The Call of Bravery

Pictures of her tumbled through his mind. Sensations, textures, scent. The fit of her body, the feel of her smile against his lips. The extraordinary color of her eyes and the fascinating way it changed depending on light and mood. The recognition that they shared the crippling knowledge that they’d never quite belonged.

Until I took her in my arms for the first time.

Shock struck, followed by pain so acute he doubled over. He might as well have taken a bullet.

He’d been wrong. What he was feeling wouldn’t be wearing off like a bad drug reaction given a few days or, at worst, a few weeks.

Unless passionate, desperate, I-would-give-my-life-for-her love could be subdued by willpower alone.

I used to be good at believing I didn’t give a damn.

He made a raw sound he didn’t even recognize. The trouble was, now he’d figured out that he’d been faking it. After that, sincerely believing became a hell of a lot harder.

But what were his choices?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SORREL’S PARENTS CAME to Lia’s to pick up their daughter.

It was the right thing for them to do. Sorrel showed them her bedroom, introduced them to Walker and Brendan, Pepito and Copper the horse. Lia watched the way she touched everything as she went: doorknob, dresser, footboard on the bed, fence post and soft muzzle. See? This is part of my world.

Goodbye.

The boys cried again when she was gone. So did Lia, but not until after they were in bed asleep.

I can’t keep doing this, she realized drearily, around three in the morning. It hurts too much.

Why she’d once been able to handle it and now no longer was, she didn’t understand. Maybe it didn’t matter. Social workers often suffered burn out. Probably that was all that was wrong with her.

It was time, Lia realized, to look for a job again. That wasn’t to say she couldn’t continue to take in foster kids, but perhaps she’d do it informally. Only the Arturos and Julias, the ones who had been separated from their parents or abuelo y abuela by outside forces, not abuse or knowing abandonment. She didn’t have to get so attached to those children, because they were already loved. They simply needed a temporary place to stay.

Conall had been gone two weeks when she called Walker and Brendan’s caseworker to ask whether she might be considered as an adoptive parent. The caseworker, a man, was surprisingly receptive. If she was serious, he said, they could begin the process.

Yes. She was serious.

She also didn’t know if she’d be enough for them. They had reverted in many ways, painful to see, since Conall left. Not entirely; she’d been right to encourage him to befriend them, but they were suffering in his absence.

She thought they would have been suffering more if he’d disappeared entirely. As it was, he emailed both every few days and had called a few times. They knew he still cared. Their voices sounded different when they were talking to him than any other time. If he’d wanted them, she would have let them go.

The first time he called had been bad. Her home phone didn’t have caller I.D., so she had no warning.

“Lia,” he’d said, and she would have sworn her heart had stopped.

It resumed, of course, because life did go on. Time passed whether you were happy or unhappy.

“Conall,” she had managed to say pleasantly. “Let me get the boys.” She set the phone down before he could say anything and hurried to call Walker and Brendan. Anxiety—or something else—tingled through her the entire time the boys excitedly talked to him. What she should have done was go out of earshot, but it didn’t even occur to her to do that. And somehow she wasn’t surprised when Brendan told her Conall wanted to talk to her now and she had to take the phone back.

“Is Bren really okay?” Conall asked without preamble.

“Yes, I think so. He doesn’t like to talk about what happened. The other day Walker asked what it looked like when a person got shot and Brendan got mad.”

“What did he say?”

“He wouldn’t tell Walker what it looked like.”

“I can’t imagine that anything is worse than watching their mother die inch by inch was.”

“No.”

“Lia…”

The way he said her name made her feel light-headed. It was what she thought of as his nighttime voice, low, husky, intimate. Tender.