“No woman likes to be told she looks anything less than her best,” Gerry said. “Have I taught you nothing?”
“Just because we teach,” Carl said, sounding like some Zen master, “doesn’t mean anyone learns.”
“More fortune-cookie wisdom?” Geraldine asked, pouring scrambled eggs into a pan.
“Today’s horoscope.” Carl looked over the paper at Fay. “But Neil’s right. You look exhausted.” He inclined his head toward the door. “Go on. Take a nice long nap. Gerry and I will wrangle the boys when they wake up.”
Fay, her eyes downcast, traced her fingertip around the edge of her cup. “I suppose I could shut my eyes for a few more minutes....” She lifted her gaze to Neil. “You really don’t mind?”
He wanted to tell her not to ask his permission, to decide for herself what she wanted, what she needed. To demand she make her own way instead of following someone else’s lead.
“I’m going to head over to Bradford House later this morning,” he told her. He was having the run-down Victorian-era house renovated. “Why don’t you meet me there? Bring the boys then we’ll get some lunch after.”
She frowned. Nibbled on her pinkie nail, a habit she’d had since she was three. “What about Bree? Aren’t you going to see her today?”
Breanne, his eleven-year-old daughter, didn’t even know he was in town yet. He’d put off calling her, telling himself he wanted to make sure his plans were firm before letting her know he’d be around for a few days. But even he wasn’t that good at lying to himself. Not when he had so many conflicting feelings toward his daughter. Affection and resentment tangled up inside of him, making a toxic brew, one he hated, one he tried like hell to hide, but couldn’t deny.
And he was afraid she knew it. That she saw right through him. Just like her mother always had.
“I’ll have Bree spend the night here,” he said.
“Well,” Fay hedged, “if you’re sure...”
“He’s sure,” Gerry said, wrapping her arm around Fay’s shoulders and guiding her toward the door. “We’ll save you some breakfast,” she promised, giving Fay a nudge into the hall. A moment later, she turned back to Neil and Carl and lowered her voice. “She wouldn’t be so tired if she didn’t spend every night crying over that SOB.”
“She’ll get through it,” Carl said. “She needs time.”
Gerry went back to the stove. “What she needs is a good divorce attorney.”
“It’s come to that?” Neil asked, knowing only that Fay and Shane Lindemuth, her husband of five years, were having problems, and she and the boys had moved back home two weeks ago.
“If you call him running around on her a problem, then yes,” Gerry said, turning off the heat under the eggs.
“He cheated on her?” How Neil managed to sound so damned calm when he wanted to go across town to the little house he’d bought his sister as a wedding present and rip his brother-in-law’s throat out, he had no idea.
Carl frowned at his wife. “We don’t know that he’s cheated. Could be he’s just having a tough time adjusting to civilian life.”
Shane had recently been discharged from the Marine Corps after serving in Afghanistan for almost a year.
It didn’t matter to Neil why Shane was being an ass. Neil wasn’t there to play marriage counselor. He had responsibilities, ones he took seriously. People who relied on him.
He’d help Fay get back on her feet. Let Gerry fuss over him. Hang out with Carl at the old man’s favorite coffee shop. He’d spend time with his daughter.
He’d do what had to be done. Then he’d get the hell out of there.
* * *
THE SLIGHT WEIGHT of her hammer resting on her right shoulder, Maddie Montesano opened and closed her fingers around the handle like a ballplayer up to bat. Aiming where it’d do the most damage, she swung, connecting solidly with her brother James’s fat head.
Bits of plaster and splinters of the thin, wooden lath behind it flew, stung her bare arms. Clung to her clothes. Dust exploded only to hang momentarily in the thick, still air before drifting to the drop cloth covering the ugly, faded maroon carpet. She wrenched the hooked end of the hammer from the wall where she’d sketched a decent likeness of her eldest brother—complete with devil horns and a pointier, more sinister version of his stupid goatee.
Swear to God, one of these nights she was going to sneak into his house and shave that