by Eileen Wilks
No, once they were alone, with their son tucked up in bed, she and Ben talked. And that was all. They discussed the construction business and the law, and of course they talked about Zach.
They didn't talk about cancer. She'd deliberately introduced the subject once, mentioning the way she'd cut back on her work hours while undergoing radiation. Ben had looked determined and said she'd gone through hell, and thank God it was over.
Radiation was over, yes. She didn't know how to tell him that she still lived with cancer every day, that the changes it had made in her life, in her body and in her sense of self hadn't ended when the treatments did.
After that, she stopped bringing it up.
Duncan went out every night. Once he went to the bar; other nights he went running. Ben looked worried when Duncan ran at night, but he didn't nag.
She didn't think he knew Duncan sometimes ran in the middle of the night, too. She'd heard him leave a couple of times after everyone was in bed and should have been asleep.
Duncan. Oh, God, what was wrong with her? She kept thinking about another late-night conversation that had been more intimate than any she'd had with Ben. On the front porch, with Ben's brother.
That Saturday Gwen sat at the kitchen table, frowning irritably at the blinking cursor on her laptop's screen. Out back, Ben and Duncan were playing touch football with Zach and the twins, men against the boys. The boys had been winning the last time she checked. That might have had something to do with the handicap the men had assigned themselves. Dashing for the end zone while hopping on one foot with one arm held behind the back didn't lead to many touchdowns – though Gwen thought she'd have been laughing too hard to score against the two men, herself.
An excited squeal, the pounding of feet and a distinct crash sounded through the screen door. No one screamed, cried or cursed, though, so Gwen tuned that out easily enough. Yet still the cursor blinked at her, forgotten.
Her thoughts were harder to ignore.
Was Ben trying to show respect by not asking for intimacy? Did he want to keep her guessing? Or was he responding to the signals she couldn't help putting out? The ones that said "this far and no further."
Gwen was vastly confused, all right. But most of the confusion welling up from the tangles inside was about her, not Ben.
For so long she'd held on to her anger toward him like a child clutching a tattered scrap of blanket for comfort. But it was gone now. It had evaporated the night she talked with Duncan, just dried up and blown away. Her inability to forgive Ben had been wrapped around threads of rage and loss spun by her father's sudden death. Twice abandoned, she'd confused the source of one hurt with the other.
Without the security blanket of her anger, Gwen had no defenses left against Ben.
She sighed. Apparently she didn't need them.
How could she like the man so much and find it impossible to stop thinking about his brother? Gwen was thoroughly put out with herself. She scowled at the screen, placed her fingers on the keyboard and typed directions in the search box.
A jaw-cracking yawn caught her before she could add the latitude.
Dammit. This coming back to life, sexually speaking, had its drawbacks. She hadn't been sleeping well, and it wasn't just her mind keeping her awake nights.
She had a date with Ben tonight. A real, dress-up-and-go-somewhere date. Without Zach.
She sighed, her hands dropping away from the keyboard. When he'd asked her out last night, she'd said yes. It was right and reasonable to give him a chance, wasn't it? And, she admitted, to give herself a chance. Ben was everything she'd always wanted in a man – steady, honest, a rock to depend on in good times and bad. And she'd wanted him once. Surely, given the unruly state of her hormones lately, she could get past this little problem she had with seeing him as a lover. If she just gave both of them a chance.
If she could just stop dreading the evening.
A wounded dinosaur howled out front. She jumped. Good grief, she thought, putting a hand over her thudding heart. A truck's horn. That was what it had been. She called herself an idiot and forced her attention back to her work.
While she'd been brooding, the database had dutifully followed her instructions. She was copying the results of the search into the appropriate file when the screen door slammed open and a herd of wild beasts thudded into the kitchen.
One of them called out in Zach's voice on the way to the front of the house, "It's my other uncle! The one I don't know! An' he's driving a humongous truck!"
* * *
Charlie McClain was a tall, rangy man with a narrow face that nature had crowded with features not designed to fit it or each other – until he smiled. Then somehow those mismatched features sorted themselves into something altogether charming.
He smiled a lot.
He'd driven up in just the cab part of his rig, having left the trailer at the lot. Gwen didn't see much of him that afternoon. He thrilled all three boys by taking them for a spin in the humongous truck, then left on some business after dropping the boys back at the house.
Duncan left with him. No surprise there.
But it bothered Ben. He and Gwen were in the kitchen, belatedly washing up from lunch. Zach and the twins had migrated back to Mrs. Bradshaw's, and Ben was loading the dishwasher while Gwen put things away.
"Something's not right," he muttered. "Charlie's up to something."
"What do you mean?" Charlie had seemed perfectly cheerful to her, but then, she wasn't good at picking up subtle clues.
"It's the way he and Duncan looked at each other before they left. I know that look."
She hunted for a lid for the container she'd put the leftover taco meat in. Ben's cooking repertoire was limited, but he fixed great tacos and sizzling chili. "What kind of a look was it?"
"The kind they used to give each other when Charlie was about to pull some crazy-ass stunt. Duncan always seemed to know when Charlie was ready to cut loose. God knows how he could tell, but he could. That's usually how I knew Charlie was up to something. He and Duncan would look at each other that way." He rinsed the last plate. "The two of them have always been pretty tight."
None of them seemed to have been close to Ben. He'd been the oldest, the responsible one. The one who took care of the rest after their parents died.
He was still trying to take care of them. He made her ache. Gwen yanked off a paper towel and marched to the sink, where she wet it. "Did Charlie pull a lot of crazy stunts?"
"Oh, yeah." His grin was grudging, but there. "Nothing criminal, just stupid. He was pretty wild back in high school."
"He isn't in high school anymore," she said as reassuringly as she could.
"Some things don't change." Ben shut the dishwasher, then just stood there, scowling at it.
She busied herself wiping down the counter. Ben didn't move or change expression. Finally she said, "Listen, would you like to postpone our date? I wouldn't mind. If you need to talk to your brother tonight … well, family comes first."
The scowl lightened. "Are you sure?"
"Absolutely." She looked around. Everything was clean, dammit.
He came over and gave her a quick, one-armed hug. "Thanks. You're being good about this."
No, I'm not, she thought miserably. She was being a coward. A confused coward. "So should we cook or order in a pizza?"
They had pizza. Duncan and Charlie had picked up a couple of perfectly awful Japanese monster movies, planning to watch them with Zach while Ben and Gwen went out. Instead they all ate pizza in the den and watched the first movie together.
For once Duncan didn't leave right after supper. After Zach went to bed, the four adults played poker in the kitchen.
At eleven, they were playing dealer's choice with a dime limit on raises. Charlie had the deal. He'd set the game at five-card draw, jacks or better to open, nothing wild. The radio was playing a song about a cheating man whose woman had walked out on him.
Gwen was trying not to listen. Countr
y music wasn't her favorite, but she hadn't wanted to complain when Ben selected it.
Charlie had, and loudly, but he'd argued for a different country station, not another type of music. In the end they'd compromised – an hour on Ben's station, then an hour on Charlie's.
Duncan had smiled and said nothing. What kind of music did he like? she wondered. Country, like his brothers?
It was her turn to open. She'd drawn three cards and had managed, for once, to match one of the cards she'd kept – a queen. Compared with most of her hands this evening, a pair of queens was exciting. At least she could open.
She was having a wonderful time. "This one's worth two cents, at least," she announced, and added two pennies from her dwindling hoard to the small pile in the center of the table.
Ben made a disgusted noise and tossed his cards on the table facedown. "I'm out. Someone needs to get the deal away from that cardsharp."
"I'll do my best." Duncan pushed in five pennies. "See you and raise you three."
"Oh-ho." Charlie surveyed his brother lazily over the top of his cards. "Think you have something, do you?"
Duncan met Charlie's gaze, lifting his eyebrows slightly. "Do I?"
Gwen felt free to study Duncan, too. He was leaning back in his chair, his cards in a neat pile on the table in front of him. One hand rested near them, utterly relaxed. He had nice hands, she thought. The fingers were long and oddly graceful for so masculine a man.
He glanced at her, his rain-colored eyes curious. "Something wrong?"
"I don't know," she said darkly. "How can I? You look the same whether you've got an ace-high flush or a pair of deuces. She gestured at him, appealing to the others. "Look at that face. He's devious."
"That's our Duncan," Charlie agreed. "Calm, cool, collected. And sneaky. I'm betting he's bluffing this time. See you and raise you a nickel."
Gwen looked wistfully at her two queens and folded. The betting between Charlie and Duncan continued for another three rounds before Charlie ended it by calling. Duncan laid down his hand – an ace, a king, a seven, a five and a deuce. Different suits.
"Look at that," Gwen said, incensed. "My hand was better than that."
"He didn't win," Ben pointed out. "That sneaky cardsharp sitting beside you won."
"But he might have, and he didn't even have openers!"
Charlie chuckled and drew the pot to him. The pile of pennies in front of Charlie was twice the size of anyone else's. "That's called bluffing. He's good at it. Ante up," he added cheerfully, shuffling. "I need to build my retirement fund."
"Speaking of retirement funds," Ben said as he picked up his cards, "is yours in any trouble?"
"That was slick." Charlie grinned at him. "You're getting better at worming things out of suspects. You'll be happy to hear that my 401-K is fine. I sold my rig, though."
Very quietly, Ben repeated, "You sold your rig."
"'Fraid so. Pot's light. Who forgot to ante?"
"You've got contracts with Timberlane."
"That's who I sold it to. Gave them a decent deal on it in exchange for releasing me from the contract."
Ben scowled. "I can't believe you sold your rig. If Timberlane wasn't treating you right, you should have told me. Better to pay a penalty for defaulting on your contract than to lose your truck."
But Charlie was shaking his head. "That's not the problem. I'm sick of driving."
Ben tossed down his hand. "Where the hell did this come from? You always talk about how much you like seeing the country, keeping on the move."
"I like that part. But…" Charlie sighed and put down his cards, too. "I'm twenty-eight years old, Ben. I've been driving a truck since I turned nineteen. I don't want to do it the rest of my life."
"So go out on your own," Ben said stubbornly. "You've been talking about having your own trucking firm."
"If I'm sick of trucking, how would it be better to own a trucking firm? You like running things, Ben. I don't."
Gwen could tell Ben was trying to keep a lid on his temper, but the effort not to raise his voice made it come out in a low growl. "So what the hell are you going to do?"
Charlie leaned back in his chair. "Damned if I know. Maybe I'll try dealing in Vegas. Maybe I'll see if I can find a freighter captain desperate enough to hire me and work my way to Singapore. Maybe I'll stick out my thumb and just drift awhile. Hell, I might end up in college – though I do have trouble picturing me in a classroom." He shrugged. "I've got savings. I can take my time figuring things out."
"You don't have anything lined up," Ben said, his voice rising. "There's nothing you want to do, but you sold your rig, anyway. So you can hop a freighter or hitchhike."
"That's about it."
For a long moment, no one spoke. Gwen's hands were clasped tightly in her lap, her left hand holding her right, the thumb stroking firmly, as if she could push the tension out. Ben was going to yell at his brother or lecture him. Or both. Then they'd argue, and she didn't know what to say, how to help.
Duncan would know. She didn't question that sudden certainty, but glanced at him hopefully.
His eyes were filled with sympathy, but he was looking at Ben, not Charlie. As if it was Ben who was hurting or likely to be hurt.
Ben stared at the table, frowning mightily. "You never told me you were unhappy. I thought you liked driving."
"It snuck up on me. I kept blaming everything else – the paperwork, the tight schedules, the routes I'd been drawing lately. Then one night on I-20 I realized I just plain didn't want to do this anymore, much less for the rest of my life."
Ben set his shoulders and scowled at his six-foot-five-inch little brother. "You know you can bunk here if you need to. Or whatever. If you need money—"
"I know." Charlie's voice was oddly gentle. "Thanks, but my bank account is healthy enough, and this is something I have to do for myself."
Another silence fell. Ben wasn't yelling. No, he was looking miserable. And both his brothers had expected that. Gwen kept looking from one to the other of them, trying to understand what had just happened – and what hadn't happened.
"I'm sick of that station," Duncan said suddenly, pushing his chair back and standing. "I'm switching it."
Startled – disappointed – Gwen frowned at him. This was no time to start an argument over what radio station they listened to.
"Hey, I thought we'd agreed," Charlie said. "My pick first, then Ben's."
Duncan turned the dial and the music faded into static. "Gwen is tired of listening to songs about drinking and cheating, but she's too polite to say so." For some reason he winked at her. The way he was standing, she didn't think the others saw him do that.
Ben frowned at her. "Do you want to listen to something else?"
"Even if she does," Charlie announced, "that doesn't mean we have to put up with that screeching and yelling Duncan prefers to real music."
Gwen might as well have not been there for the next couple of minutes, in spite of the fact that the brothers kept referring to her musical preferences – without giving her a chance to tell them what those might be. After a moment she noticed a comfortable rhythm to their bickering, an ease that hadn't been there moments ago. Even as the brothers insulted each other, they relaxed.
This was safe, she realized. They knew how to argue about music – they'd probably been doing it all their lives. And it had never mattered one bit in the way they felt about each other.
Understanding, Gwen hid a smile. Duncan had known what to do, how to ease them past all those jagged edges. Tentatively she offered her preference, breaking into the discussion to do so. "I like classical."
"Classical." Charlie's voice held exaggerated horror. "It can't be any worse than that cross-over crap you made us listen to," Ben informed him, and picked up his cards. "Duncan, find something classical for Gwen."
"There isn't a classical station closer than Denver, and the mountains interfere with picking that one up." The static faded into the last few bars of
a Metallica song. "Classic rock should keep us all lively enough for a few more hands."
"That's not rock, that's screeching. Try 101.3. They play the real thing."
The deejay plugged some diet aid that he swore worked without counting calories or doing exercise. The brothers argued about what constituted real rock. Gwen listened and smiled.
This was the kind of family she'd always dreamed of. They were loud, they were stubborn and they actually liked arguing – and that was okay. Each one of the brothers would do just about anything for the others. And each one of them knew it. If one of them robbed a bank and got thrown in jail, she thought, the others would give him hell for being such an idiot – and hire the best lawyer they could find.
If she married Ben, she'd be part of this family.
Oh, that was a happy thought. Foolish, maybe, but happy. Warmth and wishes sped through her as the brothers argued and the deejay started on the news. She glanced at Duncan, smiling. And the warmth shuddered to a stop.
He stood motionless, one hand in midair, as if some bizarre cold front had swept through the kitchen, missing the rest of them but freezing him in place. His face was blank, wiped clean … no, not that, she thought. Whatever struggled inside him, trapped behind the blind stare of his eyes, it wasn't clean.
It was the way his hand had stopped in midmotion over the radio that drew her attention to what the announcer was saying. "…killed two and injured five others. The identity of the sniper has not been confirmed, but sources indicate he may have been a disgruntled worker. Police sharpshooters—"
"Hey, Duncan, you going to turn that dial or do I have to get rough with you?" Charlie said with great good humor. He turned in his seat to look over his shoulder at his brother.
Gwen knocked her glass over.
Fizzy cola went everywhere, including Charlie's lap. She jumped up and exclaimed and apologized and ran for paper towels. By the time she turned back around, Duncan was entirely normal again. On the surface, at least. But she was beginning to wonder if the surface was all he let anyone see.