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“Are you?” He hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans, and she was suddenly aware of his bronzed forearms, all muscle and sinew, where his sleeves had been rolled up. His fingers framed his fly, and she looked up sharply to see an amused smile slash across his face. Set defiantly, his jaw showed the first shadow of a dark beard, and his teeth flashed white as he spoke. “Let me tell you the way I see it,” he said, moving closer. Too close.
Tiffany’s heartbeat quickened.
“Your daughter is only three,
probably doesn’t really understand what happened to her daddy, your son is on his way to becoming a major delinquent, this house is falling down around you, and you’re dead on your feet.”
“Is that what you see?”
“On top of all that, you’re trying to deal with being a widow and single parent.”
“Not that it’s any of your business.”
“These kids are my brother’s.”
She rolled her eyes and fought a surge of anger. “Come on, J.D., you haven’t shown much interest in them until now. Why all of a sudden? Don’t tell me that just because you had a motorcycle accident you’ve had some kind of epiphany, because I won’t believe it. It’s not your style.”
“And you know what my ‘style,’ as you call it, is?” His voice was low. Way too sexy. It brought back all those old, ridiculous emotions that she’d fought for much too long a time.
“Unfortunately, yes. I think I already mentioned that you’re too independent, irreverent and self-serving to work for your father.”
His eyes glinted with male challenge. “No doubt he’d agree with you, but he didn’t have much choice because he seems to think blood is thicker than water.”
“Is it?” There was no use continuing this conversation. “Time will tell.” She turned toward her little girl. “Chrissie, I’m going into the house and check on Stephen. Stay in the backyard.”
The imp, squatting and watching a butterfly flit from one dandelion head to another, didn’t reply.
“I’ll watch her,” J.D. offered.
“The gate’s locked, she’ll be all right,” Tiffany retorted. “You don’t have to—”
“I said I’ll watch her.”
Fine. What did she care? “I’ll just be inside,” Tiffany said rather than argue with the man. She stalked through the house and up the stairs, telling herself that she only had a few weeks with J.D. so close at hand, several months at the most. She could handle it.
She had no choice.
A Do Not Enter sign was posted on the doorknob of Stephen’s room. Tiffany ignored it, tapped lightly on the door and opened it herself.
Stephen was half lying on his unmade bed, staring up at pictures of models and rock bands and fast cars that he’d taped to the ceiling. His guitar lay across his abdomen, and his injured eye was nearly swollen shut. He rolled it toward her as she approached. “I want you to come with me to the emergency clinic, and I don’t want to hear anything else about it,” Tiffany said.
“Forget it.”
“We’re going, and right now. I can’t take a chance with your eye. So come on and get into the car. On the way there you can tell me why you and Miles got into it.”
“It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Of course it was, Stephen. Otherwise you wouldn’t have landed at the police station sporting the biggest shiner I’ve ever seen.” She stepped over CDs and video games to stop at the window. Christina had climbed into the old tire swing and had conned J.D. into pushing her. Tossing her black curls over her shoulder, the three-year-old clung to the ropes suspending the swing from a branch of the old apple tree and laughed delightedly. Tiffany sighed. When was the last time Christina had laughed—really laughed? When had Philip pushed her in a swing, or helped her on to a slide, or sat on the other end of a teeter-totter? Never. He’d never had the time, and here was J.D.—with most of his weight resting on his good leg as he shoved on the worn black rubber—sending Christina into a slowly spinning circle in the shade of the leafy tree.
Muttering under his breath, Stephen set his guitar aside and climbed to his feet.
“The officer said there was talk about a girl.”
Stephen snorted. “It wasn’t about a girl.”
“Then what? Isaac Wells?”
Stephen’s muscles tensed. Suspicion slitted his good eye. “I already told you that I don’t know nothin’ about him taking off.”
