by Nora Roberts
“Do you miss him? Ray?”
The shoulder shrugged again, and Seth’s gaze dropped. “He was cool. But he was old and when you get old you die. That’s the way it is.”
“What about Ethan and Phillip?”
“They’re okay. I like going out on the boats. If I didn’t have school, I could work for Ethan. He said I pulled my weight.”
“Do you want to stay with them, Seth?”
“I got no place to go, do I?”
“There’s always a choice, and I’m here to help you find the one that works best for you. If you know where your mother is—”
“I don’t know.” His voice rose, his head snapped up. His eyes darkened to nearly navy against a pale face. “And I don’t want to know. You try to send me back there, you’ll never find me.”
“Did she hurt you?” Anna waited a beat, then nodded when he only stared at her. “All right, we’ll leave that alone for now. There are couples and families who are willing and able to take children into their home, to care for them, to give them a good life.”
“They don’t want me, do they?” The tears wanted to come. He’d be damned if he’d let them. Instead his eyes went hot and burning dry. “He said I could stay, but it was a lie. Just another fucking lie.”
“No.” She grabbed Seth’s hand before he could leap up. “No, they do want you. As a matter of fact, Mr. Quinn—Cameron—was very angry with me for suggesting you should go into another home. I’m only trying to find out what you want. And I think you just told me. If living with the Quinns is what you want, and what’s best for you, I want to help you to get that.”
“Ray said I could stay. He said I’d never have to go back. He promised.”
“If I can, I’ll try to help him keep that promise.”
Four
SINCE THERE SEEMED to be nothing cold to drink in the house but beer, carbonated soft drinks, and some suspicious-looking milk, Ethan put the kettle on to boil. He’d brew up some tea, ice it, and enjoy a tall glass out on the porch while evening moseyed in.
He was in hour fourteen of his day and ready to relax.
Which wasn’t going to be easy, he decided while he hunted up tea bags and overheard Cam and Seth holding some new pissing match in the living room. He figured they must enjoy sniping at each other or they wouldn’t spend so much time at it.
For himself, he wanted a quiet hour, a decent meal, then one of the two cigars he allowed himself per day. The way things sounded, he didn’t think the quiet hour was going to make the agenda.
As he dumped tea bags in the boiling water, he heard feet stomping up the stairs, followed by the bullet-sharp sound of a slamming door.
“The kid’s driving me bat-shit,” Cam complained as he stalked into the kitchen. “You can’t say boo to him without him squaring up for a fight.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Argumentative, smart-mouthed, troublemaker.” Feeling grossly put upon, Cam snagged a beer from the fridge.
“Must be like looking in a mirror.”
“Like hell.”
“Don’t know what I was thinking of. You’re such a peaceable soul.” Moving at his own relaxed pace, Ethan bent down to search out an old glass pitcher. “Let’s see, you were just about fourteen when I came along. First thing you did was pick a fight so you’d have the excuse to bloody my nose.”
For the first time in hours, Cam felt a grin spread. “That was just a welcome-to-the-family tap. Besides, you gave me a hell of a black eye as a thank-you.”
“There was that. Kid’s too smart to try to punch you,” Ethan continued and began to dump generous scoops of sugar into the pitcher. “So he razzes you instead. He sure as hell’s got your attention, doesn’t he?”
It was irritating because it was true. “You got him pegged so neatly, why don’t you take him on?”
“Because I’m on the water every morning at dawn. Kid like that needs supervision.” That, Ethan thought, was his story and he’d stick to it through all the tortures of hell. “Of the three of us, you’re the only one not working.”
“I’m going to have to fix that,” Cam muttered.
“Oh, yeah?” With a mild snort, Ethan finished making the tea. “That’ll be the day.”
“The day’s coming up fast. Social worker was here today.”
Ethan grunted, let the implications turn over in his mind. “What’d she want?”
“To check us out. She’s going to be talking to you, too. And Phillip. Already talked to Seth—which is what I was trying to diplomatically ask him about when he started foaming at the mouth again.”
Cam frowned now, thinking more of Anna Spinelli of the great legs and tidy briefcase than of Seth. “If we don’t pass, she’s going to work on pulling him.”
“He isn’t going anywhere.”
“That’s what I said.” He dragged his hand through his hair again, which for some reason reminded him he’d meant to get a haircut. In Rome. Seth wasn’t the only one not going anywhere. “But, bro, we’re about to make some serious adjustments around here.”
“Things are fine as they are.” Ethan filled a glass with ice and poured tea over it so that it crackled.
“Easy for you to say.” Cam stepped out on the porch, let the screen door slap shut behind him. He walked to the rail, watched Ethan’s sleek Chesapeake Bay retriever, Simon, play tag and tumble with the fat puppy. Upstairs, Seth had obviously decided to seek revenge by turning his radio up to earsplitting. Screaming headbanger rock blasted through the windows.
Cam’s jaw twitched. He’d be damned if he’d tell the kid to turn it down. Too clichéd, too terrifyingly adult a response. He sipped his beer, struggled to loosen the knots in his shoulders, and concentrated on the way the lowering sun tossed white diamonds onto the water.
The wind was coming up so that the marsh grass waved like a field of Kansas wheat. The drake of a pair of ducks that had set up house where the water bent at the edge of the trees flew by quacking.
Lucy, I’m home, was all Cam could think, and it nearly made him smile again.
Under the roar of music he heard the gentle rhythmic creak of the rocker. Beer fountained from the lip of the bottle when he whirled. Ethan stopped rocking and stared at him.
“What?” he demanded. “Christ, Cam, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Nothing.” Cam swiped a hand over his face, then carefully lowered himself to the porch so he could lean back against the post. “Nothing,” he repeated, but set the beer aside. “I’m a little edgy.”
“Usually are if you stay in one place more than a week.”
“Don’t climb up my back, Ethan.”
“Just a comment.” And because Cam looked exhausted and pale, Ethan reached in the breast pocket of his shirt, took out two cigars. It wouldn’t hurt to change his smoke-after-dinner routine. “Cigar?”
Cam sighed. “Yeah, why not?” Rather than move, he let Ethan light the first and pass it to him. Leaning back again, he blew a few lazy smoke rings. When the music shut off abruptly, he felt he’d achieved a small personal victory.
For the next ten minutes, there wasn’t a sound but the lap of water, the call of birds, and the talk of the breeze. The sun dropped lower, turning the western sky into a soft, rosy haze that bled into the water and blurred the horizon. Shadows deepened.
It was like Ethan, Cam mused, to ask no questions. To sit in silence and wait. To understand the need for quiet. He’d nearly forgotten that admirable trait of his brother’s. And maybe, Cam admitted, he’d nearly forgotten how much he loved the brother Ray and Stella had given him.
But even remembering, he wasn’t sure what to do about it.
“See you fixed the steps,” Ethan commented when he judged Cam was relaxing again.
“Yeah. The place could use a coat of paint, too.”
“We’ll have to get to that.”
They were going to have to get to a lot of things, Cam thought. But the quiet creak of the rocker kept taking his min
d back to that afternoon. “Have you ever had a dream while you were wide awake?” He could ask because it was Ethan, and Ethan would think and consider.
After setting the nearly empty glass on the porch beside the rocker, Ethan studied his cigar. “Well . . . I guess I have. The mind likes to wander when you let it.”
It could have been that, Cam told himself. His mind had wandered—maybe even gotten lost for a bit. That could have been why he’d thought he saw his father rocking on the porch. The conversation? Wishful thinking, he decided. That was all.
“Remember how Dad used to bring his fiddle out here? Hot summer nights he’d sit where you’re sitting and play for hours. He had such big hands.”
“He could sure make that fiddle sing.”
“You picked it up pretty well.”
Ethan shrugged, puffed lazily on his cigar. “Some.”
“You ought to take it. He’d have wanted you to have it.”
Ethan shifted his quiet eyes, locked them on Cam’s. Neither spoke for a moment, nor had to. “I guess I will, but not right yet. I’m not ready.”
“Yeah.” Cam blew out smoke again.
“You still got the guitar they gave you that Christmas?”
“I left it here. Didn’t want it banging around with me.” Cam looked at his fingers, flexed them as though he were about to lay them on the strings. “Guess I haven’t played in more than a year.”
“Maybe we should try Seth on some instrument. Mom used to swear playing a tune pumped out the aggression.” He turned his head as the dogs began to bark and race around the side of the house. “Expecting somebody?”
“Phillip.”
Ethan’s brows lifted. “Thought he wasn’t coming down till Friday.”
“Let’s just call this a family emergency.” Cam tapped out the stub of the cigar before he rose. “I hope to Christ he brought some decent food and none of that fancy pea pod crap he likes to eat.”
Phillip strode into the kitchen balancing a large bag on top of a jumbo bucket of chicken and shooting out waves of irritation. He dumped the food on the table, skimmed a hand through his hair, and scowled at his brothers.
“I’m here,” he snapped as they came through the back door. “What’s the damn problem?”
“We’re hungry,” Cam said easily, and peeling the top from the bucket, he grabbed a drumstick. “You got dirt on your ‘I’m an executive’ pants there, Phil.”
“Goddamn it.” Furious now, Phillip brushed impatiently at the pawprints on his slacks. “When are you going to teach that idiot dog not to jump on people?”
“You cart around fried chicken, dog’s going to see if he can get a piece. Makes him smart if you ask me.” Unoffended, Ethan went to a cupboard for plates.
“You get fries?” Cam poked in the bag, snagged one. “Cold. Somebody better nuke these. If I do it they’ll blow up or disintegrate.”
“I’ll do it. Get something to dish up that cole slaw.”
Phillip took a breath, then one more. The drive down from Baltimore was long, and the traffic had been ugly. “When you two girls have finished playing house, maybe you’ll tell me why I broke a date with a very hot-looking CPA—the third date by the way, which was dinner at her place with the definite possibility of sex afterward—and instead just spent a couple hours in miserable traffic to deliver a fucking bucket of chicken to a couple of boobs.”
“First off, I’m tired of cooking.” Cam heaped cole slaw on his plate and took a biscuit. “And even more tired of tossing out what I’ve cooked because even the pup—who drinks out of the toilet with regularity—won’t touch it. But that’s only the surface.”
He took another hefty bite of chicken as he walked to the doorway and shouted for Seth. “The kid needs to be here. We’re all in this.”
“Fine. Great.” Phillip dropped into a chair, tugged at his tie.
“No use sulking because your accountant isn’t going to be running your figures tonight, pal.” Ethan offered him a friendly smile and a plate.
“Tax season’s heating up.” With a sigh, Phillip scooped out slaw. “I’ll be lucky to get a warm look from her until after April fifteenth. And I was so close.”
“None of us is likely to be getting much action for the next little while.” Cam jerked a head as Seth’s feet pounded down the stairs. “The patter of little feet plays hell with the sex life.”
Cam tucked away the urge for another beer and settled on iced tea as Seth stepped into the kitchen. The boy scanned the room, his nose twitching at the scent of spicy chicken, but he didn’t dive into the bucket as he would have liked to.
“What’s the deal?” he demanded and tucked his hands in his pockets while his stomach yearned.
“Family meeting,” Cam announced. “With food. Sit.” He took a chair himself as Ethan put the freshly buzzed fries on the table. “Sit,” Cam repeated when Seth stayed where he was. “If you’re not hungry you can just listen.”
“I could eat.” Seth sauntered over to the table, slid into a chair. “It’s got to be better than the crud you’ve been trying to pass off as food.”
“You know,” Ethan said in his mild drawl before Cam could snarl, “seems to me I’d be grateful if somebody tried to put together a hot meal for me from time to time. Even if it was crud.” With his eyes on Seth, Ethan tipped down the bucket, contemplated his choices. “Especially if that somebody was doing the best he could.”
Because it was Ethan, Seth flushed, squirmed, then shrugged as he plucked out a fat breast. “Nobody asked him to cook.”
“All the more reason. Might work better if you took turns.”
“He doesn’t think I can do anything.” Seth sneered over at Cam. “So I don’t.”
“You know, it’s tempting to toss this little fish back into the pond.” Cam dumped salt on his fries and struggled to hold onto a simmering temper. “I could be in Aruba this time tomorrow.”
“So go.” Seth’s eyes flashed up, full of anger and defiance. “Go wherever the hell you want as long as it’s out of my face. I don’t need you.”
“Smart-mouthed little brat. I’ve had it.” Cam had a long reach and used it now to shoot a hand across the table and pluck Seth out of his chair. Even as Phillip opened his mouth to protest, Ethan shook his head.
“You think I’ve enjoyed spending the last two weeks baby-sitting some snot-nosed monster with a piss-poor attitude? I’ve put my life on hold to deal with you.”
“Big deal.” Seth had turned sheet-white and was ready for the blow he was sure would come. But he wouldn’t back down. “All you do is run around collecting trophies and screwing women. Go back where you came from and keep doing it. I don’t give a shit.”
Cam watched the edges of his own vision turn red. Fury and frustration hissed in his blood like a snake primed to strike.
He saw his father’s hands at the end of his arms. Not Ray’s, but the man who had used those hands on him with such casual violence throughout his childhood. Before he did something unforgivable, he dropped Seth back into his chair. His voice was quiet now, and the room vibrated with his control.
“If you think I’m staying for you, you’re wrong. I’m staying for Ray. Have you got any idea where the system will toss you if one of us decides you’re not worth the trouble?”
Foster homes, Seth thought. Strangers. Or worse, her. Because his legs were trembling badly, he locked his feet around the legs of his chair. “You don’t care what they do with me.”
“That’s just one more thing you’re wrong about,” Cam said evenly. “You don’t want to be grateful, fine. I don’t want your goddamn gratitude. But you’ll start showing some respect, and you’ll start showing it now. It’s not just me who’s going to be hounding your sorry ass, pal. It’s the three of us.”
Cam sat down again, waited for his composure to solidify. “The social worker who was here today—Spinelli, Anna Spinelli—has some concerns about the environment.”
“What’s wrong with the environme
nt?” Ethan wanted to know. The nasty little altercation had cleared the air, he decided. Now they could get to the details. “It’s a good, solid house, a nice area. School’s good, crime’s low.”
“I got the impression I’m the environment. At the moment, I’m the only one here, supervising things.”
“The three of us will go down as guardians,” Phillip pointed out. He poured a glass of iced tea and set it casually next to the hand Seth had fisted on the table. He imagined the boy’s throat would be burning dry right about now. “I checked with the lawyer after you called. The preliminary paperwork should go through by the end of the week. There’ll be a probationary period—regular home studies and meetings, evaluations. But unless there’s a serious objection, it doesn’t look like a problem.”
“Spinelli’s a problem.” Cam refused to let the altercation spoil his appetite and reached for more chicken. “Classic do-gooder. Great legs, serious mind. I know she talked to the kid, but he’s not inclined to share their conversation, so I’ll share mine. She had doubts about my qualifications as guardian. Single man, no steady means of employment, no permanent residence.”
“There are three of us.” Phillip frowned and poked at his slaw. A trickle of guilt was working through, and he didn’t care for it.
“Which I pointed out. Miz Spinelli of the gorgeous Italian eyes countered with the sad fact that I happen to be the only one of the three of us actually living here with the kid. And it was tactfully implied that of the three of us I’m the least likely candidate for guardian. So I tossed out the idea of all of us living here.”
“What do you mean living here?” Phillip dropped his fork. “I work in Baltimore. I’ve got a condo. How the hell am I supposed to live here and work there?”
“That’ll be a problem,” Cam agreed. “Bigger one will be how you’ll fit all your clothes into that closet in your old room.”
While Phillip tried to choke out a response, Ethan tapped a finger on the edge of the table. He thought of his small, and to him perfect, house. The quiet and solitude of it. And he saw the way Seth stared down at his plate with dark, baffled eyes. “How long you figure it would take?”