“When we were older, yeah. Not when we were—” somebody bellowed “—this age. That honor, he left to Mom.”
“So what do you do?”
Zach shrugged, his mouth pulled down at the corners. “There’s a church day care, but it’s only part-time. So we let ’em hang with us, when we can.” He exchanged another glance with Josh. “Pawn ’em off on Gus, sometimes.”
“Gus?” Levi belted a laugh. Gus Otero had been a fixture at the Vista Encantada—the ranch where he and his brothers had grown up—forever, first as a hand, then as the cook/housekeeper. Hell, the four of them had probably spent more time in Gus’s kitchen than their own, and the tough old bird had never taken crap off any of them. But the man had to be nearly eighty by now.
“Don’t laugh,” Josh said. “I’d put my money on Gus before one of those fancy trained nannies any day. Even so...”
Josh took another gulp of his beer, then lowered his voice and said to Zach, “This isn’t what either of us signed up for, is it?” A rhetorical question, apparently, since he didn’t wait for a reply. Levi, however, noticed his older brother’s deep frown as he stared at his bottle before Josh quickly added, “Don’t get me wrong, Austin’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Doesn’t mean it’s not a pain, trying to make the pieces fit. Or hard not to feel resentful, sometimes, that his mom didn’t keep her part of the bargain.”
Knowing that Josh had never been married to Austin’s mother, it took Levi a moment to work up the nerve to ask, “So...it wasn’t an accident?”
Josh barked out a laugh, then looked at Levi in a way he’d never done. “I know—when we were kids, you were always considered... Well, I don’t want to say the bad one, but definitely the one more likely to get into trouble. So I did my level best not to. Then you left and maybe I didn’t feel the need to compensate for your behavior anymore?” He took a swig of his beer. “And I may have gone a little nuts.”
“A little nuts?” Zach muttered, and Josh shot him the evil eye. Then sighed.
“Okay, a lot nuts. Especially when it came to women. Not that there were dozens—”
“Which would be tricky,” Zach put in, “considering where we live.”
“Would you let me tell my story, for cripes’ sake? Anyway. Then I met Austin’s mother, and even though we were being careful...” Josh shrugged. “The thing is, though, I wasn’t in love with her. Not even close. And frankly the thought of being somebody’s daddy scared me to death. But the thought of Dad’s reaction scared me more. So I asked her to marry me—”
“Like the good boy you always were,” Zach said, half smiling.
“Shut up,” Josh lobbed back, then returned his gaze to Levi. “She actually laughed. But she said she wanted to keep the baby. So we worked out this whole custody-sharing arrangement. Only...”
Josh linked his hands behind his head, his eyes on Austin, quietly building something out of blocks not ten feet away. “Only she left. Like, three years ago? Haven’t heard a word from her since. And then this one...”
Whether because Josh’s nod toward their oldest brother was met with a death glare, or because Austin came over to show off his Duplo masterpiece, Josh apparently changed his mind about whatever he was about to say. Instead he scooped his son into his lap, worry lines vanishing as he focused on his little boy. Then a minor crisis of some sort pulled Zach away from the table to tend to his crying youngest as Jeremy pled his innocence with all the fervor of a TV lawyer, leaving Levi feeling something for his brothers he’d never felt before. Admiration, maybe. Even...tenderness, if a guy was allowed to have such feelings for another dude. Let alone admit them.
For a woman, though, that was something else. Especially a woman dealing with the same issues as his brothers were. Trying to make the pieces fit, wasn’t that what Josh had said?
“So how is it?” Josh said, jerking Levi out of his thoughts.
Levi frowned at his brother. Austin still sat on his lap, making soft explosion noises as he calmly, and repeatedly, smashed his creation against the tabletop. “How is what?”
“Seeing Val again.” When Levi didn’t answer right away, Josh chuckled. “Not exactly a secret, bro. How you felt, I mean.”
So much for his brother being in the dark. “Do the others know?”
“Zach and Colin?” Josh shook his head, giving Austin’s curls a quick kiss as the little boy slid off his lap and climbed into Levi’s. “At that point, they didn’t even want to acknowledge our existence. But you and I shared a room. Kinda hard to escape your moping.”
“I did not—”
“Yeah. You did. And after Tommy and Val started going together...” Josh’s head wagged. “So sad.”
Levi’s sigh stirred his nephew’s curls, making the little boy slap his hand on top of his head, vigorously rubbing the spot like it stung.
“That tickles!”
“Sorry, dude,” Levi said with a soft laugh, hoisting the slippery kid more securely onto his lap before meeting his brother’s gaze again. “That was a long time ago.”
“Yeah, it was. So?” When Levi didn’t answer, Josh picked up his fork, dinging it softly against the side of his bowl for a moment before saying, “I have no idea what you’ve been through these past six years.” The fork clanged back into the bowl before Josh folded his arms over his chest and met Levi’s gaze again. “But I’m gonna guess it wasn’t exactly a hayride. Then Tomas...” His cheeks puffed as he exhaled, shaking his head. “I’m just saying, you probably don’t need any more complications right now.”
Austin wriggled off Levi’s lap to run back into the living room. Smiling slightly, Levi watched him for a moment, then looked back at his twin. “You’re probably right,” he said, taking another sip of his now-warm beer, which burned his throat as he swallowed. “Then again, who does? So what’re the options? Run? Or deal? And you of all people,” he said, nodding toward the living room, “should know what I’m talking about.”
A long moment passed before Josh pushed out a half laugh. “Got me there,” he said, then snagged Levi’s gaze in his again. “Still. Be careful, okay?”
“Fully intend to,” Levi said, tilting the bottle to his lips again, only to think if there was a quicker road to hell, he didn’t know what it was.
* * *
That night, Val tucked Josie into the old twin bed that had once belonged to one of Tommy’s aunts; the maple-spindled headboard softly gleamed in the light from the bedside lamp. This was the smallest bedroom, one of three carved out of the steeply pitched attic sometime in the 1960s. But Josie had immediately laid claim to it, clearly taken with the skylight window with its unencumbered view of the night sky. Not to mention it was the perfect hideaway when, as Josie put it, her brain got too full and she needed to be alone to empty it.
Bending over to give Josie a kiss, Val smiled when a soft squeak alerted them to the kitten’s arrival; a moment later the tiny thing clawed up onto the bed to snuggle against Josie’s side, motor going full throttle.
Val
