The Call of Bravery

CHAPTER THIRTEEN



FOR THE FIRST time since he’d arrived, Conall dreaded going downstairs come morning. From day one, he’d thought about Lia the moment he opened his eyes, anticipating his first sight of her, the first sound of her voice. Today… God. What would she say? What could he say?

“I’m sorry” might be a good start.

Annoyed with himself and trying to ignore the unwieldy lump that had taken up residence in his chest, Conall showered and shaved, finally making his way down. The house was quiet—too quiet—and for a minute he had the fear she’d taken the boys and absconded for the day. He couldn’t blame her; hadn’t he slunk around avoiding her yesterday?

Some major-league groveling was clearly called for. Not his specialty, but he could do it.

The lump in his chest lightened momentarily when he heard her talking to someone in the kitchen. Thank God, she hadn’t left.

She was on the phone, he found when he walked in, leaning with one hip against the counter and frowning while she listened. Her glance flicked to him, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

“We can do tonight,” she agreed. “Please make her parents understand that Sorrel’s condition for coming is that I be present.” Pause. “Yes, I know it’s unusual, you’ve already said that.” More listening. “Okay, seven o’clock.”

He’d already put water on for coffee and was pouring his cereal when she ended the call.

“Sorrel’s meeting with her parents at last?”

“Yes.” Her gust of breath held exasperation. “They’re upset about the idea of me sitting in on the session. Why, I have no idea. The counselor was going to be there anyway. I swear, it’ll be all I can do not to slap their faces if they start in again trying to get her to admit she accused Uncle Raymond falsely.”

He abruptly fixated on Uncle Raymond. “Is that his name?”

“Yes.” She leveled a sharp look at him. “You’re not thinking—”

“Thinking?” He lifted both eyebrows.

“Oh, shoot him, I don’t care,” she muttered, and automatically went to pour the boiling water through the coffee filter.

“You okay?” he asked her. He cleared his throat. “I mean…feeling all right?”

“Why wouldn’t I be feeling all right?”

“I thought maybe… Since your door was shut last night—”

“That I was sick? Oh.” She laughed. “Having my period, you mean. No, as it happens, I’m not due for almost another week.”

Should he be nervous, it occurred to Conall, because they’d been having sex during her most fertile time of the month with only condoms for protection? They had a pretty significant rate of failure. His heart picked up the pace a little, but— Oh, God. The image that filled his head of her pregnant was erotic and…something else, but not frightening.

And that scared the crap out of him.

“Was I wrong in assuming you were telling me I wasn’t welcome?” he asked, voice even.

Her breasts rose and fell with a quick breath. “No.”

“You going to tell me why?”

Their eyes met, hers wide and wary.

“I realized this morning that I let myself get a little too melodramatic last night while I brooded about our relationship, such as it is, but I’m not sure my conclusion was wrong.” She stayed where she was, a good distance from him at the kitchen table. His cereal was getting soggy, but he didn’t care. “You’ve…changed these past few days,” she continued.

“I’ve been working through some things,” Conall admitted, voice rough.

“You’ve hurt our feelings. The boys’ and mine.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

Lia shrugged. “You did it anyway.” She raised a hand when he started to speak. “No, let me say this. The truth is, you’ve been filling your time with us. And that’s okay, to a point. You’ve been good for the boys. It’ll be hard for them when you leave, but you’ve never pretended. They know your job will take you away eventually. You’ve helped heal them in the meantime. This may be the first time in their lives they’ve really had the chance to relate to a man.”

It was all he could do to sit still when he needed to jump up, pace, pinch the bridge of his nose, clear his throat again. But he only waited.

“I appreciate what you’ve done for them. But me… Well, I never should have slept with you. I’m not made for casual sex. And that’s what this is for you. I’m another convenience here—meals, toilet, shower, sex.”

He shot to his feet, his chair scraping back. “That’s bull—”

Lia shook her head so vehemently he had to stop, still ten feet away from her. “It’s true.” Her voice was so soft he could barely hear her. “I’m not mad. You never even hinted at anything else. We were two consenting adults. But I realized I don’t want to consent anymore.” Her shoulders moved. “That’s all.”

“You’re not a convenience. You were never that.” The words pushed their way out of him. “For God’s sake, it never occurred to me that sex would be provided along with kitchen privileges.” The idea seriously pissed him off. That she’d think for a minute that’s all she was to him. “You have to know that you’ve got me feeling things I didn’t know I could feel.”

She stared at him. Her hands gripped each other, her knuckles white. “What kind of things?”

Conall shook his head. He hadn’t articulated any of this to himself, how could he now to her? Why couldn’t she be patient? Why was she pushing him?

After a minute she gave a small, broken laugh. “Things. Boy, am I flattered.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “If you’ll excuse me, I promised myself I was going to wash the windows today.”

Before he could figure out what to say, she was gone. He heard her voice—talking to the boys, he diagnosed. Conall looked down at his soggy cereal, his appetite gone. He dumped the mess in the sink, turned on the disposal then put the bowl in the dishwasher.

He had no idea why he felt shell-shocked. This op wasn’t never-ending, however it sometimes felt. He’d be packing up and going soon no matter what. Maybe she was right; maybe it was better if they eased out of the relationship instead of going cold turkey. He looked at the coffee and dumped that, too. For the first time he noticed that the sky was overcast. Perfect. Suited his mood.

* * *

CONALL HAD A COUPLE of ideas for unsticking the pause button on Operation Watch The Grass Grow, which made it seem like good timing to call Duncan and ask if they could get together and talk. It wasn’t until Conall pulled into his brother’s driveway that he realized he wasn’t here to secure local police cooperation. He was here because of all these feelings rattling around inside him.

He swore under his breath, set the emergency brake and killed the engine, then sat there for longer than he should have. Was he really contemplating spilling his gut to the brother he hadn’t spoken to for ten-plus years? The brother he’d sworn he hated?

Why hadn’t he gone to Niall instead? They at least were friends of a sort.

He didn’t have to say anything. He could keep this brisk and business-like.

Conall got out when he realized Duncan had opened the door and was waiting, one shoulder propped on the frame. When Conall got close enough, his brother straightened. “I picked up some food at the deli and started making sandwiches.”

Conall nodded. “Thanks.” He’d suggested lunch if Duncan could choose someplace out of the way, and wasn’t surprised at the decisive answer. “My place.”

“Jane at work?” he asked, following his brother through the quiet house. He found himself looking around more this time, liking what he saw. The decor was classy but comfortable, with leather furniture that had a masculine feel, gleaming wood floors, white walls, a river rock fireplace in the living room, bookcases everywhere, and some eye-catching gallery quality wildlife photographs. With books and newspapers lying on end tables and a playpen with a bright mobile in the middle of the living room, it felt like a real home, something the house they’d grown up in never had. He wondered how much represented Duncan’s tastes, how much Jane’s.

“Yeah.” His brother’s smile was crooked. “I keep listening for her and Fiona. Funny feeling, after I lived alone for so many years, and now the house isn’t right when I’m the only one home.”

“You’ve changed.”

“People do.”

A container of coleslaw was set out on the table, as were sandwich makings. Good ones—crusty rolls, thick slices of turkey, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomatoes already cut up and some exotic mustard. Conall smiled, remembering the tasteless, squishy white bread he’d grown up eating, the prepackaged lunch meats, the American cheese that came individually wrapped in plastic. His own tastes had become considerably more sophisticated, too.

Duncan offered a choice of drinks. Conall chose the coffee he hadn’t been able to swallow earlier. He was starved, too, he discovered, as he assembled a sandwich. Dinner had been a hell of a long time ago.

They’d both taken a few bites before his brother said, “Something on your mind?”

Too much. So much he didn’t know where to start, or even if he wanted to start. The itchy, restless feeling ran under his skin, making him wonder what would happen if someone touched him unexpectedly. God, was he twitching?

“Yeah.” With his fork, he poked at the slaw. “Coming home like this has been weird.” Okay, that was a place to start.

“How so?” Duncan eyed him curiously.

“I hadn’t let myself think much about Mom and Dad. Growing up.” His shoulders moved uncomfortably, of their own volition. “Or you.”

“Yeah, I kinda noticed that when you ignored my letters.”

He found himself, strangely, smiling. “Ignoring your letters was when I did think about you. Telling yourself you don’t give a damn takes some effort, you know.”

Duncan laughed heartily. “I’ll be sure to write you a lot more often in the future.”

Conall met his brother’s eyes head-on. “I won’t be ignoring your letters anymore.”

It was a minute before Duncan nodded. “I’m glad.” He sounded hoarse.

“I was a bastard.”

“Yeah, you were.”

Ridiculous to be smiling again, but he was. Duncan was, too, he saw. They both concentrated on eating for a few minutes, the silence easier now, something important out of the way.

“So you’ve been thinking about Mom and Dad,” Duncan said at last, reflectively.

“No.” He frowned. “Yeah, I guess I have. Do you remember—” He grunted with amusement. “Actually, you probably remember a dozen times when I’d gotten the shit beat out of me.”

“Two dozen at least.”

“There was this once when I was about nine. My eyes were both swollen shut.”

“God, yes. Your face looked like raw meat.” Duncan leaned back in his chair, contemplating Conall. “I heard Mom sobbing in the kitchen. There were broken dishes all over the floor. I sneaked upstairs and— I don’t remember why I even checked your room, but you were huddled in bed.”

“That sounds like the time I’m thinking of.” Conall took a swallow of coffee, striving for a ruefully reminiscent tone. “They were fighting when I got home. Seeing me tipped them over the edge. I guess they thought I’d stayed upstairs. I heard her yelling at him that she had never wanted me, that he was the one who insisted they have another kid. He bellowed that I had to be her fault, that he didn’t believe I was his. He couldn’t see himself in me.”

Duncan bit off a harsh obscenity. “I knew something worse than usual was wrong.” Breathing hard, he bent his head for a moment. “You believed them, didn’t you?”

“What wasn’t to believe?” There. He’d pulled the tone off perfectly. “I think she did love you. Maybe Niall some. Me, not at all. I always knew that.”

“No.”

Conall didn’t know if he’d ever heard so much anger in one word. “What?”

“It’s not true. She did love you early on, before things got so bad with him. She pulled back from all of us after that. Niall, too. Why do you think he started getting in so much trouble?”

Was it true? Not that his mother had loved him—Conall really didn’t give a damn anymore—but that she hadn’t picked out him alone to reject? “I didn’t think about it,” he admitted. “I was a mess.”

“I’ve never seen anyone as angry as you.” Duncan sounded troubled. “Later, you got so slick no one saw below the surface. Teachers couldn’t say enough about you, you took the baseball team to the only championship they’ve had before or since—”

Conall laughed at that. “Really?”

They exchanged brief, wry grins.

“Really. Our sports teams suck.” Duncan returned to his point. “You had the girls eating out of your hand—”

“And other parts of my body,” Conall murmured.

Duncan chuckled, but continued, “I’d look into your eyes and I never saw any real emotion at all. I couldn’t tell if you’d tamped all that anger down like gunpowder that was going to catch a spark someday, or whether you were absolutely fine and I was imagining that you were a zombie and not the brother I remembered.”

A zombie? Was that what he’d been? Conall couldn’t decide whether to be amused or disconcerted.

“A zombie.” He tried it out on his tongue. “I think it was a little of both,” he finally admitted. “I tried like hell to believe I didn’t feel anything for anyone. Underneath…I’m pretty sure that kid who didn’t have anything but his pride and his anger was alive and kicking.”

His brother sighed. “I suspected that.”

“Maybe that’s where it gets weird. I don’t think anything changed until a few weeks ago.”

“When you came home.”

“Yeah.”

Duncan swallowed. “You didn’t want to come.”

“Hell, no.”

“You were still pissed at me.”

He grunted his agreement.

“So what happened?”

“I don’t know.” All those unidentifiable emotions felt like bits of flying grit, abrasive enough to scour glass. “I started seeing you—everyone—differently.”

His brother’s clear, often cool eyes—so much like his own—had softened with what might be compassion. “My suspicion,” he said, “is that the way you thought about me and the past was habit. Nothing else. You got home, looked around and realized somewhere in there you’d grown up and the man you are has only a passing resemblance to the kid who left town carrying his resentment like a backpack he couldn’t put down.”

Unblinking, Conall stared at him. Was that true? Had he been so damned oblivious he didn’t notice how he’d changed? Had he changed that much?

“I’ve been living my life based on vows I made the day I left home,” he heard himself say. “I wasn’t going to let anyone close. No wife, no kids, didn’t want family. Didn’t believe in forgiveness.”

Duncan only laughed. “Sounds like a teenager, doesn’t it?”

Jarred, Conall thought. God. It did. Melodrama city. “Still not so sure about the family ties,” he admitted. “I’d be a hell of a husband or father, with my job.”

Duncan made a noncommittal sound. Dished up some coleslaw.

“I’m not thinking about anything like that anyway. It’s the good ol’ days that have been on my mind.”

“Uh-huh.”

His eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You sound like me when I met Jane.”

Conall tensed. “What are you talking about?”

“Lia. Those boys. Seems to me you’d make a fine father, not to mention husband.”

He gave an irritable half shrug. “That’s ridiculous. You’re imagining things.”

His brother only looked at him.

“She’s— Okay, Lia and I have been—” He couldn’t say it. Filling in time having the best sex of his life. Talking. Making the air shiver when they were in the same room. “You know I’m out of here as soon as we wind this up.”

The pause was long enough to express Duncan’s opinion. To give him credit, though, he finally said only, “You have an idea of how to make that happen?”

They did talk business, then, Duncan reiterating his willingness to provide backup however and whenever Conall wanted it.

“If you’re right about them, they’re nobody I want living in my town.” His voice and expression both were hard. Oh, yeah, this was the brother Conall knew and loved.

“I’d better get home,” he said at last, stretching, then heard himself. Home? “Home away from home,” he amended.

Duncan smiled. “Lia seems good at making a home. That’s what she sets out to do for all those kids, isn’t it?”

Yeah. Maybe he’d only been caught up in something never meant for him. Vegetables from the garden bursting with flavor, homemade raspberry jam, swaybacked, kind-eyed horse and plump, gentle pony, white-painted fences and deep front porch and a woman who presided over it all with warmth and a firm hand.

He liked that hand a lot, especially when it was on his body. Conall felt himself shiver at a flash of memory.

“You ever find out whether those kids were illegals?” his brother asked idly.

Without hesitation, Conall answered, “No. I had no reason to pursue it.” He shrugged. “The kids are gone.”

“Makes sense,” Duncan said with a trace of amusement. “Like I told you, it wasn’t the kind of rumor I pay any attention to.”

Appreciating the assurance, Conall insisted on helping clean up and left a few minutes later feeling…disconcerted. Strangely, it wasn’t his brother’s voice he heard, but Lia’s.

I think there’s more to you than you believe.

Maybe she was right.

* * *

LIA WAS ASHAMED of how quickly she came to regret her decision. All she had to do was lurk by the window that afternoon watching Conall playing baseball with the boys after he got back from town.

He was catcher right now, coaching Walker on his batting and Brendan on his pitching. Every so often he’d rise from his crouch and gently wrap his arms around Walker to adjust his grip on the bat, or he’d walk out to the mound he’d created with a couple of shovelfuls of dirt and talk to Brendan, sometimes demonstrating a better way to hold the ball or something about his shoulder rotation. She didn’t have to see his smile to know he was smiling, or hear his voice to know it was that low, sexy rumble that held amazing kindness.

Who was he, really? Baffled, she found herself drawn to the window again and again even though all she was doing was torturing herself.

She’d accused him of spending time with the boys as nothing but a way to fill in his time, yet she’d known even when she said it that he was out there coaching Walker and Brendan and teaching them to use tools and answering their questions with sensitivity and honesty because he’d seen that they needed someone. He’d given of himself for them, not because he was bored.

The truth was, she had been afraid for herself, not really for the boys at all. And…she still didn’t know whether she’d been right or wrong.

You have to know that you’ve got me feeling things I didn’t know I could feel.

Had she been an incredible fool, closing a door she should have left open?

Guys said things like that, she told herself with would-be derision. He’d cleverly implied he cared without actually saying he did. In fact, he wouldn’t answer at all when she prodded.

Depression settled on her. What difference did it make anyway? He’d be gone before she knew it.

But I could have had a few more weeks if I was lucky.

She could say she was sorry. She could leave her door open tonight.

Yes, she could. And then feel cheap tomorrow.

Moving slowly, Lia went to the kitchen and reached into the cupboard for the flour canister. She’d make bread, take out some of her turmoil by pummeling dough.

Just think how light your cooking duties will seem when you’re not having to feed two men along with the kids.

That was more like it. Nothing like looking at the bright side.

* * *

LIA KEPT DARTING looks at Sorrel during the half-hour drive to Mt. Vernon, where the counseling appointment was to be held. She’d closed down after learning she’d be seeing her parents tonight. She hadn’t said a word during dinner, and sat silent with her face averted during the drive.

“You okay, honey?” Lia finally asked.

“Uh-huh.”

She considered and discarded half a dozen things she could say, eventually settling for a quick squeeze of Sorrel’s hand. The teenager gave one small sniff.

Lia had met the parents once. Sorrel had gotten her looks from her mother, who wasn’t much older than Lia—mid- to late-thirties, maybe. She’d kept talking about how difficult Sorrel was and how brave Lia must be to take her on.

“You know this all started with her telling a terrible lie, just to get herself out of trouble,” she’d said, her agitation revealing itself in jerky movements and flared nostrils and a voice sharp as broken glass.

“I’m good at giving kids a refuge where they can think about their behavior and come to decisions,” Lia had murmured. “Please don’t worry about her.”

She hadn’t been sure then that Mom would worry. Sorrel’s father, a quiet, thin man, hadn’t said much but had seemed distraught. He kept patting his wife, but his eyes had stayed on his daughter who was sitting out in the hall waiting for Lia to take her away from her parents.

Tonight, once Lia parked and locked up the car, she took Sorrel’s hand as they started toward the building. Sorrel held on so tight it hurt.

Inside, the receptionist let them down the hall and knocked lightly on the glass inset on Jennifer Riordan’s door. It opened immediately. Jennifer smiled first at Sorrel, then at Lia. She was young, probably still in her twenties, and hip enough to make the teenagers with whom she worked comfortable. She wore a diamond stud in her nose and half a dozen gold hoops climbing her ears. Her brown hair was worn short and spiky. So far as Lia was concerned, what counted was the warmth of that smile and the way she listened as attentively to the kids as she did to their parents.

“Come in. Your mom and dad are already here. Thanks for bringing her,” she added with another smile to Lia.

Sorrel’s feet seemed to have taken root where they were and she still held Lia’s hand in a death grip.

Lia bent her head slightly to whisper in her ear. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

Sorrel turned an anguished gaze on her.

“They won’t believe you, right?”

This nod of the head seemed dazed.

“It’s already happened,” Lia reminded her. “Hearing it again will be unpleasant, but you’ll say with dignity, ‘I’m telling the truth,’ and we’ll leave. Okay?”

The teenager took in a deep breath and let it shudder out. “Okay.” She released Lia’s hand, wriggled her fingers as if to restore circulation, then sailed into the room with her head high.

Lia was really proud of her.

The parents were both on their feet, attention riveted on Sorrel the minute she appeared. Lia could have been invisible, and she hoped it would stay that way.

“Pumpkin,” Sorrel’s dad said roughly, and stepped forward to hug his daughter. She submitted briefly then moved back. At her quiet dignity, his face contorted.

Tears ran down his wife’s face. “Your dad made Raymond admit…” She pressed fingers to her mouth. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry. So sorry I didn’t believe you. I loved him. I mostly raised him, which makes this my fault. I never thought he could do something like this, but I should have listened. Oh, Sorrel, can you ever forgive me?”

Sorrel burst into tears, too, and they all hugged and wept on each other, but finally she withdrew and returned to Lia’s side. Lia gently squeezed her shoulder for reassurance. Jennifer handed out tissues so everyone could mop up, then skillfully got all of them to open up about their feelings—the parents’ guilt and Sorrel’s sense of betrayal.

“We want you home again,” her mother said. “Please come home.”

“Raymond has been arrested,” her father told her. “I don’t know whether he’ll go to jail or not, but I can promise you’ll never have to see him again.”

Sorrel lifted her chin. “You know what he did to me.”

“Yes. Oh, dear Lord, yes.” Her mother’s voice cracked.

“I wanted to kill him,” her father said. “I never imagined feeling anything like this. I broke his nose.”

Sorrel’s eyes widened. “You hit Uncle Ray?”

“Yes.”

“Did—did he hit you?”

He shook his head. “He crumpled. Sobbed and sniveled and kept saying how sorry he was, that he couldn’t help himself. I walked out.”

“Oh, Daddy.” Sorrel threw herself across the room for another, fierce hug, then resumed to her seat.

“Will you come home?” he asked. “Give us a chance?”

If they imagined forgiveness would come in a heartfelt rush, they were kidding themselves, Lia thought. It would be a slow and painful process that might never be complete. But she also knew that the biggest battle for Sorrel would be overcoming her own sense of shame.

She tensed, stole one scared look at Lia, then said in a small scratchy voice, “When I ran away, it was hard to get enough to eat.”

Her mother hastened into speech. “I know, honey. I’m so sorry. But I promise we’ll listen and nothing like that has to happen again and—”

“I need you to listen now.”

The words dried up. Her parents held hands and stared at her, apprehension on their faces.

“I mostly stayed with other kids. Runaways. You know.”

Nobody said anything.

“And…the other girls said there was an easy way to make money.”

A horrified sound escaped her father.

“And I thought, well, I’ve done it before so what difference does it make?” Sorrel sounded defiant and painfully young. She was trembling. “So I had sex with men for money.”

“Oh, no.” Her mother was crying again. “Oh, honey. Have you been tested? What if you’d gotten pregnant?”

“I’m not.”

“She was tested,” Jennifer murmured.

“There were only, like, five or six. And mostly when I said they had to use condoms, they did.”

All the adults heard the mostly. What kind of monster would not only have sex with a young girl who only wanted enough money to buy something to eat, but would refuse to use a condom?

Uncle Raymond, Lia thought grimly, probably hadn’t used one either.

“It was really awful,” Sorrel said in that same scratchy voice, “but it wasn’t as bad as doing it with him.”

Her father said, almost calmly, “I would like to kill them all. And I will never forgive myself for letting this happen to you.”

Sorrel shrugged and looked down at her hands, knotted together in her lap.

“We love you,” her mother said. “I know right now you don’t believe that, but it’s true. We love you so much.”

After a very long wait, Sorrel mumbled, “I love you, too.”

Her mother gasped and pressed her face into her husband’s shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her and cried.

Lia held Sorrel, who continued to sit stiffly with her head bowed. Finally Jennifer stood.

“I think we’ve made a real start tonight. But I’m going to suggest that Sorrel go home with Lia and we set up another meeting soon. Perhaps Thursday?”

Lia nodded. After a minute Sorrel’s father did, too.

“Healing takes time,” Jennifer said softly.

The minute Lia stood, Sorrel did, too. They left her parents and the counselor, walking silently out to the car.

Lia handed her more tissues, and let her cry all the way home.