Escalation Clause (Stewart Realty Series)

by Crowe, Liz

  He spotted his friend Rob, slumped in a wheelchair. The man was gaunt after the transplant surgery, which had saved his life. He had defied doctor’s orders to be there, for Blake’s family, he claimed. Rob’s face was haggard, his eyes vacant until Lila appeared and put their son in his lap. He brightened then, and he held the boy close. Jack looked away; the emotion between those particular people at that moment was more than he could bear.

  He glimpsed Suzanne, his old friend, and Blake’s one-time girlfriend. She was sitting holding a plate of uneaten food, staring into the middle distance. Craig Robinson had his arm around her, was whispering in her ear. She nodded, bit her lip. Jack saw a tear fall from her red-rimmed eyes. He looked away, the complex intertwining of his immediate world pressing down on him like a giant boulder.

  His exhausted gaze rested on Sara’s parents. Matthew Thornton had been, was still, a strong personality. Tall, good-looking in his sixties, his presence compelled attention, kind of like Jack’s own, and probably why his wife’s father made few bones about despising his daughter’s choice in a husband. Any time spent with the retired, estimable Doctor Thornton was a personal exercise in frustration. Today, however, the man sat, shoulders slumped, staring at the ground. His wife, Beth, had not stopped crying for the better part of two weeks best Jack could tell. They were utterly undone; as well they would be. He was unable to tear his eyes away from the train wreck of his in-laws as they mourned the horrible, accidental death of their only son.

  He closed his eyes for a split second, then opened them, and met the dark green gaze of his wife. Sara. Mother of his children. The woman he loved beyond life itself. Her gaze was flat, devoid of anything. She held Brandis, their infant son. “Can you…?” she held the boy out. “I need to…,” and she floated away. Her new habit of speaking in half sentences made him nervous. For the first time in his adult life, Jack had no idea what to say or do. There was no way to fix what had brought them all together here, at a memorial for Sara’s beloved brother.

  “Sure,” he said to her back. She’d lost weight he mused as he jiggled his son in his arms. He looked down into the boy’s bright blue eyes. Gulping at the intensity of his gaze, he imagined their first little league game, first sand castle, their first visit to Disney World, their first fight over a car, grades, messy rooms, alcohol, girls. Intense panic gripped his chest.

  As if sensing his discomfort the baby made a distinctly unhappy noise, then started crying in earnest. Jack looked around. He’d not been around for Katie’s babyhood, thanks to the arms-length arrangement he’d then had with Sara. He was utterly lost when it came to humans this small, even ones he’d helped create. The myriad levels of his helplessness right now could fill a book. And that was not sitting well in his gut.

  “Daddy,” Katie sat next to him and held out a bottle. “Mommy said you would need this.” She handed it to him. “I tested it. It’s not too hot.” She kissed him, moved back to her mother’s side and gripped her hand. Jack stared at them and then plugged the baby’s screeching with the thing. He resumed observing his world unraveling around him, helplessness casting a darker pall over his brain. Everyone around him was miserable, and he couldn’t do anything about any of it.

  He jumped when someone touched his arm. Shaking his head to clear the cobwebs, then giving up when they stayed fixed in place, he looked up. His sister Maureen took the chair next to him. “Can I help you with him?”

  He stared at her, then back at his son, who was greedily sucking on the bottle, his small hands clenched in tight fists as if he could will the milk to move faster into his mouth. Jack leaned his aching head back. Mo rubbed his neck.

  “Thanks,” he said, keeping his eyes closed. “This is….”

  “Honey, I know,” his sister whispered. “You have been through so much.”

  “No, no, this isn’t mine.”

  “Jack,” She gripped his arm. “You are allowed to grieve. You don’t have to be the anchor all the time you know. He was your family, too.”

  He opened his eyes and looked up at the flawless blue sky, pondering the truth of her words. “Here, give me the baby,” she held out her arms, using his own Gordon bossy tone to let him know she was serious.

  Jack looked down into his son’s peaceful, sleeping face and felt his heart clench so tight he had to clear his throat to distract himself. His son. His. He looked up, seeking Sara but she was sitting with her mother, who appeared to be crying again. As if sensing his gaze, Sara looked up straight into his eyes. The space where her brother had once lived as a crucial piece of her was a visible emptiness—a weird black hole that he could actually see. He sighed. “I didn’t even really like the guy.” He mumbled into Brandis’ head, keeping the boy held tight to his chest.

  Maureen resumed rubbing his neck. “Of course you did. He wanted what was best for his sister. So, did you, if I recall.”

  Jack chuckled, shifted the baby to his shoulder to pat out a burp or two and shot her a look. “Yeah, okay. Point taken.”

  “Well, it’s true. You were no more interested in me and Brandis together than Blake was with you and his sister.”

  “Touché.” Jack mumbled, still watching his wife try to comfort her mother. His head pounded.

  “Jack, look at me,” Mo demanded.

  He let his gaze wander over the clumps of unhappy people scattered around his lawn once more before coming to rest on his sister’s eyes. Their deep blue matched his, as did her no-nonsense demeanor. She put a firm hand on his arm. “You guys have to keep communicating. Don’t let her shut down. Don’t worry, this is equal opportunity nagging. I’m telling her the same thing. You’re too damn much alike. I see both of you looking like the walking dead, not relying on each other like you should. Are you listening to me?”

  He nodded, but he hadn’t been. Not really. All he still saw was Sara, crumpled on the floor of the hospital hallway. Then Lila’s wide, dark, shell-shocked stare because he had to be the one to tell her that Blake was dead in a freak car accident and that they would be using his lungs to save Rob’s life. He shut his eyes again, trying to make the giant fucking mess go away.

  He startled when Mo plucked the sleeping baby from his arms. He’d never felt so numb, so utterly devoid of anything but the bright clear agony of “what the fuck happens tomorrow when we wake up” in his entire life. He shot Sara another glance making sure she didn’t need anything before he stood. Stretching his arms and back, he grabbed a beer and headed over to sit with Rob whose face held even more misery than Sara’s. He kissed Lila and the baby in her arms then sat and drained the brew in one long gulp.

  “We’re quite the pair, aren’t we,” he asked, indicating the infant who was currently screeching his fool head off no matter what Lila did to comfort him. She stood and walked away. Jack winced. “Sorry.” He said, helpless yet again. Rob just looked at him, hands gripping his thighs as if trying to keep himself from launching out of the wheelchair.

  “No, it’s fine. He’s…she’s…God,” Rob put his head in his hands. Jack sat with his friend, silent and useless for nearly an hour resuming his perusal of the gathered mourners. When his sister looked up at him and winked, he smiled and raised his empty beer bottle, visions of the last time he had been with her at a funeral making him nearly suffocate with frustrated grief.

  Chapter Two

  Twenty Years Earlier

  “Don’t worry about me,” Mo tossed over shoulder at her brother’s angry face. “I’ll be fine. But I am not going to live here, with him,” she pointed at her father. The man in question sat at the kitchen table, a stiff drink in his hand, glaring at her.

  “But,” Jack sputtered. “You can’t just leave, Maureen. That’s just dumb.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she held back the tears she knew her father expected from her, if only just to spite him. “Watch me.” She shouldered her school backpack and grabbed the suitcase she’d packed the night before. The night he’d stated without hesitation Maureen was fated to become “ju
st like her mother,” so why even try that hard at school. She should find a boy, get knocked up, get married, and get out of his house. Mo had no idea what had happened to get him so worked up, but she’d spent way too much energy trying to cope with his temper. She never knew from one day to the next what he’d say to her and had stopped caring.

  She looked back at her father who sat staring straight ahead. “Tell you what, Dad,” Mo heard her voice get thin with anger, “I’ll just get out the house now before I bother with the knocking up and marrying. That work for you?” Without waiting for a reply, she slammed the screen door behind her and climbed into her VW Bug. She gripped the steering wheel, wishing she had talked to Jack more before she did this admittedly crazy thing. But, she had to take the step without relying on him for a change. Denise Taylor and her family had told Mo that morning she could stay with them “a while” until “things settled down.” Settling down seemed unlikely, but she’d take it a day at a time at this point. She’d be moving into her University of Michigan dorm in late August anyway. Might as well cut the cord now. Despite the tearful pressure building behind her eyes, she gutted it out, determined to hold back the emotion. She simply would not give her jerk of a father the satisfaction.

  As she pulled into the Taylor’s driveway, the summer heat rose from the asphalt in shimmering waves. She sat, staring at the large red brick house where she had spent so many hours with her brother and their friends, Brandis and Denise Taylor. It sat back from the cul-de-sac street and had an in-ground pool, huge patio, and a finished, kid-friendly basement. The four of them had swam, played ball, ridden bikes, shot illicit fireworks, then later drank beer and smoked pot, and everything in between during their growing up years in Ann Arbor. Somehow, it seemed different now. Smaller, less imposing, maybe even a little shabby, but it didn’t matter. It was not her father’s house, and that’s all that mattered.

  Denise stood in the front entrance, her dark mocha skin and head of frizzy hair complemented by a white tube top and jeans shorts. Her bright smile made Mo’s heart skip a beat. They had not been friends long, having been thrown together by circumstance of their brothers’ relationship. But the bond between them transcended anything superficial. “C’mon in,” she held the door open. Mo trudged in, dropped her suitcase and backpack, then burst into tears.

  Later, after the adults had left the teenage girls to the monotonous drone of the television, Mo looked over to find Denise sound asleep on the couch. She crept outside to the still warm bricks and perched on the edge of the pool. The water had cooled some but held a pleasant residual heat of the day. She dangled her feet in and lay back on the patio, trying to relax. Images shot through her brain—her asshole father, angry brother, and a barely-remembered mother who had died of liver failure when Mo was twelve. The distressingly handsome face of her current boyfriend—well, the guy who’d taken her to prom about a month ago and who’d tried like hell to get her to go all the way ghosted across her memory.

  When she kept refusing to let him do any more than grope and kiss he had literally left her stranded in Fuller Park, her expensive dress a wrinkled mess, her carefully coiffed self melting into the grass from embarrassment. She’d walked to the nearest payphone, located in the emergency room of University of Michigan Hospital, across the street from the park. Jack had already come home from his last year of college before heading to Chicago for law school. He’d picked her up, face set in hard lines at the sight of her.

  She’d sobbed all the way to the house, but he had helped her sneak in without waking their father. He’d sat with her as she finished her blubbering, held her close, then gripped her arms and held her at arm’s length his voice firm. “Tell that asshole that if he comes near you again, I will fucking castrate him, then maybe kill him, or maybe just let him walk around dickless the rest of his life. I am serious, Mo, as a heart attack.” She’d nodded and leaned into his neck, never more grateful to have her big brother.

  By the following week, the supposed boyfriend was back, flirting in his jockish, annoying way. She’d clutched her books to her chest, stood with her friend Denise and delivered Jack’s message. He had backed away, laughing nervously. But, Jack had some measure of fame in the halls of Huron High, as a former star track and basketball player—a jock with a serious brain, the magna cum laude graduate of his class. So, she never encountered the jerk again. And, now, in a perverse reversal of logic, she was lonely. Although vowing she’d not surrender her virginity to a guy like him, she missed having someone around, paying attention to her. She sighed, swung her feet in the water, watching the fireflies dance overhead. Maybe she’d never lose it, never find anyone worthy. God knows Jack had made that clear to her—no one ever would likely be good enough for his baby sister.

  When a stream of ice-cold water hit her right in the nose, she tried to hold back the scream as she rolled over, the fight or flight instinct making her heart pound. She squinted into the darkness. “Denise?” Crickets and light traffic noises covered her whisper. She took a step forward, somehow knowing what she’d find. Strong arms grabbed and held her close; she pressed her face into the bare chest of Brandis Taylor, her brother’s best friend, fellow charmer of women, track star, member of the Air Force ROTC, and recent graduate of the University of Michigan. He held her close, nearly a split second too long, his lips on her hair, her cheek. She pulled out of his embrace and wiped her eyes.

  “Cut it out.” She insisted, pretending not to notice that he wore nothing but running shorts and shoes, his sleek brown torso shining with sweat in the moonlight. He smiled, made as if to run a finger down her face, then lifted the squirt gun and got her square between the eyes once more before taking off across the field of the elementary school adjacent to his back yard. “You asshole!” She ran after him grabbing a couple of tennis balls and heaving them at his disappearing, broad shoulders. Another stream of water hit her in the chest, soaking her T-shirt. “Damn you.” She gasped, slowing to a walk then stopping, hands on her waist. She crept sideways, hoping he’d circled back, and was about to hit one of the large trees that lined the field and clamber up into it when she was tackled, knocked to the ground and rolled around in the dry grass, being tickled until her eyes streamed with tears. “Stop! Uncle! Seriously!” She gasped, and finally he did.

  He pulled her to her feet and up onto his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, swatting her ass all the way back to his house. She ignored the instant burn in her core at his touch, reminding herself this was her brother’s “bad boy” friend. Damned if it didn’t feel good being carried in the dark over his strong back which she pretended to smack but in reality loved to touch.

  After dumping her unceremoniously into the pool, he stood, smiling as she emerged. Pretending to be hurt, so he’d crouch down with concern, she reached the side and let him hold out a hand to her. Too easy. She yanked hard, pulling him into the water with her.

  They sat together on the swing, huddled under blankets, the small fire he’d started in the pit warming them in the cooling Michigan summer night. She snuggled under his arm, and tried to ignore the muscles of his thigh, so strong and so near hers. She clenched her hands together.

  “Do you still need me to take care of that tool of a prom date?”

  She smiled, loving the smell of him—sweat, chlorine, and man, all coiled in her brain, making her nearly breathless. Why the guy would suddenly do this to her, after all the time they’d spent together was beyond her. But, she knew one thing—she wanted him to kiss her so badly her lips burned.

  “No, I shook him off.” She laid her head back. Sensing his gaze on her, she turned and met it. “It’s nice to see you, Brandis.” Their faces were close enough to…. He smiled, which made her shiver.

  Brandis frowned, then looked away, speaking up into the night sky. “Yeah, well, I understand you are a Taylor-house boarder this summer?” He draped an arm around her shoulders. She had never felt safer than at that moment.

  She let her hand drift to his le
g, dying to feel it. He took it, pressed it to his lips without looking at her. “Don’t,” he said, his voice light. She leaned into his torso again.

  “Jack said he’s moving into the Church Street house with you,” she stated, for lack of anything better to say. He stiffened, pulled away from her slightly. Without thinking, she put a hand back on his leg, loving the sensation of his hard flesh under her palm. “Relax,” she whispered.

  “Um, yeah, well, tell you what,” he leapt up, ran both hands through his close-cropped hair. “I’m gonna head back.” She stared at him, a foreign sort of need pulsing through her, centered between her legs. His running shorts were still wet enough for her to see the distinct outline of his…. She looked away, mortified at herself for even thinking it but unable to get the image of his obvious erection out of her brain. Clearing his throat, he yanked on his running shoes and croaked out, “See you later, Mo,” before he took off through the gate, running a fast clip out of the southwest suburb, towards central campus and the house he shared with three other ROTC guys—and her overprotective brother.

  She watched him disappear, then poured water over the small fire and headed inside her newly adopted summer home. She knew it was not wise to get tangled up with Brandis, but she acknowledged in nearly the same thought that she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anything in her young life. He was wrong for her on many levels. He was her brother’s friend. And Jack would never in a million years approve. Brandis was older, nearly twenty-three, compared to her turning-eighteen-in-a-month. He was black, but color had never played a part in the friendship he’d shared with Jack or in hers with Denise. Ann Arbor was a very diverse and open-minded place, typical of many college towns nestled in the middle of conservative states. But even that seemed taboo now for some reason.