He nodded.
“Mr. Henderson said he has kids,” Walker reported. “Only I guess he doesn’t live with them.” The faintest quaver in his voice said, Why doesn’t he? Do any kids have a dad who cares?
Oh, dear God, how did she answer the unspoken?
She was surprised when Conall sat up and reached for Walker. “Come here.” He handled him with ease, man to boy, scooting him over so they were hip to hip. He kept an arm slung over his shoulder. Not cuddling exactly, but…holding him the only way an eight-year-old boy would accept.
Brendan stayed, stiff and frozen, where he’d been, watching Conall as if he were a timber wolf, creeping through the grass toward Pepito, the Shetland pony.
“Jeff does live with his kids,” Conall told the boys. “He really loves them. You know when we’re upstairs, it gets pretty boring.” Even Brendan nodded. “He talks about them all the time. His wife and kids. He misses them.”
“Then how come he’s not with them?”
“Because this is his job. Sometimes it means being away from home for a few weeks at a time.”
“Do you have kids?” Walker asked.
“No.”
“So you don’t have anybody to miss.”
Conall got the strangest expression on his face for an instant. Not long enough for her to pin down. It was as if…he’d been shocked by some realization.
“No,” he said, a little huskily. “I guess I don’t.”
“That’s good.” The boy’s throat spasmed. “Cuz… Cuz…”
Lia was appalled to realize that her vision had misted. She wasn’t sure she could have said anything, and was grateful when Conall nodded.
“It hurts when you miss someone. I know.”
“How do you know?” The boy looked up at him in entreaty. “If you don’t have anyone? Is it cuz of your parents going away?”
She could see him choking on that one. Over the top of Walker’s head, Conall’s eyes met hers. Bail me out, he was demanding.
“Even if Agent MacLachlan doesn’t have anyone right now… A wife or kids or—” Best let that go. “If you’ve ever loved somebody, you’ve had times you missed them. Like his mom and dad. I miss my parents because they’ve moved to Arizona and I don’t see them very often anymore. That’s not the same as the way you miss your mom, because I know I’ll see them again. But…sometimes I really wish my mom was here, so I could tell her something.”
Walker bent his head. “Oh.”
Conall ruffled his hair. “Hey. It’s getting hot out here.”
It was unseasonably warm, but Lia wouldn’t have described a day in the upper seventies as hot. She was enjoying the feel of the sun on her face.
“You got a sprinkler?” he asked her. “I’m thinking Walker and Brendan need to get wet.” Then he grinned. “Maybe you do, too.”
She gaped at him. “You think we should run through a sprinkler?”
“Yeah, why not?”
Why not indeed?
“What do you think, boys?” he asked.
“I guess,” Walker said uncertainly. His gaze strayed to his brother’s. Again there was that moment of silent communication. “It might be fun,” he said doubtfully.
Conall had them organized before she knew it. He hauled a hose and rotating sprinkler out of the barn, where they’d been since last fall, hooked the hose up to the faucet on the side of the house and had the sprinkler merrily turning in no time.
“But we’re dressed,” Brendan objected.
“What’s a little water?” Conall strode to the porch steps where he stripped off his T-shirt. If she hadn’t been watching closely, she wouldn’t have seen him pull an evil-looking black handgun from his back waistband and slip it under the shirt. That distracted her—although only momentarily—from the sight of his lean muscles and the dark hair on his chest. “No shoes,” he said, shaking his head as the two boys looked at the sprinkler as if they didn’t know what to do with it. “Gotta have bare feet. No shirts, either.”
Uncertainly, they pulled their matching, striped T-shirts over their heads to expose skinny, fish-belly-white torsos. Both sat to take off socks and shoes. “But our jeans will get wet,” Brendan objected.