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sucked. Jeremy didn't need anyone to be in charge of him. But if he had well, if
he had, he wouldn't mind so much if it could have been Luke.
Luke probably didn't want the hassle, though. Except on weekends. He didn't
seem to mind if Jeremy hung around then.
"If you scowl any harder, you're going to crack the glass," Luke commented.
Jeremy looked at Luke and tried to lift one brow the way Luke did sometimes.
"I guess you can afford to fix it if it breaks."
"I guess you can afford to spend another hour on chores every weekend if you
do break it."
A grin slipped across his face before he could stop it. Every weekend. That
sounded good. Really good. Maybe he really should break a window, just to make
sure he'd be coming back.
"So what did you think of Maggie?" Luke asked.
"She's a fox," Jeremy said, more out of a desire to compliment his friend's taste
than because he'd noticed her appearance much. More genuinely he added, "She's
okay. She smiles a lot, but not like Mrs. Pearson."
"Oh? How does Mrs. Pearson smile?"
"Like she's got hemorrhoids and don't doesn't want anyone to guess."
Luke's laugh opened that warm, funny place inside Jeremy. It felt good, yet it
didn't. He squirmed in the seat. "So how come you married her, anyway? I mean,
you're not doin' her "
"Real men don't talk about 'doing' women," Luke said. "It's rude. It sounds like
a kid bragging about scoring a touchdown."
The guys he hung with wouldn't agree, but the guys he hung with weren't real
men, like Luke was. More like wannabes. "You're not sleeping with her." He
paused, waiting to see if that phrasing was okay. When Luke didn't comment, he
went on. "So I guess you didn't knock her up or anything. And you're not, like,
goofy on her, or you'd be sleeping with her."
"I am not going to discuss my relationship with Maggie."
Jeremy knew that tone of voice, knew he ought to let it go. But he couldn't. It
mattered too much. "I just wondered. I mean, one day you're not even dating her,
and the next bam. You married her."
Luke didn't say anything at first. Whenever he was silent that way, it made
Jeremy twitchy, as if his arms and legs needed to be doing something. Anything.
Lots of things, all at once. He couldn't stand it if Luke was mad at him, but he had
to know.
Once he'd asked Ms. Hammond, his social worker, if single guys ever adopted
kids. He'd made out like he wasn't talking about himself, but she'd given him one
of those looks, the kind that saw right inside him. Ms. Hammond was okay,
though. She hadn't made a big deal about it. She'd just said that it was really hard
for a single man to adopt a child. The courts wanted kids to go to a home with a
married couple.
Another reason the law sucked, in Jeremy's opinion. What was the big deal
about being married? It didn't make people nicer. It sure didn't make them
willing to put up with a "troubled youngster." Jeremy knew that's what they
called him troubled. He knew what it meant, too. He came from trouble. He was
trouble.
"Maggie and I got married because we wanted to be together," Luke said at last.
"There were other reasons, but they aren't any of your business."
Jeremy shrugged to show he didn't care, but deep inside, hope twisted, hard
and bright and painful, as hard to ignore as a loose tooth. He had to poke at the
feeling, wiggle it, see how it fit.
Maybe just maybe those "other reasons" involved him. Maybe Luke had
decided he didn't want to be single anymore, because single men couldn't adopt
kids. Maybe&
Jeremy swallowed hard. It was stupid to think that maybe Luke wanted to be in
charge of him all the time, not just on weekends. That he might have a real home
one of these days. A home & and a dad.
The house was so empty. Maggie had only been here a week. It shouldn't feel so
strange to be alone.
But she hadn't been alone all week, she reminded herself as she wandered into
the big living room, carrying the glass of wine she was supposed to be relaxing
with. It was the change that had her spirits sagging, that was all. All week, there
had been others around. Sarita. Her husband and the other hands. Jeremy.
And Luke. She bit her lip. It was Luke's absence she was feeling. How silly. She
would enjoy the privacy. In another minute or two, the house would stop feeling
abandoned, and she would definitely enjoy having some time to herself.
She drifted over to the big window and stood there looking out, sipping at a
mediocre Chardonnay. She smiled. Luke had excellent taste about a lot of things,
but he clearly had no palate. She supposed he didn't drink enough to tell one wine
from another.
He'd been drunk that night in Phoenix, though, drunk enough to blot out much
of his memory of that night. It had been & oh, yes, she thought grimly. December
22. The anniversary of his baby's death.
She hadn't thought about that anniversary last year. Nine years was a long
time, and she'd assumed Luke was over his grief. After all, the baby had never
lived to be born. Although, at seven months, it had been old enough to have lived
outside the womb, had it been given a chance&
It? Had the baby been a girl or a boy? She couldn't remember, and her failure
shamed her. Easier to think of it than of him or her, wasn't it? Easier, but a cheat,
a coward's trick for tucking the truth out of sight. The sort of thing her mother did
so well tidying away unpleasantness, pretending it didn't exist. Maggie wasn't
happy to find herself doing it.
Pamela hadn't killed an it when she'd swallowed those sleeping pills. She'd
killed her baby. Luke's baby.
Was death less of a loss if you'd never held your child in your arms? Or more?
"Hey, Maggie-may-I." The sound of the front door closing snapped her out of
her thoughts. "Was there anything left in the refrigerator for supper? Jeremy
tends to empty it out."
Just his voice. That's all it took to make her heart silly and for warmth to pool
in her belly. Maggie didn't turn around. She didn't dare. "I hope you weren't
counting on having the last of the roast for your supper, because I did. Oh, and
your brother called. Jacob."
"I grabbed a hamburger on the way back. What did Jacob have to say?"
"He and Claire are getting married at the end of the month. He sounded well,
not lighthearted, exactly." She had to smile at using "lighthearted" and "Jacob
West" in the same sentence. "But I have a feeling this marriage means more to
him than getting the trust dissolved. You should call him back."
"I will. Later." He came up behind her. "Why are you standing here in the
dark?"
"It isn't dark yet," she protested, but when she looked over her shoulder she
saw that it was, here in the house.
Outside, the light was fading in the gradual way of winter, streaking the sky in
quiet shades of rose and amethyst and ever-darkening blues.
Inside, the shadows had already thickened, drawing night to them. Maybe that
was what made Luke look suddenly strange to her. His smile was as crooked and
charming as ever. His clothes were no different than what he usually wore
cotton and denim, both softened by wear. But there was no color to his shirt now,
and no reading his eyes in the gathering darkness.
It was imagination, surely, that painted his expression with some mysterious [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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