“You too, Pop.” She perched on his hospital bed. Sunlight sprinkled across the white sheets and downy blue coverlet. It had been five days since she’d landed in the dismal waiting room at the public hospital. Five days of constant waiting and constant hoping. All with Marc at her side.
A funny little something fluttered in her stomach. A flutter of happiness or joy or something. A feeling of being cherished. Or maybe it was because she was tired and had a stomachache after drinking so much bad coffee. For whatever reason, he had stuck around. He’d been there to advise her and console her. His phone had blasted away all the time, still, he’d never ignored her if she really needed him.
She’d come first.
The flutter erupted in the depths of her once more.
There’d been other flutters and feelings, though, hadn’t there? There’d been five days to sit and contemplate her past. Her pop. Her mum. It wasn’t in her nature to contemplate her history. She’d much rather charge into the future. Yet somehow, the lack of anything to do but wait, and the solid male presence at her side—somehow, quite a bit had come out.
As she’d sat, cuddled to Marc’s side, she’d found herself confessing about her mum’s heroin overdose. About how she’d been the one who’d taken care of her parents. She’d done the cooking and the washing and the cleaning. She’d made sure their limited funds, most of the time, had paid the bills.
He’d listened. Simply listened.
Darcy sat in the sunlight and felt the warmth of his acceptance of her past. Although he’d left her today for an important business meeting he couldn’t miss, she still felt him inside her heart.
“Pretty fancy digs.” Her father interrupted her happy meanderings.
“Yep.” She pulled herself away from her delirious dreams. Straightening his covers, she smiled. In only a short time after his operation, her pop had recovered enough to be transferred to a private clinic specializing in cardiac patients. The place was a miracle of the most advanced medical science combined with elegant surroundings.
Everything paid for by Marc.
“I know I told you I’d come to visit you soon.” Her pop rubbed his hand across his face. “But I got busy with other things. You know.”
“Yeah.” Childhood memories crowded around her. “I know.”
A strained silence fell between them.
Her father finally chuckled under his breath. “You’ve sure landed on your feet with this one, baby.”
“What?” She narrowed her gaze at his tone. The tone she’d heard her entire life. A tone of a man on the take, a charmer seeing his next big deal.
“Come on.” He chuckled again. “Don’t play innocent.”
“I was never an innocent,” she snapped. “Not with you as my father.”
“Now, now.” His hand smoothed across his chest as a reminder. “Don’t get cranky on me. I’m not at the top of my game.”
She puffed out an exasperated breath, but fell silent again.
Her father eyed her. There was still the sparkle of the con artist in the sky blue gazing at her. “All I’m saying, baby, is you’ve got yourself a winner this time.”
Considering this was the first time she’d introduced any man to her pop, his statement was— “Don’t be a nutter.”
“He had a word with me before he left today.”
Darcy gazed at her father, trying to stifle the urge to ask. She couldn’t help herself. “Okay. I’ll bite. What did he say?”
His eyes twinkled. “You were always a curious child.”
“What did he say?” Impatience crackled in her words.
“Told me to behave myself with you.”
“Pop.” She gave him a wry smile. “We both know that’s never going to happen.”
“Well, he sure knows how to lay down the law. If I wasn’t a tough old bird, he’d have scared me.” He chortled, a cunning, caustic sound. ‘I saw it for what it was, though.”
“What was that?”
“A declaration of his intent.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’ve got your hooks in him good, baby girl.” His voice was rich with pleasure. “He’s all protective towards you.”
The flutter batted inside her. She waved his words away. “You’ve got it completely wrong.”
“I rarely get these kinds of things wrong. I know a jackpot when I see one.”
A fiery burn of temper erupted. “Marc is not a jackpot.”
“Whatever you say.” Her pop winked.
“He isn’t.” Frustration mixed with fear flooded through her. Had her dear old dad insinuated such a thing directly to Marc? If so, what were the chances the cynical man she knew lurked behind his kindness would reemerge? “I don’t care about his money.”