Wild Honey Read Online Free PDF Page B

water.”
    Unlike her long-lost brother. But Travis didn’t voice this. The bitterness was fading now. Maybe he’d exorcised it. “And Troy? He holdin’ up all right?”
    His thirty-three-year-old brother had had to struggle for the grades that would get him into a decent med school. Or a career in medicine, period.
    Troy had been the athlete in the family. A natural, who could have gone on to qualify for the Olympics in swimming, they’d been told. Or a career in tennis. He’d once beaten Bjorn Borg in a match at their club, and Borg had offered to sponsor him.
    But that had been out of the question. In fact, Travis was the only one his brother had even told about it, and Troy’d insisted he keep it secret.
    “Good Lord, Troy, why?” Travis had exclaimed. He could still recall his incredulousness at Troy’s request.
    The brother he loved hadn’t been able to look him in the eye. “You know why,” he’d mumbled, staring at his Nikes as they sat on a bench in the club’s locker room.
    And Travis had. Telling the family, or more specifically, their father, would only result in the same cold dismissal his swimming coach’s suggestion had brought the previous year: “You are a McLean, Troy. With a long and illustrious tradition of medicine to follow. Swimmin’ is a fine pastime, but it can’t be allowed to distract you from your career. From surgery as a profession. You’ll thank the coach and tell him no, of course.”
    So Troy had acquiesced without a whimper, submitting to a regimen of tutors and summer schools to help him attain the grades necessary to enter medicine. And managing to graduate from a med school that, while not Harvard, was respectable enough for the father he tried so hard to please.
    His mother’s sigh brought Travis back to the present. “Well, your brother does try hard, but sometimes I think he ought to have pursued another specialty. Your aunt Louise did suggest he join her at Stanford and go into research, you’ll recall. But as I told her, your father…”
    And so it goes…
    “Right.” Travis’s voice was tight with anger. “Nothin’ would do for his sons but to follow in his illustrious footsteps. No matter that the shape of those feet, as they tried to follow—tried so hard, Mother!—was so different. No matter that they longed to take another path.”
    “Now, Travis, your father—”
    “Is a cold, selfish bastard who never had time for any of us while we were growin’ up! And made it plain only one thing mattered to him—that we live our lives to please him. To be a self-perpetuatin’ testament to the great Dr. Trent McLean, heart surgeon nonpareil!”
    “Oh, Travis, I know he’s hurt you, but try to understand. In his own way, your father loves you. I know you find that hard to believe. I didn’t believe it myself at one time. But in the last few years…well, I think he’s mellowed. And perhaps…perhaps even begun to realize what his unbendin’ ways have cost him.”
    Travis’s smile was bitter. “Like a son, maybe? Well, that shouldn’t faze him, Mother. He has one to spare.”
    “Travis, I don’t s’pose I can blame you for feelin’ bitter, but—”
    “What do you want from me, Mother? Why’d you really come here? It wasn’t entirely to see how badly injured I was. Wally Reston could’ve given you all the particulars—and very likely did.”
    Travis leaned toward her and didn’t let go of her gaze. “So what is it you really want from me?”
    She made a helpless gesture with her hands. “I—I was hopin’ that maybe there was some way to…to put an end to this terrible estrangement. Maybe if you were to go to your father, Travis, and try to—”
    “Forget it. He’d never listen, and I…” He sighed, ran a hand through his hair. “Well, let’s just say I’m well past tryin’, okay? I have my own life now, and while it’s—”
    “But what kind of life, Travis? A life where you’re constantly in danger? Where you’re shot at