“Great,” Conall growled. “One more thing to look forward to.”
“You should be glad to have family,” she told him crisply, and went inside.
* * *
SO SHE THOUGHT he was an ungrateful bastard. No news there. He was.
Conall’s irritation eventually wore off, leaving him with the memory of Lia’s expression.
Fostering children was a vocation, she’d said. Because she wanted a family, the kind she hadn’t had. The kind she didn’t think she ever would have. No, Lia hadn’t said any of that, but Conall was good at reading between the lines.
She couldn’t understand why he had rejected his brothers, and along with them lost the chance to have more family: their wives and children. She was maybe even a little angry at him for not appreciating something she hungered for.
She hadn’t said that, either, but he could tell.
The hell of it was, Conall knew she was right. He’d lost a great deal. No, not lost—thrown away.
From his adult perspective, he was having trouble remembering why. All he knew was that, for years, anger had simmered inside him. It was one of the few emotions he felt. Most of the time, he was barely conscious of it. He’d always believed it was directed at Duncan, the oppressor.
Tonight, sitting at the attic window watching a dark house, he knew differently. Maybe he’d felt safe to channel all that rage and hurt on the brother who had refused, no matter the cost to him, no matter what they did, to turn his back on Conall or Niall.
Conall’s attention was momentarily caught by movement. After verifying that it was only one of the Dobermans trotting across the yard, Conall thought, I locked away everything I felt for Mom and Dad. I convinced myself I felt nothing.
I lied.
Asked at any time in the past fifteen years, he would have sworn he was self-aware. Live and learn.
The necessity of keeping watch freed his thoughts. He played back a hundred reels of his childhood and teenage years. College graduation, with Duncan in the audience even though Conall hadn’t invited him.
Maybe the damage had been done early, when Conall had wished for so much more than he ever got from his brothers, and especially Duncan, the big brother he’d worshipped. He couldn’t help wincing as he thought about how young Duncan had been. I resented a fourteen-year-old for not wanting to spend time with his shrimpy eight-year-old brother. Of course he hadn’t wanted to. He’d been kind enough, but six years was a big age spread then. Too big for them to have been the kind of friends Conall had yearned to be.
Had he been angry because when Duncan turned into a father figure, it erased all possibility for them ever to be simply friends and brothers? Thinking about their couple of meetings these past weeks, Conall had a minor revelation.
Not all possibility had been erased. It wasn’t too late. Duncan was still willing, God knows why considering what a jackass Conall had been.
Because we are brothers.
Maybe because Duncan had always understood more than Conall had realized.
Conall had another uncomfortable realization. Despite what he’d said to Lia, he wasn’t dreading tomorrow. He was actually looking forward to spending time with his brothers and their families.
His family.
And one reason he felt that way was because he felt secure here, as though they were coming onto his territory.
Apprehension stabbed between his ribs, stiletto sharp. This wasn’t his home. Lia wasn’t his woman, Walker and Brendan weren’t his kids. It scared the crap out of him to realize that he felt like they were.
He stared at the dark house, willing a light to come on, the garage door to open, the sound of an engine to cut through the night, and thought, Goddamn you, make a move. Make a mistake.
He needed this operation to be done. To get back to his life before he started wondering whether that was what he wanted at all.
* * *
NIALL PITCHED THE BALL over the plate. Brendan swung hard, and connected. Crack. The ball soared and the batter tore for first base.
“Home run! Home run!” Walker chanted. Conall indulged in a few catcalls as the ball passed over Jane’s glove and rolled beneath the fence into the pasture, ending up with a splat in a cow patty.
As Brendan triumphantly rounded the makeshift bases, Jane stopped at the fence and said, “Ew. Someone else come and get it.”