“I…it’s hard to get kids his age to buy ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’” she said, watching him warily.
Think I’m going to jump you for painting me with this town’s brush? he wondered.
And yet, he had to admit it stung a little, that she assumed along with the rest of Santiago Beach that he’d continued to be up to no good since he’d left. He opened his mouth, ready to tell her that he’d changed, that he wasn’t the same reprobate kid he’d been, that he’d made something of his life, that he’d—
The next person he came across, he would just let them think the worst…fulfill their grim expectations. It was probably the nicest thing he could do for them….
His own vow came back to him, made just minutes ago. And he shut his mouth. Let her think what she obviously already did. Why should she be any different?
He leaned back in the chair. Steepled his fingers again. “I’ll take that as evidence you don’t think he should come live with me.”
“Is that really what he wants?”
He shrugged. “It’s what he said in his letter. He hasn’t mentioned it since I got here.”
She studied him for a moment, still giving nothing away. Then she said quietly, “Do you want him to?”
He expelled a long, slow breath and jammed a hand through his hair. That was an answer he didn’t have. “I don’t know. Davie…well, he’s about the only good memory I’ve got from here. I don’t want him to go through the hell I did, but…my life isn’t the best for a kid. Especially a screwed-up one. I’m gone a lot, days at a time.”
If she wondered what he did that called for that, she didn’t ask. “You…could change that. Couldn’t you?”
There was something about the way she was looking at him that prodded him to say flippantly, “Go straight? Perish the thought.” Oddly, for a split second she looked hurt, and he regretted the jibe. “Look, I’m worried about him, but…”
“You don’t want the responsibility?”
She didn’t say it accusingly, merely in the tone of a normal question. Which he supposed it was. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of responsibility.”
“Then why did you bother to come?”
“Not,” he said sourly, “to be reminded at every turn what a total waste my life has been.”
“It can’t be a total waste.” Her voice was unexpectedly gentle, and it seemed to brush away his irritation. “You have a brother who adores you. That’s worth a lot.”
He couldn’t deny that.
He couldn’t deny the odd feeling that having those eyes of hers look at him with softness instead of suspicion gave him, either.
Luke walked out her door at five to ten, and Amelia was glad she had at least a few minutes before she had to open. She was going to need every one of them to recover.
She was exhausted. Just sitting there talking to Luke McGuire, pretending it was a casual conversation between two people with a common concern, had worn her out. It wasn’t her shyness, after years of work she’d overcome that to a great extent. But never in her admittedly sheltered life had she ever talked at length to a man like this one, a man with a reputation, a man with a past.
A man who was worried about his young brother, she corrected herself. A man who was honest enough to admit he wasn’t prepared to take that brother on, yet cared enough to come some distance to find out how bad things really were.
Perhaps she needed to reassess her opinion of him.
Perhaps, she thought wryly as she forced herself to get ready to open, she shouldn’t have developed an opinion of him at all before she’d met him. Although, if she’d waited until she’d first seen him, riding down the street last night, who knew what kind of opinion she would have formed.
Speaking of honesty, if she was going to match his, she had to admit that when she’d been younger and under the watchful eyes of her parents, it had been easy to suppress any of the more turbulent urges she might have had. Such as those brought on by the wilder boys in school. She was finding it much harder now to deny she found bad boy Luke McGuire fascinating and unsettlingly attractive.
But he still frightened her. In a way that was so bone deep she didn’t even know where it came from. It was more than just the warnings her mother had given her, more even than trying to avoid trouble. It was something, she supposed, based in whatever quirk it was that made her an introvert rather than an extrovert.
But whatever it was, it kicked into high gear around Luke.
She tried to stop thinking about it; she didn’t usually dwell on her shortcomings in dealings with men. But this morning she hadn’t even managed to finish writing one check to her distributor, and now it was time to open. She put her pen down to mark the page in the notebook-style checkbook, then walked across the store. She flipped the sign in the front window to Open and went to unlock the front door, only to find that she’d never relocked it after letting Luke in.
Rattled? Not me, she muttered to herself.
She’d barely made it back to the checkout counter when the door announcement sounded. She’d forgotten to change it; it was still Captain Picard, when today was supposed to be Data. She pulled herself together, put on her best helpful smile and turned to greet her customer.
Her smile wobbled.
David’s friends. All five of them.
And one of them had a knife.
Chapter 4
Luke had watched the five boys strut away, recognizing the cocky walk and the smart mouths all too well. Those guys were trouble waiting to happen, and they were going to suck David down with them if things kept on.
The group had come upon them as they were about to sit down at one of the picnic tables in the park by the pier to eat and watch the ocean. By now Luke had a pretty good idea of how much—and in what way—David had talked him up to them. On this second encounter they were still assessing, calculating, silently asking just how tough he really was.
He had their number now, and he had shifted his stance slightly, just enough to signify readiness for anything. He had selected the obvious leader, the one they all watched to set the tone, to make the first move. The one who, Luke noted cautiously, had his right hand buried in the pocket of his baggy cargo pants. Some kind of weapon, Luke was sure, and hoped it wasn’t a gun. He had kept his gaze steady, level, and his face expressionless. And he stared him down. Not in a way that made it a threat the boy would have to respond to or lose face, but in a way that said, “It’s up to you how this goes.”
At last the boy had backed off, although Luke wasn’t sure it was for good, and had led his little troop away.
“Nice guys,” Luke muttered now as they sat down.
“They’re my friends,” David said, jaw tight with a stubbornness Luke recognized; it was like looking at the face in the mirror when he’d been
