If Wishes Were Horses.... Judith Duncan

two kids had given Conner somewhere to place all the emotions he had been carrying around inside of him. He would have gladly laid down his life for either one of them, and somehow their existence made everything right. He had never permitted himself to think of them as his. They were Abby’s kids. Always Abby’s. They had been his gift to her, and because of that, he’d never allowed himself to think of them as anything but his niece and nephew.

      And along with that acceptance came something he had never expected. The hole in his chest had healed over. It didn’t mean that he didn’t get damned lonely at times, to the point where he would make trips out of town to find a little temporary companionship. And it sure in hell didn’t mean he had gotten over her. He would love her until the day he died. But it made a huge difference, knowing that he had given her the two babies she had wanted so much. It meant he could get through one day after another, almost content with his life. Almost.

      The midnight chime of the old grandfather clock in the hallway brought Conner out of his somber reverie, and he pulled the towel from around his neck and tossed it on a chair, then raked both his hands through his hair. It was going to be a damned long night.

      Leaving his bedroom, he went out into the hallway, to the wood panelled closet under the stairs, and located a very expensive monogrammed leather garment bag. It always gave him a hollow feeling in his chest when he used it. And the only time he used it was when he went to Toronto—because Abby had been so adamant he have it. It had belonged to his brother, and it was the one Scotty had always carried on road trips.

      Picking up the bag, Conner turned off the light and closed the door, his expression grim. Sometimes he wondered about the legendary luck of the Calhouns—it had definitely gone astray in this generation, that was for sure.

      He took the garment bag back to his bedroom and tossed it on the king-size bed, then unzipped it, that same old feeling of grief unfolding in his chest. Ah, Scotty, he thought, you didn’t even know you had it all. And once again the history piled in, taking him down the path to old, painful memories.

      The only good thing that had happened that year was wee Sarah’s arrival. The rest had all been bad. Abby’s parents had been killed in a car crash, then John Calhoun had died two months after his granddaughter was born. And shortly after that, Mary’s health took a turn for the worse, and the arthritis she had been fighting for years had finally taken hold. It was as if John’s dying had depleted her resources, and she got considerably worse. They hadn’t seen much of Scotty and the kids—Scotty was always on the road, and Abby, with a degree in business management, started working part-time, certainly not for the money. Mostly, Conner had suspected, to compensate for Scotty’s absences.

      It wasn’t until Scotty got traded to the team in Toronto that the cracks in their golden life began to show. Inferences on sportscasts that Scott Calhoun was not performing up to snuff, rumors of trouble with the club. And when Conner had taken his mother to Toronto for a brief visit, there was something frenetic in Scott’s behavior. As if he were wired all the time.

      Scotty had been a season into a five-year contract when he was abruptly dropped from the roster, and Conner had started to wonder what was going on. But it wasn’t until he saw Abby on a trip through Toronto that Conner knew something was seriously wrong. She had started working full-time, and she had been so strung out and tense, it was as if she were fine crystal ready to shatter. Concerned about her, he had taken her aside, telling her that if she ever needed anything, she was to call. Unable to look at him, she had locked her jaw together and nodded. And that had been that.

      Until two years ago, when Abby had called him. And he had found out what was really going on. The reason Scotty had been let go was that management found out he was heavily into drugs, and she didn’t know what to do. Conner had been in the process of throwing his kit together for an immediate trip to Toronto when he got the second call from Scotty’s agent, telling him that Scotty was on his way to the hospital, suffering from a major overdose. It was almost as if Scotty couldn’t face Conner knowing the truth about him.

      That was one of the hardest things Conner had ever had to do, to tell his mother what was going on and why he was taking the red-eye to Toronto. But she hadn’t been in any shape to travel then. So it had been up to him. When he got to Toronto, he’d gone straight to the hospital. The first thing he had discovered was that Abby was barely hanging on. And the second thing he found out was that Scotty was in an irreversible coma. There was nothing they could do.

      It had been equally hard, five days later, standing by her during the huge, media-driven funeral, the news of Scotty’s overdose plastered all over every sports page in the country.

      But the hardest thing of all was leaving her behind when it was time for him to go home. If he’d had his way, he would have bundled her up and taken her and the kids with him. But he couldn’t do that. She was his brother’s wife.

      After Scotty’s death, he had made a point of going to Toronto every three or four months, but Abby had totally walled up. That once vibrant smile was like an accessory she pulled out and put on whenever it was required, and she was so brittle, it was hard for him to watch. He had been concerned about her for months—damned concerned. And he had told her countless times that if she ever needed anything, all she had to do was call. But Abby had a whole lot of stiff, chin-in-the-air pride. Rooted, no doubt, in the public humiliation Scotty had put her through.

      Conner had known all along things would have to get really bad before she would call. And the feeling of unease never left him. He knew something was wrong. But unless she came to him for help, there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he could do. At least a couple of times a week he would call, and she was always very upbeat on the phone, but he could hear the edge in her voice. She would never talk long—instead she would take the first opportunity to pass the phone off to one of the kids. There were nights when he’d lay awake until dawn, trying to hatch some plan to get through to her. But he knew Abigail, and he understood that stiff-necked pride of hers. And unless she opened up and told him what was going on, he was stymied. It wasn’t as if he could play some damned white knight and ride in to rescue her, especially when she didn’t want to be rescued. So he had resigned himself to her silence.

      Never once had he ever considered that the call for help would come from another source—like his eight-year-old nephew. Which meant it had to be far worse than he’d ever dreamt. It hurt like hell, knowing she was suffering through something all alone—and wouldn’t come to him for help. All along he had told himself the only thing he wanted was for her to recover enough to get on with her life.

      But as he packed the last of his gear and zipped the garment bag shut, he faced the fact that he would go to his grave wanting a whole lot more.

      The sun had not yet reached high noon when the cab passed through a security gate and turned onto a heavily treed cul-de-sac in a very exclusive area of Toronto. His best Stetson settled squarely on his head, Conner took his billfold out of the breast pocket of his western sports coat, removed two bills and replaced the billfold, then stared down at the toes of his freshly polished boots. He felt as if he had an entire rock pile in his gut. He had been awake all night, trying to figure out the best way to handle this. But he was no closer to an answer than he had been ten hours ago. He’d debated phoning first, but then decided against it.

      Disconnecting from that line of thought, he looked out the window as the cab pulled in front of his brother’s large and very pricey home. Somehow he was going to have to keep his personal feelings out of this. Somehow.

      His face impassive, he handed the driver the two bills, then climbed out of the taxi, hitching the strap of the leather garment bag over his shoulder. He watched the cab disappear down the long curved driveway, then he climbed the steps to the ornate front door. Steeling himself, he pressed his thumb against the doorbell.

      His jaw taut, he turned his head, watching a robin harvest worms in the lawn. Finally he heard footsteps from within, and the door opened.

      He almost didn’t recognize her. Her thick blond hair was pulled back in an untidy ponytail, and she had a tea towel draped over her shoulder. With her skin free of makeup and dressed in jeans and a faded Blue Jays sweatshirt, she didn’t even come