by Nora Roberts
“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?”
“I don’t know.” Cam dragged both hands back through his hair. “Six months, maybe a year.”
“A year.” All Phillip could do was close his eyes. “Jesus.”
“You talk to the lawyer about it,” Cam suggested. “See what’s what. But we present a united front to Social Services or they’re going to pull him. And I’ve got to find work.”
“Work.” Phillip’s misery dissolved in a grin. “You? Doing what? There aren’t any racetracks in St. Chris. And the Chesapeake, God bless her, sure ain’t the Med.”
“I’ll find something. Steady doesn’t mean fancy. I’m not looking at something I’ll need an Armani suit for.”
He was wrong, Cam realized. This damn business was going to spoil his appetite. “The way I figure it, Spinelli’s going to be back tomorrow, the next day at the latest. We have to hammer this out, and it has to look like we know what the hell we’re doing.”
“I’ll take my vacation time early.” Phillip bid farewell to the two weeks he’d planned to spend in the Caribbean. “That buys us a couple of weeks. I can work with the lawyer, deal with the social worker.”
“I’ll deal with her.” Cam smiled a little. “I liked the looks of her, and I ought to get some perks out of this. Of course, all this depends on what the kid said to her today.”
“I told her I wanted to stay,” Seth mumbled. Tears were raw in his stomach. The food sat untouched on his plate. “Ray said I could. He said I could stay here. He said he’d fix it so I could.”
“And we’re what’s left of him.” Cam waited until Seth lifted his gaze. “So we’ll fix it.”
Later, when the moon was up and the dark water was slashed by its luminous white beam, Phillip stood on the dock. The air was cold now, the damp wind carrying the raw edge of the winter that fought not to yield to spring.
It suited his mood.
There was a war raging inside him between conscience and ambition. In two short weeks, the life he had planned out, plotted meticulously, and implemented with deliberation and simple hard work had shattered.
Now, still numb with grief for his father, he was being asked to transplant himself, to compromise those careful plans.
He’d been thirteen when Ray and Stella Quinn took him in. Most of those years he’d spent on the street, dodging the system. He was an accomplished thief, an enthusiastic brawler who used drugs and liquor to dull the ugliness. The projects of Baltimore were his turf, and when a drive-by shooting left him bleeding on those streets, he was prepared to die. To simply end it.
Indeed, the life he’d led up to the point when he wound up in a gutter choked with garbage ended that night. He lived, and for reasons he never understood, the Quinns wanted him. They opened a thousand fascinating doors for him. And no matter how often, how defiantly he tried to slam them shut again, they didn’t allow it.
They gave him choices, and hope, and a family. They offered him a chance for an education that had saved his soul. He used what they’d given him to make himself into the man he was. He studied and worked, and he buried that miserable boy deep.
His position at Innovations, the top advertising firm in the metropolitan area, was solid. No one doubted that Phillip Quinn was on the fast track to the top. And no one who knew the man who wore the elegant tailored suits, who could order a meal in perfect French and always knew the proper wine, would have believed he had once bartered his body for the price of a dime bag.
He had pride in that, perhaps too much pride, but he considered it his testament to the Quinns.
There was enough of that selfish, self-serving boy still inside him to rebel at the thought of giving up one inch of it. But there was too much of the man Ray and Stella had molded to consider doing otherwise.
Somehow he had to find the compromise.
He turned, looked back at the house. The upstairs was dark. Seth was in bed by now, Phillip mused. He didn’t have a clue how he felt about the boy. He recognized him, understood him, and he supposed resented just a bit those parts of himself he saw in young Seth DeLauter.
Was he Ray Quinn’s son?
There, Phillip thought as his teeth clenched—more resentment at even the possibility of it. Had the man he’d all but worshiped for more than half his life really fallen off his pedestal, succumbed to temptation, betrayed wife and family?
And if he had, how could he have turned his back on his own blood? How could this man who had made strangers his own ignore for more than a decade a son who’d come from his own body?
We’ve got enough problems, Phillip reminded himself. The first was to keep a promise. To keep the boy.
He walked back, using the back porch light to guide him. Cam sat on the steps, Ethan in the rocker.
“I’ll go back into Baltimore in the morning,” Phillip announced. “I’ll see what the lawyer can firm up. You said the social worker was named Spinelli?”
“Yeah.” Cam nursed a cup of black coffee. “Anna Spinelli.”
“She’d be county, probably out of Princess Anne. I’ll pass that on.” Details, he thought. He’d concentrate on the facts. “The way I see it, we’re going to have to come off as three model citizens. I already pass.” Phillip smiled thinly. “The two of you are going to have to work on your act.”
“I told Spinelli I’d get a job.” Even the thought of it disgusted Cam.
“I’d hold off on that awhile.” This came from Ethan, who rocked quietly in the shadows. “I got an idea. I want to think on it awhile more. Seems to me,” he went on, “that with Phil and me around, both of us working, you could be running the house.”
“Oh, Jesus” was all Cam could manage.
“It goes like this.” Ethan paused, rocked, continued. “You’d be what they’d call primary caregiver. You’re available if the school calls with a problem, if Seth gets sick or whatever.”
“Makes sense,” Phillip agreed and, feeling better, he grinned at Cam. “You’re Mommy.”
“Fuck you.”
“That’s no way for Mommy to talk.”
“If you think I’m going to be stuck washing your dirty socks and swabbing the toile
t, you wasted that fine education you’re so proud of.”
“Just temporarily,” Ethan said, though he enjoyed the image of his brother wearing an apron and hunting up cobwebs with a feather duster. “We’ll work out shifts. Seth ought to have some regular chores too. We always did. But it’s going to fall to you for the next few days anyway, while Phillip figures out how we handle the legal end and I see how I can juggle my time.”
“I’ve got business of my own to deal with.” The coffee was beginning to burn a hole in his gut, but Cam drank it down anyway. “My stuff’s scattered all over Europe.”
“Well, Seth’s in school all day, isn’t he?” Absently Ethan reached down to stroke the dog snoring beside his chair.
“Fine. Great.” Cam gave up. “You,” he said, pointing at Phillip, “bring some groceries back with you. We’re out of damn near everything. And Ethan can throw whatever you bring together into a meal. Everybody makes their own bed, goddamn it. I’m not a maid.”
“What about breakfast?” Phillip said dryly. “You’re not going to send your men off in the morning without a hot meal, are you?”
Cam eyed him balefully. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Might as well.” He sat on the steps beside Cam, leaned back on his elbows. “Somebody ought to talk to Seth about cleaning up his language.”
“Oh, yeah.” Cam merely snorted. “That’ll work.”
“He swears that way in front of the neighbors, the social worker, his teachers, it’s going to give a bad impression. How’s his schoolwork anyway?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Now, Mother—” Phillip grunted, then laughed when Cam’s elbow jabbed his ribs.
“Keep it up and you’re going to end up with another ruined suit, ace.”
“Let me change and we can go a couple rounds. Or better yet . . .” Phillip arched a brow, slid his gaze over toward Ethan, then back to Cam.
Approving the plan, Cam scratched his chin, set down his empty cup. They shot off the steps in tandem, so fast that Ethan barely had a chance to blink.
His fist shot out, was blocked, and he was hauled out of the chair by armpits and ankles, cursing all the way. Simon leaped up to bark delightedly and raced circles around the men who hauled his struggling master off the porch.
Inside the kitchen, the pup wiggled madly and yipped in answer. To keep him close, Seth pulled off a chunk of the chicken he’d come down to forage and dropped it on the floor. While Foolish gobbled, Seth watched in puzzled amazement as the silhouettes headed for the dock.
He’d come down to fill his empty belly. He was used to moving quietly. He’d stuffed his mouth with chicken and listened to the men talk.
They acted like they were going to let him stay. Even when they didn’t know he was there to hear, they talked as if it was a simple fact. At least for now, he decided, until they forgot they’d made a promise, or no longer cared.
He knew promises didn’t mean squat.
Except Ray’s. He’d believed Ray. But then he’d gone and died and ruined everything. Still, every night he spent in this house, between clean sheets with the puppy curled beside him, was an escape. Whenever they decided to ditch him, he’d be ready to run.
Because he’d die before he went back to where he’d been before Ray Quinn.
The pup was nosing at the door, drawn by the sound of laughter and barking and the shouts. Seth fed him more chicken to distract him.
He wanted to go out too, to run across the lawn and join in that laughter, that fun . . . that family. But he knew he wouldn’t be welcome. They’d stop and they’d stare at him as if they wondered where the hell he’d come from and what the hell they were supposed to do about it.
Then they’d tell him to get back to bed.
Oh, God, he wanted to stay. He just wanted to be here. Seth pressed his face against the screen, yearning with all his heart to belong.
When he heard Ethan’s long, laughing oath, the loud splash that followed it, and the roars of male satisfaction that came next, he grinned.
And he stayed there, grinning even as a tear escaped and trickled unnoticed down his cheek.
FIVE
Anna got in to work early. Odds were her supervisor would already be at her desk. You could always count on Marilou Johnston to be at her desk or within hailing distance.
Marilou was a woman Anna both admired and respected. When she needed advice, there was no one whose opinion she valued more.
When she poked her head around the open office door, Anna smiled a little. As expected, Marilou was there, buried behind the files and paperwork on her cluttered desk. She was a small woman, barely topping five feet. She wore her hair close-cropped for convenience as much as style. Her face was smooth, like polished ebony, and the expression on it could remain composed even during the worst crises.
A calm center was how Anna often thought of Marilou. Though how she could be calm when her life was filled with a demanding career, two teenage boys, and a house that Anna had seen for herself was constantly crowded with people was beyond her.
Anna often thought she wanted to be Marilou Johnston when she grew up.
“Got a minute?”
“Sure do.” Marilou’s voice was quick and lively, ripe with that Southern Shore accent that caught words between a drawl and a twang. She waved Anna to a chair with one hand and fiddled with the round gold ball in her left ear. “The Quinn-DeLauter case?”
“Right the first time. There were a couple of faxes waiting for me yesterday from the Quinns’ lawyer. A Baltimore firm.”
“What did our Baltimore lawyer have to say?”
“The gist of it is they’re pursuing guardianship. He’ll be pushing through a petition to the court. They’re very serious about keeping Seth DeLauter in their home and under their care.”
“And?”
“It’s an unusual situation, Marilou. Up ’til now I’ve only spoken with one of the brothers. The one who lived in Europe until recently.”
“Cameron? Impressions?”
“He certainly makes one.” And because Marilou was also a friend, Anna allowed herself a grin and a roll of her eyes. “A treat to look at. I came across him when he was repairing the back porch steps. I can’t say he looked like a happy man, but he was certainly a determined one. There’s a lot of anger there, and a lot of grief. What impressed me the most—”
“Other than his looks?”
“Other than his looks,” Anna agreed with a chuckle, “was the fact that he never questioned keeping Seth. It was simply fact. He called Seth his brother. He meant it. I’m not sure he knows exactly how he feels about it, but he meant it.”
She went on, while Marilou listened without comment, detailing the conversation, Cam’s willingness to change his life, and his lifestyle, his concerns that Seth would bolt if he were taken out of the home.
“And,” she continued, “after speaking with Seth, I tend to agree with him.”
“You think the boy’s a runner?”
“When I suggested foster care, he became angry, resentful. And afraid. If he feels threatened, he’ll run.” She thought of all the children who ended up on the mean streets of inner cities, homeless, desperate. She thought of what they did to survive. And she thought of how many didn’t survive at all.
It was her job to keep this one child, this one boy, safe.
“He wants to stay there, Marilou. Maybe he needs to. His feelings about his mother are very strong, and very negative. I suspect abuse, but he’s not ready to discuss it. At least not with me.”
“Is there any word on the mother’s whereabouts?”
“No. We have no idea where she is, or what she’ll do. She signed papers allowing Ray Quinn to begin adoption proceedings, but he died before they were finalized. If she comes back and wants her son . . .” Anna shook her head. “The Quinns would have a fight on their hands.”
“You sound as though you’d be in their corner.”
“I�
��m in Seth’s,” Anna said firmly. “And I’m going to stay there. I spoke with his teachers.” She pulled out a file as she spoke. “I have my report on that. I’m going back today to speak with some of the neighbors, and hopefully to meet with all three of the Quinns. It may be possible to stop the temporary guardianship until I complete the initial study, but I’m inclined against it. That boy needs stability. He needs to feel wanted. And even if the Quinns only want him because of a promise, it’s more than he’s had before, I believe.”
Marilou took the file, set it aside. “I assigned this case to you because you don’t look just at the surface. And I sent you in cold because I wanted your take. Now I’ll tell you what I know about the Quinns.”
“You know them?”
“Anna, I was born and raised on the Shore.” She smiled, beautifully. It was a simple fact, but one she had great pride in. “Ray Quinn was one of my professors at college. I admired him tremendously. When I had my two boys, Stella Quinn was their pediatrician until we moved to Princess Anne. We adored her.”
“When I was driving out there yesterday I kept wishing I’d had the chance to meet them.”
“They were exceptional people,” Marilou said simply. “Ordinary, even simple in some ways. And exceptional. Here’s a case in point,” she added, leaning back in her chair. “I graduated from college sixteen years ago. The three Quinns were teenagers. You heard stories now and again. Maybe they were a little wild, and people wondered why Ray and Stella had taken on half-grown men with bad tendencies. I was pregnant with Johnny, my first, working my butt off to get my degree, and help my husband, Ben, pay the rent. He was working two jobs. We wanted a better life for ourselves, and we sure as hell wanted one for the baby I was carrying.”
She paused, turned the double picture frame on her desk to a closer angle so that she could see her two young men smile out at her. “I wondered too. Figured they were crazy, or just playing at being Samaritans. Professor Quinn called me into his office one day. I’d missed a couple of classes. Had the worst case of morning sickness known to woman.”