Beloved. Diana Palmer

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      Tira knew who she was—his sister-in-law, the woman that Percy would have died to marry. She’d never noticed him, despite his blazing good looks, before she married his half brother. In fact, she seemed to actually dislike him, and Charles’s half brother was twenty years her senior, a stiff-necked stuffed shirt whom nobody in their circle had any use for. The marriage was a complete mystery.

      “I don’t have a dress.”

      “Buy one,” he instructed. She hesitated.

      “I’ll protect you from him,” he said after a minute, having realized that Simon would most likely be in attendance. “I swear on my glorious red Mark VIII that I won’t leave your side for an instant all evening.”

      She gave him a wary glance. His mania about that car was well-known. He wouldn’t even entrust it to a car wash. He washed and waxed it lovingly, inch by inch, and called it “Big Red.”

      “Well, if you’re willing to swear on your car,” she agreed.

      He grinned. “You can ride in it.”

      “I’m honored!”

      “I brought you some flowers,” he added. “One of the nurses volunteered to put them in a vase for you.”

      She gave him a cursory appraisal and smiled. “The way you look, I’m not surprised. Women fall over each other to get to you.”

      “Not the one I wanted,” he said sadly. “And now it’s too late.”

      She slid her hand into his and pressed it gently. “I’m sorry.”

      “So am I.” He shrugged. “Isn’t it a damned shame? I mean, look what they’re missing!”

      She knew he was talking about Simon and the woman Charles wanted, and she grinned in spite of herself. “It’s their loss. I’d love to go to the ball with you. He’ll let me out of here today. Like to take me home?”

      “Sure!”

      But when the doctor came into the room, he was reluctant to let her leave.

      She was sitting on the side of the bed. She gave him a long, wise look. “I wasn’t lying,” she said. “Suicide was the very last thing on my mind.”

      “With a loaded pistol, which had been fired.”

      She pursed her lips. “Didn’t anyone notice where the shot landed? At a round hole in the baseboard?”

      He frowned.

      “The mouse!” she said. “I’ve been after him for weeks! Don’t you watch old John Wayne movies? It was in True Grit!”

      All at once, realization dawned in his eyes. “The rat writ.”

      “Exactly!”

      He burst out laughing. “You were going to shoot the mouse?”

      “I’m a good shot,” she protested. “Well, when I’m sober. I won’t miss him next time!”

      “Get a trap.”

      “He’s too wily,” she protested. “I’ve tried traps and baits.”

      “Buy a cat.”

      “I’m allergic to fur,” she confessed miserably.

      “How about those electronic things you plug into the wall?”

      She shook her head. “Tried it. He bit the electrical cord in half.”

      “Didn’t it kill him?”

      Her eyebrows arched. “No. Actually he seemed even healthier afterward. I’ll bet he’d enjoy arsenic. Nope, I have to shoot him.”

      The doctor and Charles looked at each other. Then they both chuckled.

      The doctor did see her alone later, for a few minutes while Charles was bringing the car around to the hospital entrance. “Just one more thing,” he said gently. “Regardless of what Simon said, you didn’t kill John. Nobody, no woman, could have stopped what happened. He should never have married you in the first place.”

      “Simon kept throwing us together,” she said. “He thought we made the perfect couple,” she added bitterly.

      “Simon never knew,” he said. “I’m sure John didn’t tell him, and you kept your own silence.”

      She averted her eyes. “John was the best friend Simon had in the world. If he’d wanted Simon to know, he’d have told him. That being the case, I never felt that I had the right.” She looked at him. “I still don’t. And you’re not to tell him, either. He deserves to have a few unshattered illusions. His life hasn’t been a bed of roses so far. He’s missing an arm, and he’s still mourning Melia.”

      “God knows why,” Dr. Gaines added, because he’d known all about the elegant Mrs. Hart, things that even Tira didn’t know.

      “He loved her,” she said simply. “There’s no accounting for taste, is there?”

      He smiled gently. “I guess not.”

      “You know, you really are a nice man, Dr. Gaines,” she added.

      He chuckled. “That’s what my wife says all the time.”

      “She’s right,” she agreed.

      “Don’t you have family?”

      She shook her head. “My father died of a heart attack, and my mother died even before he did. She had cancer. It was hard to watch, especially for Dad. He loved her too much.”

      “You can’t love people too much.”

      She looked up at him with such sadness that her face seemed to radiate it. “Yes, you can,” she said solemnly. “But I’m going to learn how to stop.”

      Charles pulled up at the curb and Dr. Gaines waved them off.

      “Look at him,” Charles said with a grin. “He’s drooling! He wants my car.” He stepped down on the accelerator. “Everybody wants my car. But it’s mine. Mine!”

      “Charles, you’re getting obsessed with this automobile,” she cautioned.

      “I am not!” He glanced at her. “Careful, you’ll get fingerprints on the window. And I do hope you wiped your shoes before you got in.”

      She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

      “I’m kidding!” he exclaimed.

      She let out a sigh of relief. “And Dr. Gaines wanted me to have therapy,” she murmured.

      He threw her a glare. “I do not need therapy. Men love their cars. One guy even wrote a song about how much he loved his truck.”

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