Blood Brothers

“They’re wonderful, thank you.” Fra

“I’m Layla Darnell, thank you for having us in your home. I hope the wine’s appropriate.”

“I’m sure it is.” Fra

“I brought you something, too.” He grabbed her, lowered her into a stylish dip, and kissed both her cheeks. “What’s cooking, sweetheart?”

As she had since he’d been a boy, Fra

“Is there anything we can do to help?”

“Not a thing.”

When Cal came down with his father, Fox was doing his version of snooty French waiter as he served appetizers. The women were laughing, candles were lit, and his mother carried in her grandmother’s best crystal vase with Qui

Sometimes, Cal mused, all really was right with the world.

H ALFWAY THROUGH THE MEAL, WHERE THE CONVERSATION stayed in what Cal considered safe territories, Qui

“I took a few classes.”

“Fra

“Get out. You did all the faux and fancy paintwork? Yourself?”

“I enjoy it.”

“Found that sideboard there years back at some flea market, had me haul it home.” Jim gestured toward the gleaming mahogany sideboard. “A few weeks later, she has me haul it in here. Thought she was pulling a fast one, had snuck out and bought something from an antique store.”

“Martha Stewart eats your dust,” Qui

“I’ll take it.”

“I’m useless at all of that. I can barely paint my own nails. How about you?” Qui

“I can’t sew, but I like to paint. Walls. I’ve done some ragging that turned out pretty well.”

“The only ragging I’ve done successfully was on my ex-fiancé.”

“You were engaged?” Fra

“I thought I was. But our definition of same differed widely.”

“It can be difficult to blend careers and personal lives.”

“Oh, I don’t know. People do it all the time-with varying degrees of success, sure, but they do. I think it just has to be the right people. The trick, or the first of probably many tricks, is recognizing the right person. Wasn’t it like that for you? Didn’t you have to recognize each other?”

“I knew the first time I saw Fra

“A little more practical,” Fra

“And sometimes you think you see something,” Qui

ONE THING QUINN KNEW HOW TO DO WAS FINAGLE. Fra

“I love kitchens. I’m kind of a pathetic cook, but I love all the gadgets and tools, all the shiny surfaces.”

“I imagine with your work, you eat out a lot.”

“Actually, I eat in most of the time or call for takeout. I implemented a lifestyle change-nutrition-wise-a couple of years ago. Determined to eat healthier, depend less on fast or nuke-it-out-of-a-box food. I make a really good salad these days. That’s a start. Oh God, oh God, that’s apple pie. Homemade apple pie. I’m going to have to do double duty in the gym as penance for the huge piece I’m going to ask for.”

Her enjoyment obvious, Fra

“Yes, but only to show my impeccable ma

“It’s very hard.” Fra

“Will you tell me what happened when he came home that morning, the morning of his tenth birthday?”

“I was in the yard.” Fra

Deadheading her roses, and some of the coreopsis that had bloomed off. She could even hear the busy snip, snip of her shears, and the hum of the neighbor’s-it had been the Petersons, Jack and Lois, then-lawn mower. She remembered, too, she’d been thinking about Cal, and his birthday party. She’d had his cake in the oven.

A double-chocolate sour cream cake, she remembered. She’d intended to do a white frosting to simulate the ice planet from one of the Star Wars movies. Cal had loved Star Wars for years and years. She’d had the little action figures to arrange on it, the ten candles all ready in the kitchen.

Had she heard him or sensed him-probably some of both-but she’d looked around as he’d come barreling up on his bike, pale, filthy, sweaty. Her first thought had been accident, there’d been an accident. And she’d been on her feet and rushing to him before she’d noticed he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

“The part of me that registered that was ready to give him a good tongue-lashing. But the rest of me was still ru

What is it, what happened, are you hurt? All of that, Fra

“There was that part of me again, the part that thought what were you doing in the woods, Caleb Hawkins? It all came pouring out of him, how he and Fox and Gage pla

“You believed him?”

“I didn’t want to. I wanted to believe he’d had a nightmare, which he richly deserved, that he’d stuffed himself on sweets and junk food and had a nightmare. Even, that someone had gone after them in the woods. But I couldn’t look at his face and believe that. I couldn’t believe the easy that, the fixable that. And then, of course, there were his eyes. He could see a bee hovering over the delphiniums across the yard. And under the dirt and sweat, there wasn’t a bruise on him. The nine-year-old I’d sent off the day before had scraped knees and bruised shins. The one who came back to me hadn’t a mark on him, but for the thin white scar across his wrist he hadn’t had when he left.”