if that deputy hailed fron somewhere foreign—say, Los Angeles, California, as Rafe did—then he was guaranteed a hostile reception at best. “Unfortunately for Paradise Corners, I’m here and I’m planning to stay. The Maxwells and everyone else might as well get used to having me….”
Jed lifted his head and gave him a soulful, understanding stare.
Grinning, Rafe reached out and rubbed the wrinkled head of his best friend and only real family in the world. “The Maxwells had better get used to having both of us around.”
TWO SILENT MEN sat the breakfast table when Thea came into the kitchen the next morning. Her father glanced up and nodded, then returned to his eggs. Herman Peace, manager of Walking Stones, gave her his usual lopsided smile. “Lazybones.”
Thea returned the smile and stepped to the coffeemaker on the counter. “Guilty as charged.”
Déjà vu—pouring a mug of coffee brought back last night’s interlude with Rafe Rafferty. She’d regretted everything about those minutes—what she had said and what she hadn’t—through the remainder of a mostly sleepless night.
“’Morning, Thea.” Beth Peace, Herman’s sister, bustled in from the hallway leading to the pantry and laundry room. “I’ll have your plate ready in a flash. Your dad needed some more juice.” Standing beside his chair, she filled his half-empty glass to the brim.
“Thank you, ma’am.” Robert Maxwell’s smile was sweet when he chose to use it. Which was seldom outside of Beth’s kitchen.
“Take your time.” Thea shuddered as she swallowed her black coffee. She preferred sugar and cream, but with the day ahead, she figured she needed a straight shot. “I won’t starve.”
But Beth was already cracking eggs into the big iron frying pan with one hand, punching slices of bread into the toaster with the other. Never hurried or flustered, but always busy, she’d been running the household as long as Thea could remember, even before their mom died. Bobby had been four at the time—Beth was the only mother he really remembered.
“Did you wake up your brother?” Her dad set his plate in the sink. “We’re already late getting started.”
“I knocked on his door, and he said he was coming.” Not a lie, exactly—her dad didn’t want to hear what Bobby had actually said, or the vocabulary he’d used to say it. “His shower was running as I came down the hall.”
“Get him outside by six, with or without breakfast. You coming, Peace?” Opening the door to the mudroom, he asked the question without looking back for an answer.
“Right behind you.” The manager gulped down the last of his coffee. As the door shut behind Boss Maxwell, Herman cocked a thick gray eyebrow and grinned at Thea. “Man’s just a bundle of sunshine in the morning, ain’t he? Have a good one,” he told his sister, planting a kiss on the woman’s cheek. “I’m hoping for stew tonight.”
Beth pretended to push him away. “You’ll take what you get and be satisfied.” But she smiled and lifted her hand as he backed through the door. Then she dished up Thea’s eggs and bacon and toast, set the plate on the table, and poured another glass of juice.
“Thanks, Beth.” Thea sat down to her meal, hoping the housekeeper had something important to do besides ask questions.
No such luck. “The deputy sheriff brought Bobby home last night?” Mug in hand, Beth sat in the chair her brother had vacated. “Drunk?”
Chewing, Thea just nodded.
“Fighting?”
“Uh-huh.” She gulped down the orange juice.
“What are we going to do with that boy?” A worried frown creased Beth’s smooth, plump face. “He’s getting wilder every day. Your father should have let him go to California to college. Jolie would have looked out for him.”
“But Bobby would never have come back.” Thea had given up trying to figure out why. All her brother had to do was show some interest and he’d have Walking Stones and everything it stood for handed to him on a platter. While she, who would give her right arm for the privilege of tending the land…
She shoved the thought out of her mind. There was no time for bitterness this morning. Bobby had less than five minutes for breakfast. She scooted her chair back from the table. “I’d better go see if he’s on his feet.”
Beth nodded. “I’ll make him a sandwich to eat as he rides.”
The door to Bobby’s room was still shut. Thea knocked, got no answer, and turned the knob, dreading to see her brother still in bed. All hell would break loose if Bobby had gone back to sleep.
But the situation wasn’t quite that desperate. He was awake and dressed, more or less, though his shirttail hung outside his jeans and the cuffs were unbuttoned. He sat on the bed wearing one boot, with the other lying on the floor between his feet. Head propped in his hands, elbows on his knees, he didn’t look up when she stepped into the room.
“Dad said to have you outside by six. We’re pushing the deadline.”
Bobby drew a deep breath. “Tell him I’m sick.”
“Hangovers don’t count, you know that.”
“Tell him I’m dead.”
“I’m not sure even death would be an excuse for you not showing up for work this morning.”
That got her a ghost of a chuckle. “Damn, my head hurts.”
“Maybe you could remember that feeling before you start drinking?”
“Maybe.” With a sigh, he pushed his hands through his thick, wavy hair and reached for the other boot. “I must’ve been totally plowed last night. I don’t remember driving home.”
“You didn’t.” Thea kept her mind blank. “The deputy brought you.”
Bobby looked up, his sleepy eyes a little wider. “Yeah?” He thought a second. “Oh, yeah. He pulled me out of the truck and dumped me in the rain.”
“He what?” Being furious with Rafe Rafferty felt really good—like Christmas and the Fourth of July rolled into one. “That’s why you were so wet? I thought you’d just climbed out of the truck cab.” If she ever saw that deputy again—which she would avoid if at all possible—he would get a sharp piece of her mind about trying to drown teenage boys who’d had a little too much to drink.
“I wasn’t climbing anywhere if I could help it.” He jerked on the right boot, eased to his feet and tucked his shirt into his jeans. Tall, like their dad, narrow of hip and wide of shoulder, Bobby had the looks of a movie star. Or a model.
Good thing he’d never expressed any interest in being either. Thea didn’t want to think about Robert Maxwell’s reaction to those ambitions. “Ready to ride?”
Her brother just looked at her. “Are you a sadist?”
From the back of the house came a bellow Thea recognized as their dad calling Bobby’s name. She grabbed her brother’s arm and pulled him after her into the hallway. “You tempt me, boy.
