SERENA

––––––––

JENNY DEALT A MAGICIAN card and, giving me a significant look, intoned, “You will meet a handsome, mysterious stranger.” Every time she drew a Major Arcana card that featured a male figure she repeated that phrase.

Having no clue how to read tarot cards, she was making stuff up as she went along. She’d brought a novelty deck which was really nothing more than a drinking game. Four friends, four bottles of booze. All to celebrate my twenty-first birthday.

Nobody had bothered to read the instructions. Instead, for each of the four Minor Arcana suits a different alcohol had been assigned. Vodka for the wands, rum for the pentacles, tequila for the swords, and gin for the cups. When a face card turned up a shot glass was filled with the respective liquor.

Nicole insisted that mixing all those liquors was no different from drinking a Long Island Iced Tea and that considering we were leaving out the simple syrup and triple sec there was really very little chance of getting sick. We all laughed at her logic.

Probably because we’d done a lousy job shuffling the deck, a face card from the swords suit kept turning up for me. Twenty minutes into the game and I’d already downed three shots of tequila.

Jenny’s eyes opened wide as she plunked down the death card with a skeletal knight astride a horse. “You will meet a handsome, mysterious stranger.”

“She can’t have all the mysterious strangers,” Kate said as she grabbed the card. “You know how much I love a guy on horseback.”

My phone rang and I fumbled it. Giggling, I bent over and scooped it off the floor.

My inebriated mind couldn’t grasp what I was hearing. My father shot?

“What?” I asked the panic rising in my voice.

The girls gathered around me.

“Your father’s just been shot,” repeated the gravelly voice.

“Serena, do you understand what I’m telling you.” I put a face to the voice. It was my father’s business partner, Ward Payne.

Jenny had come up behind me, and placed a supporting arm around me.

“Please tell me he’s alive.”

“He is,” Ward said. “I’m sending a car around.”

“No, I can get there faster on my own.” I hung up. What the hell was I thinking? I wasn’t fit to drive and neither were any of my friends. I called Ward back and asked to be picked up.

I pulled on some boots and threw a jacket over my tank top.

“We’re going with you,” Jenny said. She was holding onto the table to stop from swaying. I didn’t think five drunk girls coming into the ER was a brilliant idea.

I gave them each a quick hug. “You guys stay. I’ll call you.”

On the ride to the hospital, I tried to make sense of what had happened. Had my father been mugged? Why had Ward not given me any details?

As it turned out, my father hadn’t been shot recently as Ward had led me to believe, he’d been admitted twelve hours before, which explained why my doting dad hadn’t called and wished me a happy birthday. I headed down the corridor toward the ICU. I was a trembling mess, scared for my father and furious with his business partner.

I stopped and braced myself on the wall thinking I might pass out or vomit. It felt as if my heart was being squeezed. A man wearing scrubs slowed his steps as he neared me. I avoided eye contact and he got the message and moved on.

I picked up the phone on the wall outside of ICU.

The voice on the other end asked me to enter alone because my father already had a visitor and visitors were limited to two. I was shocked that Ward would be at his bedside. Their partnership had become strained over the years. There was a short pause, before I was buzzed in.

The ICU was intimidating. Cold and clinical and deadly serious. My pulse was pounding in my ears as I searched for the room number. The news had sobered me some, but I wasn’t in great shape. I kept repeating the number to myself so I wouldn’t forget it.

There was an ominous looking machine parked outside my father’s room. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and reached for the door handle. That was not short and stocky Ward leaning over the bed. Dammit, I’d screwed up and gone into the wrong room. I took a backward step just as the man straightened up and glanced over his shoulder at me.

What the hell was Mac Sutton doing here? Instead of leaving, he walked around to the other side of the bed.

I tried to shut out the monitors, tubes, and IV bags so I could focus on my father. How had he changed so dramatically in those twelve hours? His skin was paper-white. His eyes always a clear blue seemed milky and aged.

“Thank God, Serena,” he said, his voice strained. He reached for me; the movement seemed feeble and shook me to the core.

The floor seemed to tilt out from under me and I grabbed for the bed’s side-rail. Keeping a white-knuckled grip on the rail with one hand, I clasped his hand with the other. I leaned over and kissed his knuckles. His skin felt cool and clammy against my lips.

“No time for any of that...” He was never one to let people make a fuss over him.

The ominous phrase “no time” shook me.

“Mac,” he said. “Do we have an agreement? Will you marry my daughter?”

My eyes opened wide. Had the bullet caused some sort of stroke?

“Dad, you’re confused.”

“I’m not confused,” he rasped out.

My father reached over and grabbed Mac’s suit jacket. “You must do this. You owe me.”

“Dad, I’m dating Ryan Jarvis.”

Mac gave me a brief glance, his eyes unreadable, and then returned his attention to my father. “I’ll marry her.”

My father continued to clutch at Mac’s jacket.

“You have my word,” Mac said.

My father’s grasp on his jacket relaxed.

“What is going on here?”

My father turned to look at me. Why were his eyes so cloudy? “An alliance with Mac can protect you.” His voice was now nothing more than a faint croak, I found myself bending forward to hear him.

“Protect me from what? Who did this to you?”

My father’s eyes drifted shut.

“No more questions,” Mac said. “He needs to rest.” He moved around the bed and took my elbow in his hand, ready to steer me out of the room.

I wanted to resist him, to remain by my father’s side, but he was right.

“You’ve been drinking,” he said in an accusatory tone the second we stepped outside of the room.

“I was celebrating. I turned twenty-one today.” I yanked my arm from his grasp and headed toward the exit through a blur of tears. I could feel Mac’s presence behind me as I stumbled over the threshold and into the waiting room.

Ryan was suddenly in front of me, his arms open wide. I fell into them.

“I just heard,” he said.

The news of my father’s injury had clearly filtered through the company’s ranks.

“Jarvis, I need to talk to you. Meet me in the parking lot,” Mac said as he strode past us.

Oh hell, he was going to tell Ryan. I disengaged myself from Ryan’s comforting embrace. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” I hurried after Mac.

He was heading toward the bank of elevators when I caught up with him. “Please don’t mention what my father said.”

He shot me a sideways glance, but didn’t break his stride. “You’re going to slam Jarvis with the news after the marriage?”

“I’m not going to hold you to your promise. I know you had no choice.” Only a monster would have denied my father’s frantic plea.

“You had your opportunity to speak up,” he said gruffly.

“I tried.”

He punched the down arrow button then turned to face me. His gray eyes suited his personality perfectly. They were the color of unbending steel. “I’m not going to burn in hell for you, baby. I’m not reneging on a promise to a dying man.”

I gasped. “He’s not dying.”

“He is,” he said bluntly.

My throat constricted with angry tears. “I always figured you for a grade-A bastard and you’ve just confirmed it.” He flinched at my rage. I’d never spoken to him like that before. I’d always maintained a polite, distant attitude.

There was a subtle change in his expression, a tightening of his jaw, a slight narrowing of his eyes. It was clear that up to this moment he hadn’t realized I had such a low opinion of him.

My father had spoken to me about his new hire, recounting Mac’s exploits with relish. Mac Sutton had been fresh from a stint as a mercenary, working for a shady outfit in the Middle East when my father offered him the corner office and the Operations Manager position. Once an Army Ranger, he’d traded his military know-how for cold hard cash. He’d been arrested for gun-running, but those charges hadn’t stuck.

When I’d questioned my father’s decision to hire a man with such a dodgy past, he’d snapped at me. He’d said, with obvious impatience, that Mac had once been a hero and that he deserved a second chance.

The elevator door opened and he stepped into the empty car. He turned to face me, his gray gaze stone-hard. “Fine, darlin’, I won’t talk to Jarvis.” His Texas drawl was suddenly stronger than usual. I wondered if anger had triggered that. “I’ll leave that up to you.”

He reached over and hit the button for his floor. “Whether you break his heart before or after the ceremony makes no fucking difference to me,” he said just before the doors closed.