Outcast. Joan Johnston

the two middle-aged women preparing food on the other side of the kitchen and said, “There are ladies present.”

      “Sorry, Mom,” Reese said.

      “It was just a raw egg, Mom. And a little eggshell,” Josh said. “It won’t kill me.”

      Patsy threw up her hands. “I give up. You two are incorrigible. You talk some sense into them, Ben.” She turned and stalked back toward the living room.

      “How are things on the ranch?” Ben asked with a wry twist of his mouth.

      “It’s a lot warmer in Texas than it is here,” Josh said, grabbing a towel from a rack and wiping the egg off his face. “And there aren’t any females around to drive a man crazy.”

      “Sounds good to me,” Ben said, unable to keep from smiling.

      “I don’t know why Mom keeps insisting we come up here,” Reese said. “Why don’t you guys come down to the ranch sometime?”

      “That might be a little awkward,” Ben pointed out, “considering your dad and your two uncles live there.”

      “Dad wouldn’t care,” Josh said. “He doesn’t have a girlfriend or anything. And Uncle Cain and Uncle Cash are more like older brothers than uncles, they’re so much younger than Dad.”

      “I know the ABCs would like to come visit,” Ben said. “They love to go horseback riding.”

      Josh and Reese exchanged a glance.

      “What?” Ben said.

      “We heard Mom talking on the phone to your dad tonight,” Josh said.

      “Overheard, you mean?” Ben said with an edge to his voice.

      “They were arguing,” Reese said in his defense. “It was hard not to hear.”

      “And?” Ben prodded.

      After a pause Reese said, “She was threatening to take the ABCs and head for Texas if he missed this party.”

      “That was all we heard.” Josh shoved Reese in the shoulder. “Because he didn’t think we should listen anymore.”

      It was enough, Ben realized. He couldn’t say he hadn’t seen friction between Patsy and his father. If he’d noticed those secret looks his father shot his mother, Patsy had likely noticed them, as well. But like all kids, he didn’t want his parents to split up. Especially since he liked Patsy a hell of a lot better than he liked his own mother.

      “Patsy doesn’t know you heard?” Ben asked.

      Josh and Reese shook their heads.

      “Keep it that way. Maybe things will change.”

      “Do you really think so?” Josh asked, his eyes bleak. “I think it would kill Dad to have Mom back in Texas at her dad’s ranch. It’s too close to the Bar-3, you know. Dad would have to see her all the time.”

      Another man in love with a wife he’s lost? Ben wondered. He hoped he never fell in love. The people he knew who’d done it—his father, Patsy, his mother—had only suffered as a result.

      “Everything’ll settle back down,” he told the twins. It was what he wanted to believe. He hoped he was right.

      Ben heard a commotion in the living room. He listened for a moment and heard his mother’s voice. And his father’s. They must have arrived together from the embassy party. He listened for the senator’s gruff voice but didn’t hear it.

      He wondered how Patsy was handling the fact his mother and father had arrived together. As the perfect hostess she was, he supposed. But she would be hurting. Because his father couldn’t keep his eyes off his mother whenever she was in the same room.

      Ben’s stomach knotted. He forced himself to leave the kitchen. He had to help Patsy by distracting his father.

      That shouldn’t be too hard. All he’d have to do was mention his job.

      3

      Ben was exhausted. He sat in his undershorts on the brocade-upholstered couch in his newly furnished four-story row house in Georgetown, his head in his hands. He could see the pink-and-yellow light of dawn through the silk-draped windows. When was this going to end? How long was he going to have these damned nightmares? He’d woken up screaming. And been afraid to go back to sleep.

      He rubbed a hand across his bristly face. Thank God he’d been alone. Thank God he’d sent home the woman he’d picked up at a bar last night after he’d left Patsy’s party. He didn’t remember much about her, except that her body had been a brief haven for his.

      He pressed the heels of his hands into his gritty eyes. He’d been seeking escape from more than his own troubles. He’d felt bad for Patsy.

      When he’d entered the living room last night, his father had been helping his mother remove her coat. Patsy would have had to be blind to miss the yearning in his eyes. And his stepmother was a woman who saw things very clearly.

      Ben had been furious with his father. And frustrated by his inability to change the situation. It was a feeling he’d lived with since he was eight and understood that his father had gotten another woman pregnant, which had caused his mother to ask for a divorce.

      But he was no longer a helpless child. He could protect his stepmother. And had, by refocusing his father’s attention on himself. “Looks like some kind of gang trouble is going to hit the District soon,” he’d said.

      “You should have stayed in the army,” his father replied. “There you could have done some real good for this country.”

      “I’m doing good where I am, Dad,” he’d said. “The threat is right here in our backyard.”

      “You were a good soldier. A great soldier.”

      “I’m a good ICE agent.” But it was clear from his father’s expression that there was no chance for greatness in that role.

      His father snorted. “You spend your days rounding up illegal aliens and deporting them.”

      “That isn’t all I do.” But he knew that, in his father’s eyes, his work as an ICE agent could never measure up to the contribution he could make to his country as part of the military. His father couldn’t understand why he’d resigned his commission after training for a life in the army.

      And he wasn’t about to tell him the truth.

      Luckily, within a few minutes Ham had arrived, everyone shared a toast to the bride and groom, and Ben’s mother and the senator left to return to the senator’s Georgetown home.

      Ben had given Patsy a hard hug before he left. But he hadn’t looked her in the face. Because he couldn’t bear to see the silent suffering in her eyes.

      Ben wondered if Patsy and his father had argued last night. Probably they had. He worried that the day was coming when they wouldn’t make up.

      Ben shoved his hands through his hair. In order not to stick out as a cop on the street, he was allowed to let his hair grow long. But it was time for a haircut. He needed to get up off the couch and get moving. Get a shower. Eat some breakfast. When was the last time he’d eaten a decent meal? Breakfast yesterday, maybe. He’d had no appetite last night. No wonder his stomach felt like it was gnawing on his insides.

      He had to check in with his ICE boss, Tony Pellicano, at nine. Then he wanted to spend some time driving around the Columbia Heights neighborhood. There were kids from gangs other than the 18th Street crowd who might be able to tell him something more about the storm that was threatening to break over D.C.

      A half hour later, after a shower and a bowl of shredded wheat—the banana he’d planned to slice on top had been rotten—Ben was out the door. He loved living in Georgetown, loved the feel of it, the brick and the trees and the sunshine that made it feel so alive, even though