knew he should give in and let her take the kittens. The last thing he needed was to have a troubled boy hanging around for two or three weeks. If the kid followed through. Which he probably wouldn’t.
“The responsibility would be good for him.”
“Come on, Gena,” Derrick wheedled. “It’ll only be for a week or two.”
Gena? Why would her kid call her by her first name? Disrespect?
The little twerp needed his head thumped.
She put her hand on the boy’s shoulder and massaged. “Honey, I know you’re worried about the kittens, but—”
Derrick yanked away, his face closed and his breath coming fast and short. “But what? You’re not going to let me do it because you don’t like Quinn?”
Quinn raised both eyebrows and pinned her with a stare. Her cheeks reddened.
“There are some things you have to trust me on. This is one of them.” She shot Quinn a snarky look. “The cats belong to Quinn. He can take care of them. Now get in the car and let’s go home.”
Derrick’s face darkened. His mouth was tight, his eyes laser hot. “I don’t have to do what you say. You’re not my mother. Stop trying to be.”
Gena’s face went whiter than wall plaster. Her pale green eyes flashed toward Quinn. “Derrick!”
Shocked, confused and feeling stupid, Quinn looked from woman to boy and back to the woman.
She wasn’t his mother? Then who was?
Gena’s heart was pushing through her chest. Any minute now, she’d collapse dead on Quinn Buchanon’s rough wooden floor.
If she was fortunate. Which today she was not.
Quinn stared squint-eyed at her, the way he must have stared down offensive linemen back in the golden days. Looking angry and dangerous, he awaited an explanation.
“She’s my aunt,” Derrick said with a sneer. “Good for me.”
Quinn’s chilly gaze swung to the boy. “Your aunt.”
“Yeah. Are you deaf? What did you think? That she was my mom or something?”
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Derrick.
Mouth tight, Quinn pointed a warning at Derrick before those cold eyes swung back to her. She held them with her own green ones, fighting the rising panic, blustering her way through the awkward situation. She’d worked in trauma. She didn’t rattle easily.
“His mother died. Not that it’s any of your business.”
Quinn lifted both hands. “Right. Not my business at all.”
Gena waited for the flicker of recognition that never came. If he remembered Renae, he didn’t make the connection.
Derrick slumped to one hip. “So are you gonna let me take care of the kittens or not?”
“Not,” she managed. “And don’t give me any more nonsense. My patience is gone.”
Kittens or not, she was done here. Done.
Without waiting to see if her nephew would follow, Gena escaped Quinn’s dangerous stare before the world caved in.
* * *
Quinn squinted at the clock next to his bunk. Midnight. He’d slept two whole hours, as if his body wanted to wake and torment him for the remaining two. His arm ached, nothing new there, and sleep wouldn’t come again until after the medication. He shoved out of the bed and dressed in sweats. The kittens would be hungry soon and he didn’t expect Derrick to show, not after the fiasco this afternoon.
He felt misled and shouldn’t. He wasn’t exactly social, so he had no reason to know through the grapevine that Derrick was Gena’s nephew.
Which meant Renae was the little twerp’s mother.
It hit him then, like a gunshot. Renae was dead.
“Whoa.” Quinn scrubbed a hand over his scruffy jaw and stood stock-still for several seconds. Renae was dead. No wonder the kid was angry.
He padded on the cold wooden floor into the kitchen to prepare for the kittens’ feeding.
He wanted to ask Gena what had happened, but she would say it wasn’t his business.
It wasn’t. He didn’t want it to be. In fact, he hoped he never saw either of his problematic neighbors again. He didn’t want people infringing on his privacy and blundering around on his land. He’d bought three hundred acres of remote nothing for a reason. To be alone.
Alone was the only way to be until he got the monster off his back.
With the four tiny bottles of warmed milk replacer in his coat, Quinn stepped out into the cold night. Frost lay like a young snow over the grass and bushes, while the moon cast a white, ghostly hue over the shadowy trees and well house.
Winter was not a friend to scar tissue and damaged bone.
The surgical scars started their steady thrum of hot pain, and he whispered a thank-you to the heavens that the kittens would keep him occupied for a while. Anything to block the hunger for another painkiller.
A thin beam of yellow light slanted through the crack in the well-house door.
Quinn blew out a cloudy breath and shook his head.
Was the kid here?
Sure enough, Derrick sat on the floor inside, holding a kitten that sucked greedily at a milk bottle while the other three still in the box yowled in high-pitched desperation.
Quinn ignored the kindness of a boy traipsing through dark woods at midnight to feed motherless kittens. He scowled. “I told you to stay home. I got this one.”
“I was awake.”
Quinn grunted. So was he.
No point in asking if Gena had given permission. She hadn’t. But the kid was her problem, not his. If she let him get away with that kind of disobedience, she’d have to live with the consequences. He had his own problems.
Managing to squeeze his big body into the narrow space opposite Derrick, Quinn scooped two squirming, squalling babies into his left hand while balancing the pair of bottles between the fingers of his right one. Awkward but efficient.
Derrick watched for a second and then looked at his much smaller palm cradling a single baby. Quinn could tell he wanted to say something but the chip on his shoulder weighed him down.
“Big hands,” Quinn muttered, remembering the way a football fit perfectly and wondering why he bothered to make conversation with a pain-in-the-neck boy who should be home in bed.
Derrick’s defensive pose softened as curiosity got the better of him. “Can you palm a basketball?”
Quinn jerked a nod. “Haven’t in a while, but yeah.”
“I wish I could.”
“You’re still growing.” He was a good-sized boy for eleven, tall and lanky and on the verge of adolescence, when his jeans would be shorter every time he put them on. In the next couple of years, he’d grow even taller.
“I like football better anyway.”
“Me, too.”
The kid snorted. “Obviously.” And then surprisingly, “Do you miss playing?”
“Sometimes.” All the time.
“You still work out.” When Quinn’s glance questioned, he pretended to be cool. “I saw your weight set inside.”
Except