“No, thanks. Take care of your young lady, and I’ll call you in the morning.” Still, Arthur didn’t make any move to leave.
“About David—” Dylan began.
“We’ll talk about that tomorrow.” His uncle rubbed a hand down his face.
When Dylan went inside to turn off the lights and lock up, Arthur followed him as far as the living room. Dylan made a call that went to Clayton’s voicemail. The senator clutched one of the pictures in his hand. Dylan watched silently, oddly uncomfortable, as Arthur’s fingers traced gently across the glass.
Dylan cleared his throat. “Ready to go.” His voice emerged more forcefully than he intended. “We need to head out.”
His uncle moved his hand with a guilty jerk and returned the photo to the shelf.
On his way to find Clayton and Tanya, Dylan spotted Clayton’s truck at McStone’s. Taking the easy way out, Dylan called Guidry and had him tell Clayton about the emergency. The couple rushed into the emergency room seconds after Dylan arrived there.
“What happened?” Clayton demanded, almost leaving skid marks as he screeched to a halt. “What did you do to him?”
“I’m sure Dylan didn’t do anything.” Tanya placed a hand on Clay’s arm. “How’s David?”
“I just got here,” Dylan said. “Gracie rode with him in the ambulance.”
The young doctor moved on through the waiting area, shoving his way through the examining room doors.
“He didn’t mean that,” Tanya told Dylan. “He’s just upset.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Dylan didn’t need a psychology degree to figure out that Clayton’s knee-jerk response all these years had been to pin the blame for all of his problems squarely on the Bradford family. His reaction just now had probably been based as much on habit as true resentment.
Tanya and Dylan were taken to wait in the doctor’s lounge. After a while Gracie came in, pale and wan, drained of her usual vibrancy. She’d put a lab coat on over her Spring Festival sweatshirt and gathered her hair up into a bun on top of her head. Dylan had the inappropriate thought that she looked incredibly hot in her doctor persona.
“How is he?” Tanya asked again, with a hug for Gracie.
“Clay and the cardiologist are with him now. Could go either way.” Her lip trembled as she said it.
Dylan wrapped her in his arms and held her close, resting his chin on her head. She sank into him gratefully, clinging to him.
“I may be here a while,” she said into his shoulder. “Do you want to go on back to my place?” Her grip on his shoulders tightened as she asked.
“I’ll stay.”
“They’ll transfer him to the Cardiac Care Unit on the fifth floor shortly.”
Tanya poured a cup of coffee. “If you want something to read newer than last year’s Sports Illustrated,” she said, pointing to the magazine rack in the corner, “I can open the gift shop and get you something.”
“Maybe later.”
Dylan and Gracie perched on the couch, side-by-side, hip-to-hip, hands clasped, with nothing but David’s confession between them. They had a lot to talk about, but no privacy. After watching her fidget for about five minutes, he suggested a walk. She nodded, but just then, Clay returned.
“Jenner’s running some tests. No change.” Like Gracie, he’d put a lab coat on over his jeans and Polo shirt. Strain pulled his face taut. “What happened at the house, Gracie?”
“He couldn’t rest. Ethel said he’d been agitated all evening, but after she left, he got worse.” She squeezed Dylan’s hand, silencing him. “I gave him another sedative, but he kept rambling. Some of it was gibberish, but after a while, Dylan and Senator Bradford came in. David mistook the senator for Dylan’s father. He flew into a rage, then collapsed.”
“Dylan and Senator Bradford were there?” Clayton cocked his head to the side and pulled on his left earlobe. The mannerism stabbed Dylan with an eerie deja vu. He’d seen Uncle Arthur and other members of the family make the exact same gesture hundreds of times before. Learned response or nervous habit, he reminded himself, there was nothing genetic about it.
“You knew Dylan was going with me,” she reminded him. “On the way, we ran into his uncle.”
“Why’s he in town?”
“He was worried about the fire,” Dylan said. “He came to see what’s going on.”
Tanya poured Clayton some coffee and left with him, but returned a few minutes later. During the next several hours, Clayton and Gracie took turns at David’s bedside.
When Tanya stepped out for some fresh air, Clay reappeared without Gracie.
“Any change?” Dylan rubbed his eyes, completed a text, and checked the time.
“No.” He poured more coffee, but set the drink aside untasted. After a moment of silence, he turned to Dylan. “I apologize. When I got here tonight, I think I accused you of having caused this, and even then, I knew that you hadn’t.”
“Forget it. You were worried.”
“It’s just—” He pressed his lips into a firm line before continuing. “He’s all I have.”
“You have Gracie and her grandparents,” Dylan pointed out. “And Tanya.”
“Now I do.” He took a sip of the neglected coffee and grimaced. “But if it hadn’t been for David, I probably would have been raised in foster care. He always made me feel like he wanted me to live with him and that he’d always be there for me. As a doctor, I know the seriousness of his condition. As a son, I just don’t know how to face it.”
“Yeah, it’s tough.” Dylan had experienced the same kind of denial during his mother’s illness, and he’d had a full contingent of supportive relatives to help him get through it. There had never been any doubt about who he was or his place in the family tree. Clayton didn’t have that kind of security. Dylan’s stomach jumped just thinking about it. Especially now that he felt more and more sure that Clayton had been cheated by someone in the Bradford family.
“Clay,” he said, suddenly certain he was doing the right thing, “have you made the arrangements for the DNA tests?”
Coffee sloshed as Clayton sat his cup down too quickly. “Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“If it turns out that your father murdered my mother, I don’t think I want to know that he’s my father, too.”
“I can’t make any guarantees, but it’s time to know the whole truth.”
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” Hesitantly, Clay and Dylan shook on it. “As soon as the first shift of lab guys get in, I’ll arrange for the blood samples to be drawn.”
“How long will it be before we get the results?”
“A few days, maybe longer.”
“That long?”
“Even with a rush on it, DNA testing is complicated.”
A nurse poked her head into the room. “Clay, Dr. Collier’s coming around.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Once the worst of David’s crisis had passed, Gracie went home for a few hours of sleep. Her emotions wobbled back and forth between relief and panic, but she kept her doctor-face firmly in place on the ride back to East Langden with Dylan.
The secret David had spilled had been a doozy. She had no idea how Dylan would react to it. Would he want to have her stepfather charged with murder? How could she let him do that?
How could she prevent it?
So many gut-wrenching events had happened in the past week that she hardly recognized herself or the people around her. Ever since Dylan’s arrival, life had involved one major upheaval after another.
Dylan maneuvered the curve of the Liberty House drive, and Gracie settled her gaze on his shadowed features. God, he was gorgeous. And sweet and nice and kind. And a lot of other things she would probably never discover.
When he braked, he turned and caught her smiling at him. “What?”