IN THE doorway of his apartment, Beach bent down to give Jez a good rub behind the ears in goodbye before standing to offer a different sort of rub to her human. He wished he hadn’t conceded a pair of boxers and a shirt to Clayton’s modesty, or the contact would have been far more interesting.
When Beach reached for Tai’s face to kiss him, Tai caught Beach’s hands before they landed on his jaw, lacing their fingers together, arms outstretched.
“I’m not so easily had for an ear rub,” Tai murmured, his gaze flicking over Beach’s shoulder to where Clayton puttered around the kitchen like some demented duenna.
“That’s because you’ve never had one of mine. Tell him, Jez.” At the mention of her name, she bumped their legs.
“Sit.”
Beach knew that was aimed at the dog, but the strong voice made him want to crawl right inside the man in front of him.
“And you behave.” Tai’s demand rumbled along Beach’s bones.
Beach adopted a hypnotized monotone. “Yessir.” He didn’t know the last time he’d felt this kind of happy, free. Before the trip off the bridge he still couldn’t remember, and possibly before that.
Tai stared down. “Call for your PT appointment. And call your uncle.”
Not even the reminder of that duty could chase away the feeling that kept making Beach smile, that made a laugh threaten to burst out of his throat for no reason than that it felt so damned good.
“Sore anywhere?” Tai breathed the words close to Beach’s ear.
“Some beard burn.” Beach grinned, then leaned away so Tai could see the accompanying wink.
“Sorry about this.” Tai swung one pair of their linked hands between them and lifted Beach’s bruised wrist for a delicate kiss.
“Didn’t mind at the time.” Though, when Beach had noticed the dark imprints as he dressed, he’d opted for something with long sleeves.
Tai brought the opposite wrist to his mouth. The soft pressure from his lips and the trace of his tongue made Beach shiver, and not only because of the tingle on an overlooked erogenous zone. Tai was hard enough, strong enough to make those marks, and gentle enough to soothe them the next day. Like when he’d been… spanking Beach.
“Hmm.” Tai made the skin vibrate, prickle under the hair of his beard. “If you don’t want to find out how long two minutes can be”—he released Beach’s hand, stepped back, and clipped the leash to Jez’s collar—“you won’t forget to make those phone calls.”
He was gone, but Beach’s good mood wasn’t. Even with the face Clayton pulled as the door closed behind Tai.
“Acts god-awfully like a policeman.”
“No. Gavin’s the one dating a cop.”
Clayton’s gape put fresh-caught carp to shame. “Montgomery?”
“That’s the one.”
“Something in the water?”
Beach turned away from the fridge. “What?”
“Really? Him? That’s your type?”
“I thought we established I don’t have a type. I enjoy variety.”
“Like in having a Dominant. Do y’all get in the leather stuff for that?”
God bless internet search engines. But Clayton’s question only provoked a smile and a shrug, unlike the discomfort from Gavin’s overbearing scrutiny. Clayton’s curiosity came across as if Beach had ordered something bizarre in a restaurant that Clayton was trying to be brave enough to try.
“Costumes are optional.”
“But he—ah—bosses you around?” Clayton tugged on an ear.
“With my permission.”
“So just theatrical, then.” Clayton nodded, looking as satisfied as if someone had offered to pick up the tab. Again.
It was easier to let him think it. Easier to think of it that way himself. What happened between Beach and Tai was like a play. Unscripted, but still for pretend. Except when it was happening, Beach wasn’t faking giving up everything because Tai asked him. And feeling like this now. Like he’d thrown all the ballast overboard and was riding so high in the water he could fly. This was real. It wasn’t alcohol or some other chemical shift in his brain. Hell, he hadn’t even had coffee.
“Well then.” Clayton slung his ass onto one of the barstools as if he’d been having a tough time standing and thinking at the same time. “Meant to tell you last night. Talked to Iris.”
“Oh?” Beach tried not to spook him. He’d heard from a cousin about an Earnshaw who had stopped by for a drink and didn’t leave for three years.
“Yeah. Calmed down some. So, figure to shove off today. ’Bout eleven.” Beach nodded and concealed his relief in a big glass of orange juice. “Unless, that is…?”
Beach would have been happy to supply Clayton with the rest of his sentence and an answer but didn’t have any idea where it was headed. He put down his glass and opened his hands in encouragement.
“You need the company?”
“Not at all.” Damn, he’d said that a little fast for civility. In compensation, and to ensure a swift departure, he added, “It’s fine. I’m fine. Thank you, though. I can drop you by the marina.”
DOWN AT the Harbor Lights Marina, the thick summer heat cooked the familiar brackish and oily reek of the water into something powerful, with a side of fishiness that had Tai wrinkling his nose. David was exactly where his text had said he was, Dock G, Slip 17, though Tai wondered how David managed to keep his balance walking with a cane on the bobbing slats of wood. But he was doing fine. Looking fine. Every bit of him glowing in the solid, hot noon sun bouncing off the water.
“So he’s gone?” Tai asked as he got closer, wishing he could lose the rest of the smells in a deep breath of David’s neck.
David pointed at a shining spot dancing along with other shining spots out in the harbor, then placed a hand over his heart to clutch his shirt and sighed in exaggerated relief. “It was touch and go for a bit. Had to send him for some dutch courage in the lounge over there.” He nodded at the hotel and bar that lent their names to the wharf.
Tai gripped the dock post against a blast of anger. “And then you sent him out driving a boat?”
David went still. Not that he’d been fidgeting. But the energy that had seemed to bounce off him like the July heat shrank down. As Tai blinked in the too-bright light, he got an afterimage against his lids, a negative imprint of the man in front of him, dark and light in the wrong places.
“I didn’t put a gun to his head. He had a drink. I didn’t. You have a problem with that, call the harbor police.” David turned and climbed down into the boat in Slip 17, the Fancy Nancy according to the cursive across her stern.
Overheated fiberglass added a plastic smell to the rest of the noxious scents as Tai followed, eyes squeezed to slits as the light bounced off all the white surfaces of David’s boat. Blinded or not, Tai found David easily. Not a lot of space to run on thirty-five feet of deck. He was in the cockpit, where it was shaded but oven-hot and close, his back against the wheel, legs and arms crossed.
“Doesn’t much seem like you passed me off to another officer.” In that instant David’s drawl could have put Clayton’s to shame. “What with you checking up on me from work.”
“I did. I wasn’t.” Tai snapped his jaw shut. Defending his actions was an entirely unfamiliar feeling, and he wasn’t going to make a fool of himself by sputtering.
“So this is the other kind of checking up on me?” David’s stare was challenging. Not by being bold, but in that half-lidded indolence he’d perfected that made Tai itch to give that almost pouting mouth something better to do.
“What’s the penalty for buying a friend lunch and watching him have a drink? Dunk me in the harbor? How long do I hold my breath?” David spun around and gripped the wheel, staring out over the bow. All that faked laziness was gone, his whole body drawn up tight enough to shatter. “I fucking hate this.”
No air. God, it was stifling. And then David yanked away what little oxygen there was. Light-headed, Tai latched on to the back of the captain’s chair before his knees buckled. Every time he thought he had something real to hold, it slipped through his fingers because he’d tightened his grip.
David went on, his voice as lifeless as the air. “He’s going back to a life duller than an endless economics lecture, and I still want to trade places with him. I’m trapped here. The only time I don’t feel like I’m suffocating is when I’m with you.” He spun around, and his eyes widened, like he didn’t expect Tai to be that close. There was no place left for David to back up, and Tai wasn’t moving. “And then you come around and make me feel like shit for making sure we had the place to ourselves.” David shoved past him.
Tai almost let him go. Then his hands shot out. Wrapped around David’s biceps. Forced him to stay. “To use your own words, I didn’t put a gun to your head. But hey, middle age is high time to grow up and show some responsibility.”
“Fuck. You.” David used his forearms to break Tai’s hold and then shoved him away. “Who the hell are you to come preach about being responsible? You’re all for it when it’s something you can slap a proud label on, my dog, my kid, but when the law might keep your dick out of someone on probation, that one’s flexible.”
“You came to me.”
“Damned right I did. I’m not the one spouting moral judgments like I’ve got all the answers. I know it’s all Tai’s road or no road with you, and I’m fine with that. Hell, I had no idea how fine I would be with that.” David paused for breath and rocked on his feet. The boat shifted underfoot, reminding Tai they weren’t on solid ground, and out at Slip 17, land was a good fifty yards away.
David huffed out a sigh. “We’re clear on the me liking you telling me what to do. More than just in bed. But I also like being me. And I simply don’t see me ever measuring up to your ideal of responsibility and good judgment.”
Tai put out an arm as a barrier when David headed for the stern and the dock again. “I didn’t say you had to.”
“Yes, you did.” David made a noisy exhale, like Jez would if she were shaking her head. “But let’s forget it.” He peered out the side window. “It’s hot, huh? Think it’s going to storm later. I can feel it in my leg.”
This was completely different from his deliberate provocation last night. No hint of wanting Tai to take control, but David was definitely asking for something. Tai dug through the load of words David had dumped between them before scurrying away.
“David, stop.”
“What for?”
Tai lunged, gut instinct making him reach for David, to stop him, force him to listen. But Tai’s gut instincts hadn’t spent any time in a boat and were useless at predicting a shear of wind that slammed into them and started everything rocking. David shoved free, Tai regrabbed, and they were both headed to the deck. The best thing Tai could say about it was that he managed to turn enough to take most of the impact with David on top of him. David wasn’t a tiny guy, and Tai was still fighting to get his wind back when David reared over him, pinning Tai’s shoulders flat.
“Well, if this was what you wanted, you could have just said so.” David’s eyes glittered, bright and hard. He worked the belt on Tai’s jeans, popped his fly. “It’s a lot to measure up to, but I don’t mind trying.”
David yanked down the zipper, hand diving in to palm the shaft through Tai’s Jockeys before Tai remembered what he’d figured out before they hit the deck. “Were you asking me if I like you?”
“Well, I know part of you does.” David reached through the slit, a gliding touch on bare skin.
“That’s an understatement.” Tai grunted and then choked off a gasp as David’s grip turned firm. Tai stuck his own hand between them and caught David’s forearm, careful to avoid the bruises on his wrist. Hauling him forward then wrapping him in a hug, Tai said, “Do you think I do this with just anybody?”
“I’m the guy from the bathroom at Grand Central, remember?”
“I do. And yeah. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I would never ask someone I didn’t like to be my submissive.”
“My, aren’t you a friendly guy to amass all that experience.”
“I didn’t say a submissive. Any more than I mean a fuck. I said my submissive.” Tai let a little of his Dom voice roll into that. Another gust sent the boat bumping back and forth in its berth.
David turned the motion to his advantage, grinding against Tai’s dick.
“And if you ask me what the difference is, I might not show you.” Tai moved his hands down to David’s ass.
He was smiling, but the hint of his tongue at the corner of his mouth suggested he wasn’t as cocksure as his throaty “So?”
Tai held tight to stop David’s motion, but that didn’t keep the boat from continuing to rock, a dissonance that made Tai’s stomach lurch. “Yes. My dick likes you. More importantly, I like you. And I want you to be my submissive.”
David’s body jerked, his breath sucked in fast and tight. “Okay.”
Tai squeezed David’s ass until he winced. “That’s not how you answer me.”
David bucked again, driving his cock against Tai’s. A good kind of rub to keep the pulse of arousal lasting forever. But they needed to get things clear first. David wanted boundaries, and Tai loved drawing them for him. He swatted David’s ass, mostly palm, but with enough force to make an impression through his deck shorts.
“Yes, Sir.” David rocked against him harder.
“Yes, Sir what?”
“Yes, Sir. I want to be your submissive.”
“No.”
David’s breath was short, ragged, his brow wrinkling under his hair.
“Yes, Sir. I am your submissive,” Tai clarified for him.
David repeated it, and the raw yearning in his voice frayed the hold Tai had on himself. He tried to roll them, but they were wedged in a space between benches. Whoever thought boats were romantic settings had never tried to fuck on one.
“Ah hell,” he muttered and gave up on a better location, reaching between them to get David’s fly undone. “Get these off.”
“Yes, Sir.”
While David was busy with the tangle around his anklet, Tai pushed and hauled them out of the tight space, gaining a little maneuvering room but keeping them shielded by the canopy over the cockpit. He sat up, dragging David up until his thighs opened across Tai’s, settling into his lap.
“Mine.” He took David’s mouth, fingers gripping his ass.
“Yes.” David hung on, tilting his hips so their cocks rubbed together.
The first rumble of thunder shook the boat. Somewhere in Tai’s head he knew that water and thunderstorms were a bad combination, but that head wasn’t driving. His senses were locked on to David’s groans, the hot, silky rub of his cock, then God, the way their own electricity jumped between them when Tai’s finger worked into the damp heat of David’s crack to press on the satiny-hard muscle around his hole.
“Yes. Please. Fuck me.”
David’s words seemed to come from inside Tai’s head.
He grabbed David’s face and stuffed a finger into his mouth, feeling the wet pull and rub traveling straight down to Tai’s dick.
“I decide.”
David managed a nod, steady suction on Tai’s fingers as he shoved a second one inside. The blue eyes had gone soft, hungry. When Tai let go, David’s head dropped back, exposing the line of his throat, so close Tai could see the swirl pattern in the stubble under his jaw.
“Oh no, boy. I want you to work for it. Grab our dicks. Jack them together.”
Tai watched David pull himself into coordination, hand shaky, then firm, thumb spreading precome.
“You got more spit. Use it.”
David’s mouth was open, but the sound got swallowed in a bigger rumble and a hard knock of the boat against the wood pilings.
Tai watched, hands back to spreading David wide open, finger circling and pressing, dipping and testing the yield of his hole.
Just as David brought his hand back to their dicks, Tai shoved both fingers in, reading the reaction in David’s face, in the way his body fought and then opened to take it. After a few harsh sounds, David’s face shifted from pain to hunger, ass relaxing the crush around Tai’s fingers so he could move.
Oh God, so hot and soft. Squeezing. Pulsing. Like David was already coming. Tai’s hips snapped him forward. He wanted it. Wanted all that heat and texture on the bare skin of his dick.
He knew he could have it. David would let him. David was barely able to focus on stroking their cocks, his grip uneven, going slack as Tai twisted his fingers deeper.
He could have it.
The knowledge made Tai dizzy. Hot prickles under his skin, the rush of complete power. Dominance. It wouldn’t take much. He could lift David, then drive up into him, keep his ass open, then fill him with cock. Watch him struggle to take it on nothing but spit.
The boat shook under another blast of wind. Power.
David panted, voice scraped raw. “It’s enough, Sir. You could—”
“Shh.”
The rain started then, sheets of it slashing against the hull, spraying in from the stern. Power was nothing without control.
“You want my cock, David?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“You think you can take me on just spit?”
“God, yes.”
“You’d take me raw? My bare skin in you?”
“Yes.” David’s voice shuddered through that.
“I’ll lift you up and slam you down on my dick, and you’ll have to take it like that. Hard and deep. And then I’ll make you work. Make you fuck yourself.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Did I tell you to stop jerking us off?”
“No, Sir. But—”
Tai leaned in and kissed the edge of David’s jaw. “But what, boy?”
“I’ll come.” It was a desperate whine.
“What makes you think that will matter? That I wouldn’t fuck you even after you’re all soft. You’re mine. Aren’t you?”
David’s eyes shot open, his fingers tightening around their shafts. “Stroke faster, David. Just you. You’re going to come.”
His eyes were wild. Not that drugged look of submission, but a flare of want and fear.
“Come, David.”
Tai fucked his fingers in and out, scissored them, not sure he could get the right angle like this.
David’s knuckles brushed against Tai’s cock, the slide of his fist a whisper of sound above the storm outside.
Tai felt it in David’s ass first, the start of his orgasm, and then his groans, his pleas. “Fuck, please. Please.”
The wind blasted rain onto Tai’s back as David shot warmth between them, his ass clenching and pulsing and then locking around Tai’s fingers.
David’s head hung heavy on his shoulders, and Tai urged him closer, letting him rest his forehead on Tai’s shoulder.
He ran his free hand down David’s back, over the soft cotton of his shirt. “Good boy. I’ve got you. Relax.”
David shuddered, a ripple starting at his shoulders before moving to his hips, his muscles finally easing enough to let Tai slide his fingers free.
David turned his face into Tai’s neck, kissing every bit of skin he could reach. “Yeah.” Tai leaned back, inviting more. “You want a taste? Clean me off, baby.”
David went to work, shoving Tai’s shirt up, lapping at his skin, wet, soft kisses moving down into his groin. As David wriggled his legs and hips behind him, he used a hand to lift Tai’s sac toward warm lips and the hungry flick of tongue. David put a stroke on the skin behind Tai’s balls, making him jolt, then moved back to mouth up along his shaft.
The combination of gentle pressure and eager attention was maddening. David’s light licks didn’t have enough pressure or focus, but they were everywhere, constant sensation on Tai’s balls, his dick, belly and groin. He let it build, ignoring the chill of wet wind behind him in favor of the heat from David’s mouth until it was too much.
Sliding one hand deep into his hair, Tai held David’s head steady and pushed up between his lips into wet suction. David kept up those fast flicks of his tongue, dipping into the slit, wrapping around the head. Tai drove up until David had to hold him between his tongue and palate, soft squeeze, the flutter of his throat closing making a hot flood build, spill over in his balls.
He pumped into David’s mouth, the first shot of come coating his throat and tongue to make those last few jerks sweeter. Letting go of David’s hair, he fell back as the pleasure receded.
“Damn,” David said from where his head was pillowed on Tai’s thigh. “We’re a mess.” There was no arguing that.
David went on, “I know there are some towels below, but I don’t think I have anything you could wear.”
“Below?” Tai glanced around the boat. “In storage?”
“A shower too, but no hot water right now.” David wobbled to his feet, turned, and unlocked what Tai had thought was an engine cabinet to reveal a small doorway and steps leading down.
“You have a downstairs.” Tai stared, hoisting himself up. “That’s out of view and dry?” He peered around David through the hatch. “And that has a bed?”
“Yes. Oh. Well. It was….” David trailed off and looked down. Tai caught David’s chin and tipped his head up. “Yeah. It was.”
Stripped to his boxers, Tai glanced around the downstairs of David’s boat. They were in a small living room kind of space, with kitchen stuff and a bathroom to one side of the wall opposite the sofa, and a flat-screen TV took up the rest of the wall.
“I don’t bother to keep the cable hooked up,” David said through the door that opened into a bedroom, sounding like he was making an apology. He held up a T-shirt, looking between the cotton stretched to its limit in his hands and Tai. “Yeah, I don’t think that’ll work. Now I’m wishing I’d gotten the washer-dryer instead of worrying about cabinet space.” David had barely paused for breath since they came down those stairs, issuing a combination tour and commentary on the amenities as if he were a desperate used-yacht salesman. Because this wasn’t a fishing boat. It was a yacht. Knowing David was part of the one percent was different from standing here, surrounded by the kind of luxury that belonged on TV. This was in-his-face unavoidable. Like the phone call from Tai’s mom telling him what David had done to get Tai in to see Sammie, it was a 3-D, surround-sound experience reminding him how they might as well have been from different planets.
David trailed off under one of the storm’s departing rumbles. Rain still splatted on the deck overhead.
“I didn’t come down here for this,” Tai said.
David put on his too-pleasant smile and spoke faster. “For laundry service? I guess not. Though there is a laundry room available at the hotel, access included as part of my docking fees. I could run over and do a quick wash and dry while you wait. Do you need another towel?”
“I need you to come here.” Tai let his Dom come through in his voice.
David tossed the T-shirt behind him and stepped out of the bedroom. His face and his steps showed too much hesitance.
Tai pulled David down onto the sofa and held him, his back to Tai’s chest.
“I’m not dropping. I feel fine.”
“Okay. But you listen better like this.”
“I listen just—” David’s sigh was rueful. “Yes, Sir. I do.”
“I wasn’t saying that I didn’t enjoy what we did. Only that I got sidetracked.” David tipped his head to one side to show off a grin. “Glad I could help.”
“And you’re trying to do it again.”
David straightened, not resisting Tai’s hold but no longer relaxing into it.
“My mom called and told me what you did. At the hospital.”
“What did I do?” David’s surprise was genuine, a flinch throughout his body. “I was a perfect gentleman.”
Tai shifted them so that he could tip up David’s chin. “You made them let me see Sammie. Thank you.”
David lowered his eyes. “Yes. Well, I’m not particularly fond of stupid bureaucracies.”
“My mom thinks you’re in some kind of mafia.”
“She mentioned that.” David fidgeted, rolling his foot in a circle until the ankle joint popped audibly over the slap of rain. “Beauchamp is a name health-care administrators are familiar with. I went over the nurse’s head.”
Tai had expected smug. Not an almost apology. “Well, I appreciate it.”
“No trouble. It was a simple phone call.” But there was more deflection than courtesy in David’s answer.
Tai went fishing. “Did you make those calls you were supposed to?”
David slid free and turned to face him. “I did. I have a physical therapy appointment at three forty-five.”
“And?” Tai prompted.
“And my uncle said he couldn’t talk at that moment, but he’d call me back.”
“Good.”
The praise didn’t shift David’s eyes from their focus on his knees. The luxury around them might have made Tai aware of the gap between them, but right now he could only see David’s need.
Tai lifted David’s chin. “Tell me.”
David blinked, then let his cheek lean into Tai’s hold. “My father—I haven’t seen him since I was ten. Something happened—a girl accused him of having sex with her when she was underage. I don’t remember it very well. There was a lot of money involved and lawyers and then my father left the country. He’s in Venezuela, and if he comes back, they’ll arrest him.” David licked his lips. “My mother….” David paused and shrugged. “I guess she was so embarrassed by it all, she went to Europe, and I went to live with my aunt and uncle.”
“The same uncle you called.”
David nodded. Tai tugged David into an embrace, keeping his back pressed tight against Tai’s chest. This time David relaxed.
“The thing I remember is that the girl claimed she had a ring because my father gave it to her. A family-heirloom thing. We had a painting of my great-great-grandfather wearing it. I was fascinated by it because according to my grandfather, you could spin the gem and underneath was the family seal. But I don’t remember my dad having it.”
David twirled his foot again, but the ankle didn’t pop. He flexed the ankle with the band back and forth.
“So that’s how I ended up with this. I ran into a cousin who told me the ring didn’t make it to my dad because his grandfather swiped it and then his uncle lost it on Fort Carroll during some party in the ’90s. If I found it, her case would be shot and my dad could come home.”
From everything Tai knew about evidence and indictments in general, it seemed like there had to be much more on the side of the accusing girl than her say-so and a ring to keep a man with the kind of power Beauchamp money could buy out of the country. But Tai had promised David trust, not a legal briefing.
“How did you plan to find a ring on an island, even one that size?”
David stopped swinging his foot. “I admit I wasn’t too clear on it. I thought I had a good fix from what Beau had told me, about a gun port that faced due east, but that night….” He shook his head. “It seemed like a simple plan.”
“And now?”
“Now I know I’d need a metal detector at least. The place is a mess.”
Despite his best intentions to work the kind of supportive-reflective-de-escalating-listening crap the state forced POs to go to in-services on, Tai couldn’t keep a half grunt, half growl from escaping his throat.
“And a permit. Or whatever.” David pulled away. “I really don’t want to go to jail. I’m not going to do something stupid.” He rolled his eyes. “This time. I wish I hadn’t dragged Gavin into it that night. Maybe he and his—”
David’s phone chirped with that bland ringtone, and he sprang off the sofa, winced, and then hobbled to where his deck shorts were hanging off a cabinet knob.
After retrieving the phone, he mouthed My uncle at Tai before tapping it and bringing it to his ear.
Either David’s cell phone had impressive reception or his uncle had a particularly loud voice, because there weren’t many words from either side of the conversation that Tai didn’t catch.
He might not have been familiar with the uncle’s voice, but there was no mistaking the tone for anything but a sneer of disgust as he said, “What kind of trouble are you in now, David?”
So much for everyone calling him Beach.
“None. Well, nothing new.” David’s attempt at charm faded fast. “It’s only that Da—my father has been unable to reach you, and he asked me to call in his stead.”
“Yes.” But there was nothing else forthcoming from the man on the other end of the phone.
After a moment of impatient tapping on the counter, David faced Tai and made a dramatically exasperated face that did nothing to hide the real tension underneath.
“Well, sir”—David capitulated to the silence—“he’s concerned.”
“I’m sure he is.”
“About money, sir. About his dividend check.” Into the continuing unhelpful silence, David blurted, “I offered a wire transfer from my account, but he said it wouldn’t be enough.”
“Small mercy that you never got the full shares.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s not much of a surprise. What do you know about your father’s financial situation?”
David turned back to the counter, hiding his expressions from Tai. “Nothing.”
After that whisper, the uncle’s voice was jarring. “Precisely. And you’ve chosen to remain unaware. So don’t pretend you’re going to tax your brain with it now. Might get frown lines on that pretty face of yours.”
David’s voice deepened but held a note of appeal. “I managed a business degree from a fairly respected institution of higher learning. If you could explain it to me, Uncle Sinclair, I’m sure I could—”
“And you’ve done what with that exactly? Don’t trouble yourself. Just stay out of it.”
“It’s no trouble at all, sir. I can’t come down home at present, but—”
“I’m all too aware of your situation.”
“But if you could send someone, or I could meet with someone—”
“It’s a bit late for that, my boy.”
“I don’t understand.”
“And you should be on your knees thanking God for that.”
David went to stare out of a rectangular porthole in the wall, his forehead against the glass. “What am I supposed to tell him when he calls again?”
“Tell him he damned well knows why.”
David pulled the phone away from his ear, staring down at the screen, but it was obvious his uncle had disconnected.
“Well.” David leaned on the counter and smiled. “At least I can cross that off the to-do list. Now, can I buy you lunch?”