The Alcolar Family. Kate Walker

at least, Joaquin and Cassie had still been together. It was the sort of thing that Joaquin’s pride could never tolerate. The sort of thing that no man with any sense of honour would do to a friend, let alone a member of his own family.

      Joaquin would never speak to his brother again if he continued to believe that was what had happened. And Cassie could not be the cause of anger and division between the two brothers. She knew that they had had a difficult enough time getting to be friends in the past. Joaquin had seen his half-brother as evidence of their father’s adultery, his unfaithfulness to his wife, and so had had to struggle to accept both the younger man and then the other, half-English brother Alex who had appeared later. She had to make sure that Joaquin knew the truth. She couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t at least try.

      ‘Joaquin!’

      Heedless of the fact that she was still wearing only the flimsy robe and that her feet were bare, Cassie yanked open the door and ran out into the big hallway, the third floor landing in the apartment block.

      ‘Joaquin!’

      Her call echoed round the empty space. Of course. The mood he had been in, Joaquin was clearly in no frame of mind to hang around. But somewhere in the distance, a floor or so away, she caught the faint sound of footsteps on the stairs, going down. Perhaps if she ran, she might just have a chance to catch him.

      Bare feet making no sound, her hand clutching the polished wooden banister rail as she swung round the corners, she dashed down the big staircase, her breath catching in her throat at the thought that he might get away before she could speak to him.

      ‘Joaquin, please wait!’

      Had the footsteps below her slowed, maybe even stilled, just for a second? She didn’t know and she couldn’t risk a pause to listen for fear that he might get right away from her. If he went out into the street she would lose him…

      ‘Oh, please!’

      She landed on the marble tiled floor of the main entrance hall with a soft thud, her heart lifting jerkily at the realisation that she could just see Joaquin’s tall, dark figure on the other side of the glass-paned door that was still swinging with the force of his exit through it.

      ‘Joaquin!’

      Somehow she found the strength to wrench it open, fling herself out into the evening air where a sudden rainstorm had soaked the street, the shallow stone steps leading up to the apartment building.

      ‘Joaquin, oh, please! Please wait! Please listen! I have to talk to you.’

      He’d heard her.

      She saw him stiffen, hesitate, then whirl round, spinning on his heel.

      And as he did so it seemed as if time suddenly slowed, went out of focus and blurred. Even her own breathing suddenly seemed suspended and she watched in a sense of hopeless horror as the scene before her was played out in a sort of dreadful slow motion that she could do nothing to stop.

      She saw Joaquin’s swift stride down the steps, the way his foot had gone out to move from one to the next. Then his check as she called his name. The swift, sudden turn, his head coming round to glance at her, that threw him totally off balance. The way that, still moving forward at the same time, he missed his footing, slipped, lost his balance completely.

      She thought that she screamed. She knew that she opened her mouth to do so, but no sound came out.

      And she could only watch in silent dread as Joaquin pitched forward, fell headlong down the remainder of the steps, landing awkwardly on the rain-soaked pavement below.

      Fear froze her with her hands to her mouth as she saw his dark head strike hard against the hard stone of the final step, his long body rolling a couple of inches more then coming to a complete halt, lying dreadfully limp and unmoving on the pavement while the heavy rain lashed down onto his pale, still face.

      CHAPTER SIX

      A MAN like Joaquin didn’t belong in a hospital bed.

      He was too big, too strong, too forceful, too vibrant, too alive to be contained in such a small space. And lying there, silent and still, unnervingly pale in spite of his tan, he looked shockingly reduced, younger, and infinitely more vulnerable.

      Cassie didn’t know how many times this particular thought had crossed her mind throughout this, the longest night of her life. She only knew that it was the one she most often came back to, unhappy and unwilling, wishing there were something—anything she could do to ease the situation.

      But Joaquin just lay there, unconscious and unmoving, his handsome face disfigured by the ugly bruise that had spread across his forehead, marking the spot where his skull had collided with the hard stone of the steps.

      And Cassie sat by his bed, holding his limp hand and willing him to wake up, open his eyes.

      ‘Joaquin, can you hear me? Please show me that you can!’ she pleaded with him. ‘Please—just open your eyes—show me you’re all right. Please!’

      She couldn’t believe the way that the world she thought she knew had turned to a waking nightmare. One minute she had been running down the stairs calling to Joaquin to stop, to wait—the next she had found herself crouched in the lashing rain beside his unconscious form, heedless of the way that the downpour had soaked into the thin silk of her skimpy robe, moulding it wetly to her body.

      She had screamed at the hovering security guard to call an ambulance, tried to protect Joaquin’s face from the appalling weather, and waited for what seemed like an age for help to arrive. All the time she had held his hand, stroking it softly, telling him that everything was going to be all right—that he was going to be fine.

      It had been there that Ramón had found her. Arriving home at last, he had taken in the situation in a glance, and immediately taken charge. After that things had happened fast. The ambulance had arrived; Joaquin had been lifted gently into it and they had set off for the hospital. Cassie had wanted to go with them, and only Ramón’s gentle logic had persuaded her otherwise.

      ‘You’re soaked through, sweetheart,’ he told her. ‘You’ll make yourself ill if you don’t get changed out of that wet robe. Believe me, Joaquin’s in good hands—and you’ll be much better able to help if you’re dry and comfortable. This could be a long night.’

      And he was right.

      Cassie dried herself off and dressed in a navy shirt and jeans as quickly as she could, throwing a white cotton cardigan over her shoulders as protection against the chill that the rain had brought to the night air, and pushing her bare feet into lightweight slip-on shoes. Before Ramón had time to down the coffee he’d made for himself, she was ready to go, anxious to reach the hospital as soon as possible.

      But after that things slowed down again. Once they reached the hospital it was to find that nothing very much happened fast. There were what seemed to Cassie like endless long hours spent waiting, with very little news to tell at the end of them.

      As far as the doctors could tell, Joaquin hadn’t sustained any major injury. There was no fracture, nothing to worry about there. But he had had a nasty blow to his head, and he was deeply unconscious. They would monitor the situation overnight and watch what happened.

      So Cassie settled in for the long vigil through the dark hours of the night. She settled in a chair beside the bed, took hold of Joaquin’s hand, fixed her eyes on his face, and waited…

      She wasn’t alone. From the start, Ramón had stayed with her, and later, after he had phoned his brother’s family, Joaquin’s father and his younger sister Mercedes arrived in the small private room too.

      The other brother, Alex, they discovered, was already at the hospital for his own reasons. His wife, Louise, who was expecting their first child, had gone into labour earlier that evening and he was in the maternity ward with her. He was obviously torn between two loyalties until Cassie took pity on him.

      ‘You should be with Louise,’ she told him. ‘She needs you. And