CALEB WAS THE last person out of Reid’s SUV, and he hung back momentarily when Anna and Reid walked ahead carrying food—a totally gigantic potato salad and a crock of baked beans. His job was to haul the cooler with drinks.
Anna’s voice drifted back. “Oh, the Renners are already here.” She sounded pleased.
Had she been hit by the weirdness of them all being here at the Bear Creek Resort for a Labor Day potluck and reunion, or was it just him?
The front yard was swarming with people. Foster parents of the boys who had stayed in Angel Butte but no longer lived at the resort, some new boys Anna had sent to the Hales and, strangest of all, cops and their spouses. Caleb remembered the way he and the other guys had all sort of faded out of sight if anyone unexpected showed up here. Especially if a cop showed. And now look. He’d never seen big tables set up on the lawn, either, and the horseshoe pit was new.
He bet Roger and Paula still made their boys do chores, though.
It would be kind of cool seeing all the guys, though. Only a few wouldn’t be here. Apollo’s sister had taken him in, TJ had gone back to live with his mother now that his father was dead, and Isaac had left a week ago for college. He had been so close to eighteen, the judge had just sort of dragged her feet until his birthday came. Given his special circumstances—that was the way Anna described it—he’d been accepted to the University of Oregon even though his application was way late, but he’d told everyone he was going to apply to transfer to MIT for his sophomore year. Caleb bet he’d get in, too.
Diego and Trevor were in the same foster home. Their foster dad was a scary dude who could stand up to Diego’s father and Trevor’s uncle, both of whom Reid, at least, thought were still potential threats.
The one Caleb didn’t get was TJ. Had he wanted to live with his mother? Caleb guessed he sort of loved his own mother still, but he knew he’d never be able to trust her. How could TJ feel any different about his? But nobody had said—maybe he hadn’t had any choice. The judge might have decided that was best for him, no matter what he wanted. Parental rights—slam dunk. Even though Caleb felt sort of sorry for him, he was just as glad TJ wasn’t here today. Yeah, he’d had bad shit happen to him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t an asshole.
“Caleb?” It was Reid who had stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Aren’t you coming?”
“Uh...yeah.” He got his feet moving.
Diego spotted him and jogged over. “Hey, dude.” He grabbed one side of the cooler and helped carry it to the shady spot in front of the porch where the food was being laid out on long plank tables. Caleb opened the cooler and they both took soft drinks. He almost bumped into Anna when he straightened.
She smiled at him and went on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Thank you.”
He turned away, knowing his cheeks were hot. He wasn’t used to being hugged and kissed. He wasn’t the only one. Sometimes he could tell Reid was still startled when she went up and put her arms around him or kissed him in passing for no reason, but he obviously liked it. Caleb was getting so he didn’t mind so much, but, jeez, in public?
Diego and Caleb walked toward the horseshoe pit, where a match between Colin McAllister—the sheriff of the whole county—and Sergeant Clay Renner was happening. The audience hooted when the sheriff’s horseshoe clanged off the stake and slid several feet away. As he shook his head in disgust, Sergeant Renner grinned and wrapped his next throw around the stake, pretty as you please.
“Your sister-in-law’s cool,” Diego said.
“I guess I’m lucky,” Caleb said awkwardly. “But I like your foster parents, too.” He spent quite a bit of time at the Panneks’, since he and Diego had stayed friends. That meant Trevor was mostly around, too, but that was okay.
He hadn’t seen the other guys since school let out in June, and not that much of some of them even then. Jose and Palmer had been freshmen, so they hadn’t been in any of Caleb’s classes. Damon, Caleb mostly avoided.
He wandered over now, too, though, looking...less tense, maybe, than Caleb mostly remembered him. Maybe near-death experiences had changed both of them.
“You didn’t go out for football,” he said to Caleb, who shook his head. He knew practice had started a couple of weeks ago.
“I might have, except it overlaps basketball. That’s my sport.”
Diego wasn’t big enough to play either sport. He’d said he had wrestled his freshman year at his old high school, though, and he thought he’d try out for the team in Angel Butte. He was strong and wiry, if short. Since wrestling had different weight classes, he might be good.
“So Reid married the social worker.” Damon wasn’t watching the horseshoe contest; he had his eyes on Anna. “I can see it. She’s kind of hot.”
Once in a while, Caleb noticed she was, too, but that was really too weird for him, so he didn’t dwell. Anyway, he had sort of, almost a girlfriend now. They hadn’t called it that, but he’d hung out a lot with Hannah this summer. She was kind of shy still, so although he’d kissed her he hadn’t pushed for sex yet. One thing he liked about her was that she lived in a foster home. She hadn’t exactly said why she couldn’t stay with her own parents, but Caleb figured she’d tell him eventually. He just hoped it wasn’t anything really terrible. And especially not something sexual terrible. Because, man, he really wanted to have sex, and it would be a serious bummer to find out she really didn’t.
And he knew that was selfish even to think.
Just a few weeks ago, he’d been helping Reid build a small deck on the back of the house he and Anna had bought, and when they paused to drink some lemonade, Reid had asked about Hannah.
One corner of his mouth had quirked up in an I-can’t-believe-I’m-saying-this way, before he said it anyway. “This is a safe-sex talk.”
“Anna put you up to it.”
He’d laughed in a comfortable way. “Yeah, but I’d have worked my way around to it on my own.”
“I know about condoms.”
“Yeah, but do you have any? Do you carry one, in case an, er, opportunity arises?”
Knowing his face was blazing, Caleb had mumbled, “Uh...yeah. I’ve started to.” Like a few days before.
“Good. You don’t have to answer this, but have you used one yet?”
“You want me to talk about it?”
“Strictly optional.” Reid set down his glass and reached for the hammer again. “Here, can you hold this?”
They were working on a railing now.
“It’s... I haven’t asked,” Caleb heard himself confess. “She’s said things that make me afraid—”
Reid had turned a sharp look on him. “That she’s been molested?”
“Yeah. I mean, I don’t know, but—” He sucked in a big breath. “What if she has?” Wow. Anna probably knew. That hadn’t occurred to him before. If he asked, would she tell him—
Not a chance.
Lines formed on his brother’s face. “If she has...then you’re either really patient, or you call her a friend and move on.”
“I feel like such a creep,” Caleb had confessed miserably. “Even thinking that’s, like, a deal breaker. You know?”
“I do know.” Reid had gripped his shoulder hard for a minute. Under Anna’s influence, he was getting better at the touching thing. “But you’re a kid. Give yourself a break. If it turns out Hannah needs fixing, the job may be more than you can take on. You are still a kid, you know.”
Caleb had been thinking about that ever since. He wasn’t so sure he’d ever exactly been a “kid.” More weirdness: he felt more like one now than he could ever remember. Not having to freak if he got into trouble at school, living with his brother, who had claimed to be too damaged to take him in, but was now changing, too... Sometimes Caleb woke up in the morning and lay there wondering why he wasn’t all tied up in knots and dreading getting up. And then he’d remember. Life was good.
Day after tomorrow, he would start his junior year in high school. And...he really liked Hannah. If it turned out he had to be patient for her sake, he thought he could do it. Reid would have waited for Anna if he’d had to. Anything big brother could do, he could do. That was Caleb’s resolve.
Followed by Roger, Reid had just sauntered over to slap Colin McAllister’s back in mock sympathy. Still grinning, he spotted Caleb. His eyebrows rose.
“What do you say, Caleb? Think you can take me on?”
Caleb studied him suspiciously “Have you ever played before?”
“Never thrown a horseshoe in my life.”
“Then you’re on.” How hard could it be? He felt a belated burst of caution. “If we can take some practice throws first,” he tacked on.
Reid slung a casual arm over his shoulder and squeezed. “Deal.”
Sheriff McAllister chuckled evilly. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”
On his opening toss once they officially began, Caleb threw a ringer.
First time he’d ever done anything better than his big brother.
“Well, damn.” Reid’s grin held a challenge, but something else, too. Pride.
Sometimes seeing that expression choked Caleb up.
But not so much he didn’t laugh when Reid threw a clanger—and then his own next throw hooked the stake again, spun and clanked down right on top of his last horseshoe. He pumped a fist. “Man, I’m good.”
And, damn, he really was.
* * * * *
Look for the next book by Janice Kay Johnson!
Coming in November 2014 from
Harlequin Superromance.
Keep reading for an excerpt from WINNING RUBY HEART by Jennifer Lohmann