style="font-size:15px;"> What is wrong with you? Lily muttered to herself, trying to hide her dismay behind a forced smile.
He nodded toward the house. “I’m going to get inside and have some of that fudge.”
Yeah. She nodded goodbye.
Fudge.
Chapter Two
Jake was shoving fudge into his mouth like there was no tomorrow when Nick finally got into the kitchen of their new house. He stopped only long enough to hold out his now empty glass, wanting Nick to refill it for him before putting the pitcher down on the counter.
“Hey, she was kind of cute for somebody’s mom,” Jake said. “And she can really make fudge.”
“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t had any yet,” Nick said, hoping his voice wasn’t too gruff.
He didn’t mean for it to be. Too many years of snapping out orders to soldiers in his command. It was habit now, though he tried his best to tone it down for Jake and his brothers. They really didn’t need anybody who sounded like they were yelling at them or mad at them, and Nick knew he could sound like that without even trying.
Jake handed over what was left of the fudge and Nick bit into it, a flavor akin to ecstasy exploding in his mouth.
“Oh…sh…man!” he said.
He was trying to quit cussing, too, trying to set a good example for the kid. Not that he was doing all that well with the noswearing bit, either.
“I know,” Jake said appreciatively. “What do you think we’d have to do to get her to make us dinner?”
“Doubtful. She’s a single mother with two little girls,” Nick said, still savoring a mouthful of fudge. “She probably doesn’t have a lot of extra time.”
“Still,” Jake said hopefully. “I bet she’d do it for you. Did you see the way she looked at you? Like she didn’t really mind that you’re—”
“Old?” Nick guessed.
“I was going to say practically ancient.” Jake grinned, reaching for the last piece of fudge.
“Touch it and die,” Nick growled. “You already had a plateful.”
“I know, but I’m still hungry,” he complained.
And it wasn’t even ten o’clock.
Lily Tanner knew what she was talking about. Teenage boys were bottomless pits. Nick hadn’t noticed so much in the first week or so after his sister and brother-in-law’s death, because neighbors kept bringing over food. It seemed like a mountain of food, but it hadn’t lasted long with the twins and Jake in the house. It seemed nothing, even grief, dimmed the appetite of a teenage boy for long.
“Let’s finish getting everything out of the truck before it gets any hotter, and then we’ll go find something to eat,” Nick said. “Who knows? Maybe by that time, another one of the neighbors will show up with lunch. Just try to look pitiful and weak and underfed.”
“I can do that,” Jake said, guzzling another glass of tea and then heading outside.
Nick put down his own glass, grabbed the last piece of fudge and popped it in his mouth, then looked around the house, empty of everything but boxes and furniture that hadn’t yet been put into place, and he hoped for what had to be the thousandth time that he was doing the right thing in coming here to Virginia and trying to raise this kid.
And wondered what in the hell his sister had been thinking of to name him the boys’ guardian in her will.
They got everything out of the truck by noon, and then went inside and moved just enough boxes to allow them room to collapse on the sofa that had landed temporarily right under a ceiling fan.
Nick had to hand it to the kid. He could do some work, and he was really strong, although Nick had to think he could take the kid in a fight, if he really had to. And from the mountain of unsolicited advice he’d received in the last few weeks on raising teenagers, Nick had been led to believe it might just come down to who was stronger physically at least once. Although, he couldn’t see Jake refusing to listen to him to the point where the two of them got into a fight.
Still, what did Nick know? Next to nothing about raising kids.
Thank God they were boys.
If they had been girls, he wouldn’t have had a prayer.
Of course, if his sister had daughters, she probably wouldn’t have left them to Nick to raise.
“I’m starving,” Jake said, sprawled out on the couch, eyes closed, head resting heavily against the back, long legs stretched out in front of him.
“Tell me something I don’t already know,” Nick said, thinking of what kind of fast-food restaurants he’d seen on the drive over here in the truck.
And then, the doorbell rang.
Jake sat up and looked insanely hopeful. “Do you think it might be more fudge?”
“I think we could use something more substantial than fudge. Don’t you?”
“Guess so,” Jake said, dragging himself up to answer the door.
Which was a good thing, because every muscle in Nick’s body was protesting the very idea of moving, which the kid would no doubt give him hell about.
Nick didn’t want to be fifteen again for any amount of money in the world, but the body of a fifteen-year-old…That, he could handle, especially on days like today.
Jake opened the door and grinned like crazy.
Must be food.
Nick forced himself up and to his feet, trying to make it without a grimace as his back protested fiercely. At least the kid didn’t see. He was focused completely on the baking dish placed in his outstretched hands.
They made nice to the neighbor lady with the chicken cheddar noodle dish for a few minutes, then headed for the kitchen and scarfed it down right out of the pan, leaning over the kitchen countertop with a fork for each of them and nothing else.
Jake’s mother would be appalled, Nick was sure, but hey, the kid was hungry and he was being fed.
They washed it down with some more of Lily Tanner’s tea, Jake all but licking the chicken pan clean, like a puppy who hadn’t been fed in days.
“I think I like this neighborhood,” he said. “Do you think someone will show up with dinner?”
“We can hope,” Nick said.
Lily had meant to get some work done that day. Truly, she had. She’d come home from next door and taken her temperature again, finding it still oddly normal, but still felt all flushed and shaky and…weak.
Was she coming down with something?
Had
