as I would like to deny he exists. And the sooner David gets over this silly moping around and mooning over a brother who isn’t worth it, the better.”
Well. That answers that, Amelia thought. And felt another pang of sympathy for the much-maligned Luke. “I’m sure a lot of David’s mood is because of his father,” she said, purposely changing the subject.
“It’s been six months,” Jackie said. “It’s time to move on.”
Startled at the woman’s bluntness, Amelia said cautiously, “I don’t think that’s something you can put a timetable on. Everyone has to grieve in their own way.”
If this was Jackie Hiller’s way of grieving, Amelia thought as the woman abruptly remembered an appointment and stated she had to go right now, it was rather odd. And the woman seemed to have no idea how deeply David felt the loss of his father.
Amelia acknowledged the hasty goodbye and the promise to drop off the newsletter, and only after Jackie had taken a couple of steps did she think to call out to her.
“Mrs. Hiller? What does Luke look like?”
The woman’s expression was nothing less than sour. “He looks,” she said, “like his damned, black-Irish father.”
The woman turned on her Ferragamo heel and walked swiftly away, as if in a hurry to leave the topic behind her in more ways than one.
His damned, black-Irish father…
The image of the man on the motorcycle came back even more vividly now. It all fit.
As did something else. That man had been at least in his mid-twenties. Jacqueline Hiller looked to be in her late thirties, although she could be a well-maintained forty-something. Not that she would want to hear that, Amelia was certain. But that meant that if the man on the bike was indeed Luke McGuire, he must have been born when Jackie was very, very young. And that he’d still been at home when Jackie had begun her crusade.
She wondered how it must feel to be the reason your mother campaigned like a zealot against teen pregnancy.
“Look, Davie, I’m really sorry about your dad. He was a good guy.”
David nodded, his mouth tightening.
After one of the longest nights of his life, when his gut had tried hard to convince his head he should go home, Luke had waited down the street from the old house this morning until David had come out. And he had to admit, the boy’s joyous greeting had been gratifying. He’d barely recognized his little brother, but the boy had had no such problem. He supposed it was because he’d already been eighteen when he’d left and hadn’t changed all that much, whereas David had gone from small child to teenager.
“He liked you,” David said.
“I liked him, too.”
“He never said bad things about you, even after you left. Not like Mom.”
Luke sighed. “I’ve been gone eight years, and she’s still riding that old horse?”
“Sometimes I tell her to shut up.”
And I’ll bet that goes over like a busted paddle. “Hey,” he said aloud, gripping his brother’s shoulder, “don’t make trouble for yourself. You don’t have to defend me. Not to her.”
“But if I don’t, nobody else will,” David said. Then, brightening, he added, “But you’re here now. You can tell her to shut up.”
Luke laughed. “Yeah, I suppose I could.” He wouldn’t—it wasn’t worth it—but it seemed to make David feel better. “But if you don’t mind, I’ll wait a while. I’m not sure I want her to know I’m here yet.”
“I didn’t tell her,” David said. “I didn’t even tell her you were coming.”
“Were you so sure I would?”
The boy nodded. “I knew you’d remember what it was like here. I did tell some people, though.”
“Oh? Who?”
“My friends, some of them. Snake, anyway.”
“Snake?”
“Yeah, like in the movie about New York being turned into a prison, remember?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“And Amelia.”
Luke lifted a brow. “Amelia? Who’s that, your girlfriend?”
David blushed. Luke’s mouth quirked; that was a stage he was glad to be long past. “Nah,” the boy said. “She’s too old. She’s thirty, I think.”
Ancient, Luke silently agreed with a rueful smile; his own thirtieth wasn’t all that far away.
“She’s a little quiet,” David went on. “You never know what she’s thinking. But she’s cool. Even takes kickboxing lessons. She runs the bookstore downtown.”
A memory flashed through his mind, of riding down Main Street last evening, just as it was starting to get dark. And of a woman, almost huddled in the doorway of the bookstore, as if she feared he would ride right up onto the sidewalk and grab her. That surely couldn’t be the “cool” Amelia….
“What happened to old man Wylie?”
“He retired. Amelia’s folks moved here and bought the store, and she worked there. Then they died, and now it’s hers. She’s cool,” he repeated. “She gets me good stuff to read, not that junk they make you read at school. You can talk to her, about anything and she really hears. And she talks to you, not at you.”
“Definitely cool, then,” Luke agreed; there had been a time in this town when he would have been pitifully grateful to find someone like that.
“She lets me talk about Dad,” David added, looking away and taking a surreptitious swipe at his eyes that Luke pretended not to see. “Mom doesn’t want me to ever bring him up. But Amelia says I should talk about him, that it’ll help.”
Another point for her, Luke thought. A big one.
David looked at his brother hopefully. “Want to meet her? I told her you’d come, but she wasn’t sure.”
Luke wasn’t sure he wanted to meet anybody in Santiago Beach, but the cool Amelia had a few things in her favor. She apparently listened to David, something their mother never did; he doubted that had changed much. She had acknowledged his right to grieve for his father, something else he apparently wasn’t getting at home. And most of all, she hadn’t lived here when Luke had, so she didn’t know him.
“All right,” he agreed at last, and David yelped happily. It was fairly close so they walked, although Luke guessed David was itching to ask for a ride on the bike. Later, he thought; that would be just about right to send the old lady— Lord, she had always hated being called that—over the edge.
David was so excited he couldn’t just walk; he ran ahead, heedless of the people dodging out of his way. Luke watched his not so little
