LITMIR.BIZ

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before that.”

      Cory nodded. “Wade didn’t, either. Actually, I was hoping you could tell me—”

      “So, what happened?” She broke in on the question, hoping to stall it. “How did you guys get separated?”

      He smiled again, wryly, and his eyes told Alex he was onto her tactic and okay with it—for now. “Wasn’t just us ‘guys,’ actually. We have two sisters, too. Twins. They were toddlers at the time.” He hitched a shoulder apologetically. “Haven’t had any luck finding them, yet.”

      Alex glared fiercely down at her hand and the empty bottle, daring the burn in her eyes and the ache in her throat to produce tears. She won that battle but didn’t trust her voice, and finally just shook her head.

      “Our father was a good man, before Vietnam changed him,” Cory said softly into the silence. “I was born before he left, old enough to remember how he was then. I remember his gentleness, and the way he liked to tell me stories. Then he was gone. And he never came back. Some stranger came in his place. Wade and Matt were born after that, and then the twins. But Dad never told them stories. He’d drink instead. And he’d have flashbacks. At those times, Mom would lock us kids in the bedroom and tell me to look out for them—keep them safe. Then she’d try to talk Dad back from whatever hell he’d gone to. She took…a lot from him, to keep him from hurting us, or himself.”

      He drew a hand across his face, and the movement caught Alex’s gaze like a magnet and held it fast so she couldn’t look away even though she wanted to.

      “Then…one night I guess she couldn’t bring him back. He tried to break down the door to the bedroom where us kids were hiding. I don’t know exactly what happened, but…anyway, that night he shot her, and then himself.”

      “God…” The whispered word slipped from her before she could stop it.

      “We were taken away to some sort of shelter—a group home. I don’t remember much about it. Then we were divided up among several foster homes. I kept running away from mine, trying to keep in touch with the others. I was considered a disruptive influence, I guess, because nobody would let me see them. Eventually, I landed in juvenile detention. While I was there, Wade and Matt and the twins got adopted by two different sets of parents. I got out when I was eighteen, of course, but nobody would tell me where they were. Nobody would tell me anything. Which was probably a good thing, I suppose, in retrospect. I was angry enough, I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d been able to find the little ones. Kidnapped ‘em maybe. Something stupid, I’m sure.”

      “So…how did you find them? I mean, after so long—that had to be, what, twenty-five years ago?”

      “Well, it hasn’t been easy. I have my own resources, but we didn’t make any real headway until we hired a P.I. who specializes in this kind of thing—reuniting adoptees with biological parents. A man named Holt Kincaid. He’s the one that made this happen. He found Wade first. Up in Portland. And Wade put us in touch—”

      “With Matt.” She folded her arms across her middle and frowned at him, concentrating on keeping all traces of emotion out of her voice. “So…have you seen him?” How is he? How does he look? Does he still have the smile, now that he can’t walk? Can’t climb, can’t do any of the things we both loved to do.

      “Matt, you mean? I’ve talked to him,” Cory said. “On the phone, a couple of times. I’m on my way to meet him now. But I wanted to…” He shifted abruptly, leaned forward and propped his forearms on his knees, hands clasped between them, head bowed in what seemed almost an attitude of prayer. After a moment he cleared his throat and looked up at her. “I wanted to talk to you first,” he said carefully. “I need to know what I’m in for.”

      Alex pushed away from the desk, scooped up the water bottle and went to drop it into the recycling bin that stood beside the door to the warehouse. “What can I tell you?” she said without turning. “I haven’t seen him since he left rehab.”

      “I mean, about the accident. You were with him when it happened.”

      She shrugged. “We were rock climbing, he fell, broke his back, now he’s paralyzed. That’s about it.”

      “Come on.” The smile in his voice made it a gentle rebuke. “That much I got from Wade.”

      She spun back to him, firing questions in a breathless rush, again hoping maybe with the sheer volume of them she might hold him off a little longer. “How is Wade, by the way? I didn’t even ask you—he told me he got shot? What’s up with that? And he said he’s getting married? Man, that’s just…I didn’t think Wade would ever settle down. I don’t think cops do too well with relationships. So I’m really surprised. What’s she like? Have you met her?”

      “I have,” Cory said, while his eyes regarded her steadily from behind the rimless lenses in a way that made her feel he could see inside her head. And knew how desperately she was trying to avoid this—talking about Matt. Thinking about Matt. “Tierney’s…something special.” He paused, then added with a secret little smile, “I think she and Wade will do well together.”

      “What about you?” She tilted her head back, still smiling at him, though his steady eyes told her it wasn’t fooling him one bit. “Are you married?”

      And she watched his face light up in a way that altered his whole being. It reminded her of watching a film of a land blooming from winter into spring in fastforward. “Yes, I am. My wife’s name is Sam—Samantha. She’s the reason for all this, you know. The reason I decided to start looking for the little ones.”

      “Wow,” Alex said, her own smile hanging in there, resolute and meaningless. “Sounds like there’s a story there.”

      “Several, actually.”

      Cory studied the young woman facing him with arms folded and smile firmly in place, barricades she struggled valiantly to maintain. She wasn’t tall, he’d noted, but looked wiry and fit, with long, thick dark hair worn in a single braid. Not beautiful, but definitely attractive. Her skin was a warm golden brown, with a sprinkle of freckles across her nose and the tops of her cheeks that gave her face a poignancy she probably wasn’t aware of and would have hated if she’d known. Beyond any doubt, her eyes were her best feature, hazel fringed with thick black lashes. They had a brave and haunted look now, and he felt a deep sympathy for her, along with an aching sense of familiarity.

       I know what you’re doing, Alex Penny. I know because it’s what I used to do. Ask the questions to keep from having to answer any. Concentrate on someone else’s story to avoid having to tell your own.

      He said gently, “I’d gotten very good at burying everything that had happened to me…the loss of my family. That, along with the anger. Fortunately, I’d learned to channel that anger into writing, and I think I took to writing about—and reporting on—wars because on some level I was trying to understand what had happened to my dad. But I never let myself think about my brothers and sisters. That was an emotional minefield I didn’t cross—didn’t even want to try. Sam changed all that. But not before I almost lost her, trying to keep my secrets.”

      There was a silence, one that seemed longer than it was. Then she let out a breath and unfolded her arms, and although she remained distant from him, she relaxed enough to lean against the wall. “Okay, so what do you want to know?”

      “How did it happen? How did my brother fall?”

      “I don’t know.” She slapped that back at him, defensive again, chin thrust out. “The rigging failed. That’s all I know. Believe me, if I—”

      “I’m not blaming you for what happened,” Cory said quietly.

      “Well, swell, that makes one of us!” Her eyes seemed to shimmer, but with anger, not tears. Then she lowered her lashes to hide them, and after a moment went on in a wooden voice, as if reciting something she’d committed to memory long ago.

      “We

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