P.s. Love You Madly

SUBJECT: WHAT HAVE I DONE?

From: Olivia@USAserve.com

To: BanditKing@USAserve.com

Oh, Lord, darling, what have I done? I hit the wrong button and accidentally sent a copy of the message I wrote you this morning to Emerald OF ALL PEOPLE!!!

She’ll have kittens—medieval ones. She’ll run to Darcy and carry on and make it sound as if I’m the scarlet woman of the Apocalypse.

Bloody computer. I could kick it around the block. Oh, hell—I could kick myself around the block. How could I pull such a fumble-fingered stunt?

I can only hope my girls will be as understanding as your family. Otherwise they’ll think the little men in white coats should come and lock me up. Oh, sweetheart, I feel like such an utter fool. I hope with all my heart that this doesn’t make any trouble.

Love and many desperate kisses,

Your Repentant Olivia,

Who now wishes she’d met you via carrier pigeon

SUBJECT: Calm Down, My Lovely

From: BanditKing@USAserve.com

To: Olivia@USAserve.com

My Dearest Olivia—

Not so much wailing and lamentation, dear heart. This e-mail is a new sort of magic loosed on the world, and like all magic, it can backfire as we try to master it. You are like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, my dear, only far lovelier.

My love, no one should be allowed to wrest from us this sweet and delicate thing we have been fortunate enough to find. Not your family, no matter how beloved they are, and not mine.

But, most treasured Olivia, I have a confession. My family did not take the news as well as I had hoped. We had, in fact, a bit of a set-to about it.

I did not mean to deceive you, dearest, but neither did I wish to burden you. As the Bard says, the course of true love never did run smooth.

We must take these challenges as they come, and calmly.

A thousand kisses,

Your Devoted John

P.S. What are medieval kittens?

SUBJECT: THE DARK AGES, OR SULKING AS A MILITARY ART

From: Olivia@USAserve.com

To: BanditKing@USAserve.com

Medieval kittens don’t just throw a fit; they set it on fire and catapult it across the moat. Trust me on this, I’ve been in the castle when it’s under siege.

Darling, you say the wisest and most tender things, but exactly what do you mean—your family didn’t take the news the way you’d hoped? That there was “a bit of a set-to”?

My sweet, handsome, sexy John, please don’t withhold things from me. You promised you never would. What, precisely, are your sister and son saying to you about this?

Concerned But Trying To Be Calm,

Your Own Olivia,

Who Loves You Truly, Madly, Deeply

CHAPTER THREE

“YOU HAVE TO PHONE MOTHER,” Emerald said. “Right now. This has gone too far. Rose Alice nearly hit that man with a golf club.”

Darcy turned to a mirror and tried to smooth her tumbled hair. Her heart still knocked unaccountably hard against her ribs, and the mirror showed her that her face was pale, but her cheeks bright pink.

“Da-ar-cee,” Emerald said with something close to a whine. “I mean it. You’ve got to call Mama.”

“Give me a minute,” said Darcy, fastening her silver barrette. She took a deep breath to calm herself.

The studio was quiet again. Rose Alice, still in high dudgeon, had stalked back to the house, obviously feeling un-appreciated. The ambulance had left; the police cars were gone.

Sloan English’s BMW still stood in the driveway, and Darcy supposed someone would be sent for it. It was the only sign the man had been there—except for his business card. It lay on the bookcase between a vase of fantastic silk flowers and a sock monkey.

The card was nothing, she told herself—a scrap of paper with fancy engraving, a boring corporate ID signifying nothing. Wrong, said something deep and unexpected within her. It signifies him. Why does that make my heart rattle like a trapped thing shaking the bars of a cage?

She shook her head to clear it, but his image wouldn’t go away.

Emerald sat in the armchair watching her closely. “You certainly fussed over him,” she accused. “Was it because he’s handsome?”

Darcy turned from the mirror with an innocent air. “Handsome? Was he? I didn’t notice.”

“Ha,” sneered Emerald, polishing the studs on her gloves. “He’s handsome and you noticed. But you’d better remember—he’s the enemy.”

“He’s not ‘the enemy.’ Don’t be melodramatic.”

“I don’t have to,” Emerald said with a superior look. “He was melodramatic enough for everybody. He roars up to the door like a fire-breathing dragon. He rants. He raves. And then he falls over.”

“He wasn’t himself,” Darcy said defensively. “He was ill. I don’t think he knew how sick he was. His fever affected his judgment.”

“It was kind of cool how he keeled over that way,” Emerald said, pulling on her leather glove and admiring it. “Like he had the plague or something. I wonder if that’s how they did it during the Black Death.”

“Oh, really,” said Darcy, turning from her in irritation.

She picked the bookworm up from the floor. She set him on the worktable and adjusted his antennae.

“Anyway, you have to call Mother,” nagged Emerald. “That man’s in the hospital—somebody’s got to tell his family. She’s the only one who knows anybody, so you’ve got to. Unless you want his people to just get a cold, soulless call from the police.”