The Best Way to Lose Read Online Free PDF Page A

door, nearly three inches thick. Before she reached it, the ornate brass knob was turned from the inside and the door swung inward. She smiled wanly at the tall, straight black woman waiting to greet her.
    “Hello, Cassie,” she said.
    “I’ve been worried about you,” Cassie Douglas announced with faint reproval. In her middle fifties, nearly the same age as Elliot, she had few lines in her coffee-colored skin to reveal the accumulation of years. The silver that salted the soft black curls framing her proud features appeared to be the artful work of the best hairstylist. “I was sure you were going to get some wild notion in your head to stay at the hospital all night.”
    “She did, but I talked her out of it.” Trace walked into the house behind Pilar and swung the duffel bag off his shoulder to hang at his side. He hooked an arm around the woman’s trim waist and pulled her close to plant a kiss on a smooth cheek. His gray eyes glittered with a rakish light. “How’s my favorite southern belle?”
    “Don’t you go using your flattery on me, Trace Santee. It never got you anywhere when you were a boy and it won’t now.” Shemocked the expansiveness of his compliment even while she hugged an arm around his middle. “I talked to Digger after he left you off at the hospital, so I knew you’d be here tonight. I’ve got your room all ready, and I baked you my own special recipe for pecan carrot cake. It’s out in the kitchen along with a pot of fresh coffee.”
    “I suppose I’ve got to promise to behave myself before you’ll give me a piece,” he teased.
    “It wouldn’t do any good. I swear you were born looking for trouble,” she declared with a trace of regret. More than most, Cassie knew how much trouble he’d found.
    Dragon Walk had been her home for the last twenty-six years. A highly intelligent woman, Cassie Douglas was a licensed practical nurse. She’d come to work for the family when Trace’s mother, the first Mrs. Santee, had contracted multiple sclerosis, a degenerative muscle disease. Trace was only eleven when his mother passed away, and Cassie had stayed on to look after him.
    Yet, all the while she served in the role of housekeeper and cook, she never gave up her career. She constantly took refresher courses to keep abreast of medical advancements and new procedures, and took other home cases on a day-work basis. And she’d kept a house of her own, what had been the overseer’s cottage on Dragon Walk, and raised a family of three children.
    Her late husband had been a riverman,working the docks and the barges. Trace remembered little about him except that Ogden Douglas had introduced him to the river life. Looking back, Trace marveled at the way Cassie had managed to accomplish so much—something he’d been too young to appreciate at the time.
    “You’re as bad as Oggie, coming straight off the river—and smelling like it, too.” Always immaculate herself, she ran a critical eye over his appearance, but there was a softness in her eyes, tender with memories of her husband. “I’m surprised they didn’t kick you out of the hospital for fear you’d contaminate something. You need a bath and a change of clothes.”
    “Not as much as I need that coffee and cake in the kitchen,” Trace insisted with a lazy smile, then slid a half-glance at Pilar. “Don’t you think you could use some, too?”
    Since her marriage to Elliot, Pilar had become very close to Cassie. As she had observed the reunion, there had been an odd feeling of jealousy at the open display of affection and deep closeness. Considering Elliot’s precarious condition, they seemed much too happy and uncaring for her liking.
    “No.” She addressed Cassie. “I wanted to bring you up to date on Elliot.” She was sternly sober, inserting his name into the conversation to remind them why they were standing there at this hour of the night.
    “There’s no need,” Cassie informed her gently. “My daughter,