Theo blinked. He’d been nice?
“I’d really like to get them a dog,” she continued, speaking faster. Her drawl and quick speech blurred her words until they were almost unintelligible. “It’s just that, as you can see,” she waved at the oven with an unconvincing laugh, “we have so much to do with the house and getting the kids started at school and with my new job and everything, it’s just better that we wait to get a pet. That’s what I meant about not wanting to get a dog right now. You know, what D said that I said, and I’m so babbling right now, so I’ll just be quiet.”
Her words ended abruptly, and she stared at Theo, her panic returning in an almost visible flood. Theo was a little disappointed. He hadn’t missed the squirreliness. Plus, her rambling monologue had just convinced him that the reference to “survival” hadn’t meant merely food and shelter. This family was in trouble. “D?”
“Yes. Deirdre.” She took a quick breath, as if she was about to launch into another speech. When the oldest boy—the only one not to run outside with Viggy—shifted slightly closer to Jules, she closed her mouth with an audible click and gave Theo a strained, closed-mouth smile.
Theo’s gaze shifted to the teen. “What’s your name?”
“Sam.” There was no stutter that time. Theo met his eyes, and the boy looked back. There was something in his stance—a hidden flinch, a sense that he was torn between running and throwing a punch—that was troubling and familiar. Theo had seen something very similar when he’d interviewed abuse victims.
Theo’s gaze moved to Jules. Although he could’ve been mistaken, could’ve been influenced by this stupid attraction he was fighting, he was pretty sure she wasn’t the abuser. The protective attitude Sam had toward her didn’t fit.
“You’re all siblings?”
“Yes.” Jules’s chin tilted in a slightly belligerent way that Theo noted with interest. The gesture made him pretty sure her answer wasn’t entirely truthful.
“And the twins’ names?”
“Tyson and Thomas.”
Her entire body was braced, as if she was waiting for a blow. After regarding her silently for a moment, Theo took a step back and gestured toward the doorway into the hall. “I should get Viggy.”
Exchanging a quick glance, Jules and Sam walked out of the kitchen ahead of Theo. Sam gave a few worried looks over his shoulder, but Jules kept her gaze fixed ahead, her spine a little too straight.
Happy, excited shrieks greeted them as they walked through the still-open front door. The three younger siblings had found a fallen tree branch and were playing fetch with Viggy. The stick was so long, it threatened to bowl over anyone in the dog’s path, and the kids had to dodge away, laughing.
Jules sighed audibly. “Sam-I-Am, we’re going to have to get them a dog, aren’t we?”
Despite her long-suffering tone, she was smiling, and Theo found it hard to pull his gaze from her face. Tense and serious, Jules was hot. Happy, she was…more than hot. Theo forced himself to turn toward Sam, who’d made an amused sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. Both were watching their younger siblings with the same expression, a look that Theo had a hard time interpreting. There was love and worry and a ferocious protectiveness and so much more written on their faces, their emotions so naked and raw that Theo, feeling like a voyeur, cleared his throat and glanced at the kids playing with the Malinois.
Viggy was acting like a different dog. No, that wasn’t right. He was acting like the dog he used to be. The usual grief and guilt started to twist in his gut again, and Theo turned abruptly toward his SUV.
Only after he raised the back hatch did he turn back to the family. “Viggy.” His voice was too harsh. Theo knew that, even before Viggy’s tail dropped from its happy carriage and tucked between his legs. “Load.”
As the dog cowered, the kids went silent. Regret flooded Theo, filling him with a caustic burn that was all too familiar. Theo clenched his fists and took a breath, and then another. It was one thing for Hugh or Otto to see the mess that Theo and Viggy had become. For whatever reason, though, Theo didn’t want these kids to have to witness the wreck that Don had left. He especially didn’t want Jules to know. Why he cared what the squirrelly waitress thought was beyond him, but he couldn’t help sending her a sideways glance to see how she was reacting.
Although her smile had disappeared, Jules didn’t look scared or upset. Instead, she was looking back and forth between Theo and the dog with a thoughtful expression.
“He doesn’t want the fun to end,” she said lightly to her siblings. “Why don’t y’all help get him into the car?”