Unexpected Family

She got back in Reese’s car and peeled out of the driveway, leaving Jeremiah Stone in her dust.

Good riddance, she thought.

CHAPTER FOUR

JEREMIAH WAITED UNTIL he could no longer see the dust plume behind Lucy’s car.

Not your finest showing, Stone. Not at all.

If his sister were alive she’d take him by his ear and give him a good shaking. But the truth was, he’d suffered through months of women with the best intentions coming through this house with their casseroles and sympathy and he’d watched the boys run roughshod all over them. Using that well-meaning sympathy to their advantage.

Eating pie for dinner, sleeping all together in Aaron’s room, playing video games for hours at a time, not doing their homework. The last babysitter he’d hired had let Casey walk around with Annie’s favorite green towel, like it was a baby blanket. And Ben… Christ, that kid’s temper had grown out of control the past few months. He was like a lit bomb and Jeremiah never knew when he was going to go off.

It’s not that he didn’t think the boys needed sympathy, but they also needed rules. He needed rules. He needed some boundaries and Ben needed to know that he couldn’t just run off to the barn every time he felt like Jeremiah was being unfair.

Jeremiah mentally braced himself and headed into the barn. Usually Ben sat in the empty stall at the back, burying himself in the clean hay. But he wasn’t there.

“Ben?” he yelled, and then listened for a rustle or a creaking board. Nothing. He climbed up into the hayloft and only found the cats snoozing in the sunlight.

The nine-year-old wasn’t in the arena, or feeding any of the horses in the paddocks.

He tried; he really did, not to jump to the worst possible conclusion. But the worst possible conclusion was the kind of thing that happened to this family time and time again. And he couldn’t stop himself from imagining him running off along the fence line toward the creek and the high pastures and all kinds of trouble. His heart, feeding on worry and anger, pounded in his neck as he stomped toward the house.

He threw open the front door and stepped into the living room where Reese was finally sitting up, his head in his hands. Aaron and Casey were eating peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and watching ESPN.

“We got a problem,” he said.

“Could you not yell?” Reese groaned.

“Ben’s run off.”

“What else is new?” Aaron asked, not taking his eyes off the TV and the baseball highlights.

“He’s not in the barn.”

Aaron glanced over. Annie’s eyes were in Aaron’s man-boy face, and it brought Jeremiah up short every damn time he looked at the kid. Aaron put down the sandwich and stood. “Casey and I will take the ATV,” he said.

“I’ll saddle Rider and check out the creek.”

“What can I do?” Reese asked.

“Stay here in case he comes back.”

“Oh, thank God,” he muttered, and flopped backward on the couch.

“It will be okay, Uncle J.,” Aaron said as he and Casey put on their boots. “He always comes back.”

Grateful for the help and the optimism, Jeremiah clapped his hand on the eleven-year-old’s shoulder, wishing things weren’t they way they were. Wishing these boys could just be boys, and he could just be an uncle and that every situation didn’t have the capacity for disaster.

* * *

LUCY DROVE UP to the small house she grew up in. She was happy to see the red climbing roses her mother had cultivated through the years still creating a green canopy over the south end of the house. It wasn’t warm enough for blooms yet, but every summer the scent of those flowers filled the air that came in through the window of her old bedroom.

Rose was the scent of her childhood. Of a warm, safe home. It was the scent of her family all together. In Los Angeles Sandra grew roses in pots on the balcony of their condo. But they weren’t the same. The scent had to combat exhaust and smog and Mr. Lezinsky’s cabbage rolls. And they didn’t bloom with the same wildness, the same gorgeous display of excess, as they did here.

Sort of like Mom, she thought.

Lucy stopped the car in front of the yellow house with white shutters and a bright red front door. For the hundredth time this morning, she called her sister.

“Jeez, Lucy,” Mia finally answered, lewdly out of breath. “Take a hint, would you?”

“Oh, for crying out loud. I’m outside. Stop whatever it is you two are doing. We need to talk.”

By the time she got out of the car and past the roses, Mia had the door open and was kissing Jack as he walked out the front.

“Your shirt is buttoned wrong,” Lucy pointed out, and Jack’s hands flew to fix the buttons on the black shirt he wore, in the process revealing pale skin and muscle.

“Stop staring at my husband,” Mia said.

“I’m sorry, I can’t stop. I didn’t think hydro-engineers were supposed to have bodies like that.”

“Mine does. Now git.” Mia pushed Jack down the porch steps. “I’ll meet you and the architect in an hour.”

“Wait,” Lucy said, stopping Jack from walking down the steps. “We have a situation up at the ranch house.” She filled Jack and Mia in on Walter’s sprained ankle.

“How long was he sitting there?” Jack asked.

“Doctors said according to the amount of fluid in his foot at least two hours.”

“Stubborn son of a bitch,” Jack muttered.

“Well, he’s on an air cast and is supposed to stay off it for at least three weeks. And that’s best-case scenario. And now Mom is talking about staying until Walter gets on his feet.”

“Well, that’s handy, isn’t it?” Jack blinked at Mia and then Lucy, as if the problem were solved.

Men are so dense.

“I’m not going to let our mom care for your dad. Not after what he did,” Lucy said.

“I agree with Lucy,” Mia said when it looked like Jack was going to argue. “We should just move back to the house,” Mia said. “I can—”

“No!” Jack said quickly. “I mean, I will move back if we have to, but…”

Mia ran a hand down his arm. That house didn’t have a whole lot of happy memories for Jack.

God, what a mess. Lucy didn’t want to go home and she didn’t want to stay. She didn’t want Mom taking care of Walter, but it was utterly unfair to ask these two to do it.

Mom wants to do it, she reminded herself.