The Soon-To-Be-Disinherited Wife

The last few days had been more frustrating than finding a mosquito in the dark. Setting up a temporary office and living quarters in Eastwick had been easy enough, thanks to Emma. But his sister’s problems relentlessly preyed on his mind.

He’d been interviewing anyone in Eastwick who was willing to talk to him-at least, anyone who knew Caroline. And it seemed as though most of the town did and was willing to talk. Only no one seemed to have a clue about her private life. This morning turned into a total zero.

He’d started out talking with Lily Cartright. She was a sweetheart and a half and a true-blue honest kind of woman. But when he’d asked to have coffee with her, he hadn’t realized she’d be as big as a whale. She’d claimed she was going to have a baby in a few months. He figured she was having three at least. But the point was, like everyone else, Lily was troubled about Caroline-but knew nothing.

Then he’d tried Vanessa Thorpe, another of his sister’s friends. Because she’d married a rich, older man, the scandalmongers tsk-tsked behind her back. Garrett couldn’t care less about gossip or her personal life. He’d just hoped she knew something, anything, about Caroline-but he’d struck out there, too.

After that, he’d tracked down a couple of men. Frank Forrester had to be seventy, not a contemporary of Caroline’s, but because he was such a fixture at Eastwick’s country club, Garrett thought he’d be a great source of information. He was, but not about Caroline.

Harry, the bartender at the Emerald Room, knew everyone’s secrets and then some, but he was genetically related to a clam. Still, he swore he’d have told Garrett something about his sister’s health if he’d known anything.

Bottom line was that lots of people thought the world of Caroline, but no one had the smallest inkling what had provoked her sudden depression. Garrett handled frustration as well as he handled fine china-which was a not. He also knew that fear for his sister wasn’t the only thing riding his mood.

Emma was.

He hadn’t seen her in several days now. Between trying to run his business long-distance and tracking down leads on his sister, he’d had no time to casually run into her. But shame had been riding his conscience, and he hated the feeling.

God knows he had faults, Garrett thought as he loosened his collar in the stifling elevator. He was selfish, singularly directed. He didn’t play life by softball rules, never wasted time playing touch-tackle type of football either. He played to win. A lot of people called him stone-headed, a workaholic-but women always claimed he was just as relentless in the sack, a great lover.

And that was good, he mused, except that he knew he was lousy when it came to remembering to call later. In fact, his name was jut plain absentee in the long-term-relationship column.

The bug in his soup, though, was that he’d never had a woman run away from him-not the way Emma had run out the other day.

Nor had a woman ever come alive, come apart in his arms. Not the way she had.

He didn’t come on to women who were taken. Ever. Poaching wasn’t his thing. Ever. Only, for Pete’s sake, what the hell was Emma doing responding to him as if she were the loneliest, hottest woman ever born, if she was happily in love with some guy?

It didn’t add up.

“Garrett!”

Just in case he needed more trouble today, fate suddenly produced his mother hustling toward him, coming out of Caroline’s hospital room. His mom, typically, looked dressed for tea at the White House, lots of cream and pearls and scented from head to toe with the signature perfume some fancy chemist had created for her.

“I’m so, so glad I caught up with you, dear.” His mother hooked his arm and firmly steered him toward a quiet alcove, away from the rooms and nursing station. “I assume you’re here to see Caroline and I want to talk to you first.”

“How’s she doing?”

His mother looked past his shoulder, ensuring no one was within earshot. “The doctor put her on some kind of antianxiety medicine. Insisted on her seeing another psychiatrist.”

Garrett frowned. “You think that’s wrong?”

“Garrett.” His mother rolled her eyes. “Depression is such a buzzword for your generation. Everyone has tough stretches in life. That’s no excuse to curl up in a bed-or take drugs. I didn’t raise either you or your sister to be weaklings.”

He struggled for patience. He’d realized years ago that his mother wasn’t as cold as she came across. She’d just fought hard to live the good life-as she defined it-and feared anything that was a threat to that. “Mom,” he toned down his voice, “depression isn’t a character weakness. It’s an illness. Being mad at Caroline for this is like being mad at someone for getting cancer.”

“She doesn’t have cancer. She’s healthy as a horse. She’s been through dozens of tests. And that’s the point. There is nothing wrong with that girl, nothing keeping her in bed all this time. Your father and I are at our wits’ end.”

Okay. No way to open doors in that direction, so he tried another. “Has anyone been able to reach Griff yet?”

“Oh, yes. Your father finally connected with him last night-in the middle of the night, in fact. Our embassy, their embassy, on and on, it took forever. We didn’t get him, but he’s been located now. It could take as long as a week before he’s home, but at least we know he’s coming.”

“That’s good-”

“Exactly. I drove straight to the hospital to tell Caroline that Griff was coming home, thinking that would finally perk her up. Instead she started sobbing. Crying so loud, they ended up having to sedate her.” Finally she lost steam on that subject, only to start up another. “Garrett, I want you to come to the club on Saturday night. There’s a dance. The annual June gala-”

“Thanks, Mom. But I’d rather join a chain gang in Siberia.” There. He almost won a smile…but not quite.

“Now don’t be difficult. We need you there. We need to stand together as a united family.”

He scratched his chin. “Honest to Pete, who the hell cares if we’re a united family?”

“Everyone. This entire community will notice if we’re not there. And the thing is, your sister will be the one to suffer if people start to think she’s mentally…unbalanced.”

“Some people are going to judge no matter what we say or do-but nobody I’d want to be around. And no one I’d want Caroline around either. So I can’t imagine why that matters.”

“Garrett, I know you don’t share the same values that your father and I do. But your sister loves the club. She has so many friends there. When she comes to her senses, she’s going to want to go back, to events just like this. So this is for her, not for you-”

“All right, all right, I’ll go.”

His mother was just starting to wind up, but now she squinted at him in surprise. “You’ll go?”

“Yup. Just tell me what time.”

“It’s black-tie,” his mother warned him.

Well, hell and double hell. But somewhere in those massive closets in the mansion, Garrett knew his mom had saved both a white and a black tux. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been roped into those neck-choking functions a zillion times before.

Once his mother left, he sat with Caroline for another hour. She never woke up enough to talk, apparently because of the fresh sedation they’d given her. But she squeezed his hand…which made his heart climb straight into his throat.

No matter how much torture the club dance was, he was more than happy to attend. Hearing that the country club was a nest of Caroline’s friends was the impetus. Someone there was going to know something. He’d asked everyone else he could think of, but obviously he didn’t know all her acquaintances because he hadn’t hung out in Eastwick for years.

As he headed back to his rented apartment, frustration and worry climbed his mood. So far he’d completely failed the course in helping his sister.

He wasn’t used to failure. For damn sure, he wasn’t used to feeling helpless. Maybe getting some work done would at least clear his mind. Only he’d barely parked the car and climbed out before he saw the new crisis waiting for him.