The Secrets of Rosa Lee. Jodi Thomas

was still in the church restroom. They had parked in their driveway before they’d bothered counting, and by then the janitor had locked up and gone home. Micah’s cell-phone number appeared first on the emergency call list posted on the office door.

      “How can I help you?” Micah waited for tonight’s problem.

      “I’m Randi Howard. Randi with an i.”

      He liked the way her voice sounded, thought it belonged with the country music playing in the background.

      “I own the bar at the turnoff to Cemetery Road.”

      Micah straightened. The conversation became more interesting. If she was doing phone soliciting, she’d dialed the wrong number. “I know where it is.” He waited for her to continue.

      She hesitated. “I didn’t know who to call, but one of the old girls gave me your number and name scribbled on a flowery get-well card.”

      Micah tried to remember where he’d seen such a card. “How can I help you, Mrs. Howard?”

      “It’s Randi,” she said, and he’d be willing to bet that she was smiling. “Just, Randi, Mr. Parker.”

      He stepped out of the car not noticing the cold. “Randi it is. How may I be of service?”

      Randi took a long breath. “I need you to come down here and pick up the Rogers sisters before they start another bar fight.”

      Seven

      Sloan McCormick looked out on the hospital parking lot with the lights of Wichita Falls blinking in the distance. The town seemed fuzzy as if in a fog. Only a few cars remained out front. He could spot his big pickup even five floors up. Trying not to examine too closely the reason he was here, he walked back to the critical care unit doors. Standing in the shadows, he made sure no one dropped in on Sidney Dickerson during the last fifteen-minute visitation of the night.

      He leaned against the wall, trying not to look so tall, so obvious. Every time someone opened the double doors, he caught sight of the entrance to her room. Not even a nurse walked near it. No visitor would call now. Not with only ten minutes left.

      Still, he hesitated. He had no reason to visit the professor. She’d never met him, and this wasn’t the place to talk about a deal his company would be willing to make for the Altman place. But somehow, in the course of his research, Sloan felt as though he had grown to know her. In his line of work, he made it a point to know everyone he might need to persuade. In business, knowledge could swing the deal.

      He started to walk away, guessing himself a fool for getting personally involved. Maybe it was time to take the money he’d saved traveling all over the country and start that ranch he kept dreaming about.

      Sloan swore. Who was he kidding? Even with this deal, he would never have enough money to stock a ranch with anything but a few chickens. He’d be a land man for the company until he died. He was good at sizing up people, at knowing what made them react, but he’d spend the rest of his days without anyone being able to read him.

      A nurse bumped a wheelchair through the door and Sloan glanced up at Sidney Dickerson’s door once more. Five minutes left.

      The waiting room and hallway were deserted. On sudden impulse, he removed his Stetson and slipped into the professor’s room.

      Thank goodness she slept. He’d hate to have to introduce himself to her like this. But he needed to check on her condition. He had to know she was all right. Somewhere in his paperwork, she’d slipped from being just someone he needed to win over for the company to a real person. He’d liked the sound of her voice when she’d lectured and the proper way she walked. And, like it or not, he had worried about her all day.

      Silently lifting the chart at the foot of her bed, he read through the notes. From what he could tell, she hadn’t had a heart attack. Good.

      Her age surprised him. He would have guessed her at least five, maybe ten years older. Not that she looked it now without her glasses and boxy clothes, but every time he’d seen her from a distance, she had the stance and walk of someone in her fifties. Now, he learned that he and Sidney Dickerson would be the same age when she celebrated her fortieth next week.

      Sloan studied her more closely. She was tall and what his mother would have called healthy looking, though in today’s world she was out of style. In updated clothes, with her hair down, she might look her age. Not his type, he thought, but not all that bad. There was something about her that demanded respect. Not just the fact that she was a professor and seemed intelligent, but more that she was a lady. She was the kind of woman men of all ages opened doors for and tipped their hats to.

      She seemed like the kind who should have married and had a big family. He wondered if she’d been one of those who thought school all-important, concentrating on it for so long that by the time she got out, she’d missed her window to marry. Not many men would look at a woman past her youth who had more education than they had. With her height, she’d probably eliminated three-fourths of the men to start with.

      “Are you a doctor?” Her voice startled him.

      He stared into sleepy blue eyes. “No,” he answered from the shadows. “I’m here to take you to dinner.” He knew he made no sense, but hopefully she was drugged enough not to care.

      “Oh,” she mumbled. “That’s nice. I don’t like Chinese.”

      He smiled, knowing he was safe. “Me, either. How about Mexican food?”

      “With or without onions?”

      “Without, of course.” He moved closer and noticed her eyelids drifting down. She was fighting to stay awake.

      “Can we go now? I’m afraid of this place,” she whispered.

      Her honesty surprised him. He wasn’t sure what he expected a woman with a doctorate in history to say, but owning up to being afraid wouldn’t have been his first guess. “Want me to hold your hand?”

      Without opening her eyes, she raised her hand. His fingers closed around hers. For a while, he just stood there, watching her sleep and wondering how many times this woman had ever been afraid. He’d guess she’d been protected all through her life. Even out in the workforce she remained in a bubble, in the unique world of a college campus.

      A nurse stepped in to check the machines. He thought of leaving, but feared he might wake Sidney. He didn’t want to face any questions with someone else in the room. So he stood his ground beside the bed, his fingers holding tightly to hers, his gaze watching her face for any sign of waking.

      The nurse smiled at Sloan. “Visiting hours are over, but if you want to stay with her a little longer, no one will mind. The sleeping pills have kicked in. She’ll sleep like a baby until morning.”

      He knew the nurse guessed him to be the husband or lover. “Thanks,” he said. “I’d like to stay a while longer.”

      Sloan wasn’t a man who got close to people, partly by choice, partly because of his job. Staying with someone in the hospital was foreign to him. Strange. As if he were playing a role. Like somehow he’d crawled into another’s skin and gotten to feel something real people feel. So much of him had been an act for so long, he wasn’t sure there was any real left in him. Some days he thought that when he died no one would bother with a funeral. They’d just roll the credits.

      He turned Sidney’s hand over in his. She was real tonight. Her hand was soft, well formed with short nails and no polish. She would be a no-nonsense woman. The kind who would have nothing to do with him.

      “So, Sidney, how was your day?” he whispered, just because it sounded so normal. “I’ve been worried about you.”

      Her lashes moved. Blue eyes stared up at him. “You still here?”

      “Just waiting to take you to dinner.”

      “I’m ready to leave. Is it raining?”

      He