wheelchair race?”
“Admittedly not one of my best ideas, especially with Nurse Crashy here.”
“Hey!”
“But it’s what passes for fun here in the hospice wing. Either that or depress myself with cable news.”
“It’s totally against hospital protocol. I can’t believe you talked me into it. Ask someone else to risk their job next time,” the nurse said.
He gave her his old charming grin. “The race was a good thing. It lifted the spirits of everyone on the wing.”
Looking slightly mollified, she sighed. “I guess I’d better go try convince my boss of that.” She left the room.
Her father turned back to Letty. “But why are you crying? You really thought I was dead?”
She tried to smile. “You’re crying, too, Dad.”
“Am I?” Her father touched his face. He gave her a watery smile. “I’m just glad to see you, I guess. I was starting to wonder if you’d ever come.”
“I came the instant I heard,” she whispered, feeling awful and guilty.
Howard gave a satisfied nod. “I knew he’d eventually tell you.”
“Who?”
“Darius. Sure, I promised I’d never contact you. But there was nothing in our deal that said I couldn’t contact him. I left him a message four weeks ago, when I woke up in the hospital. I’d collapsed in the street, so an ambulance brought me here.”
Four weeks? Letty was numb with shock. Darius had known for a month that her father was in the hospital, just an hour away from Fairholme?
Her father stroked his wispy chin. “Though I’m pretty sure he knew even before that. He’s had me followed since the day you ran off with him. The guy must have noticed me going to my doctor’s office three times a week.”
She sucked in her breath, covering her mouth. Not just one month, but two? Darius had known her father was sick, dying, but he’d purposefully kept it from her?
Your father is spending his days playing chess with friends down at the park.
A lie!
Last night, when she and Darius had been cuddled by the fire, dreaming about their child, even then, her husband had been lying to her. While Letty had been eating cookies and drinking tea, her father had been spending yet another night in this hospital. Alone. Without a single word of love from his only daughter.
A cold sweat broke out on her skin. She trembled as if to fight someone or flee. But there was no escaping the horrible truth.
Darius had lied to her.
The man she’d loved since childhood. The center of all her romantic dreams and longings. He’d known her father was dying, and he’d lied.
How could Darius have been so callous? So selfish, heartless and cruel?
The answer was obvious.
He didn’t love her.
He never would.
A gasp of anguish and rage came from the back of her throat.
“He never gave you the message, did he?” her father said, watching her. When she shook her head, he sighed. “How did you know I was here?”
“Mrs. Pollifax.”
“I see.” He looked sad. Then his eyes fell to her belly and he brightened as he changed the subject. “You’re so big! You’re just a week or two from your due date, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve almost made it.” His voice was smug. “The doctors said I was a goner, but I told them I wasn’t going anyplace yet.”
Letty’s body was still shaking with grief and fury. In the gray light of the hospital room, she turned toward the window. Outside, she saw November rain falling on the East River, and beyond it she could see the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Where Darius was right now.
Howard said dreamily behind her, “I was determined to see my grandbaby before I died.”
She whirled back to her father. “Stop talking about dying!”
His gaunt face sagged. “I’m sorry, Letty. I really am.”
“Isn’t there any hope?” Her voice cracked. “An operation? A—a second opinion?”
Her father’s eyes were kind. He shook his head. “I knew I was dying before I left prison.”
She staggered back. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He rubbed his watery eyes. “I should have, I guess. But I didn’t want you to worry and take all the stress on yourself like you always do. I wanted, for once, to take care of you. I wanted to repair the harm I did so long ago and get you back where you deserved to be. Married to your true love.”
True love, Letty thought bitterly. Her stomach churned every time she thought of Darius lying to her all this time. The unfeeling bastard.
“It was my only goal,” her father said. “To make sure you’d be looked after and loved after I was gone. Now you and Darius are married, expecting a baby.” He grinned with his old verve and said proudly, “Getting my arm broken by that thug was the best thing that ever happened to me, since it helped me bring you back together. I can die at peace. A happy man.”
“Darius never told me you were sick,” she choked out, her throat aching with pain. “I’ll never forgive him.”
Her father’s expression changed. “Don’t blame Darius. After all my self-made disasters, it just shows his good sense. Shows me he’ll protect you better than I ever did.” He looked up from the wheelchair. “Thank you, Letty.”
She felt like the worst daughter in the world. “For what?”
“For always believing in me,” he said softly, “even when you had no reason to. For loving me through everything.”
She looked at her dying father through her tears. Then looked around the hospital room at the plain bed, the tile floor, the antiseptic feel, the ugly medical equipment. She couldn’t bear to think of him spending his last days here, whiling away his hours with wheelchair races.
Her eyes narrowed. “Do you really need to be in the hospital?”
Howard shrugged. “I could have gone to full hospice. Other than pain meds, there’s not much the doctors can do for me.”
Her belly tightened with a contraction that felt like nothing compared to the agony of her heart. She lifted her chin. “Then you’re coming