by Nora Roberts
Shaken, Cam pushed back from the table. “You think he was paying blackmail. That he diddled some student a dozen years ago and knocked her up? And now he was paying so she’d keep quiet. So she’d hand over the kid for him to raise?”
“I’m telling you what was, and what I know.” Ethan’s voice was even, his eyes steady. “Not what I think.”
“I don’t know what I think,” Phillip said quietly. “But I know Seth’s got his eyes. You only have to look at him, Cam.”
“No way he fucked with a student. And no way he cheated on Mom.”
“I don’t want to believe it.” Phillip set down his mug. “But he was human. He could have made a mistake.” One of them had to be realistic, and he decided he was elected. “If he did, I’m not going to condemn him for it. What we have to do is figure out how to do what he asked. We have to find a way to keep Seth. I can find out if he started adoption proceedings. They couldn’t be final yet. We’re going to need a lawyer.”
“I want to find out more about this Gloria DeLauter.” Deliberately, Cam unclenched his fists before he could use them on something, or someone. “I want to know who the hell she is. Where the hell she is.”
“Up to you.” Phillip shrugged his shoulders. “Personally, I don’t want to get near her.”
“What’s this suicide crap?”
Phillip and Ethan exchanged a look, then Ethan rose and walked to a kitchen drawer. He pulled it open, took out a large sealed bag. It hurt him to hold it, and he saw by the way Cam’s eyes darkened that Cam recognized the worn green enameled shamrock key ring as their father’s.
“This is what was inside the car after the accident.” He opened it, took out an envelope. The white paper was stained with dried blood. “I guess somebody—one of the cops, the tow truck operator, maybe one of the paramedics—looked inside and read the letter, and they didn’t trouble to keep it to themselves. It’s from her.” Ethan tapped out the letter, held it out to Cam. “DeLauter. The postmark’s Baltimore.”
“He was coming back from Baltimore.” With dread, Cam unfolded the letter. The handwriting was a large, loopy scrawl.
Quinn, I’m tired of playing nickel and dime. You want the kid so bad, then it’s time to pay for him. Meet me where you picked him up. We’ll make it Monday morning. The block’s pretty quiet then. Eleven o’clock. Bring a hundred and fifty thousand, in cash. Cash money, Quinn, and no discounts. You don’t come through with every penny, I’m taking the kid back. Remember, I can pull the plug on the adoption any time I want. A hundred and fifty grand’s a pretty good bargain for a good-looking boy like Seth. Bring the money and I’m gone. You’ve got my word on it. Gloria
“She was selling him,” Cam murmured. “Like he was a—” He stopped himself, looked up sharply at Ethan as he remembered. Ethan had once been sold as well, by his own mother, to men who preferred young boys. “I’m sorry, Ethan.”
“I live with it,” he said simply. “Mom and Dad made sure I could. She’s not going to get Seth back. Whatever it takes, she won’t get her hands on him.”
“We don’t know if he paid her?”
“He emptied his bank account here,” Phillip put in. “From what I can tell—and I haven’t gone over his papers in detail yet—he closed out his regular savings, cashed in his CDs. He only had a day to get the cash. That would have come to about a hundred thousand. I don’t know if he had fifty more—if he had time to liquidate it if he did.”
“She wouldn’t have gone away. He’d have known that.” Cam put the letter down, wiped his hands on his jeans as if to clean them. “So people are whispering that he killed himself in what—shame, panic, despair? He wouldn’t have left the kid alone.”
“He didn’t.” Ethan moved to the coffeepot. “He left him with us.”
“How the hell are we supposed to keep him?” Cam sat again. “Who’s going to let us adopt anybody?”
“We’ll find a way.” Ethan poured coffee, added enough sugar to make Phillip wince in reaction. “He’s ours now.”
“What the hell are we going to do with him?”
“Put him in school, put a roof over his head, food in his belly, and try to give him something of what we were given.” He brought the pot over, topped off Cam’s coffee. “You got an argument?”
“Couple dozen, but none of them get past the fact that we gave our word.”
“We agree on that, anyway.” Frowning, Phillip drummed his fingers on the table. “But we’ve left out one pretty vital point. None of us knows what Seth’s going to have to say about it. He might not want to stay here. He might not want to stay with us.”
“You’re just looking to complicate things, as usual,” Cam complained. “Why wouldn’t he?”
“Because he doesn’t know you, he barely knows me.” Phillip lifted his cup and gestured. “The only one he’s spent any time with is Ethan.”
“Didn’t spend all that much with me,” Ethan admitted. “I took him out on the boat a few times. He’s got a quick mind, good hands. Doesn’t have much to say for himself, but when he does, he’s got a mouth on him. He’s spent some time with Grace. She doesn’t seem to mind him.”
“Dad wanted him to stay,” Cam stated with a shrug. “He stays.” He glanced over at the sound of a horn tooting three quick beeps.
“That’ll be Grace dropping him back off on her way to Shiney’s Pub.”
“Shiney’s?” Cam’s brows shot up. “What’s she doing down at Shiney’s?”
“Making a living, I expect,” Ethan returned.
“Oh, yeah.” A slow grin spread. “Does he still have his waitresses dress in those little skirts with the bows on the butt and the black fishnet stockings?”
“He does,” Phillip said with a long, wistful sigh. “He does indeed.”
“Grace would fill out one of those outfits pretty well, I’d imagine.”
“She does.” Phillip smiled. “She does indeed.”
“Maybe I’ll just mosey down to Shiney’s later.”
“Grace isn’t one of your French models.” Ethan pushed back from the table, took his mug and his annoyance to the sink. “Back off.”
“Whoa.” Behind Ethan’s back, Cam wiggled his brows at Phillip. “Backing off, bro. Didn’t know you had your eye aimed in that particular direction.”
“I don’t. She’s a mother, for Christ’s sake.”
“I had a really fine time with the mother of two in Cancun last winter,” Cam remembered. “Her ex was swimming in oil—olive oil—and all she got in the divorce settlement was a Mexican villa, a couple of cars, some trinkets, art, and two million. I spent a memorable week consoling her. And the kids were cute—from a distance. With their nanny.”
“You’re such a humanitarian, Cam,” Phillip told him.
“Don’t I know it.”
They heard the front door slam and looked at each other. “Well, who talks to him?” Phillip wanted to know.
“I’m no good at that kind of stuff.” Ethan was already edging toward the back door. “And I’ve got to go feed my dog.”
“Coward,” Cam muttered as the door shut at Ethan’s back.
“You bet. Me, too.” Phillip was up and moving. “You get first crack. I’ve got those papers to go through.”
“Wait just a damn minute—”
But Phillip was gone, and cheerfully telling Seth that Cameron wanted to talk to him. When Seth came to the kitchen door, the puppy scrambling at his heels, he saw Cam scowling as he poured more whiskey in his coffee.
Seth stuck his hands in his pockets and lifted his chin. He didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to talk to anybody. At Grace’s he’d been able to just sit on her little stoop, be alone with his thoughts. Even when she’d come out for a little while and sat beside him with Aubrey on her knee, she’d let him be.
Because she understood he’d wanted to be quiet.
Now he had to deal with the man. He wasn’t afraid of big hands and hard eyes. Wouldn’t—couldn’t—let himself be afraid
. He wouldn’t care that they were going to kick him loose, toss him back like one of the runt fish Ethan pulled out of the bay.
He could take care of himself. He wasn’t worried.
His heart scrambled in his chest like a mouse in a cage.
“What?” The single word was ripe with defiance and challenge. Seth stood, his legs locked, and waited for a reaction.
Cam only continued to frown and sip his doctored coffee. With one hand, he absently stroked the puppy, who was trying valiantly to climb into his lap. He saw a scrawny boy wearing jeans still stiff and obviously new, a screw-you sneer, and Ray Quinn’s eyes. “Sit down.”
“I can stand.”
“I didn’t ask you what you could do, I told you to sit down.”
On cue, Foolish obediently plopped his fat butt on the floor and grinned. But boy and man stared at each other. The boy gave way first. It was the quick jerk of the shoulders that had Cam setting his mug down with a click. It was a Quinn gesture, through and through. Cam took a moment to settle, tried to gather his thoughts. But they remained scattered and elusive. What the hell was he supposed to say to the boy?
“You get anything to eat?”
Seth watched him warily from under girlishly thick lashes. “Yeah, there was stuff.”
“Ah, Ray, did he talk to you about . . . things. Plans for you?”
The shoulders jerked again. “I don’t know.”
“He was working on adopting you, making it legal. You knew about that.”
“He’s dead.”
“Yeah.” Cam picked up his coffee again, let the pain roll through. “He’s dead.”
“I’m going to Florida,” Seth burst out as the idea slammed into his mind.
Cam sipped coffee, angled his head as if mildly interested. “Oh, yeah?”
“I got some money. I figured I’d leave in the morning, catch a bus south. You can’t stop me.”
“Sure I can.” More comfortable now, Cam leaned back in his chair. “I’m bigger than you. What do you plan to do in Florida?”
“I can get work. I can do lots of things.”
“Pick some pockets, sleep on the beach.”
“Maybe.”
Cam nodded. That had been his plan when his destination had been Mexico. For the first time he thought he might be able to connect with the boy after all. “I guess you can’t drive yet.”
“I could if I had to.”
“Harder to boost a car these days unless you’ve got some experience. And you need to be mobile to keep ahead of the cops. Florida’s a bad idea.”
“That’s where I’m going.” Seth set his jaw.
“No, it isn’t.”
“You’re not sending me back.” Seth lurched up from the chair, his thin frame vibrating with fear and rage. The sudden move and shout sent the puppy racing fearfully from the room. “You got no hold over me, you can’t make me go back.”
“Back where?”
“To her. I’ll go right now. I’ll get my stuff and I’m gone. And if you think you can stop me, you’re full of shit.”
Cam recognized the stance—braced for a blow but ready to fight back. “She knock you around?”
“That’s none of your fucking business.”
“Ray made it my fucking business. You head for the door,” he added as Seth shifted to the balls of his feet, “I’ll just haul you back.” Cam only sighed when Seth made his dash.
Even as he caught him three feet before the front door, he had to give Seth credit for speed. And when he caught the boy around the waist, took the backhanded fist on his already tender jaw, he gave him credit for strength.
“Get your goddamn hands off me, you son of a bitch. I’ll kill you if you touch me.”
Grimly, Cam dragged Seth into the living room, pushed him into a chair, and held him there with their faces close. If it had just been anger he saw in the boy’s eyes, or defiance, he wouldn’t have cared. But what he saw was raw terror.
“You got balls, kid. Now try to develop some brains to go with them. If I want sex, I want a woman. Understand me?”
He couldn’t speak. All he’d known when that hard, muscled arm had wrapped around him was that this time he wouldn’t be able to escape. This time he wouldn’t be able to fight free and run.
“There’s nobody here who’s going to touch you like that. Ever.” Without realizing it, Cam had gentled his voice. His eyes remained dark, but the hardness was gone. “If I lay hands on you, the worst it means is I might try to knock some sense into you. You got that?”
“I don’t want you to touch me,” Seth managed. His breath was gone. Panic sweat slicked his skin like oil. “I don’t like being touched.”
“Okay, fine. You sit where I put you.” Cam eased back, then pulled over a footstool and sat. Since Foolish was now shivering in terror, Cam plucked him up and dumped him in Seth’s lap. “We got a problem,” Cam began, and prayed for inspiration on how to handle it. “I can’t watch you twenty-four hours a day. And if I could, I’m damned if I would. You take off for Florida, I’m going to have to go find you and haul you back. That’s really going to piss me off.”
Because the dog was there, Seth stroked him, gaining comfort while giving it. “What do you care where I go?”
“I can’t say I do. But Ray did. So you’re going to have to stay.”
“Stay?” It was an option Seth had never considered. Certainly hadn’t allowed himself to believe. “Here? When you sell the house—”
“Who’s selling the house?”
“I—” Seth broke off, decided he was saying too much. “People figured you would.”
“People figured wrong. Nobody’s selling this house.” It surprised Cam just how firm his feelings were on that particular point. “I don’t know how we’re going to manage it yet. I’m still working on that. But in the meantime, you’d better get this into your head. You’re staying put.” Which meant, Cam realized with a jolt, so was he.
It appeared his luck was still running bad.
“We’re stuck with each other, kid, for the next little while.”
Three
CAM FIGURED THIS had to be the weirdest week of his life. He should have been in Italy, prepping for the motocross he’d planned to treat himself to. Most of his clothes and his boat were in Monte Carlo, his car was in Nice, his motorcycle in Rome.
And he was in St. Chris, baby-sitting a ten-year-old with a bad attitude. He hoped to Christ the kid was in school where he belonged. They’d had a battle royal over that little item that morning. But then, they were at war over most everything.
Kitchen duty, curfews, laundry, television picks. Cam shook his head as he pried off the rotting treads on the back steps. He’d swear the boy would square up for a bout if you said good morning.
And maybe he wasn’t doing a fabulous job as guardian, but damn it, he was doing his best. He had the tension headache to prove it. And mostly, he was on his own. Phillip had promised weekends, and that was something. But it also left five hideous days between. Ethan made a point of coming by and staying a few hours every evening after he pulled in the day’s catch.
But that left the days.
Cam would have traded his immortal soul for a week in Martinique. Hot sand and hotter women. Cold beer and no hassles. Instead he was doing laundry, learning the mysteries of microwave cooking, and trying to keep tabs on a boy who seemed hell-bent on making life miserable.
“You were the same way.”
“Hell I was. I wouldn’t have lived to see twelve if I’d been that big an idiot.”
“Most of that first year Stella and I used to lie in bed at night and wonder if you’d still be here in the morning.”
“At least there were two of you. And . . .”
Cam’s hand went limp on the hammer. His fingers simply gave way until it thudded on the ground beside him. There in the old, creaking rocker on the back porch sat Ray Quinn. His face was wide and smiling, his hair a tousled white mane that grew long and full. He wore h
is favored gray fishing pants, a faded gray T-shirt with a red crab across the chest. His feet were bare.
“Dad?” Cam’s head spun once, sickly, then his heart burst with joy. He leaped to his feet.
“You didn’t think I’d leave you fumbling through this alone, did you?”
“But—” Cam shut his eyes. He was hallucinating, he realized. It was stress and fatigue, grief tossed in.
“I always tried to teach you that life’s full of surprises and miracles. I wanted you to open your mind not just to possibilities, Cam, but to impossibilities.”
“Ghosts? God!”
“Why not?” The idea seemed to cheer Ray immensely as he let loose with one of his deep, rumbling laughs. “Read your literature, son. It’s full of them.”
“Can’t be,” Cam mumbled to himself.
“I’m sitting right here, so it looks like it can. I left too many things unfinished around here. It’s up to you and your brothers now, but who says I can’t give you a little help now and again?”
“Help. Yeah, I’m going to need some serious help. Starting with a psychiatrist.” Before his legs gave out on him, Cam picked his way through the broken stairs and sat down on the edge of the porch.
“You’re not crazy, Cam, just confused.”
Cam took a steadying breath and turned his head to study the man who lazily rocked in the old wooden chair. The Mighty Quinn, he thought while the air whooshed out of his lungs. He looked solid and real. He looked, Cam decided, there.
“If you’re really here, tell me about the boy. Is he yours?”
“He’s yours now. Yours and Ethan’s and Phillip’s.”
“That’s not enough.”
“Of course it is. I’m counting on each of you. Ethan takes things as they come and makes the best of them. Phillip wraps his mind around details and ties them up. You push at everything until it works your way. The boy needs all three of you. Seth’s what’s important. You’re all what’s important.”