some of the girls have costumes that cost nine hundred fifty. Are you going to help us or not, Cade?” demanded Bobbie. “I can always send Brenda over to your place tonight to—”
“No, not Brenda!” Cade said so fervently that Kylie was instantly on alert. She studied him even more closely. “Look, Bobbie, let me make a few phone calls about Brent. Meanwhile, promise me you’ll at least look for another costume for Starr Lynn. You have a week till the competition.”
“We’ll look, but I doubt that we’ll find anything else so perfect for Starr Lynn. And she deserves the best, Cade. Even you know that. Call me tonight about Brent.” Bobbie hung up abruptly and with such force that the sound of the receiver slamming echoed throughout the office.
“Good Lord!” breathed Kylie.
“Don’t drag Him into it,” Cade said dryly. “Well, Ms. Public Defender, feel like taking your cousin’s case?”
“I’m not a member of the Ohio Bar. I can’t practice law in this state unless I’m granted reciprocity.”
“Which you haven’t even applied for?” guessed Cade. “Smart move on your part. Defending your cousin Brent would be as thankless a job as your last one.”
Kylie ignored the dig. “Why did Aunt Bobbie dump Brent’s arrest on you?” she asked curiously. “What are you supposed to do about it? And what’s all this about a six-hundred-dollar skating costume?”
“Six-fifty, plus tax.” Cade rubbed the back of his neck, then heaved a resigned sigh. “Even though you aren’t licensed to practice here, you fire questions like a professional inquisitor.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t mind answering them?” she prompted.
“Let me tell you a little about the Brennans of Port McClain, Kylie. At any given time, one of them is either feuding with another or feels miffed or snubbed or cheated in some way. They’ve made a life-style of backstabbing and bickering.”
“And being thrown in jail?”
“So far, jail has been the sole province of your cousin Brent, a fact for which we can all be grateful. The reason I’m so knowledgeable about the Brennans and why my number is programmed into Bobbie’s phone is because your uncle Gene annointed me Alpha Male of the clan. Gene’s brothers and their wives and kids were always trying to drag him into their civil wars, and it bothered him so much that he delegated his patriarch position to me. Gene was very good at delegating,” he added wryly.
“So you not only run BrenCo, you also mediate family feuds?”
“I’ve had far more success managing the company than I’ve had trying to keep peace among the Brennans. Reaching a consensus among that group is harder than getting a unanimous vote in the UN General Assembly.”
“I know that Uncle Artie and Aunt Bobbie’s divorce was very bitter,” Kylie murmured. “That’s really all I know about it.”
The Brennan extended family had played only a minor role in the lives of her very mobile, very nuclear family—which made it both strange and awkward that she was now involved via Uncle Gene’s will.
“Wish I could say the same,” growled Cade. “Well, let me bring you up to date. Artie and Bobbie have been divorced fifteen—or is it sixteen?—years but are still deeply entrenched in each other’s lives. They are one of those tiresome couples who are eternally obsessed with each other.”
“Obsessed with making each other miserable?”
Cade nodded. “They’re masters of the art. I suppose you could say that Brent’s problems are the result of his dysfunctional family but he’s no longer a troubled teen, he’s twenty-seven years old. I consider him to be fully responsible for his own actions.”
“I agree,” said Kylie.
He looked surprised. “I thought a bleeding heart type like you would drag out the crying towel and use Brent’s unhappy childhood and his battling parents to excuse him.”
“Maybe I would, if I were defending him in court. But since I’m not...” Kylie’s voice trailed off, leaving the obvious unsaid. “I haven’t seen Brent in years. But I do have an indelible memory of him from when we were kids. He lured me into the attic of Uncle Gene’s house by telling me that our grandmother had a trunk filled with dolls there. When I looked into the trunk, he shoved me in and locked it. I don’t think he had any intention of ever letting me out.”
“Ah, Brennan family fun.” Cade smiled sardonically. “See what you missed by not growing up here in Port McClain with the rest of the tribe? How did you get out of the trunk, by the way?”
“Lucky for me, my brother noticed I wasn’t around and figured that Brent had something to do with it. Devlin persuaded Brent to admit it and lead him to me ”
“Dare I ask how Devlin persuaded Brent?”
“He, uh, punched Brent in the nose,” Kylie confessed sheepishly. “And broke it.”
“Ah, bullying. As I mentioned earlier, it works well with certain Brennans. And I like the irony of Devlin’s progression from breaking bones to setting bones as his life’s work. That little bit of family history does explain why both Artie and Bobbie refer to your brother as ‘that thug.’ It’s one of the few things they agree on.”
“My mom and dad refer to Brent as ‘that monster.’ After the trunk incident, whenever we came to visit in Port McClain our parents kept Dev and me away from Brent. And after Uncle Artie and Aunt Bobbie’s divorce, we didn’t see much of Brenda or Bridget, either.”
“What about your other cousins, Guy and Lauretta’s kids? Did you spend much time with them?”
“No. Todd and Polly were a lot younger than Dev and me. And Ian—”
“Was an obnoxious creep?” suggested Cade. “He still is. Surprisingly enough, Todd and Polly are okay. Even likable, a fact that continually takes me by surprise.”
“Maybe they were somehow switched at birth?” Kylie suggested drolly.
“Maybe they were.” Cade grinned, then grew serious once again. “Your cousin Todd is in his junior year at Ohio State, majoring in business and Polly will graduate from Port McClain High in June. She has a scholarship to OSU and wants to study engineering. Both kids want to work for BrenCo someday and I think they’ll be assets to the company. BrenCo should be here for them to return to, Kylie. It is Gene’s legacy to his family and to this town,” he added, willing her to meet his gaze.
Kylie averted her eyes from the pull of his. She’d been warned by her uncles that Cade would apply strong pressure to sway her to his point of view—which was to keep BrenCo a privately held company with him at the head. Asking her to consider the future of the younger Brennans seemed to be yet another strategy.
She couldn’t immediately choose sides, Kylie reminded herself. She had to be like a judge and listen to all the arguments, to weigh all the evidence and information before rendering a decision. Keep the company in its current state or sell it to one of the giant firms that would merge BrenCo into their conglomerate? Her uncles, aided by cousin Ian, had invited an industry agent to town to explain the advantages of a sale and merger. She had to hear him out. Her decision was too vital
