Shadows At Sunset - Anne Stuart [80]
Coltrane didn’t even blink. Blood, he thought. He really didn’t like blood.
“As for you, Mr. Coltrane, once you drive home you should stay put. You’ve got seven stitches in your hand and quite a bump on your head from when you fainted in the emergency room. There’s no sign of a concussion, but you should have someone check on you periodically to make sure you aren’t developing any. It wasn’t much of a blow, but we can’t be too careful.”
He thought he heard Jilly snort faintly. “I’m fine,” he grumbled.
“Just keep an eye on each other. And next time, keep the sex play away from glass top tables.”
“We didn’t—!” Jilly gasped, but Coltrane simply took the wheelchair from the nurse and whisked her out the door. The car was still there, adorned with a parking ticket, but waiting for them. He breathed a sigh of relief and put the brake on the wheelchair.
“You stay here while I bring the car around.”
“What did you tell the nurse?”
“Hey, it’s L.A. I had to give her a believable excuse. Did you want me to tell her the ghosts scared your dog?”
“Is that what happened?” Her voice was hushed.
He paused, looking down at her in the wheelchair. She wasn’t in nearly as bad shape as he’d thought. No stitches, and while her feet hurt, it had been more a question of cleaning the dirt and glass out of the tiny cuts and protecting them from infection. “I don’t know,” he said. “All I know is I want to get you home and up to bed.”
“Don’t count on it,” she drawled.
“Still arguing? I’m talking therapeutic rest, not sex, sugar,” he said. As usual, he was lying to her. He had every intention of carrying her up to the swan-shaped bed, stripping off her clothes and doing everything he’d been fantasizing about doing for the last three days. She was better off not knowing. It would give her less time to come up with objections.
She didn’t want him to pick her up and put her in the front seat of the Corvette, but she had no choice. She held herself stiffly, making it even more difficult, but he didn’t bother arguing with her. There’d be time enough for that when they got back to the house.
He had no idea what he’d find there. Jackson and Dean still storming around? Maybe the so-called ghosts had driven their sorry asses out of the place, which would be a relief. Unfortunately he didn’t believe in ghosts any more than Jilly did.
Rachel-Ann did. They’d scared her away, which in fact was a good thing. Coltrane had been about to crash across the table and grab Jackson Meyer by the throat. Rachel-Ann had sat there, frozen, as her father stroked her knee, and Coltrane had been equally frozen in disbelief.
It had to have been an earthquake. Just one of those random tremors he was getting used to after more than a year in California. Or maybe Roofus had been stuck under the table.
Or maybe La Casa de Sombras really was haunted. If so, it wasn’t by his mother, he knew that much.
Los Angeles streets were never empty, but at two o’clock in the morning things were relatively quiet. He drove at a leisurely pace, enjoying the feel of the Corvette, when Jilly’s quiet voice broke the silence.
“There’s nothing wrong…that is…” She stopped.
“Nothing wrong with what?” He knew what she was going to say. He just didn’t know how he was going to answer it.
“If people aren’t related by blood,” she said finally. “There’s nothing wrong with them having sex, is there?”
He was half tempted to make a joke, come on to her again, but for some reason he wasn’t in the mood. Oh, he was in the mood to take her upstairs to her bed at La Casa and fuck her senseless. He just wasn’t in the mood to joke.
“You mean your father and Rachel-Ann,” he said, not mincing words.
“It was that obvious?” she said in a lost little voice. “I’d never had any inkling. I mean, I knew he doted on her, but we all do. She needs looking after—she’s always been so fragile emotionally. But I assumed he just gave her all his paternal affection. I didn’t mind—I know it’s unnatural but I really hate him. Not so much for what he’s done to me but what he’s done to the others. And