Free Lost in His Arms by Carla Cassidy

but more importantly, for Richard.
    When he’d finished, Rose wiped the tears from her eyes with the hem of her apron.
    Like most people who met Richard, Rose adored him. She often complained that he was irresponsibleand immature and unreliable, but despite his many faults, Richard garnered affection like flowers drew bees.
    â€œThat poor boy,” she said softly. She wiped her eyes one more time, then straightened in the chair. “We’ll all have to do whatever we can to help him fight this thing. Richard isn’t strong, but we’ll have to help him be strong.”
    â€œThat’s exactly what we need to do,” Talbot agreed.
    He finished his meal, then left the kitchen and headed for his office. He closed the double doors behind him and sat at the massive desk.
    The room was huge, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on one wall and an elegant built-in bar on the other. The entire house had been his mother and father’s dream, a six-bedroom mansion that was an oddity in the tiny town of Morning View.
    The home base of McCarthy Industries was housed in a large building twenty minutes away in Topeka, Kansas. With the invention of the telephone, the fax machine and the computer, Talbot was able to conduct much of the business of McCarthy Industries from right here in his home.
    At the moment, the last thing Talbot felt like doing was working. He picked up the paperweight that sat on the desk. It was an ugly thing, a globe of glass with a dollar bill inside.
    His mother had had it made for his father in theearly days of McCarthy Industries, when the “office” was at the kitchen table and the breeze through the open windows blew papers everywhere.
    As Talbot held the globe in his hand, he thought of his father and the promise he’d made to him. “I promise I’ll take care of Richard.”
    And he had done his best in the past fourteen years to fulfill that promise. He’d tried to give Richard everything he believed his parents would have wanted. Besides the tangible things, he’d tried to guide, support and impart wisdom to his younger brother.
    He had cared for Richard through his rebellious teen years, had tried to be there for him when he’d become a young father. Talbot had done everything in his power to take care of Richard, but there was nothing he could now do to make everything okay for the brother he loved.
    Placing the paperweight back on the desk, he stared at the phone. Last night Richard had told Talbot his wishes concerning spending time with Andrew before the operation.
    He explained that he’d voiced his wish to Elizabeth, but she had been reluctant. Richard had begged Talbot to get Elizabeth and Andrew here for a couple of weeks, and Talbot had agreed to do what he could.
    He looked at his wristwatch and realized it was still too early to make any calls. He might as wellget some work done while he waited for a more appropriate time.
    An hour and a half later, Talbot picked up the phone and hit the speed-dial number that would connect him. The phone on the other end rang three times, and he wondered if she’d taken a job for the day. He knew she substitute taught and had been taking classes at night to finish her degree.
    She picked up on the fourth ring.
    â€œHello.” Her familiar voice filled the line, and Talbot gripped the phone more tightly in an effort to ward off any feelings, any sensations that might surface inside him.
    â€œElizabeth, it’s me.”
    There was a moment of silence, then a soft, “Hi.”
    â€œWe need to talk.”
    â€œRichard told you?”
    â€œLast night.”
    Again a moment of strained quiet. “I guess none of us got much sleep last night,” she finally said.
    â€œWe need to discuss you and Andrew coming here to stay for a couple of weeks.” He didn’t want to make small talk with her, needed to get their business conducted as quickly as possible.
    Her sigh was