Her Sister's Secret Life. Pamela Toth
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lots of rabbits and a few deer,” Wade replied, disappointing him. “One day I spotted a coyote when I was eating my lunch, but they’re pretty skittish. And there’s an eagle’s nest in the top of an old dead tree called a spar. You can see it from the site.”
Just then, the woods got thinner and Jordan could see the houses. One of them looked normal, but the other reminded him of a skeleton made out of wood. On the roof, a guy wearing a hard hat was on his hands and knees. He was making a bang, bang, bang noise.
“Wow.” Jordan sat up straighter as he nearly forgot about the man he was going to meet. “They’re right on the beach.” A kid who lived here could have a tree house in the woods and a little sailboat for the water, too. There was even room for a horse if you fenced some of the flat, open part.
Wade pulled up next to two other trucks and a black Harley. Nearby stood a skinny little building made of plastic. Harold’s Honey Buckets was printed on the door with a phone number under it. He knew it was like a portable bathroom, so the workers didn’t have to run into the woods to take a leak.
“These places are going to be terrific when Steve’s done,” Wade said as he cut the engine. “His houses are pretty fancy.”
Steve. Jordan swallowed hard at the reminder, but then a funny thing happened. His nervousness was replaced by curiosity. Ben, his best friend back home, had the same brown eyes and hooked nose as his dad. This would be Jordan’s chance to find out if he looked like Steve. Even though his blond hair and blue eyes were a lot like his mom’s, the idea that he could also resemble someone he’d never met was kind of weird.
Wade didn’t immediately open his door. Instead he released his seat belt and shifted so that he was facing Jordan.
“You okay?” Wade asked.
Jordan had an idea of what the question really meant, even though he didn’t have the nerve to ask right out if Wade knew whether or not Steve was his father. “You aren’t going to say anything to him about, about—” he stammered, not ready to discuss it yet.
Wade shook his head. “Don’t worry.” He reached behind the seat and pulled out a file folder. “The only thing we’re going to talk about today is houses, I promise.”
Jordan felt a wave of relief, like after he had cleared a jump on his board without falling. It was pretty cool how Wade could almost read what he was thinking without him having to explain.
“Okay,” Jordan agreed, unlocking his belt. “I’m ready.”
“Looks like we won’t need you to do the rough-in until the end of next week.” As Steve talked to the electrician on his cell phone, he paced back and forth across the floor of the future kitchen. He barely heard the steady thunk of Carlos’s nail gun overhead or the whine of George’s saw.
“I’ll get back to you on Monday,” Steve promised the electrician as he noticed Wade’s truck coming slowly down the drive. “Thanks.”
After Steve had ended the call and stuffed the phone into his shirt pocket, he jotted a reminder to himself on his clipboard. The next two items on his punch list, calls to the cable outfit and the roofing supplier, could wait until after he took a break.
Steve flipped up the page and added another item to the second list he was writing: plan bachelor party. He didn’t see Wade as the type who wanted a stripper, so he figured that something including bars and booze would work.
As soon as he saw the boy get out of Wade’s truck with the sun shining down on his blond hair like some kind of spotlight, Steve froze. He knew instantly who the kid must be, so what the hell was Wade thinking to bring him here? Didn’t Steve have enough to deal with?
Wade rested one hand on the boy’s shoulder as they approached and gestured with the folder in his other hand at a red-tailed hawk making lazy circles overhead as it hunted for field mice in the tall grass.
As the boy made some comment, Steve studied him reluctantly. Lily’s child. Except for the hair, sun-streaked like Steve’s own, he looked like any other kid. He was a boy-man with gangly limbs and a self-conscious gait, stumbling awkwardly over a tuft of grass. His grin was destined to send pre-adolescent girls into fits of giggles. He was still too far away for Steve to be able to tell his eye color, but the resemblance to his mother was unmistakable.
Steve’s chest ached as he watched the living reminder of his old fantasy, raising a family with Lily. From what he’d heard, she hadn’t succeeded in finding the stardom she’d craved. Instead, she had ended up working as some kind of bookkeeper. Not very glamorous for someone with her talent and her dreams.
Not for the first time, he wondered just how she had managed, alone and pregnant at eighteen in such a tough town, no city for angels who were sweet and naive as she. Her beauty had been dazzling even then, so had she found an angel of her own to watch over her? To share her bed and pave her way?
The image of her as arm candy for some old fart made Steve’s stomach pitch. Deliberately he blocked out the silent questions. She had made her choice—and forced it on him, as well. Except for the boy who gazed up at him now, the whole sad story was ancient history.
“Hey, amigo,” Carlos called down to Wade from his perch on the roof truss.
“Howdy, slackers.” Wade’s reply included George in his greeting. “Brought you some papers,” he told Steve, holding out the folder.
“Oh?” Steve had no idea what it was about, unless it had something to do with Wade’s wedding. Surely Steve wouldn’t be expected to help with any decisions. He knew nothing about flowers or hymns. Reluctantly he stepped down to the ground and took the folder.
“This is my buddy, Jordan,” Wade added in a breezy tone. “Lily’s boy,” he tacked on unnecessarily, if Steve was too dumb to see the resemblance—especially when he looked into eyes of the same blue that he saw in the mirror each morning.
Jordan’s face turned pink. “Pleased to meet you,” he mumbled, sticking out his hand despite his obvious embarrassment.
Steve pulled off his work glove and did the same. “Uh, you, too.” He felt as awkward as a hooker in church as Jordan stuck his hands into the pockets of his baggy shorts and looked around.
“We’re on our way to shoot some hoops,” Wade drawled, breaking the silence. “Jordan wanted to see what a half-finished house looks like.”
“Is that so?” Steve’s doubt must have been evident, because Jordan’s gaze darted from him to Wade.
Hell, none of this was the boy’s fault. The least Steve could do was be civil.
“Well, come on, then,” he said, ignoring Wade and the churning in his own gut. “I might as well give you the ten-cent tour. Ever use a nail gun?”
When Lily heard the familiar rumble of Wade’s truck coming down the driveway alongside the big old house that she and Pauline had inherited from their parents, she slid a casserole dish into the oven and set the timer.
After “the guys” had left earlier, she had tried to search the Internet for office space to lease, but she had been unable to concentrate. Finally, she had given up in self-disgust. Cooking normally relaxed her, but not today. The entire time she’d been chopping onions, browning ground beef and boiling egg noodles, her thoughts had bounced back and forth between Pauline’s recipe and her own brief glimpse of her first love.
Seeing Steve drive by had opened a floodgate of questions—uppermost being, what kind of man had he become and did he carry a grudge against her for the way she had left him?
When Jordan came into the kitchen moments later with Wade on his heels, she was in the act of transferring cooled brownies from a baking pan into a plastic container.
“Oh, wow!” Jordan exclaimed, reaching for one without bothering with a greeting. “My favorite.”
Lily snatched them out of his reach. “You can say hello first,