by Susan Wiggs
“Connor?”
He turned back.
“Do you—” She swallowed, cleared her throat. “I have the same question you asked me the other day. Do you, um, ever think about…us?”
“Nope,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Things happen. Life gets busy. I haven’t thought about us in a long time.”
All right. She’d asked for that. She shuffled her feet, stared at the floor, the door, her gaze seeking neutral territory.
He grinned easily, touched her shoulder. “But I am now.”
Fifteen
Connor hadn’t told Olivia half of it. From the moment he had first spotted her, stranded atop a flagpole, he’d been intrigued. As time went on, he became consumed by memories of the past, good and bad, of the time he’d spent with her.
He wasn’t sure why he was being so guarded around this woman. He could have explained the Airstream and the Harley to her easily enough. Maybe he even could have explained why he’d hurt her all those years ago. He hadn’t, though. For some reason, he felt he was better off letting her think he was a born son of a bitch, a biker who lived in a trailer. Maybe so she wouldn’t fall for him. Because even though he found himself wanting to go to every forbidden, sensual place with her, he knew they didn’t stand any better chance together now than they had when they were kids.
Last night, he had wanted to explain everything to her, but it sounded too intense. Obsessive, maybe.
There was really no point in wondering why they had parted ways, all those years ago. They were just seventeen and eighteen, fresh out of high school. She was desperately unhappy and he was scared to death, saddled with way too much responsibility. Not exactly a firm foundation for a relationship. Still, that wasn’t the reason the relationship had failed.
Over the past nine years, she had changed everything about herself. Her looks, her hair, her attitude, even her name. She simply wasn’t Lolly anymore. Lolly might as well be a figment of his imagination—shy, self-conscious, a dreamer who once wanted to be a teacher. A girl with a kind heart, a girl who turned out to be the only person in the world who loved him.
For the tenth time, Connor checked his cell phone: 11:15 a.m. No new messages. That was good news, he told himself, slipping the phone into his shirt pocket. Julian was supposed to arrive on the eleven-thirty train.
Connor wondered what Julian would think of Avalon. The place could be a stand-in for Mayberry, populated with folksy types and ex–flower children, earnest ecoactivists, artists and poets. Connor had never imagined himself settling down here, making a life for himself in a town where people didn’t bother locking their doors at night. Yet when life had taken him to the brink of disaster, it had been his connection to Avalon—and to the Bellamy family in particular—that had saved him.
Rourke McKnight, chief of police of Avalon, showed up at the train station. Connor knew he was off duty because he had his two favorite off-duty accessories with him—a woman who was built like a lingerie model, and a pair of dark aviator glasses to hide the evidence of last night’s party. Spotting Connor, he offered a brief wave, and Connor nodded to acknowledge it.
The lingerie model said something to Rourke and headed for the restrooms in the lobby. Connor decided to use the opportunity to offer a heads-up on Julian. “Hey, Rourke,” he said.
“Connor.” They shook hands.
“Got a minute?” Connor asked.
Rourke glanced toward the lobby. “Sure. You know women and their primping.”
Not really, but Connor nodded. Rourke was notorious for his romantic revolving-door policy with women. They were always gorgeous, and they always went back to the city after a brief time—usually a weekend—never to return. Some of the town busy-bodies thought it outrageous behavior for the chief of police, but most people figured what he did in his own time, so long as it was legal, was none of their business.
“I wanted to let you know that my younger brother’s coming to spend the summer with me,” Connor explained. “Complicated family situation. The two of us will be staying up at Camp Kioga, at the work site.”
“Okay.”
“He’s coming here at the order of a judge,” Connor added. “He’s seventeen and has a few incidents of delinquency in California.”
“What, did you lose a bet?” Rourke flashed a brief grin.
“Something like that. Anyway, his name’s Julian Gastineaux, and he should be in on the next train.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” With that, McKnight removed the dark glasses and held Connor’s gaze. “You let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“Thanks.” They shook hands again, and a tacit understanding passed between them. Most people in town—including Rourke McKnight—knew Connor Davis had done time. But no one knew what that time had done to Connor Davis.
Since his mother had put him in the position of taking Julian for the summer, Connor was fiercely determined to make sure his brother never faced that.
When Julian had first gone to live with her, Connor had hoped the kid would do better than Connor had in the Mom department. Judging by the current situation, that was unlikely. Connor would make it a point to tell the kid the problem was not with him. That it wasn’t his job to get his mother to love him. This was something Connor himself had spent considerable sums of his own time and heart on, only to discover for himself that it couldn’t be done.
Rourke’s date returned and he put the sunglasses back on. “See you around, Connor.”
“You bet.” He nodded politely to the woman and moved away on the platform.
The southbound train arrived, and the lingerie model gave Rourke a lingering kiss, then boarded. A moment later Connor’s phone rang. He checked the number on the incoming call and flipped open his phone. “Ma. I was just thinking about you.”
“Is he there yet?”
“His train gets in any minute.” Connor watched the southbound disappear through a cleft in the mountains rising against the sky. He tried to picture her view in Chino, California, where she’d moved after Mel had left her. Freeways, stockyards and strip malls.
“Are you sure he’s on it?”
“You mean you’re not?” Connor frowned. Was she suddenly having an attack of maternal concern? “What’s going on?”
There was a pause. “Sometimes he runs away,” she said quietly.
“Great. Thanks for telling me.” Connor’s jaw tensed. She’d probably have to pay a hefty fine if the kid went AWOL. He wasn’t sure what bothered him more—the fact that his mother had manipulated him into taking Julian for the summer, or the fact that he had let her. “What else you hiding, Ma?” he asked.
“God, Connor. I’m not hiding a damn thing from you. Just checking on your brother.”
“Right.”
“Look, if you’re going to be so pissed off about this, you should have told me. I nearly went broke getting him a ticket at the last minute.”
“How is it that you’re broke, buying a plane ticket?” He wondered if she’d given the kid enough for train fare as well.
“I had to pay full fare.”
His mother was fifty-five years old. She ought to have enough for a plane ticket from L.A. to New York without going broke. Yet she simply could not hold on to her money. She was as addicted to spending it as his father had been to alcohol.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll have him give you a call when he gets here. And if he doesn’t get here, I’ll call you myself.”
A long pause. Through the silence, he sensed an unspoken warning. “What else are you keeping from me, Ma?”
He heard her gather in a long breath. “I, er, didn’t exactly explain to your brother how long he’d be staying out there.”
“How long does he think he’s staying?” Connor didn’t need to ask. Not really. He already knew his mother had lied to get her way. It was what she did.
He only half listened to her lengthy, self-justifying explanation. She’d told Julian it was only for a week
or two, and that if he didn’t cooperate, she’d be fined into bankruptcy and he’d wind up in detention.
Connor had heard it all before, or some version of it. He tuned his mother out and focused on the arriving train. A handful of passengers disembarked—a nun with her overnight bag, a teacher he recognized from the local high school, a businessman, a family of tourists who headed for the rental-car counter.
And that was it. No one else disembarked.
Connor paced up and down the platform. A conductor stood at the door, looking up and down the tracks and platform. He put a whistle to his mouth, about to give the all-clear signal.
Still no sign of Julian. Connor cursed under his breath, waving at the conductor to wait.
At the same time, a tall, slender teenager with dreadlocks got off the train. Julian.
He didn’t use the normal exit but emerged between cars, heaving an overstuffed duffel and backpack onto the platform and then jumping down after it.
His gaze riveted on the impossibly tall kid, Connor lifted the phone to his mouth. “Ma, he’s here. We’ll call you later.”
He ended the call and pocketed the phone. “Yo,” he yelled to his brother. “Over here.”
Julian stiffened, assuming a defensive posture as though he feared a physical assault. It was the posture of someone who was used to getting hurt. Someone who had spent the night in jail, maybe.
The last time they’d seen each other, Julian had been about fourteen, still on the child’s side of puberty. Connor had gone out to California because his mother, in despair after the collapse of her marriage, had begged him to come.
The Julian he’d seen that year had a broken arm, a crooked grin and a heart full of grief, having just lost his father.
Three years later, Connor found himself looking at an extremely tall stranger with a sullen, hostile expression. “Hey,” he said, stopping a few feet from Julian.
His brother jerked his head to clear his overly long locks from his eyes. “Hey.” He had a man’s voice now, a man’s anger burning in his eyes. And more tattoos and body piercings than a sailor in the merchant marine.
“I just got off the phone with Ma,” Connor said. “She was worried that you might not show.”
Julian shrugged into his army-surplus backpack. “I showed. Lucky you.”
They didn’t shake hands. They sure as hell didn’t embrace like brothers who hadn’t seen each other in three years.
“The truck is over here.” Connor indicated the Dodge Power Wagon, circa 1974. “Throw your stuff in the back and get in.”
“Nice wheels.”
“Shut up.”
The duffel bag made a clanking sound when it landed. Connor wondered how the kid had ever made it through airport security. Julian kept the backpack with him, his gangly limbs sprawling over the sides of the bench seat and the pack between his knees. He unzipped the top, took out a Power Bar and stuffed it into his mouth in two bites. Connor glanced at the contents of the backpack—clothes and a surprising number of books. The thing probably weighed a ton, but Julian carried it as if it were nothing. Good. He was going to need his strength this summer.
“So I’ve got good news and bad news,” Connor said. “The good news is, you don’t have to spend a summer in juvenile hall.”
“And the bad?”
Connor threw the truck in gear and left the train station behind. “The bad news is, you’re spending the summer with me.”
Sixteen
For Julian Gastineaux, life reached a new level of suckitude when he passed through the gates of Camp Kioga. Camp-freaking-Kioga, where summers go to die, he thought, looking around with contempt. It resembled the set of a Disney movie, the kind of place that made white folk burst into song.
He had been here only one time before, the summer he was eight years old. Except back then he’d actually regarded camp as an exciting adventure. Then, like now, he’d been sent away because his mother had better things to do than take care of him, and his father…He thought for a minute. That year, his father had gone on sabbatical. To Italy, as Julian recalled.
His father’s people, as they were referred to, lived in a forgotten town of shanties and lottery-ticket stands in southern Louisiana. They were always happy to look after Julian, but both he and his father were misfits there. A Tulane professor and his son found little in common with the rest of the Gasti-neaux family, so when Julian’s father went away that one summer, he was supposed to go live with his mother. But back then, she hadn’t wanted him around any more than she did now, so Camp Kioga became his temporary home. History repeating itself, he thought, only this time he was a hell of a lot more pissed off about it.
As a little kid, he had been totally blown away by summer camp. Raised in an ancient, musty-smelling house in New Orleans, Julian recalled a childhood was filled with yellowing books stacked high on every available surface. All the desks and tables were riddled with papers, notes, journals and every possible gizmo known to man. This was the trailing edge of a district that was just barely genteel, separated only by a couple of mews from an area where smart women didn’t walk alone after dark, where his father forbade him to go, on those occasions when Louis Gastineaux remembered Julian was around.
Louis often forgot, because he was an eccentric genius. He was a bona fide, pocket-protector-wearing, bad-haircut, Coke-bottle-glasses geek. He had the brilliant mind and dorky personality to back it up. The only thing that was not uncool about Julian’s father was that he was black, and built like a linebacker.
Julian used to try everything to get his father’s attention, but nothing ever worked. Not making straight A’s in school, or flunking every class. If he tried to fake illness or injury, he got bored with bed-rest before his father even noticed.
“I’ll be with you in a moment,” Louis Gastineaux used to say, his face bathed in the misty glow of a computer monitor. Although his scientific calculations were precise to the eleventh decimal place, the guy had no clue how long a “moment” was supposed to be. Professor Gastineaux inhabited the universe inside the computer much more comfortably than he fit into the everyday world of school lunches and PTA meetings, remembering birthdays and shopping for groceries. Sometimes he seemed to forget he had a son at all.
Julian entertained himself by seeking out physical thrills. He climbed to high places—treetops and fire escapes, tall bridges and rope swings. He learned to love the sensation of danger screaming through his blood, and to crave the weightless thrill of flying, whether by taking a jump on his skateboard, or parasurfing in the hot wind over the Gulf of Mexico.
There was no possible way Julian could imagine his parents in the same room, much less the same bed. His mother, the blond bombshell, and his father, the nutty professor. About that fateful meeting, his father had little to say. “It was at a jet propulsion conference in Niagara Falls,” he said. “She was performing at a club, and I’d presented a paper on a breakthrough my research team had achieved in solar and laser sail technology. We had plenty to celebrate.”
When Julian was little, he’d been unfamiliar with the term “one-night stand” and his father failed to enlighten him. Julian’s dad had been an embarrassing fifteen years younger than his mom. It skeezed Julian out just thinking about it.
Later, Julian’s mother filled in a few more blanks in the story. “After you were born, I realized I couldn’t support another kid, so I gave Louis full custody.” Julian suspected there was a good deal more to the situation than that. Ultimately, he drew the conclusion that he had been an accident, an unwanted child who fell into the hands of the parent who had drawn the short straw.
Years ago, his father did remember to explain the perils of unprotected sex. He had done so in his trademark detailed fashion, as though he was delivering a lecture on propulsion mission concepts. Then he’d handed Julian a box of condoms.
The life of a college professor was not supposed to be hazardous, but an eccentric genius driving a rusted-out Duster in rush hour traffi
c was an accident waiting to happen.
The day Julian’s life had changed had been completely ordinary. The last thing Louis had said to him that morning was nothing profound or prescient. He’d simply told Julian he wouldn’t be home for dinner.
It was the next morning by the time someone remembered to call him. Louis Gastineaux barely escaped the wreck with his life, and when he awoke from a coma induced by a swelling of the brain, he was a quadriplegic, his body no more than a life-support system for his brilliant mind. He was eerily comfortable with this turn of events, for with some training on a modified system, he could still operate a computer, could still think like a genius. And one of the first things he thought was that he couldn’t look after a fourteen-year-old son. Julian would have to go to live with his mother.
She agreed, and once again he suspected there was a lot more to the story. He was pretty sure there had been a generous financial incentive, and Julian was sent to Chino, California, a charmless freeway town where his mother lived and worked as a cocktail waitress at a dinner theater, never quite giving up her hope of a stage career. There, he joined a crowd of skaters and baby outlaws, and spent most of his time seeking thrills and evading capture. When the call came, a few months later, that his father had passed away due to complications from his condition, Julian’s fate was sealed. He was stuck.
Now, resentment boiled in every cell of his body as he crossed the main compound of Camp Kioga with his brother. Connor-fricking-Davis. Other than being the same height—six-foot-two—the two of them looked as though they were from different planets instead of the same mother. Connor had that long-haired-biker-meets-Paul-Bunyon thing going on, while Julian cultivated the hip-hop dreadlock look. It helped him blend in at school, while setting him apart from his Nordic queen of a mother.
He couldn’t believe she had tricked him into coming here. Just a week, she’d wheedled. Just so the judge thinks we’re taking his advice. He should have known better.
