UP, little brother.”
Mark looked up at Jeff, who held out a can of beer. He accepted the icy can. “I just finished three straight games of dodgeball with twenty million kids. I’m discovering I’m getting too old for those games.” They were at their parents’ house for the family weekend barbecue.
“You volunteered to be their first target,” Jeff reminded him. He dropped into the patio chair next to him. “So who are you looking for?”
“Your hot-stuff wife. Who else?” Not for anything was he going to admit who he was really looking for.
Mark knew Nora had a standing invitation to attend the weekend barbecues and any other party thrown by the Walkers. She’d still shown up once in a while even after they had broken up.
It wasn’t until today that Mark realized Nora hadn’t been out here for some time. For the past couple of years, he’d been able to put her out of his mind. Mainly because it was easier that way rather than constantly wondering what went wrong between them. It was only after the first time they made love that he’d found himself looking for her. Not that he asked about her. Privacy about one’s love life wasn’t an option in the Walker family. If he asked about Nora, his mother would want to know if they were dating again. There was no way he’d admit they’d slept together. Cathy Walker would be making noises that it was time for her baby boy to get married. Then Jeff and Brian would join in on the chorus…and Ginna. Hell, Ginna would just plain make his life miserable. She’d done more than her share of that right after he and Nora broke up.
He’d always felt Ginna’s accusations about his being a scuzzball were unfounded. After all, he’d been the injured party in the relationship. All he knew was that they’d gone out for the evening, at some point she had turned a little surly, and by the end of the night she had told him not to call her anymore. When he’d demanded a reason, all she’d said was that she finally saw him for what he was and she didn’t like it. When he’d asked her exactly what she meant, she’d coldly informed him that he, of all people, ought to know. He’d left her house confused, angry and just plain hurt. He had called her, wanting to know what went wrong, and she had refused to even speak to him. Finally, he’d pushed his hurt deep down inside and went looking for any woman who would assure him he was still a stud. He’d never admitted that his mega-dating spree hadn’t helped one bit.
To this day, he still had no idea what he supposedly did wrong that night. And he still wanted to know.
Come to think of it, he’d add to that interrogation by asking Nora why she pretty much threw him out of her house that second morning. Some hostess she’d been. The last time, she didn’t even offer him coffee.
“Like hell you’re looking for my wife,” Jeff said amiably, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Admit it. Abby terrifies you.”
“Yeah, she does have that scary quality, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like looking at her. Your wife is one hot-looking babe. Ow!” He clapped his hands on top of his head where he’d just been delivered a painful thump.
“Ingrate,” Abby Walker informed her brother-in-law with a shark’s smile. She stepped around him and dropped into her husband’s lap. She looped her arm around Jeff’s neck as she studied Mark. “No wonder you can’t keep a girlfriend. You always look like a fugitive from a Jimmy Buffet concert.”
“I give you a compliment and this is what I get in return?” Mark grumbled.
“Be grateful you didn’t get worse.” Abby stared him down.
“Fine, you’re an old crone.”
Which everyone knew was untrue. Not when Abby was blessed with California-blonde good looks. As a mother of three small children, she should have looked tired and worn out. Instead, she was the picture of energy and health in a pair of pink floral-print capris and a solid-pink tank top that bared her flat midriff. Her sun-golden blond hair was pulled back in a complicated braid he knew Ginna had created that morning. At the moment, Abby looked more like a college cheerleader than a thirty-something mom of three young children who kept her constantly running.
Until recently, Mark hadn’t bothered to consider how lucky his older brother was. Now he looked at Jeff and saw more than a guy who had lost his freedom on his wedding day. Now he saw the father of twin girls and a boy who was starting to walk, a loving husband to a woman who was drop-dead beautiful. He remembered when his brother seemed to have a girlfriend for every day of the week. Then Abby flew into Jeff’s life with hurricane force and Mark’s big bad brother had fallen like a ton of bricks for the energetic blonde.
Mark watched Brian on the other side of the yard talking to their dad. Brian had been something of a party animal too. Then Nikki, their baby sister, put Brian’s picture and personal information on the Steppin’ Out’s Blind Date Central bulletin board and Dr. Gail Douglas chose him to accompany her to a dinner. Instead, they were carjacked, kidnapped, dumped in the middle of nowhere, caught in a rainstorm and, after spending the night in an abandoned house, almost arrested for trespassing.
Gail was an uptight, no-nonsense pediatrician and Brian was a laid-back, easygoing guy. Who knew they’d end up together along with a baby girl conceived on that memorable night?
Mark suddenly felt a tightening in his throat as he looked around at his family that seemed to be growing at a steady rate.
His oldest brother had the kind of family Norman Rockwell painted.
His other brother was well on his way to having Hallmark’s idea of a perfect family.
One sister was now married with two stepchildren who fit right in with the Walker clan.
His parents and grandparents were perfect examples for their children.
Then there was Mark and Nikki. He knew his younger sister was safe from family hopes of her getting married since she was premed and had long years in medical school ahead of her.
Mark was in his thirties and his family expected him to start adding to the Walker family tree.
He didn’t think that was possible. Not that he thought he couldn’t have children. Just that he wasn’t sure his adding to the Walker population was a good idea.
Mark was convinced that when the fatherhood gene was passed out to the Walker brothers, he was off somewhere else.
He made a great uncle and knew it was a job he could easily handle. He just couldn’t see himself as a dad 24-7.
“Mark!”
He jumped. “What?” He glared at his sister-in-law. He was positive Abby’s shout just took out an eardrum. “Are you trying to make me deaf?”
She rolled her eyes. “As if! You were already impervious to your surroundings.”
“Impervious. Wow, the kids teach you that ten-dollar word? Storybooks have come a long way since we were kids.” He pretended to cower under her look of outrage.
“You know, I really pity the woman who ends up with you,” Abby told him.
Mark looked to his brother for moral support, but Jeff’s broad grin told him he’d find no sympathy there. He leaned forward and pushed himself out of the chair.
“You are an evil woman,” he told Abby with as much dignity as a man wearing a wild fuchsia and green flowered shirt and baggy stone-colored cargo shorts could give. He walked away with her laughter ringing in his ears. He didn’t mind. He knew he would get even with her later on. Abby and Ginna giving him a bad time was nothing new to him.
Mark didn’t have to go far to find someone to talk to.
He hung out at his parents’ house on most of his free weekends, as did many of his friends. They brought their wives or girlfriends and treated the place like a second home the way Cathy and Lou Walker liked. Mark couldn’t remember the last time he had brought a date with him.
This was the first time he’d spent time looking for Nora. And the first time it