LITMIR.BIZ

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Lucky still required occasional bail money.

      Riley had wanted nothing more than to get out of town fast and find his destiny, but instead he’d gone to college in nearby San Antonio to be closer to Anna until she turned eighteen and headed off to her own college choice. Logan had taken it a step further and even dropped out of the University of Texas to be home. It was just something family would do for family.

      Unlike Claire’s scummy parents.

      Riley added the last bit of glue to put the car’s hood back in place and blew on it so it would dry. It didn’t take long, and he examined his repair job before he handed it to Ethan. However, Ethan reached for it first and missed, and his hard little hand bashed right into Riley’s shoulder.

      Riley bit back the thousand really bad curse words that bubbled up in this throat. The pain exploded in his head, and it was a good thing he was sitting, or it would have brought him to his knees.

      “Sor-wee,” Ethan blurted out.

      Riley wanted to lie and say it was okay. No sense making the kid feel bad for an accident, but he was having trouble gathering enough breath to speak. However, he did manage to utter a “shit.”

      “Sugar,” Claire corrected. She scrambled toward him, and before Riley could stop her, she started unbuttoning his shirt. “Here, let me take a look.”

      “Are you qualified to do that?” he grumbled.

      “Sure. I’ve been looking all my life.”

      Riley appreciated the smartass-ness, but he knew it wouldn’t last. And it didn’t. When Claire eased back the bandage on his shoulder, the color drained from her face. Every last rosy drop. He didn’t have to see the raw, angry gash to know that she was about to lose her lunch.

      “God, Riley,” she said on a rise of breath. A breath that landed right against his neck.

      Apparently, there was a semicure for blistering pain after all, and it was Claire’s breathing. Of course, it helped that her mouth was now plenty close to his. Close enough to kiss...if he’d been in any state to kiss her, that was.

      He wasn’t.

      Did that make the desire go away? Nope. Which meant this situation with Claire could turn out to be trouble.

      “Sugar,” she said. And then she added other words. Fudge and divinity. Substitutions for the kid’s sake probably. “I didn’t know you were hurt this bad.”

      Even though every movement throbbed like hell, Riley jerked his shirt back together and even managed to do some of the buttons. “We agreed not to talk about this, remember?”

      “Yes.” Claire cleared her throat. “I’m not sure I can hear it anyway. It hurts too much to think about it.”

      And he couldn’t take that look on her face. Pity. Something he divinity sure didn’t want.

      “I’m all right,” he told Ethan. Riley forced a smile that possibly looked even creepier than his earlier one since the muscles in his face were stretched tight. “My shoulder just needed some fixing like your car, but it’s better now.”

      No way did the kid believe that. No way could Riley take the time to convince him, either. Not with the pain still shooting through him. Plus, he felt a flashback coming on, and he didn’t want to have one of those in front of the kid.

      Not in front of anybody.

      He fished through his pocket, grabbed the new bottle of meds and downed a couple of them, somehow managing to get to his feet in the process. “Better go. These knock me out pretty fast.”

      Still pale, still looking at him as if he were the most pitiful creature on earth, Claire stood. “You want me to drive you home? It’s nearly a half mile, and that’s too far for you to walk—”

      “No, thanks.” Riley was already off the porch and into the yard when he heard the footsteps hurrying after him. Not Claire. But Ethan.

      “Sor-wee,” Ethan repeated and he held up one of the winged action figures. He took Riley’s hand and put the toy in it. “For you.”

      Well, that was far more touching than Riley had ever thought it would be. The kid had a good heart. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine. You don’t have to give me your toy.”

      But Riley was talking to himself because Ethan gave him a little wave and raced back toward the porch.

      Riley felt a tug of a different kind. Something akin to the same feelings he’d had with his kid sister when he’d helped raise her. A stupid tug in this case because Ethan wasn’t his to raise.

      Even if everyone in town thought he was.

      Yeah, the whole situation with Claire was definitely trouble. So much so that even “Jingle Bells” might not work on this one.

CHAPTER FIVE

      CLAIRE WISHED SHE could go back in time and stop her grandmother from purchasing a single roll of wallpaper. Or better yet, use that going-back-in-time superpower to stop wallpaper from ever being invented.

      She held the steamer over the wallpaper, following the instructions to a tee. She waited, then scraped. Like the three million other steam, wait and scrape sequences, she didn’t get a lot for her efforts. A postage-stamp-size piece of the paper came off. Only to reveal another layer of wallpaper beneath that one.

      There was enough of it to create a quarantine facility to contain an outbreak of Ebola.

      That’s the way it had been for the bathroom and the kitchen. Layer after layer and layer. It was entirely possible there weren’t even any walls left, that the entire house was held together with varying colors of floral wallpaper—each layer seemingly more butt ugly and more steam resistant than the last one.

      Steam, keep steaming, scrape.

      She got off another piece and tried to hold on to the reminder that one day this would all look as if it weren’t stuck in the seventies. One day she’d be able to finish off the walls and the floors, and clear out the boxes so that she could see a sign she wanted to see.

      For Sale.

      Steam, keep steaming, scrape.

      But on the scrape segment of this particular square inch of space, Claire heard something that had her climbing off the step ladder. It wasn’t Ethan, either, because she could see him. He was sitting nearby creating a toy-car postapocalyptic scene on the floor.

      Claire stepped around Ethan and looked out the screen portion of the front door. She’d left the actual front door open to catch the semicool breeze.

      Uh-oh.

      This was an unholy alliance if ever Claire had seen one.

      Livvy, Daniel and Trisha.

      All three of them had just exited their vehicles and were strolling toward the front porch. Claire was sure there was a joke in there somewhere: a blond Realtor, a brunette lawyer and a redheaded wedding planner all walk into a house...

      But she couldn’t quite come up with a punch line that would ease the sudden knot in her stomach.

      Claire had known Livvy was on her way because Livvy had called to say she’d be there sometime that afternoon. But the other two certainly hadn’t given her a heads-up. Too bad or she would have been somewhere else. Anywhere else.

      If Claire had still been in third grade, such wimpiness would have earned her the chicken-dookie label, but it was a label she would proudly bear if she could have just delayed this meeting with Daniel.

      Thankfully, Livvy had brought wine with her.

      Claire put her steamer and scraper aside, opened the screen door and steeled herself for this visit.

      Livvy went ahead of the other two, teetering up the

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