Hailey’s voice wedged its way into his thoughts. “Or you can take me to wherever you’re going,” she told him. He had already been through a lot these last couple of days and she wanted to be there to support him no matter what came up. “Why don’t we go to your ranch and start there?” she suggested. “Someone should probably be there and they might be able to tell you what’s going on—if there is anything going on,” she qualified.
Well, he certainly couldn’t argue with that, Dillon thought.
“It’s worth a shot,” he agreed.
“Any guesses?” Hailey asked as they pulled out of the airport parking lot.
“Not a clue,” he said, frustration throbbing in his voice. And then he had a thought. “Unless the city council has decided to pull their support for the new hotel we’re building.”
That, he thought, was the worst-case scenario. But what other reason was there for this sudden silence on his family’s part? He didn’t want to entertain any dire thoughts.
“Don’t go there yet,” Hailey advised. Then, because she had learned what he was like, she decided to qualify her words. “At least not until you have to. Maybe there’s another explanation for what’s going on.”
At least she fervently hoped so.
But neither one of them could even hazard a guess what that could possibly be.
When they got to the ranch, they found Callum there with the twins. But his wife, Becky, didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight.
“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” were the first words out of Dillon’s mouth as he walked into the main section of the mansion.
Completely involved with the twins, Callum looked up, startled. “Sorry, I’ve been on the phone for a good part of the last couple of hours—at least when the twins let me talk,” he amended. Callum looked a little overwhelmed at the moment.
“I left you a couple of voice-mail messages,” Dillon told him.
The truth of it was, he had left a couple of messages on both his brothers’ phones, as well as on Stephanie’s. Since being unable to reach anyone in his family wasn’t a usual occurrence, he had gotten really concerned.
Trying to keep one of the girls from leaving her artwork permanently scribbled on the coffee table, thanks to the crayon she had found, Callum was only partially paying attention to his brother.
“Sorry, I didn’t see the messages,” Callum confessed, confiscating the crayon.
That wasn’t like his brother, Dillon thought. Even with his hands full, Callum could always multitask. His initial gut feeling had been right. Something was definitely wrong.
“Is there some kind of trouble at work?” he asked Callum.
Callum looked at him blankly. “What?” And then Dillon’s question seemed to sink in. “No,” he answered. “It’s nothing at work.”
Hailey interceded, taking Luna, the overactive twin, from him. Callum looked at her gratefully.
“Then what?” Dillon wanted to know. If there wasn’t a problem at work, then what was going on?
“And where’s Becky?” Hailey asked, wiping off traces of jam from the other twin’s face. “I’m guessing from that really tired expression on your face, she’s not here, is she?”
“Becky’s at the hospital,” Callum answered. “I’m pinch-hitting for the babysitter who had some kind of last-minute emergency.”
There was something in Callum’s voice that told Dillon this wasn’t just a regular workday for Becky, either. He could swear there was agitation in the air.
Before he could ask again, Callum looked up and frowned. “Eric brought Linus back to Rambling Rose to see the doctor.”
“We already know that part,” Dillon said. And then his expression grew more serious. “This isn’t just about a cold, is it?” he asked, recalling that he’d heard Linus’s dad was worried about the boy.
His brother shook his head. Picking up Sasha, the sticky twin, he began to wash off her face and hands with a wet towel.
“No, I really wish it was, but it’s more serious than that. A great deal more serious,” Callum emphasized.
Instantly concerned—not just because Linus was the tiny local celebrity, but because she, like everyone else in Rambling Rose, had fallen in love with the boy—Hailey wanted to hear more details.
“Why, what’s wrong with him, Callum?”
“According to Becky, a great deal. The upshot of it is that the kid might need a bone marrow transplant,” Callum said.
As he spoke, he looked at the twins. Hailey could only imagine how he felt. He’d come to love those little girls in a short amount of time. How would he feel if it were one of the twins who was sick? She knew Callum’s empathy as well as his heart went out to Linus’s father. And to Linus.
“The poor little guy,” Hailey said, thinking of the hurdles the baby had already gone through: being born prematurely, then abandoned by his mother, who was still missing. It was just pure luck that his father had turned up. When they had broken up, Eric hadn’t even known that Laurel was pregnant. He certainly hadn’t been prepared to have her take off the way she had. The moment he’d found out what was going on, he had claimed Linus and then taken the boy with him.
And now this.
It just seemed like neither Linus nor his dad could catch a break.
“Well, Linus is rather young,” Dillon said, thinking of the surgery. “But his dad’s probably a match,” he speculated, trying to think positive.
Callum picked up one of the girls and held her in his arms.
“Eric’s at the hospital being tested right now,” he told them. “If everything’s okay, they’ll confirm the diagnosis, and then the hospital can begin making preparations to do the surgery as soon as possible.”
Hailey nodded. “The sooner the better,” she agreed. “You don’t want to wait too long. Some other complication might just crop up and then there might be more problems to deal with.”
Dillon looked at her, curious. “How do you know so much about the subject?”
“I had a friend once who got very sick. The doctors thought it might be a
