Raising Connor. Loree Lough

to shoot down her attempts to keep Connor, yet she had to make all the final arrangements.

      “Guess I ought to go. Call me if you need any—”

      He didn’t understand the anger in her eyes. Especially since, not five minutes ago, she’d soaked his shirt with tears.

      If she thought he’d gotten off easy after her mother’s death in the convenience store shootings, she was wrong: he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept more than two hours at a stretch or a night when his dreams weren’t filled with the sounds and images of the shooting. Beth had been wrong, too: Brooke would punish him with her dying breath.

      As she’d stood crying in his arms, a weird thought had crossed his mind: Give her the disc. Don’t fight her for Connor. Tell her you’ll help her raise him...to prove how rotten you feel about that night. But in this moment of lucidity, he realized how wrong that would be, because Connor deserved better from life than to spend it under the thumb of a woman so consumed with hatred and bitterness.

      He took a few steps closer. “You might not believe this, but I don’t blame you for hating me. I hate me for what happened that night,” he said, meaning every word. “But, Brooke, can’t you set it aside, even at a time like this?”

      He prepared himself for a scathing retort.

      “A time like this,” she grumbled, putting her back to him. “Connor hates eggs,” she said, grabbing oatmeal from the cabinet. “He’ll be up soon, so I need to get his breakfast ready.”

      He stood, gap-jawed, wondering what any of that had to do with what he’d just said.

      “I’m not the least bit hungry,” she continued, “but I’ll eat...to stay sharp. For Connor.”

      She riveted him with an unblinking stare, and he felt like a bug, caught in a spider’s web. He’d been a fool to come over here; should’ve taken the disk to a lawyer, like Kent told him to, and let the chips fall where they may.

      “Eat. Don’t eat,” he said. “It’s none of my business.” And he meant that, too.

      “Your coffee’s getting cold. Have a seat, will you?” she said. “Because I need to get something off my chest, and I prefer to do it eye to eye, without you towering over me like Goliath.”

      Oh. Great. Hunter exhaled a ragged sigh. He had a good idea that what she needed to get off her chest was about her mother and his incompetence, and he’d take it on the chin. After the funeral, he’d take off the gloves and do everything in his power to get Connor as far from her spiteful influence as possible. Unlike her sister, Brooke apparently had no understanding of forgiveness and generosity.

      He sat, then looked up at her and met her steady gaze blink for blink. “Okay. I’m sitting,” he said. “Hit me.”

      She leveled him with a look that made him think she might just do it.

      “I thought you said you wanted to be eye to eye?”

      For the second time in as many seconds, it seemed as if she might clean his clock. Then she shook her head, sat across from him and folded her hands on the table. Eyes blazing, she opened her mouth to speak...

      ...and the phone rang, startling her so badly that she nearly overturned her coffee mug. Too early for a social call, he thought as she got up to answer it.

      “Yes, this is Brooke O’Toole....” Shading her eyes with one hand, she walked toward the sink. “So that’s it, then. You’re absolutely sure.”

      He heard the catch in her voice and resisted the urge to go into the living room and pick up the extension to find out what had caused it.

      After she hung up, Brooke continued facing the wall, cupping her elbows, shaking her head. Finally, she returned to the table.

      “I asked for fingerprint identification,” she explained, though he hadn’t asked who had called or why. “More proof it really was them. Since Beth is a teacher, I knew hers would be on record. But it seems Kent had a record of his own.” She stared at some unknown spot on the wall behind him. Then, rubbing her eyes, she added, “The deputy thought it might be a good idea to speak with a lawyer in case Kent’s former burglary victims have a mind to sue the estate for restitution.” She held her head in her hands. “Estate. What a joke. I haven’t even had a chance to look for a will, if there is a will.”

      His heart pounded out an extra beat as he thought of the disc.

      “I wouldn’t worry,” he said. “That trouble Kent got into...it happened a long, long time ago, and he paid for it with months in juvie and years in the Marines. I didn’t know him back then, but I’d bet my entire business that time served is what turned him around. The military has a way of turning boys into men.”

      She aimed a guarded look his way. “And you know this because...?”

      “Because fifteen years ago I enlisted in the army.”

      He watched as she did the math, realized what he’d just admitted.

      “And Kent was in the Marines.” She harrumphed. “Well, that explains a lot.”

      “Such as...”

      “Such as why Kent couldn’t tolerate a mess of any kind and went ballistic when the news reported stories about kids who broke the law.” She frowned. “And why he was so tough on me when my stupid choices came to roost at his door. I was never his favorite person.”

      That, Hunter already knew. But he’d only heard things from Kent’s point of view. “Why?”

      “Because I tried to talk Beth out of marrying him. And more than once, after he got drunk and threatened her, tried to talk her into leaving him. That’s why he looked for ways to discredit me in Beth’s eyes.”

      Admittedly, life had dealt Brooke a pretty bad hand; hopefully, whatever she was about to tell him wouldn’t force him to lay down the card that would make her fold, here and now.

      She ran a finger around the rim of her mug. “Wish I’d known he had such a rough childhood.”

      “Why? It wasn’t any harder than yours and Beth’s. Different kind of hard, but no harder.”

      Focusing on the spot behind him again, she winced.

      Her actions and attitude told him she hadn’t yet fully absorbed the reality of her loss. He’d felt the same way after his dad died. Helping his mom make the grim plans and cope with financial concerns in addition to the shock of losing her mate had allowed Hunter to sideline his grief. If he hadn’t stepped up, any one of his brothers would have. But Deidre and Connor...they were the extent of Brooke’s family now. She couldn’t lean on a seventy-five-year-old or a toddler. And his presence wasn’t making things easier for her.

      Hunter turned toward the door but her quiet words stopped him.

      “Guess it’s true what they say.”

      Two feet of tabletop—and fifteen years’ worth of bitter memories—separated them. He had to remind himself that Brooke wasn’t some untested teenager but a full-grown woman who’d survived disappointments and losses. She didn’t need him to protect her. So how did he explain his odd desire to do just that?

      “‘Be careful what you ask for.’”

      “What did you ask for?”

      “Proof.”

      Remembering the whole fingerprints explanation, Hunter nodded.

      “Well, I got it, and then some, didn’t I?”

      She seemed on the verge of tears. He could walk around to her side of the table, take her in his arms, and this time, he could take a little comfort while giving it.

      It was a stupid, crazy, dangerous thought, and he squelched it by reminding himself how much she loathed him...and why. Listening to his heart instead of his head had led to his downfall more