His Brown-Eyed Girl. Liz Talley

get Michael to help you while I clean up the mess Kermit made.”

      Charlotte balanced on one foot, holding aloft a tiny foot with chipped pink polish on her little toenails. “’Kay.”

      Lucas banged on Michael’s door.

      No answer. Of course.

      “Michael!” Lucas raised his fist to pound on the door once more but it jerked open.

      Music battered him and an angry thirteen-year-old with sullen brown eyes met him. “What?”

      Lucas lowered his fist because the kid’s eyes darted to it and there was a hunted look in them. “I need you to bathe your sister.”

      “That’s not my job. I did my homework and took out the trash. Plus, I already wiped her and put her pants on.”

      “Fine. I’ll bathe her. You clean up your dog’s pee. Use the steam cleaner.” Lucas turned toward the bathroom.

      “Fine. Whatever. I’ll bathe the flea.” There were equal parts disgust and resignation in Michael’s voice.

      Good. Lucas didn’t want to bathe Charlotte again. The first night she’d sung songs about spaghetti at the top of her lungs and insisted on using something called Dora the Explorer shampoo...which he could not find. He’d also thought she’d bathe herself, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Seems he was supposed to bathe her. And it felt weird because he’d never washed a little girl before. Big girls and a bottle of bath gel? Sign him up. Little girls with Strawberry Shortcake soap and a Mardi Gras party cup to rinse her hair? Not so much.

      He’d take dog pee any day of the week.

      Chris quickly changed the channel when Lucas entered the room so he tossed him another Father Knows Best stern look and went in search of the paper towels stored in the half bath under the stairs.

      Fifteen minutes later he stood in the kitchen looking at the retriever who sat innocently at the back door, tongue lolled out, happiness pouring out of sweet brown eyes. He sort of wanted to kick it...and he sort of wanted to take it for a walk. Or maybe fishing. He’d always wanted a dog to take fishing.

      “Out, Kermit. And don’t piss in the house again.”

      The dog lumbered out into the fenced yard. And the Wicked Cat of the West darted in.

      Mittens. Meaner than a two-headed snake.

      Lucas sighed and leaned his head against the smooth painted wood of the door.

      He needed help.

      He didn’t know what in the hell he was doing as evidenced by being yelled at in the carpool line while picking up Charlotte from school. Sister Regina Maria had actually scared him...and she was barely five feet tall.

      Why did he tell Courtney he would come to New Orleans and watch the kids?

      Of course, he knew the answer. But it was complicated...and tied around the fact the brother he’d once loved and now hated was teetering on the precipice of death. Nutshell.

      But all the other shit he felt cluttered around that reason made it harder than he’d ever thought to be here in the world he’d left behind.

      Long ago.

      Courtney’s voice. Please, Lucas. I know you hate me, but please. I don’t know what else to do. I have to be with Ben. Have to. Please, he’s your brother. This is me begging you.

      Words he’d longed to hear, but never in such regard. He’d wanted to punish Courtney. Wanted her to grovel. To regret. To know what she’d given up.

      But her words hadn’t been filled with regret.

      They had been for her children, the ones she’d had with his brother. The family she loved more than her pride. So she’d begged him to help her. Begged the man she’d betrayed so she could go to the man she’d cheated on him with—his own brother.

      Lucas banged his forehead against the door.

      “Uncle Wucas?”

      Charlotte stood in the doorway clad in a nightgown with ponies on it. Her wet hair hung nearly to her waist, but he knew now from experience it would curl up to her shoulders when it dried. Her blue eyes looked so much like Courtney’s—big and ready to be filled by life. She still looked frightened of him, but he couldn’t do anything about it.

      He tried to smile but it probably looked as if he were in pain. She took a step back.

      “Do you want some cereal?” He walked to the fridge. “Uh, I think your brother must have drank the last of the milk.” He looked at her. Would she pitch a fit? He’d seen kids her age in the grocery store lying on the floor, screaming and kicking. Lucas wasn’t up for handling that at the moment, not after the dirt bike crash and the dog piss.

      Chris hobbled in. “What’s for dinner?”

      Good question. “How about pizza?”

      “Yes!” Chris pumped his fist in the air. Oddly enough, he landed on his “injured” foot without a grimace telling Lucas all he needed to know about a trip to the doctor.

      Charlotte didn’t say anything, but several crystalline tears hung on her thick blond lashes.

      “You don’t like pizza?” Lucas asked, using the voice he used on his mares when they were foaling.

      Charlotte shook her head.

      “Shut up, Lottie. You like pizza,” Chris said, hopping to the pantry, grabbing a bag of potato chips and shoving a handful into his mouth. Pieces fell, sprinkling the floor and his T-shirt.

      Lucas grabbed the bag and rolled it shut. “If you want pizza, you need to lay off the chips.”

      “But—” Chris made a swipe for the bag, but when he realized he had no chance, he dropped his arms and glared at Lucas. “Why are you here anyway? We don’t even know you.”

      Good question. Lucas didn’t know the answer. On the drive from West Texas to Louisiana the same question had bounced around in his head. Why was he going to help out a family he knew nothing about?

      Well, he knew a little.

      His mother had forwarded him Christmas cards of this perfect family year after year. Lucas had watched his nephews and niece grow up in the happy, shiny photos, gummy grins shifting into painful half smiles. But other than a Christmas card and what he gleaned from his parents, Lucas knew nothing about his brother’s family. “Because your mother needed help.”

      “But you hate my dad.” Statement. Delivered with anger. From the affable Chris.

      Charlotte stopped swinging on the doorknob.

      Michael appeared, face dark as a thundercloud, arms crossed. Tension hung like wet flannel. “Yeah, you do. We’re not stupid. So why don’t you clue us all in on why we’ve never seen you before now?”

      Another good question.

      But the truth was too hard for children.

      “Where’s the number for a pizza place nearby?”

      Flickering within the dark depths of Michael’s eyes—so similar to Ben’s—was an unspoken line scratched between them. “Find it yourself, Uncle.”

      * * *

      ADDY STARED at the dregs in her chai tea. She should have had decaffeinated tea or a nice glass of wine. The past few hours had left her unsettled and sucking down caffeine hadn’t been a good idea. She lit the chamomile-and-honey-scented candles on the shelf above the ancient claw-foot tub and tossed some dried lavender in the water pouring from the arched faucet.

      Surely a bath would wash her cares away and later she’d get back to reading about the sensual Arabian sheikh and the woman who defied him...only out of bed of course.

      “Addy?”

      Addy set the empty teacup