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This time, his dad gave him a tight squeeze before easing back. He kept a hand clasped on his shoulder as they shared a smiled, but then his dad sighed.
Here it comes.
“I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I’m going to ask you again to consider the board position for the foundation.”
He started to shake his head as his mom hurried toward them with a huge, square, linen-lined basket.
“I’d really like you to do this for me,” his dad insisted. “For the family.”
Nothing like laying on some family guilt. It hadn’t worked back when he wanted him to get into politics, and it wasn’t going to work now. His dad would just have to accept that, too.
Loyal didn’t say yes or no, or even that he’d think about it as he backed out from under his dad’s hand and his mom pushed the basket into his arms. It was heavier than he expected, with a number of competing scents wafting up from the items piled inside.
“What is this for?”
“I want you to take it to Roxanna.”
Sonofabitch.
Neither one of them would give him any peace, would they? He grit his teeth as he inhaled. “Mom—”
“It’s a care package I threw together to replace some things after the fire, and a couple of gift cards I keep on hand. Your dad and I are leaving for Grand Junction in an hour for the final campaign tour, and we won’t be home until Thursday. I don’t want it to wait that long, so don’t be an ass about it and get going. Please.”
That last word was supposed to soften the ass, but it also added guilt, especially when she raised her perfectly sculpted eyebrows. “It will not kill you to be nice to
her for the one second it’ll take you to drop it off.”
No, it wouldn’t kill him. Yes, he was being an ass about it.
It just annoyed the shit out of him that he was being guilted into dealing with the two people he most wanted to avoid. One, he didn’t quite know why his resentment was so damn strong.
The other he knew exactly why, and needed to stay the hell away from her.
Chapter 6
Seeing her burned apartment building in the daylight was worse than when she’d watched the flames shooting toward the sky. Roxanna realized she’d been in shock last night, and even during her walk, a small part of her kept hoping it had all been a bad dream.
Unfortunately, it was all too real. She commiserated with a few of her neighbors on the scene where the firefighters were still working, and they thanked her for the early warning. Most of them knew what she did for a living, and not one of them asked her how come she hadn’t been able to stop it. And even though she had helped get people out in time, she wished her gift gave her the ability to keep bad things from happening.
But as she’d told Loyal, it didn’t work that way. If it did, none of her neighbors would be homeless right now. She wouldn’t be homeless. And she wouldn’t have had to pay cash for the cheapest phone available because her cell, license, and other ID had gone up in flames with her purse.
When she returned to her shop after making one additional stop for underwear, bras, and socks, she tossed the smoky blanket from last night out into the back hall and put her purchases down on the chair. The coolness of the hanging beads against her fingers offered physical grounding as the musical harmony of them clinking together soothed her spirit.
A blinking light on the phone near the cash register indicated a message, and when she moved over to listen, the concern in Asher and Honor’s voices made her chest tight with renewed emotion.
She dialed them on her new phone, but because she’d been able to transfer her number, Asher didn’t bother with preliminaries when he answered. “Thank God you’re okay.”
“Hey, Rox.” Honor’s voice told her they had her on speaker. “How are you doing?”
“A little overwhelmed, but otherwise I’m hanging in there.”
“I wish we could give you a hug right now.”
The warmth of their concern came over the line and she smiled in appreciation. “I’d take it.”
“Loyal told us you stayed at the apartment last night,” Asher said. “He wasn’t a jerk, was he?”
If that was the first thing her best friend asked about, then he didn’t know she’d climbed into bed with his naked brother when she was practically naked herself. Loyal must not have told them about that part.
