Page 4 of Stand
“Oh.” Megan clearly had other things on her mind. “Okay. Let’s go back. Mother Cat’s had another glass of wine and Kane’s asking her opinion on the company, so she’s in a much better mood.”
Looking over the stream again before they turned to go home, Sam imagined Tyler as he’d been in high school: bony, wearing glasses, his hair cut in some painfully homegrown way. She flinched a little as she wrapped Cairo’s leash around her hand.
“Oh, come on,” said Megan, who’d seen her wince. “We’re not that bad.”
“I wasn’t thinking about—” Sam finished the sentence by butting Megan’s shoulder with hers. “Yeah, you are.”
Megan butted back. “You just say stuff to piss Cat off.”
“It’s my favorite pastime. And a good reason why I don’t visit.”
Megan sobered as they came out of the woods and onto the sidewalk. “Did you have to bring up Dad, though?”
Sam folded her arms, the familiar bullheadedness taking over. “Why not? Is he like an inverse Voldemort or something? He Who Was Too Perfect To Be Named?”
“No,” Megan said, her tone even, but Sam already felt like shit. “He was just Dad. But he was the only one we had, Sam.”
Megan had been only ten when their father had died. Sam had no business tainting her memories of him with her own anger at his pointless death and the mess he’d left the family in when he’d gone. She put an arm around her little sister’s shoulders, which were as tall as her own. “Sorry.”
At Cat’s house, things were chaotic but normal. The adults pretended nothing had happened. The rain stopped, so the kids recognized fresh meat and dragged Sam and Cairo out into the yard to play catch. The family golden retrievers dropped soggy bones at Cairo’s feet and shook the rain off their fur.
After a little while, Kane’s daughter came up to show off the half-eaten dinosaur she’d dug out of the sandbox. Sam crouched down and talked to the little girl about T. rexes. Thea’s younger son, Benji, and the friend whom he was about to have a sleepover with while Thea was on her honeymoon, joined the group to listen.
Megan came up behind her and nearly knocked her into the sand by hugging her from the back.
“Get off!” Sam said in a muffled voice, her face smooshed into her knees.
“I just wanted to say I’m sooo glad you came home,” Meg said into her back.
“Only for Thea,” Sam said crossly, but she squeezed the hands that had wrapped themselves around her neck. “And Libby. And maybe you a little bit. Now get the hell off me.”
“Get the hell off me!” four-year-old Libby echoed. Seven-year-old Benji and his buddy gulped with shock and delight.
“You’re the worst aunt in the world.” Meg laughed, easing up on Sam’s neck. “Don’t talk like your auntie, Libby.”
Sam’s other nephews had forgotten they were hip and cool sixteen-year-olds and were having a loud game of basketball in the driveway. Jake was now spiking the basketball like it was a football while Paolo or Mateo—her twin nephews would have to stand still for her to be able to figure out who was who—tried to jump on his back.
“Now that you’ve broken the ice,” Meg said, “will you come see us more often?”
Sam looked at her. They had the same dark-brown eyes, same strong eyebrows, same toothy smile. She hadn’t been in Meg’s life since Meg had left high school. It suddenly occurred to Sam that her baby sister could have used a friend in those years.
“I’ll try,” she said.
Chapter 2
The kids were quiet on the way home. When Alyssa had to climb over a tree trunk and scratched her thighs, she didn’t even squeak. Ty said, “You okay?” She nodded and kept walking ahead of him.
Sam freaking Fielding. Of all people. Sam Fielding, come from God-knew-where, sitting on that rock with her arms up and bent, her hands in her thick, reddish hair, her face turned to the rain like a goddess of the woods or something. In profile, her breasts had been thrust forward, reminding him of their perfection, whether in a sloppy football T-shirt or the tailored green top she’d worn today. She had changed enough that if he’d seen her from a distance, he might not have recognized her. But he’d seen her from twenty feet away, and yeah. He knew it was her. His gut had clenched, his heart flipped over, and his brain froze.
Sam freaking Fielding. Coming on him when his kids had been at their brattiest. Matt, who would ordinarily be the responsible older brother, had just gaped at her like… like Ty had back in the day.
And then. And then! She’d smiled at him! Like they’d been friends or something. That damn Fielding smile they’d all had, even the quiet sister, Thea. The smile that said they owned the world. He should have been glad of that smile, really, because it had reminded him of everything she was, everything she’d done in slow drip-drips of disdain and contempt, every side-eye, every flick of her gorgeous curvy hip, every…
He shook his head to dispel the guilt that pushed at him as they got out into the open near the parking lot.It was years ago. You gonna be that guy for the rest of your life?
Only then did he see that Alyssa’s leg was bleeding.
“Jeez, Alyssa,” he said, irrationally angry with her. “You should have said something!”