Ransomed Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

her.”
    She hesitated. Calissa was shrewd. A personal note hand-delivered by Luke? This wasn’t simply about Harrison suffering a stroke. Her sister wanted her attention.
    “Traynor,” Eliot said, “why you?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Why you? Why did Calissa send you?”
    Luke blinked slowly.
    Sheridan felt a stab of annoyance at Luke’s diplomatic two-step. Since his injury, Eliot had lost his own diplomatic knack for weighing words and couching them in ambiguity. It was almost an even trade. Instead of the two-step dance, they took jaunts down rabbit trails.
    At last Luke spoke. “I met Calissa at the hospital, in Houston.” He referred to her sister’s visit during Eliot’s stay there.
    “I wasn’t aware your paths had crossed.”
    Sheridan opened her mouth to speak but closed it. Reminding Eliot that she had told him of Calissa’s meeting Luke would only annoy him. Besides, he spoke the truth. He was unaware of it as he was unaware of many things. Pain and meds occupied too much memory space.
    Luke said, “I gave her my card. She contacted me a week ago. She figured that with my State Department connections, I had the means to find you.”
    “Which of course you did.” Eliot’s eyes narrowed behind his thick lenses. “And why, pray tell, did you agree to do it?”
    Luke smiled briefly. “Your welfare concerns me. We almost died together. That tends to quicken one’s relationship. Why wouldn’t I say yes to Calissa’s request? I couldn’t let someone else deliver this difficult family news.”
    “How convenient you were available. In between assignments, are you?”
    “In a manner of speaking.”
    Sheridan tuned out Eliot’s inquisition and Luke’s bunk. She fingered the linen envelope. It was sealed. Not that sealed meant unopened. Luke had single-handedly extracted her from the scene of an assassination attempt. Surely a little glue would not be an issue for him.
    She broke the seal, pulled out a folded blank card, and opened it. At the sight of her sister’s handwriting, she ached for the relationship they didn’t have.
    Sheri ~
    Even Isaac and Ishmael came together to bury their father. The older brother probably told the younger surprising tales about their father, things the younger would not know or remember. Please come.
    With love,
    Lissy
    “Well?” Eliot’s tone was harsh. “What’s in it?”
    She looked at him, shutting the card and tracing her thumb along its fold. He was getting tired. Tact went the way of the diplomatic two-step when he was tired. “Calissa says that Isaac and Ishmael came together to bury their father.”
    “Hm. Harrison Cole is not exactly an Abraham.”
    “I don’t think that’s her point.”
    “No. That would be a stretch even for your sister.” Eliot pushed back his chair and slowly rose. “Traynor, my wife owes her family nothing. Please convey our condolences to Calissa, but I’m afraid we are not able to travel at this time. It was good of you to stop by.” He reached across the table and shook Luke’s hand.
    “A pleasure to see you up and about, sir.”
    Eliot glanced at Sheridan. “I think it’s time we got to work. I’ll be in the study.”
    She stared at his receding back, her own shoulders slouching like his, the weight of the world pressing in. The rhythmic ping of aluminum against concrete blotted out all thought.
    “Sher.”
    She turned to Luke.
    The seam between his brows was scrunched again. This time it stayed there. “What do you think?”
    “That I can’t think about it right now.” The words popped out of her mouth and she recognized what she was saying. If she’d learned one thing through the past year, it was to know when to quit, when to step back from life. “I have to shut down.”
    “And how do you do that?”
    “Church. I go to the church.” She anticipated the peace and safety that surrounded her as she sat in the pew. It would be like pressing back into place the bandage that Luke’s news had forcefully