LITMIR.BIZ

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the hell good were you?

      “It’s not going to be easy,” he said. “Not on any of ‘em. But they’re strong men. They’ll make it through.”

      Maggie gave the quilt covering him one last tug, then leaned down and planted a quick kiss on his forehead. “They’re not the ones I’m worried about,” she said, then stood up and smiled down at him.

      “You’re a good girl, Maggie. But you don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be fine once my boys are home.”

      Sam entered the house quietly, half expecting the old man’s bodyguard to leap at him from the shadows, teeth bared. When there was no sign of Maggie Collins, though, he surrendered to the inevitable and glanced around the room he’d once run wild through.

      Two lamps had been left burning, their soft glow illuminating a room he would have been able to find his way through blindfolded. Nothing had changed. Oak floors, scarred from years of running children and booted feet, were dotted with faded colorful throw rugs. Four dark brown leather sofas sat arranged in a huge square, with a table wide enough to be a raft in the dead center of them. Magazines were stacked neatly in one corner of the table and a vase of yellow roses sat center stage.

      Had to be the bodyguard’s doing, he told himself, since he knew damn well Jeremiah wouldn’t have thought to cut fresh flowers. Maggie Collins’s face rose up in his mind, then faded away as Sam looked around the house, familiarizing himself all over again with his past.

      A river-stone hearth wide and high enough for a man to stand in dominated one wall, and a few embers still glowed richly red behind a fire screen of scrolled iron. The walls were adorned with framed family photos and landscapes painted by a talented, if young, hand. Sam winced at the paintings and quickly looked away. He wasn’t ready just yet to be smothered by ghosts. It was enough that he was here. He’d have to swallow the past in small gulps or he’d choke on them.

      Dropping his duffle bag by the door, he headed for the stairs at the far end of the room. Each stair was a log, sawn in half and varnished to a high sheen. The banisters looked like petrified tree trunks, and his hand slid along the cool surface as he mounted the stairs to the bedrooms above.

      His steps sounded like the slow beating of his own heart. Every move he made took him closer to memories he didn’t want to look at. Yet there was no going back. No avoiding it anymore.

      At the head of the stairs he paused and glanced down the long hall. Closed doors were all that greeted him, but he knew the rooms behind those doors as well as he knew his own reflection in the mirror. He and his cousins had shared those rooms every summer for most of their lives. They’d crashed up the stairs, slid down the banisters and run wild across every acre of the family ranch.

      Until that last summer.

      The day when everything had changed forever.

      The day they’d all grown up—and apart.

      Scowling, he brushed away the memories as he would a cloud of gnats in front of his face and walked to the door at the head of the stairs. His grandfather’s room. A man he hadn’t seen in fifteen years.

      Shame rippled through him and he told himself that Maggie Collins would be proud if she knew it. She was right about one thing. They shouldn’t have stayed away from the old man for so long. Should have found a way to see him despite the pain.

      But they hadn’t.

      Instead they’d punished themselves, and in the doing had punished an old man who hadn’t deserved it, as well.

      He knocked and waited.

      “Sam?”

      The voice was weaker than he’d thought it would be but still so familiar. Apparently the housekeeper/bodyguard had spilled the news about his arrival. He opened the door, stepped inside and felt his heart turn over in his chest.

      Jeremiah Lonergan. The strongest man Sam had ever known looked… old. Most of his hair was gone, his tanned scalp shining in the soft lamplight. A fringe of gray hair ringed his head, and the lines that had always defined his face were deeper, scored more fully into his features. He looked small in the wide bed, covered in one of the quilts his wife had made decades ago.

      Sam felt the solid punch of sorrow slam him in the gut. Time had passed. Too much time. And for that one startling moment he deeply regretted all the years he’d missed with the man he’d always loved. For some reason, he hadn’t really expected that Jeremiah would be different. Despite the phone call from the old man’s doctor saying that he didn’t have much time left, Sam had thought somehow that his grandfather would be unchanged.

      “Hi, Pop,” he said and forced a smile.

      “Come in, come in,” his grandfather urged, weakly waving one hand. Then he patted the edge of the bed. “Sit down, boy. Let me look at you.”

      Sam did and, once he was close enough, gave his grandfather a quick once-over. He was thinner, but his eyes were clear and sharp. His tan wasn’t as dark as it had been, but there was no sickly pallor to his cheeks. His hands were gnarled, but they weren’t trembling.

      All good things.

      “How you feeling?” Sam asked, reaching out to lay one hand on his grandfather’s forehead.

      Jeremiah brushed that hand away. “Fine. I’m fine. And I’ve already got me a doctor to poke and prod. Don’t need my grandson doing it, too.”

      “Sorry,” Sam said with a shrug. “Professional hazard.” As a doctor, he could respect another doctor’s territory and not want to intrude. As a grandson, he wanted to see for himself that his grandfather was all right. Apparently, though, that wouldn’t be as easy as it sounded. “I spoke to Dr. Evans after I talked to you last month. He says that your heart’s in pretty bad shape.”

      Jeremiah winced. “Doctors. Don’t pay them any mind.”

      Sam laughed shortly. “Thanks.”

      “Don’t mean you, boy,” the old man corrected quickly. “I’m sure you’re a fine doctor. Always been real proud of you, Sam. In fact, I was telling Bert Evans that you might be just the man to buy him out.”

      Sam stood up and shoved both hands in his pockets. He’d been afraid of this. Afraid that the old man would make more of this visit than there was. Afraid he’d ask Sam to stay. Expect him to stay. And Sam couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

      But his grandfather either didn’t notice his discomfort or didn’t care. Because he kept talking. And with every word, guilt pinged around inside Sam just a little bit harder.

      “Bert’s a good doc, mind. But he’s as old as me and getting ready to fold up shop.” He smiled up at Sam and winked conspiratorially. “The town needs a doctor, and seeing as you don’t have a place of your own—”

      “Pop, I’m not staying.” Sam forced himself to say it flat out. He didn’t want to hurt his grandfather, but he didn’t want the old man holding onto false hopes either. Guilt tore at him to see the gleam go out of his grandfather’s eyes. “I’m here for the summer,” he said softly, willing the old man to understand just what it had cost him to come home again. “But when it’s over, I’m leaving again.”

      “I thought.” Jeremiah’s voice trailed away as he sagged back into his pillows. “I thought that once I got you back here, you’d see it’s where you belong. Where all of you belong.”

      Pain rippled through Sam in tiny waves, one after the other. There was a time once, when he was a kid, that he would have done anything to live here forever. To be a part of the little town that had once seemed so perfect to him. To know that this house would always be his.

      But those dreams died one bright summer day fifteen years ago.

      Now he didn’t belong anywhere.

      “I’m sorry, Pop,” he said, knowing it wasn’t enough but that it was all he had to offer.

      The

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