LITMIR.BIZ

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ignore it. “Oh, yeah? Cool.”

      Sean grinned. “I’m working on my knuckleball. Dad says I’m getting pretty good.”

      Instinctively, Trent shot a glance at Peggy. Once, Paul had pitched for the high school team. He’d been good—almost great. A&M had offered him a full scholarship. But at the very moment when he should have been reporting for practice, he’d been lying in a hospital bed.

      Burned over seventy percent of his body.

      Dying.

      And now Harrison was teaching the famous Archer knuckleball to this freckle-faced replacement son. Peggy stared at the wall, apparently determined not to look at Sean. Her cheeks were pale, her hazel eyes ominously glassy. Trent’s shoulders tightened. It was like torture, rubbing salt in a wound that already refused to heal.

      “I need to sit down.” Peggy let go of Trent’s hand and led the way into the small blue-and-white living room.

      Her limp was worse this week, Trent noticed. She must be in a lot of pain. Though only in her early fifties, she moved like a woman of ninety. Her hip replacement surgery was scheduled for July, a long six weeks from now. She was dreading it, but Trent privately hoped it would give her a sort of fresh start, too.

      Harrison set the bracket down on the coffee table, not bothering to hide his eagerness to escape. “So, you can handle this alone, right? It’s not that big a job, and we probably should hit the road. Nora gets out of Pilates at four, and she needs to shower before the game.”

      “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Trent repressed the urge to shake the older man. Was he doing this deliberately? Why would he mention Nora’s daily exercise class, when his ex-wife could barely walk?

      As if Peggy didn’t already know that a heartbroken, postmenopausal arthritic could never hold a candle to the buoyant young wife who waited for Harrison at home.

      “Good. Well, then, we’ll be going.” Harrison looked over at Peggy, who had lowered herself into a white rocker and picked up her knitting, as if to say, Yes, I’m a middle-aged woman, and I don’t care. “Goodbye, then, Peg.”

      “Bye, Peggy,” Sean echoed politely. “Thanks for having me.”

      She didn’t look up from her yarn. “Goodbye.”

      The word was so cold it sent a small gust of frigid air out into the room. Bristling, Harrison drew his eyebrows together. He handed his son the car keys and whispered something. Sean nodded and headed toward the front stairs.

      As soon as the door shut behind the boy, Harrison turned and glared at his ex-wife. “None of this is Sean’s fault, you know,” he said gruffly.

      She kept knitting. Her fingers looked almost as white as the yarn.

      “Damn it, Peggy. You could be a little nicer to him.”

      She finally looked up. “No. As a matter of fact, Harry, I couldn’t. Don’t ever bring that boy into my house again.”

      Harrison made a sharp move forward, but Trent threw out his arm. He’d seen the Archer temper all too often in the old days. Back then, he’d been too young, too intimidated by the Archer acres, to know what he should do about it.

      But he knew now.

      “Hey,” he said. “Easy.”

      The older man’s chest pushed against Trent’s forearm, as if he might put up a fight. His breath came harsh and heavy. They stood that way about ten seconds, with Harrison clearly struggling for composure.

      Finally he eased back an inch or two. He transferred his glare to Trent. “I need to talk to you, son,” he said. “Outside.”

      Trent didn’t much like the autocratic tone, but he very much liked the idea of getting the agitated man away from Peggy. He nodded and followed Harrison through the door and onto the front porch.

      “Bitch,” Harrison muttered as the door shut behind him. Trent ignored it, but he placed himself between the older man and the entry, just in case.

      “You said you wanted to talk to me?”

      Harrison took one last deep breath, and ran his hands through his thinning brown hair. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. It’s just that even after all these years, she can still get my goat. She’s stuck in the past, Trent. Damn it, I loved Paul, too, but I have to get on with my life, don’t I? And she hates me for it.”

      “Maybe she just hates having your new life thrown in her face.”

      Harrison’s fleshy cheeks reddened. “Thrown in her face? Look, I didn’t choose to come here. She called me. She said she needed help. And look what it turned out to be! The damn television set!”

      Trent didn’t bother to try to make Harrison understand how important television could be to someone as lonely as Peggy. Empathy wasn’t the man’s strong suit.

      “Well, I’m here now, so you’re off the hook. Take Sean to the game and forget about it.”

      “It’s ridiculous, anyhow.” Harrison glanced toward the house with distaste. “Why the hell didn’t she just hire someone to fix it? God knows the allowance I give her is big enough.”

      Trent’s jaw was so tight he could hardly get words out. “I think she likes the company. Half the time when I come over, she tells me to forget the repairs. She just wants to sit and talk.”

      Harrison laughed. “What? You think she just likes to hang out with you? Don’t kid yourself, son. She’s using you. She knows you’ve got a guilty conscience, so she plays on it.”

      Trent had heard enough. “You know, I think it’s time for you to go.”

      To his surprise, the edict didn’t seem to inflame the older man’s tinderbox temper. Instead, Harrison’s face softened, as if swept by a sudden and rare compassion. “You really care about her, don’t you?”

      “Yes.”

      “Poor kid.” Harrison rested his meaty hand gently on Trent’s shoulder. “I know you think you can make it up to her. But you can’t. It’s too big, what happened.”

      Trent shrugged. “Maybe. I come because I like to. That’s all.”

      “Okay.” Harrison nodded, but he chewed on the inside of his cheek as if something troubled him. “Still…you need to watch your step, son. Because I promise you this. Deep down inside where nobody sees, that woman hates you.”

      * * *

      THOUGH MONDAY was only Eli Breslin’s first day, by midafternoon Susannah was guardedly pleased with his performance. During the lunch break, when Zander and Susannah had gone over business in the foreman’s office, even the older man had grudgingly admitted that, so far, the boy took instruction meekly and worked hard.

      Maybe too hard. Mid-May in Central Texas could be cool, but summer was sneaking in early this year, and temperatures were already hitting eighty.

      When Susannah drove the flatbed out to see how the tree thinning was coming along, she caught a glimpse of Eli, leaning against the bright yellow shaking machine, dirty and sweaty and shirtless. He held a plastic water bottle above his head and was letting its contents pour over his upturned face and run glistening down his sunburned chest.

      For the first time, Susannah could sort of see why Nikki had fallen for him. He did have that hunky blond surfer boy thing going on big-time.

      And that had always been Nikki’s type.

      Susannah, on the other hand, had always been fatally drawn to the black-haired, blue-eyed dangerous devil thing. So when this sweaty young sexpot smiled wetly over at her, the only thing she felt was mild anxiety. He was so fair-skinned…would that mean he was susceptible to heatstroke?

      A sudden pang pierced just under her ribs. She wished that things could have been different. If only she and Nikki

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