AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Nothin’.”
“Black eyes like that don’t appear by themselves.”
With a disinterested lift of his shoulder, Stephen carried his skateboard and sauntered toward the house.
“Wait,” Tiffany commanded. “I think we should have your eye checked at the clinic or the emergency room.”
“I already told you it’s okay.”
Christina, as if sensing all of the attention was focused on her brother, sniffed loudly. “My chin hurts.”
“I know it does, honey.” Tenderly Tiffany placed a kiss upon her daughter’s temple. “We’ll fix it while we take care of your brother,” she assured her daughter.
Stephen snorted. “I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“Sure you do,” she quipped back
and followed him inside. J.D. didn’t hesitate but walked past a fading Apartment for Rent sign and up the two steps to the front porch.
“Gosh, Mom, just get off my case, okay?” He rolled his one good eye, and with as much attitude as he could manage, he dashed up the stairs. An instant later a door on the second floor slammed, and within seconds the sound of angry guitar chords filtered down the stairway.
Tiffany hesitated as if she wanted to chase after him, but finally shook her head. “I’ll just be a minute,” she said to J.D., and he noticed the worry in her amber eyes, as if some of the fight had left her.
His heart twisted stupidly. “You need some help?”
She looked at him straight on, those intense gold eyes holding his for a second. He saw the beat of her pulse at the base of her throat, and some of his suspicion melted. Maybe she was just an overworked single parent. “Thanks, but I can manage,” she said coolly as she carried Christina to the little bathroom tucked beneath the stairs. “I have the extra key. If you just give me a minute, I’ll get it for you. It’s in my purse, in the kitchen. Why don’t you wait for me there—have some iced tea or…whatever in the refrigerator.”
“Fair enough.” The scent of her perfume teased his nostrils as she closed the door behind her, and his groin tightened at a sharp, poignant and oh-so-sensual memory. Don’t go there, Santini. Silently he called himself a blind fool, then strode to the kitchen. He nearly banged his head on one of the pots suspended over the cooking island and resisted temptation upon spying a plate of home-baked cookies that rested on the edge of the counter.
Christina let out a yelp. “Stop it, Mommy!” she cried, then he heard Tiffany’s voice, hushed and soothing, though he couldn’t make out the words.
Gritting his teeth, he opened the refrigerator, found a couple of bottles of beer tucked inside the door and pulled one of them out. What the hell was going on here? One kid was banged up and the other beaten to a pulp before being escorted home by the police. Despite all her intentions, good or not, Tiffany seemed to be sliding in the motherhood department.
He twisted off the cap and tossed it into the wastebasket under the sink.
“Owww, Mommy, that hurts!” Christina was admonishing, her voice trembling.
“Shh, honey, it’ll just sting for a minute.” Tiffany’s voice faded again. Disturbed, J.D. walked out the back door into the hot afternoon. The covered porch opened on to a wide backyard. A swing and two rocking chairs were pushed against the worn siding, and planters filled with blossoming petunias, marigolds and some other flower he didn’t recognize splashed color against the porch rail. A small foil pie plate had landed upside down on the top step, and a spray of mud, flower petals and grass littered the walk.
J.D. eased past the mess and stepped onto the sun-dried lawn. Philip had bought this place—an investment of sorts, as their father was interested in expanding to this part of the state—just a year before his death. All the buildings—house, garage and carriage house—were painted a soothing dove-gray and trimmed with black shutters and doors. The white gingerbread trim and steeply pitched roofs added a touch of Victorian élan that, he supposed, appealed to nostalgic types who felt more comfortable in a rambling old manor than in a modern, utilitarian apartment house. Those renters would gladly forgo the convenience of a dishwasher for the gloss of original handcrafted woodwork.
He took a long sip from his bottle and felt the cold beer slide down his throat. Philip had never intended that his small, second family would move down here, but then Philip hadn’t planned on dying suddenly at forty-eight. Scowling, J.D. took another cool swallow. A hornet buzzed past his head while a neighbor’s dog began to bark incessantly, only to be scolded by a woman’s sharp voice.
“Cody, you hush!”
The dog ignored her and kept yapping.
A wail from a discordant guitar screamed down from the open window on the second floor of the main house. Squinting, J.D. looked up and saw his nephew standing in the middle of his bedroom. Biting his lower lip, Stephen bobbed his head, a hank of dark hair falling over his eyes while he banged on the strings. As if he sensed he was being watched, Stephen glanced through the window, and the guitar immediately fell silent. He disappeared from view.
J.D. wondered about the kid. Would he make it? Stephen seemed about to embrace the wild side of being a teenager. Just as he himself had done. J.D. had had a broken nose, stitches running up one leg from an automobile wreck and a juvenile record that fortunately had been cleared before he reached adulthood. Stephen seemed about to embark on the same dangerous path away from the straight and narrow—a path that included drinking underage, joyriding in “borrowed” cars, shooting BB guns at mailboxes and generally raising Cain.
“Hell,” J.D. muttered under his breath as Tiffany, with Christina in her arms, stepped outside.
The little girl had a bandage on her chin as well as her knee, but she was clean again, face scrubbed, with no trace of the tears or dirt that had tracked over her round cheeks.
Tiffany, too, had taken the time to release her ponytail and apply lipstick. Her glossy black hair framed her face which, aside from the touch of lipstick, was devoid of makeup. Nonetheless she was a striking woman. No doubt about it. With high cheekbones, pointed chin, straight nose and those golden eyes accentuated with thick, curling lashes, she had a way of making a man notice her. Add to the already fine features eyebrows that arched so perfectly they appeared arrogant, and the image was complete.
“Are you Daddy’s brother?” Christina asked. Her eyes rounded as if she’d just made the connection.
