Lone Star Dad. Линда Гуднайт

should go. I have work to catch up on and you have homework for tomorrow.”

      The sweet expression disappeared so fast she thought she’d imagined it. “I hate school.”

      Big news. He said those same words every day. “Derrick...”

      Quinn squatted beside her; the scent of wood smoke and cold air circled around him. To Derrick he said, his voice almost gentle, “Don’t worry about the kittens. They’ll be okay.”

      Derrick’s pale eyes flashed to Quinn. He tried to appear nonchalant but Gena saw what she’d missed, what Quinn had seen. The boy had always had a soft spot for animals, but she’d thought it had disappeared along with the rest of his sweet nature.

      “The mother knows what to do,” she said. “She’ll care for them.”

      “But they can’t see. Their eyes are glued shut. What if they get too far away from her?”

      “She’ll bring them back.” To prove the point, Quinn reached into the box and gently lifted a tiny kitten by the scruff, moving it slightly away from the mama. It mewed. Instantly, the mother cat rose to bring the kitten back with the others and gave it a rough-tongued lick for good measure.

      “Oh.” Derrick swiped a sleeve over his nose and sniffed. “Dumb cats.”

      Gena felt a smile coming on. Without intending to, she glanced at Quinn and saw his eyes spark, too.

      Suddenly afraid, she scrambled to her feet. “Let’s go. We promised Mr. Buchanon to stay away from here.”

      “You promised. I didn’t.”

      The mulish attitude was back.

      “You don’t get a say in this, kid. I’m the boss around here.” Quinn’s voice was casual but made of steel as he rose to his full and impressive height. What was he? Like six-five or something?

      “But if you behave yourself, you can come back another time to see the kittens. And I won’t call the sheriff.”

      Derrick’s shoulders relaxed the slightest bit. “Yeah?”

      “No!” Gena shoved the shed door open, pulse thrumming. The bare wood slammed against the wall, ripping the gray morning.

      Derrick was giving her heart trouble. At this rate, she’d be in cardiac arrest before her next birthday. “You can’t come here again. I’ve already told you that, but if you don’t argue, I’ll ground you from the computer for only two days.”

      “That’s stupid,” he groused, but exited the well house and stomped across the frozen ground toward the SUV.

      Gena sighed, aware that she’d won one battle but lost another. Derrick seemed to slip further away all the time. No matter what she did, he resented it.

      Quinn came up beside her. She didn’t look at him, didn’t trust herself to look into his weary face and feel things that weren’t allowed. He was the enemy of all she held dear, and she’d do well to remember it.

      “Has he always been this belligerent?”

      “No.” Gena stared at the frozen ground, saw the gleam of ice that would soon melt away. If only problems would do the same. “He used to be the sweetest boy, the happy, cuddly kid who adored me.”

      Back when she hadn’t been the boss. Back when Renae— She shut the door on the useless thought. She’d chosen this life for Renae’s sake, and she refused to regret the decision.

      Without another word or glance, she strode to the SUV and drove away. Derrick simply could not come back to this place. Ever.

       Chapter Three

      Two weeks passed, but Quinn knew he hadn’t seen the last of the troublesome neighbors. There was daily evidence that Derrick had snuck into the well house to see the kittens. He figured Gena didn’t know. Otherwise, why the secrecy?

      This morning an opened but uneaten can of tuna was stashed in one dark corner of the shed. He’d smelled it the minute he’d opened the door.

      Now at work inside the offices of Buchanon Construction, Quinn frowned at the sets of blueprints on his desk. His office was in the back of the warehouse, a quieter space than the front desks ruled by two of his sisters. Here he could work in peace and hang out with the coffeemaker. And wonder about his unexpected neighbors.

      He refused to worry that the mother cat hadn’t been in the shed this morning. Or last night, for that matter. She came and went as she pleased. They weren’t his cats. He didn’t like cats.

      But he wasn’t an ogre, either, contrary to popular opinion. He’d put a heating pad under the babies, turned to low like the internet said, to keep them warm. While he cleaned out the box and set up the heating pad, he’d put each kitten inside his zippered jacket, next to his warm skin. They were soft as down, and now that their eyes were squinted open, they were kind of cute.

      “We missed you yesterday.” His brother Brady, the company’s manager and his closest sibling in age, propped a hip on the edge of his desk. As youths they’d been constant companions but after the accident that destroyed his throwing arm, Brady continued to play college football while Quinn was left behind to deal with surgeries and rehab and pain. Their lives had gone in separate directions, certainly not the direction he’d intended, and only in the last year had they intersected again. Brady didn’t know all he’d gone through in Dallas. Quinn didn’t want anybody to know.

      He pretended to study the diagrams. “I was busy.”

      “Yeah? Doing what?”

      “Stuff.”

      Brady barked a laugh. “You missed a good basketball game. The Mavericks beat the Thunder in OT.”

      Yes, and his mother probably made chili or pot roast and the siblings stocked the kitchen with chips, dips and other snacks. Sunday afternoons were a tradition at the Buchanon house. Everyone came to watch a game. It didn’t matter what kind of game. Football was the favorite, but they watched basketball, baseball, anything that gave them an excuse to gather after church and yell at the TV—all in fun, of course. He missed those times with his family, but they didn’t understand how hard it was for him to be there.

      He’d fallen off the proverbial wagon last night. Not as completely as he had in the past but enough to shame him.

      He did all right at work. Rigidly, every day, he brought exactly two pain pills to the office. The prescribed amount. Two and only two to get him through the day.

      Nights were murder. Last night the pain had won.

      He rubbed his shoulder and swallowed the thick, nasty taste of failure. “Maybe next week.”

      “That’s what you’ve said every week since last Christmas. We miss you, brother.” Brady’s voice softened. “I miss you.”

      A lump rose in Quinn’s throat. “Yeah, well...” What could he say? He loved Brady. Loved his family. But he was lousy company, unfit to be part of the wholesome Buchanon clan until he defeated the monster living inside him.

      “Want to talk about it?”

      Startled, he glanced up. “About what?”

      No way Brady could know the truth. Quinn had been too careful.

      “Whatever it is that’s keeping you away.”

      The air hummed with expectation. Brady wanted an answer. Quinn wasn’t giving him one.

      Finding a smirk, he said, “You’re too busy romancing Abby to miss me.”

      Brady got a besotted grin on his face. “I can’t wait to marry that woman. She’s something special.”

      Quinn softened. His brother was happy. Regardless of the