the small table to squeeze his hand. "You can look him up later. I've never thought much about the Aragon family, and I hope Dr. Moreno can provide some useful medical information."
"Of course. My mother told us our father was a merchant seaman who was away on a long voyage. By the time I turned five, I knew no voyage could last as long as he'd been gone. My mother cried and told us our father had been lost at sea, and she'd not wanted to tell us when we were so small. My grandmother rolled her eyes, and I knew the story, like most of my mother's tales, was untrue."
"Whoever your father was, clearly he was a handsome man and undoubtedly fond of adventure."
"Thank you, but he was probably a sailor from so far away he spent a single night in Barcelona and never returned. My sister and I didn't resemble each other, so her father must have been another man."
She offered a sympathetic smile. Carlotta was still a beauty, and at fifteen she would have been stunning and easily misled by a handsome man. "I don't suppose your mother will ever tell you the truth?"
"About my father?" he scoffed. "She probably can't recall who he was, let alone his name."
"The only name I need is yours," she assured him. She closed her journal, slid it into her bag and made coffee while he was in the shower.
Dr. Moreno had no receptionist or nurse working on Saturday and welcomed Maggie into his office himself. Rafael waited for her downstairs, but she hadn't expected to be alone with the physician and wished she'd asked Rafael to accompany her. Moreno showed her into his private office, gestured to the black leather armchairs in front of his desk and took the swivel chair behind it.
His suit jacket was draped over the back of his chair, and in his shirtsleeves and tie, he looked more relaxed than he'd been on his visits to the house. They'd talked briefly in the hospital, but not at the funeral reception, and she didn't really know him. His eyes were gray, and with silver hair and pale skin, he could have been a black-and-white illustration.
She opened her journal. "Do you mind if I take notes?"
"No, not at all. My patients frequently do. Miguel did not let anyone know how ill he was until this year, and his death came as a dreadful shock to many who loved him."
"He was a proud man," Maggie added.
"Yes, and with good reason."
She jotted notes as Moreno provided details on her father's illness. He referred to the plastic model of a heart he kept on his desk. When he sat back, apparently finished, she closed her journal. "He was still in his forties. Why do you suppose he refused to put his name on a transplant list?"
The physician frowned. "He had the peculiar notion it would change him."
"What if he'd been given a matador's heart?" she asked.
"He might have wanted a unicorn's heart," he countered. "It was equally unlikely to become available."
Color flooded his cheeks, and his hands fisted on his desk. She'd gone too far. He'd been her father's confidant, and he'd keep Miguel's secrets. "I'm sorry if my question sounded presumptuous."
"That kind of thinking could lead to the worst sort of rumors. You mustn't repeat it. Your father often lived on the edge of scandal, and he doesn't need vicious rumors circulating about him after his death."
He made it sound like a real possibility. "Are you referring to his multiple affairs and marriages?"
"Yes, what else could I mean?"
She kept her voice soft and low. "I wasn't raised here, so I've no idea. Now that my grandfather and father have died relatively young from heart disease, is there a danger all the Aragon children may suffer the same fate?"
For a long moment, he gazed toward the beautiful day beyond the window. "That was also Miguel's concern. He asked me to examine Santos, and his heart is sound. I don't know about Enrique and his sister, or you and the twins."
Apparently her father had concerned himself only with Santos's health. She could think of only one reason why he wouldn't have cared about all his children. He wouldn't have wanted to go through the pain of a heart transplant to receive a new heart only slightly better than the old. She either had a desperately dark imagination, or the physician had confirmed the horrible truth. Gaining Rafael's heart or Santos's would have