LITMIR.BIZ

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engine. As he started up the walkway, Brandon sensed that his presence here was scaring the locals, but that didn’t stop him from staring back. Across the street, a pair of beady eyes peered at him between half-closed curtains. The nosy old broad actually had a phone in her hand.

      He stepped onto April’s porch. There were hand-painted coffee cans with flowers in them, a rocking chair with a pink cushion, and a porch swing that creaked. He cupped his hand against the front window and looked inside. An old piano with sheet music. A braided rag rug like his grandma used to make. Real oak furniture that had probably been in the family for generations.

      The house was a travel brochure about April.

      He felt as though he had no business being here, that he was dirty somehow and full of darkness. In a house with dainty flowers and pink chair cushions, Brandon could never feel at home.

      “What are you doing here?”

      Brandon spun around. April stood on the walkway staring up at him with an expression of sheer panic. Over her shoulder he could see the woman glaring at him, phone in hand, which was when he guessed what had happened.

      “That old battle-axe call you?” he asked.

      April wanted nothing more than to run. Those innocent blue eyes of hers told him things. And damn if he didn’t want to chase her. Despite his best intentions, he couldn’t help but wonder what might happen if he relieved her of that pesky virginity and showed her what life was really all about.

      “You can’t be here,” she sputtered. “Mrs. Felps is calling the police.”

      She was practically panting with fright, which made Brandon realize that he would have to try harder to calm her.

      “I’m not going to hurt you, April,” he said seriously. “I just want to talk about Matthew.”

      “You should have come to my office,” she insisted. “It’s two minutes from here.”

      “I don’t do offices.” He sat on the top step, leaned his elbows on his knees and looked up at her. She was wearing the same dorky outfit she always wore, which was probably the only reason a beautiful woman like her was still a virgin.

      “You can sit,” he said. “I promise not to bite.”

      Not yet anyway.

      “I’m waiting for the police to arrive,” she said.

      The police weren’t coming. Brandon knew that. At least not until April gave Hagatha over there the signal, which was why the old bat kept hovering in the window.

      “Like I said, I’m not here to hurt you.” Brandon ran one hand over his stubbly jaw and realized he’d forgotten to shave. Because he wanted to see her sputter, he said, “We could talk inside if that would make you feel better.”

      She looked so incensed, it was everything he could do not to laugh. “Whatever awful thing you came to say, you say it here. I don’t let strange men inside my house.”

      April clearly let no men inside her house. Maybe not even the mall cop. Brandon tried to get a game plan together in his head, but he was enjoying just sitting here on her nice clean porch, watching her Ivory-soap skin turn every shade of pink.

      “I thought we could talk about my brother,” he said. “You might have some ideas about how to get the kid to school.”

      April blinked. The wariness in her eyes receded a little, but she still wasn’t there yet. “He’s your responsibility, Mr. McBride. You figure it out.”

      “Please don’t feed me the company bullshit. I came here ready to lay it all out for you. The least you can do is help.”

      He watched her take a deep breath before remembering that the Big Bad Wolf probably shouldn’t be staring at Red Riding Hood’s chest too intently.

      “All right,” she said. “I’ll sit. We’ll talk. But the minute you go off topic, I’m calling—”

      “The cops. I know.” He tried smiling, but figured it was better to be completely bullshit-free with her.

      “Matt’s a good kid,” he began as she sat nervously on the step beside him. “He’s got a mouth on him, but hey, at least he’s talking. When our mom died, he didn’t say a word for six months.”

      He could tell that surprised her. “It’s called ASR,” she said. “Acute Stress Reaction. But it usually only happens in cases of acute trauma.”

      April’s neighbor had come outside and was pretending to water her plants. She had on Tweety Bird house slippers and must have been mad as hell that she couldn’t hear a word they were saying.

      Matthew had been through agonizing trauma—things that Brandon didn’t even know about because he hadn’t been around. Too busy riding bikes, chasing tail, getting into trouble. At the time, he’d had no idea Matthew was a daily witness to brutal fights between Celia, their mother, and that wife-beating asshole Monroe. Even now Brandon tried not to think about it because when he did, his stomach tightened with guilt.

      He wasn’t about to tell April that.

      She was supposed to represent everything he hated: the law, the state, the crap that had sent him to foster care in the first place. Even the fact that she was a social worker should have made him hate her.

      But April smelled like vanilla. She reminded him of a fluffy white house kitty, the purebred kind with a jeweled collar. Maybe that was why he had such a hard time seeing her as the enemy. But he knew it was all a trick.

      He’d had a social worker once named Sandra Jacobs who’d ignored his pleas to move him out of a foster home. His foster father had been a drunk, abusive, belt-whipping bastard, a lot like Monroe. If you were late to dinner by even a fraction of a second, he made you kneel bare-legged on a bed of uncooked rice. For hours. And that was his easiest punishment.

      No, he had to work the system, work April. Because otherwise the system would eat his brother alive.

      “Matthew has a hard time in school, I’ll admit,” Brandon said. “He’s like me. Walls mess with his head.”

      April turned her face toward him, flushing when she saw him looking at her. “Yes, but he has to go. It’s the law. Just because a child isn’t happy with school, that doesn’t give him the right to abandon his education.”

      Straight out of the social worker handbook. April had all kinds of theories about life, didn’t she? She just didn’t have any experience living.

      “Tell me something,” he asked softly. “Did you like school? Were you one of those girls who gave a shiny red apple to the teacher and put pony stickers on her notebook?”

      Sure, he was baiting her. He wanted to see what she would do, even though a part of him knew better.

      But another part of him wanted to see where that vanilla smell was coming from. His blood heated at the thought of grabbing her wrists and pinning them to the mattress. The triumph of feeling her part her legs for him. How soft her breasts would be when he cupped them in his hands and stroked the tips.

      And now he was hard as a rock.

      “Is this where you start insulting me again?” April asked.

      “Insult you?” Her pink lips were very close. The longer he stared at them, the harder he got. Casually, he moved his forearm down to cover the worst of the problem. “No one’s ever accused me of being a gentleman.”

      The space where he ended and she began grew thick and heavy, the way air felt before a storm. You could be standing outside and everything would go still, too still, and then the heat lightning would crackle through the sky and the thunder would boom and all hell broke loose.

      Brandon had that same premonition now. Some ancient force was about to be unleashed. Now that it was here, he had no clue how to make it stop. Coming here had made things so much worse.

      “You

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