by Nora Roberts
Rugged, tanned, thick curling hair with streaks of blond in the brown, hard muscles, salty talk. Yeah, Seth liked him well enough.
He didn’t mind Phillip. He was usually all pressed and polished. Seth figured the guy must have six million ties, though he couldn’t imagine why a man would want even one. But Phillip had some sort of fancy job in a fancy office in Baltimore. Advertising. Coming up with slick ideas to sell things to people who probably didn’t need them anyway.
Seth figured it was a pretty cool way to run a con.
Now Cam. He was the one who went for the flash, who lived on the edge and took the risks. No, he didn’t look so tough, he didn’t look like such a badass.
Then Cam turned his head, and his eyes locked on to Seth’s. Held there, unblinking and direct until Seth felt his stomach quiver. To escape, he simply closed his eyes and imagined himself back at the house by the water, throwing sticks for the clumsy puppy Ray called Foolish.
Knowing the boy was awake and aware of his gaze, Cam continued to study him. Good-looking kid, he decided, with a mop of sandy hair and a body that was just starting to go gangly. If he grew into his feet, he’d be a tall one before he was finished sprouting. He had a kiss-my-ass chin, Cam observed, and a sulky mouth. In the pretense of sleep, he managed to look harmless as a puppy and just about as cute.
But the eyes . . . Cam had recognized that edge in them, that animal wariness. He’d seen it often enough in the mirror. He hadn’t been able to make out the color, but they’d been dark. Blue or brown, he imagined.
“Shouldn’t we park the kid somewhere else?”
Ethan glanced over. “He’s fine here. Nobody to leave him with anyhow. On his own he’d just look for trouble.”
Cam shrugged, looked away, and forgot him. “I want to talk to Garcia. They’ve got to have test results, or something. He drives like a pro, so if he had a heart attack or a stroke . . .” His voice trailed off—it was simply too much to contemplate. “We need to know. Standing around here isn’t helping.”
“You need to do something,” Ethan said, his soft voice a sign of suppressed temper, “you go on and do it. Being here counts.” He stared at his brother across Ray’s unconscious form. “It’s always what counted.”
“Some of us didn’t want to dredge for oysters or spend our lives checking crab pots,” Cam shot back. “They gave us a life and expected us to do what we wanted with it.”
“So you did what you wanted.”
“We all did,” Phillip put in. “If something was wrong with Dad the last few months, Ethan, you should have told us.”
“How the hell was I supposed to know?” But he had known something, just hadn’t been able to put his finger on it. And had let it slide. That ate at him now as he sat listening to the machines that kept his father breathing.
“Because you were there,” Cam told him.
“Yeah, I was there. And you weren’t—not for years.”
“And if I’d stayed on St. Chris he wouldn’t have run into a damn telephone pole? Christ.” Cam dragged his hands through his hair. “That makes sense.”
“If you’d been around. If either of you had, he wouldn’t have tried to do so much on his own. Every time I turned around he was up on a damn ladder, or pushing a wheelbarrow, or painting his boat. And he’s still teaching three days a week at the college, tutoring, grading papers. He’s almost seventy, for Christ’s sake.”
“He’s only sixty-seven.” Phillip felt a hard, ice-edged chill claw through him. “And he’s always been healthy as a team of horses.”
“Not lately he hasn’t. He’s been losing weight and looking tired and worn-out. You saw it for yourself.”
“All right, all right.” Phillip scrubbed his hands over his face, felt the scrape of a day’s growth of beard. “So maybe he should have been slowing down a little. Taking on the kid was probably too much, but there wasn’t any talking him out of it.”
“Always squabbling.”
The voice, weak and slurred, caused all three men to jolt to attention.
“Dad.” Ethan leaned forward first, his heart fluttering in his chest.
“I’ll get the doctor.”
“No. Stay,” Ray mumbled before Phillip could rush out of the room. It was a hideous effort, this coming back, even for a moment. And Ray understood he had moments only. Already his mind and body seemed separate things, though he could feel the pressure of hands on his hands, hear the sound of his sons’ voices, and the fear and anger in them.
He was tired, oh, God, so tired. And he wanted Stella. But before he left, he had one last duty.
“Here.” The lids seemed to weigh several pounds apiece, but he forced his eyes to open, struggled to focus. His sons, he thought, three wonderful gifts of fate. He’d done his best by them, tried to show them how to become men. Now he needed them for one more. Needed them to stay a unit without him and tend the child.
“The boy.” Even the words had weight. It made him wince to push them from mind to lips. “The boy’s mine. Yours now. Keep the boy, whatever happens, you see to him. Cam. You’ll understand him best.” The big hand, once so strong and vital, tried desperately to squeeze. “Your word on it.”
“We’ll take care of him.” At that moment, Cam would have promised to drag down the moon and stars. “We’ll take care of him until you’re on your feet again.”
“Ethan.” Ray sucked in another breath that wheezed through the respirator. “He’ll need your patience, your heart. You’re a fine waterman because of them.”
“Don’t worry about Seth. We’ll look after him.”
“Phillip.”
“Right here.” He moved closer, bending low. “We’re all right here.”
“Such good brains. You’ll figure how to make it all work. Don’t let the boy go. You’re brothers. Remember you’re brothers. So proud of you. All of you. Quinns.” He smiled a little, and stopped fighting. “You have to let me go now.”
“I’m getting the doctor.” Panicked, Phillip rushed out of the room while Cam and Ethan tried to will their father back to consciousness.
No one noticed the boy who stayed curled in the chair, his eyes squeezed tightly shut against hot tears.
TWO
They came alone and in crowds to wake and to bury Ray Quinn. He’d been more than a resident of the dot on the map known as St. Christopher’s. He’d been teacher and friend and confidant. In years when the oyster crop was lean, he’d helped organize fund-raisers or had suddenly found dozens of odd jobs that needed to be done to tide the watermen over a hard winter.
If a student was struggling, Ray found a way to carve out an extra hour for a one-on-one. His literature classes at the university had always been filled, and it was rare for one to forget Professor Quinn.
He’d believed in community, and that belief had been both strong and supple in deed. He had realized that most vital of humanities. He had touched lives.
And he had raised three boys that no one had wanted into men.
They had left his gravesite buried in flowers and tears. So when the whispering and wondering began, it was most often hushed quickly. Few wanted to hear any gossip that reflected poorly on Ray Quinn. Or so they said, even as their ears twitched to catch the murmurs.
Sexual scandals, adultery, illegitimate child. Suicide.
Ridiculous. Impossible. Most said so and meant it. But others leaned a bit closer to catch every whisper, knit their brows, and passed the rumor from lip to ear.
Cam heard none of the whispers. His grief was so huge, so monstrous, he could barely hear his own black thoughts. When his mother had died, he’d handled it. He’d been prepared for it, had watched her suffer and had prayed for it to end. But this loss had been too quick, too arbitrary, and there was no cancer to blame for it.
There were too many people in the house, people who wanted to offer sympathy or share memories. He didn’t want their memories, couldn’t face them until he’d dealt with his own.
He sat al
one on the dock that he’d helped Ray repair a dozen times over the years. Beside him was the pretty twenty-four-foot sloop they’d all sailed in countless times. Cam remembered the rig Ray had had that first summer—a little Sunfish, an aluminum catboat that had looked about as big as a cork to Cam.
And how patiently Ray had taught him how to sail, how to handle the rigging, how to tack. The thrill, Cam thought now, of the first time Ray had let him handle the tiller.
It had been a life-altering experience for a boy who’d grown up on hard streets—salty air in his face, wind snapping the white canvas, the speed and freedom of gliding over water. But most of all, it had been the trust. Here, Ray had said, see what you can do with her.
Maybe it had been that one moment, on that hazy afternoon when the leaves were so full and green and the sun already a white-hot ball behind the mist, that had turned the boy toward the man he was now.
And Ray had done it with a grin.
He heard the footsteps on the dock but didn’t turn. He continued to look out over the water as Phillip stood beside him.
“Most everybody’s gone.”
“Good.”
Phillip slipped his hands into his pockets. “They came for Dad. He’d have appreciated it.”
“Yeah.” Tired, Cam pressed his fingers to his eyes, let them drop. “He would have. I ran out of things to say and ways to say them.”
“Yeah.” Though he made his living with clever words, Phillip understood exactly. He took a moment to enjoy the silence. The breeze off the water had a bit of a bite, and that was a relief after the crowded house, overheated with bodies. “Grace is cleaning up in the kitchen. Seth’s giving her a hand. I think he’s got a case on her.”
“She looks good.” Cam struggled to shift his mind to someone else. Anything else. “Hard to imagine her with a kid of her own. She’s divorced, right?”
“A year or two ago. He took off right before little Aubrey was born.” Phillip blew out a breath between his teeth. “We’ve got some things to deal with, Cam.”
Cam recognized the tone, and the tone meant it was time for business. Resentment bubbled up instantly. “I was thinking of taking a sail. There’s a good wind today.”
“You can sail later.”
Cam turned his head, face bland. “I can sail now.”
“There’s a rumor going around that Dad committed suicide.”
Cam’s face went blank, then filled with red-hot rage. “What the fuck is this?” he demanded as he shot to his feet.
There, Phillip thought with dark satisfaction, that got your attention. “There’s some speculation that he aimed for the pole.”
“That’s just pure bullshit. Who the hell’s saying that?”
“It’s going around—and some of it’s rooting. It has to do with Seth.”
“What has to do with Seth?” Cam began to pace, long, furious strides up and down the narrow dock. “What, do they think he was crazy for taking the kid on? Hell, he was crazy for taking any of us on, but what does that have to do with an accident?”
“There’s some talk brewing that Seth is his son. By blood.”
That stopped Cam dead in his tracks. “Mom couldn’t have kids.”
“I know that.”
Fury pounded in his chest, a hammer on steel. “You’re saying that he cheated on her? That he went off with some other woman and got a kid? Jesus Christ, Phil.”
“I’m not saying it.”
Cam stepped closer until they were face-to-face. “What the hell are you saying?”
“I’m telling you what I heard,” Phillip said evenly, “so we can deal with it.”
“If you had any balls you’d have decked whoever said it in their lying mouth.”
“Like you want to deck me now. Is that your way of handling it? Just beat on it until it goes away?” With his own temper bubbling, Phillip shoved Cam back an inch. “He was my father too, goddamn it. You were the first, but you weren’t the only.”
“Then why the hell weren’t you standing up for him instead of listening to that garbage? Afraid to get your hands dirty? Ruin your manicure? If you weren’t such a damn pussy, you’d have—”
Phillip’s fist shot out, caught Cam neatly on the jaw. There was enough force behind the punch to snap Cam’s head back, send him staggering for a foot or two. But he regained his balance quickly enough. With eyes dark and eager, he nodded. “Well, then, come on.”
Hot blood roaring in his head, Phillip started to strip off his jacket. Attack came swiftly, quietly, and from behind. He barely had time to curse before he was sailing off the dock and into the water.
Phillip surfaced, spat, and shoved the wet hair out of his eyes. “Son of a bitch. You son of a bitch.”
Ethan had his thumbs tucked in his front pockets now and studied his brother as Phillip treaded water. “Cool off,” he suggested mildly.
“This suit is Hugo Boss,” Phillip managed as he kicked toward the dock.
“That don’t mean shit to me.” Ethan glanced over at Cam. “Mean anything to you?”
“Means he’s going to have a hell of a dry-cleaning bill.”
“You, too,” Ethan said and shoved Cam off the dock. “This isn’t the time or place to go punching each other. So when the pair of you haul your butts out and dry off, we’ll talk this through. I sent Seth on with Grace for a while.”
Eyes narrowed, Cam skimmed his hair back with his fingers. “So you’re in charge all of a sudden.”
“Looks to me like I’m the only one who kept his head above water.” With this, Ethan turned and sauntered back toward the house.
Together Cam and Phillip gripped the edge of the dock. They exchanged one long, hard look before Cam sighed. “We’ll throw him in later,” he said.
Accepting the apology, Phillip nodded. He pulled himself up on the dock and sat, dragging off his ruined silk tie. “I loved him too. As much as you did. As much as anyone could.”
“Yeah.” Cam yanked off his shoes. “I can’t stand it.” It was a hard admission from a man who’d chosen to live on the edge. “I didn’t want to be there today. I didn’t want to stand there and watch them put him in the ground.”
“You were there. That’s all that would have mattered to him.”
Cam peeled off his socks, his tie, his jacket, felt the chill of early spring. “Who told you about—who said those things about Dad?”
“Grace. She’s been hearing talk and thought it best that we knew what was being said. She told Ethan and me this morning. And she cried.” Phillip lifted a brow. “Still think I should have decked her?”
Cam heaved his ruined shoes onto the lawn. “I want to know who started this, and why.”
“Have you looked at Seth, Cam?”
The wind was getting into his bones. That was why he suddenly wanted to shudder. “Sure I looked at him.” Cam turned, headed for the house.
“Take a closer look,” Phillip murmured.
When Cam walked into the kitchen twenty minutes later, warm and dry in a sweater and jeans, Ethan had coffee hot and whiskey ready.
It was a big, family-style kitchen with a long wooden table in the center. The white countertops showed a bit of age, the wear and tear of use. There’d been talk a few years back of replacing the aging stove. Then Stella had gotten sick, and that had been the end of that.
There was a big, shallow bowl on the table that Ethan had made in his junior year in high school wood shop. It had sat there since the day he’d brought it home, and was often filled with letters and notes and household flotsam rather than the fruit it had been designed for. Three wide, curtainless windows ranged along the back wall, opening the room up to the yard and the water beyond it.
The cabinet doors were glass-fronted, and the dishes inside plain white stoneware, meticulously arranged. As would be, Cam thought, the contents of all the drawers. Stella had insisted on that. When she wanted a spoon, by God, she didn’t want to search for one.
But the refrigerator was cove
red with photos and newspaper clippings, notes, postcards, children’s drawings, all haphazardly affixed with multicolored magnets.
It gave his heart a hitch to step into that room and know his parents wouldn’t ever again be there.
“Coffee’s strong,” Ethan commented. “So’s the whiskey. Take your choice.”
“I’ll have both.” Cam poured a mug, added a shot of Johnnie Walker to the coffee, then sat. “You want to take a swing at me, too?”
“I did. May again.” Ethan decided he wanted his whiskey alone and neat. And poured a double. “Don’t much feel like it now.” He stood by the window, looking out, the untouched whiskey in his hand. “Maybe I still think you should have been here more the last few years. Maybe you couldn’t be. It doesn’t seem to matter now.”
“I’m not a waterman, Ethan. I do what I’m good at. That’s what they expected.”
“Yeah.” He couldn’t imagine the need to run from the place that was home, and sanctuary. And love. But there was no point in questioning it, or in holding on to resentments. Or, he admitted, casting blame. “The place needs some work.”
“I noticed.”
“I should have made more time to come around and see to things. You always figure there’s going to be plenty of time to go around, then there’s not. The back steps are rotting out, need replacing. I kept meaning to.” He turned as Phillip came into the room. “Grace has to work tonight, so she can’t keep Seth occupied for more than a couple hours. You lay it out, Phil. It’ll take me too long.”
“All right.” Phillip poured coffee, left the whiskey alone. Rather than sit, he leaned back against the counter. “It seems a woman came to see Dad a few months back. She went to the college, caused a little trouble that nobody paid much attention to at the time.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Caused a scene in his office, a lot of shouting and crying on her part. Then she went to see the dean and tried to file sexual molestation charges against Dad.”