I can’t go on the trip at all,” Clare protested, temper rising. “Especially if they find out Luke’s a little older than I am.”
“How much older?” Brylee asked. Clare tended to be adventurous and impulsive, and she’d been in trouble for shoplifting at one point, too, so if Walker and Casey kept a closer watch on her than they might have otherwise, Brylee couldn’t blame them.
“Nineteen,” Clare replied in a small voice.
Oh, Lordy, Brylee thought, but she wouldn’t allow herself to overreact. After all, she didn’t want her niece to stop running things like this by her older and, presumably, wiser aunt.
“You like this Luke person a lot?” Brylee ventured.
“He’s awesome,” Clare said, softening visibly.
“And you met him at youth group?” Tread carefully here, Aunt Brylee. This is treacherous ground.
“I met him at a basketball game last fall,” Clare replied. “He was a senior then, and now he’s got a full-time job at the pulp mill. He joined the youth group just last week.”
“Isn’t nineteen a little old for youth group?”
“They let him in, didn’t they?” Clare reasoned, developing an edge. “It’s not as though he’s a pervert or something.”
Silently, Brylee counted to ten before asking, “What’s he like? Who are his parents?”
Clare looked fitful now, squirming in her chair, her glass of cola forgotten on the table in front of her. “Now you sound like them,” she complained. “It’s not like we’re going to a drive-in movie in his car, or anything like that.”
“Luke’s out of school, and he’s too old for you,” Brylee stated reasonably. Then she arched one eyebrow and added, “He has a car?”
“He has a driver’s license,” Clare said, defensive now.
Brylee sighed wearily. Nineteen, a job at the pulp mill and a driver’s license but, five will get you ten, no car. And what was this Luke yahoo doing in youth group? If he wanted to be part of the church community, there were certainly other options....
She paused, remembering how it felt to be very young, like Clare. Brylee’s own mother hadn’t been around much when she was growing up, but her dad had paid close attention to her activities, along with Walker’s. He’d been a real drag at times, wanting all the whys and wherefores, insisting on knowing all her friends, and she’d been rebellious, resentful—and very, very safe.
Now, she was getting a glimmer of what she must have put the poor man through, all because he wanted to protect her. She’d gone on to college, built a business and a good life for herself, while some of her friends, notably those whose parents were less vigilant, had fallen into all sorts of traps—unwanted pregnancies resulting in early and ill-fated marriages, lost scholarships, dead-end jobs.
In that moment, Brylee missed Barclay Parrish with a keen sharpness radiating from behind her breastbone, wished she’d thought to thank him for caring so much about her and Walker both before he’d died, over a decade before, of a heart attack, instead of now.
“What’s the hurry, Clare?” she asked softly. “You’re only sixteen, remember?”
Seeing a protest forming in Clare’s stormy eyes, Brylee held up both hands in a bid for silence so she could go on.
“I know you think you’re mature for your age, and you probably are, actually, but trust me, you don’t know as much about the world as you think you do.” Who does?
“You don’t trust me,” Clare accused quietly. “Or Luke, either.”
“I do trust you,” Brylee said. “You’re a very smart young lady with a good heart. But this Luke person? Maybe he’s nice and maybe he isn’t—I don’t claim to know.”
“He goes to youth group,” Clare reminded Brylee, her tone indicating that that one fact made him a saint. “At church.”
“Then why not tell your folks about him?” Brylee argued. She had to say what she thought here, but she was worried about alienating Clare. The girl had come to her in confidence, after all—would she clam up after this? Start keeping secrets that might be a lot more dangerous than plans to sit together on a bus and hold hands “and stuff” with a nineteen-year-old, whenever they weren’t being watched? Which, admittedly, with Opal on the job, would be never.
On the other hand, though, somebody had dropped the ball at some point. Was it possible that Opal and Walter didn’t know Luke’s age?
“Are you going to tell them?” Clare countered. “Mom and Dad, I mean?”
Brylee sighed. “No,” she said, wanting to strike a balance of some kind, keep the door of communication open between her and her brother’s child and do the right thing, too. What if something bad happened? She’d never be able to forget that she could have prevented whatever it was just by speaking up.
“You promise?” Clare was wheedling now. No doubt about it, the kid was a charmer and, besides, Brylee loved her.
She gave another sigh, this one heavier than the last. “I promise.”
“Good. Then I’m not telling Mom and Dad, either,” Clare said, pushing back her chair and standing up.
Snidely, finished with his kibble ration, sat nearby, watching the girl with concern.
Brylee felt a headache coming on. All her adult life she’d dreamed about being a mother, but she was learning pretty quickly that it was no job for wimps.
She remained at the table, stomach churning, for several minutes after Clare left by the back door without saying another word—not even goodbye.
Finally, Brylee left her chair, rummaged through her purse for her cell phone and scrolled through her contact list. Coming to a certain name, she thumbed the connect button and waited.
She’d given her word that she wouldn’t mention Clare and Luke’s plans for the youth group trip—which might be entirely innocent, on Clare’s side, but probably weren’t on the guy’s end—not to Walker and Casey, that is.
But she hadn’t promised not to tell Opal.
* * *
THE ELECTRICITY WAS ON—cause for celebration from Zane’s point of view. He and Slim made a quick trip to town in the truck, loaded up on grub and sundries, along with an inflatable mattress and some sheets, blankets and pillows, and promptly headed home again.
After doing some scrubbing, mostly focused on the kitchen, Zane boiled up half a package of hot dogs on the temperamental flat-top stove, and shared the meal with Slim. No sense in dirtying up a plate—he used a paper towel instead.
Easy cleanup, that was Zane’s modus operandi. He wasn’t an untidy person, especially when it came to personal grooming, but he’d depended on his California housekeeper, Cleopatra, for so long that he was spoiled.
Thinking of Cleo, Zane felt a pang of guilt. He’d given her a nice severance package—meaning he’d left her a hefty check and a note before he and Slim headed north—but otherwise, he’d basically left her high and dry. A cranky black woman with a gift for cooking that was positively cosmic in scope, she normally didn’t get along with “Hollywood types” to use her term. She’d made an exception for Zane, and now he’d gone off and left her to fend for herself in a crappy economy, in a place where integrity, like beauty, was often skin-deep.
Even in Glitzville, folks were feeling the pinch of tough times, cutting back on the luxuries. What would happen to Cleo, once she’d used up that last check, sizable though it had been?
Engaged in grim reflection, Zane was startled when his cell phone rang in the pocket of his shirt. Frowning—he was not a phone man—he checked the caller ID screen, saw his brother’s name there and grimaced even