The Return Of Adams Cade. Bj James

one was dark-haired and dark-eyed, while the other was blond with blue eyes, there were inexplicable similarities. Similarities caught in a look, a gesture, a tilt of the head. The flash of a smile. A rare laugh.

      They were all sons of Caesar Augustus Cade, but with different mothers. Not one bore any resemblance to Gus, except in pride and determination. In looks, each was his mother’s son.

      In choosing his wives, Gus had seemed determined to create a family as diverse as possible. Adams’ mother was of French descent. Lincoln’s, a Scot. Jackson’s was Irish. And Jefferson’s, a Dane. All women with nothing in common except uncommon beauty and a distinct lack of staying power. Thus, with nothing of Gus, the common denominator, in their physical makeup there was little reason for the existence of any other similarities. Yet, with their strong-willed father the only constant force in their young lives, there existed an indefinable element proving they were brothers, and men of a kind.

      Eden couldn’t explain the phenomenon in the past. She couldn’t explain it now. But as Adams and Jefferson faced each other in a room gone silent, she was never more aware of it.

      Beyond the windows the garden was alive with bird-song. In the freshening breeze live oaks swayed and whispered, the old house shifted and creaked. Every sound seemed magnified, and every observer frozen in place as the odd moment dragged by.

      Then Adams smiled and hooked a palm around the younger man’s neck to draw him into a brother’s rough embrace. “Jeffie.”

      The childhood name eased the building tension. Soon all four were laughing, talking at once. Setting down her cup, meaning to slip away, Eden circled around them to the door. She’d almost reached her goal when an arm slid around her waist. Gentle fingers splayed circumspectly over her midriff drew her back against a hard, brawny chest.

      Adams. She would know his touch anywhere, anytime.

      “Where do you think you’re going?” He leaned so close his breath fanned a stray tendril that curled against her throat. “You aren’t escaping us so easily.”

      Laughing, with a sense of old times revisited, Eden turned, expecting he would release her. Instead, she found herself standing in the circle of his arms as he kept her close.

      “I wasn’t escaping, Adams.” She was pleased she could speak naturally when he touched her with familiar intimacy.

      “Then you always sidle out the door like a shadow?” Adams lips tilted in the smallest of smiles. “Strange. Of all the things I remember about you, that isn’t one of them.”

      Eden cast a startled look at Adams, but saw no hint of double entendre. “I wasn’t sidling. I wasn’t escaping.” Still caught in his embrace, she drew herself up to her proudest posture. She had grown taller through the years, but Adams was still taller. “I wanted to give you privacy with your family.”

      By the suddenly solemn look that gave a hard edge to his features, she knew he realized she’d caught the fleeting moment of tension with Jefferson. In the same look she saw that an explanation would be a long time coming. If ever.

      Secrets. There were secrets where once there had been only open trust. Perhaps it was another manifestation of the changes prison had wrought? The wedge a hard and alien life could drive into the heart of a family? Yet why with only Jefferson and not with Lincoln and Jackson?

      It made no sense. But Eden knew it had been all too real.

      “Stay, Eden,” Adams insisted. “My brothers and I will have plenty of time later for private talks. Being together as we are is like old times. I know better than anyone that what’s been done can’t be undone, and I know the choices of youth have changed all of us. For now, let’s not think of choices and what can’t be changed. Instead, let’s remember the way things were.”

      “Hear! Hear!” Lincoln said quietly, but with his piercing gray gaze meeting his brother’s curiously.

      “Yes,” Jackson joined in. Catching the spirit of Adams’ wishes, he snatched up his half-filled coffee cup. Holding it aloft as if it were a flute of champagne, with a slanted grin, he proposed a toast. “To the way things were.”

      For a startled instant, no one moved. Then, one by one, with Eden leading the way, Adams and Lincoln and Jefferson each took up his own cup. Over a rumble of chuckles and the clatter of converging cups, Adams recalled another tradition from their past. “One Cade for all, and all Cades for one.”

      In a continuation of that single move, he turned to Eden, his gaze touching hers, keeping it, and he added as he always had in the last of those youthful years, “And for Robbie.”

      “For Robbie,” the younger Cades exclaimed, turning in concert, bowing with a natural gallantry rivaling that of their fictional heroes, Alexandre Dumas’ musketeers.

      Adams called her Robbie now, and it seemed only fitting for the mood and the time it recalled. Eden hadn’t forgotten the hours she’d spent lying on sandy dunes basking in the sun, while Adams read the wonderful adventures aloud. No matter how many times they heard the stories, neither she nor the Cades ever seemed to tire of them. For her, the fascination was the beauty and the pageantry, and Adams’ voice. For the brothers, she always felt it was the camaraderie, the honor and the loyalty. And, perhaps, a gentle dream that offered shelter from a stringent, demanding life and the volatile wrath of their father.

      She accepted their homage with learned grace. As she accepted, a look at Jefferson had her wondering almost sadly if changes wrought by choices and by deeds that could never be undone would make recapturing that innocent loyalty impossible.

      “To Eden.”

      Adams’ voice drew her from thoughts bordering on morose. Thoughts she mustn’t let color his homecoming. Looking up from her mesmerized study of the dark liquid in her cup, she found herself held in the snare of his fascinating eyes.

      “Once our Robbie,” he said, lifting the cup higher. “Now the beautiful and exquisite Eden Claibourne.”

      “To Eden,” the Cades called out in unison, with smiles alight and cups held high.

      A twinkle in Jackson’s glance made her fearful for the safety of her cups. But instead of sending the delicate china crashing into the fireplace, he returned his to the silver tray. “Enough,” he declared with a wink at Eden. “If I drink any more of the River Walk brew, I won’t sleep for a week.”

      “Since you met Inga the indefatigable, you haven’t slept in a week, anyway.”

      Lincoln’s droll remark drew a spate of laughter and a comment from Jefferson. “By the way, Lincoln, what happened to sleepless in Belle Terre? With Alice, was it?”

      With that bit of nonsense, the familiar wrangling began. For Eden it was truly like stepping into the past. A glance at Adams made her realize that even though he knew too little of his brothers’ lives now, he was nevertheless enjoying the banter.

      For this short time memories of his exile and his father’s threatened health could be put aside. But all too soon, as she knew it must, the teasing lost its verve, and one by one the younger Cades fell as silent as their brother.

      Leaving her place on the sofa, Eden wandered away, intent on setting herself apart as she sensed a time of serious discussion. Discussions in which even Robbie would be an intruder. She’d taken a seat at the window when the quiet ended.

      It was Adams who brought to a close the thoughtful pause that threatened to stretch into an uncomfortable silence. “I called the hospital this morning.”

      “Then you know.” Jefferson looked up from his intent study of the intricate patterns of the aged Persian carpet.

      “That Gus will be released tomorrow with a team of nurses to care for him?” Adams nodded and raked a hand across the back of his neck as if he would rub away the tension. “Yes, I know.” Bleakly, he met his brother’s waiting gaze. “It was disturbing to be required to prove I have the right to ask.

      “My first thought