Michael's Father. Melinda Curtis

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СКАЧАТЬ had a substitute teacher in English today. Man, was she messed up.” Jen warmed to her story and relaxed her shoulders against the wall, her face lighting up. “Some of the kids switched seats and pretended to be someone else.”

      Blake noticed all of this out of the corner of his eye. Caution kept him from looking directly at her until he deciphered her mood.

      “By the end of the period, she didn’t know who was who.”

      Blake’s eyes landed on Jen’s face in a blink. She was smiling. Her demeanor fairly shouted for approval. Blake passed the remote control from one hand to the other.

      Let it go. Jennifer was reaching out to him. He should just smile, pat the couch next to him and share in her harmless little prank. But Blake remembered what it was like to be twelve, had once been on the path to becoming a destructive, unchecked teen himself. That had been in junior high school, while his mom struggled to keep them off welfare. Too tired each night to do much more than ask her wayward son about his day, Blake had become something of a campus hellion. When she finally found out the truth about what a bully Blake had become, through a visit to the principal’s office the day he was suspended, the sorrow and disappointment in her tears combined with a transfer to a new school helped straighten him out.

      “Did you go along with it?” His words came out in a low growl and his chin dropped until it almost touched his chest, his eyes on his sister.

      Jen’s expression crumbled. She sniffed, then drew belligerence around her like a cloak. “So what if I did? There’s no harm done.”

      “That’s not an answer. I think you know how I expect you to behave.”

      Hostile eyes stared right back at him. That was new. She hadn’t been able to hold his stern gaze before. The realization that he was losing control of her ignited his temper.

      “Jennifer Louise,” he warned, sitting up straighter.

      “You expect better from me, don’t you.” Her eyes flashed.

      Blake’s eyes widened. A frontal attack. This, too, was new.

      “You know I do.” Blake realized he should leave her alone, but he couldn’t. “Like today. You were rude to Cori Sinclair and that boy.” Blake uttered the last word distastefully.

      “As if they care about me.” Arms crossed guardedly over her chest.

      Why did she have to take everything so personally? As if the world were out to get her?

      “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you treat people with respect.” He stood, trying to regain some control over the situation. Over her. “Especially to those in the Messina household.”

      “You act like we’re second-class citizens. Everything is about the Messinas. Like they’re royalty or something.”

      “Look at all they’ve done for us.” He spread his arms and gestured around the room. “How they opened up their home to us.”

      “We’ll never be allowed in the house again after Sophia dies.” Jen’s brows pulled disdainfully low.

      Blake eyed her in disbelief. “Is that what this is about? Your room? She’s dying, Jen. How much more selfish can you be?”

      “I must be such a disappointment to you.” Her face reddened while her arms clutched herself tighter. “If it wasn’t for me, you would’ve finished college. And you’d be somewhere…else.”

      For a moment, two pairs of gray eyes clashed. It was true. Blake resented the fact that responsibility for his sister had been thrust upon him, and still felt inferior working in a world where everyone had a degree except him.

      But none of it was her fault.

      In a blink, Jen spun, escaping to the stairs, her footfalls beating sharply on each step, trampling his heart.

      “Jen, wait.” Moving just as quickly, Blake reached the foot of the stairs.

      Jen stopped but didn’t turn, her thin shoulders hunched. One hand clutched the railing, the other covered her face. She was crying.

      Blake’s heart cracked. He couldn’t find his voice, trapped as it was behind his fear. Fear of losing Jen. Fear for Sophia and the pain they were all going through. And he’d accused Cori of not being strong enough today.

      “You’re the most important person in the world to me.” He managed to push the words past the lump in his throat. “I’ve got your picture in my wallet. Yours, Mom’s and Dad’s. Do you want to see?” It was the olive branch he used with Jen. He’d been using it a lot more frequently lately. Sometimes Blake wondered if he’d ever reach a point where it wouldn’t work anymore.

      Slowly, Jen turned, showing him her pale, tear-streaked face. Yet she remained on the steps. The tears just about killed him. Gone were the thoughts that Jen was becoming a pain in the ass. How could he be so insensitive as to make his little sister cry?

      “I’m worried about Sophia, too.” Blake took a guess that this latest mood swing hung on Sophia’s failing health. “I could use a hug about now, Jenny Lou.” It was his final bit of ammo. Jenny Lou. Their mother’s version of Jennifer’s given name, Jennifer Louise. Blake had begun calling her that eight years ago after Kevin and Mary Austin were killed in a car crash on Interstate 80. Blake had been twenty-two, just starting his junior year at the university in Davis. Jennifer had been only four years old.

      After hearing the devastating news of their deaths, Blake rushed home to find a neighbor cooking a truckload of vegetable casseroles in his parents’ kitchen and Jen hiding in her bedroom.

      Blake pushed past the woman, then barreled into Jen’s bedroom, scooping up his sprite of a half sister and taking her outside. The Indian-summer sun had already warmed the late-morning air. Blake sought the old oak tree behind the farmhouse, and settled down on the sparse, brown, wild grass beneath the oak’s thick, spreading branches, with Jen in his lap.

      Looking down, he saw Jen’s eyes tightly shut and her thumb planted firmly in her mouth. Rather than pull it out as he’d done on numerous other occasions, Blake allowed the little girl the luxury of whatever comfort she could claim. They sat together under that tree until the sun had set. Neither spoke for a long while. The only sound was the gentle smack of her lips against her thumb and the brush of cornstalks stroked by the wind.

      “I’m never leaving you, Jenny Lou.” Blake never knew if it was the endearment that his mother used or if any words would have reached her, but Jennifer turned her small body into his and started to cry.

      He’d been calling her Jenny Lou in times of upheaval ever since.

      Now Jennifer flew down the stairs into Blake’s arms, practically knocking him over, chasing away the cobwebs of the past, making Blake wish this truce between them would last.

      CHAPTER TWO

      IGNORING THE NERVOUS flutter in her stomach, Cori entered the empty Messina dining room with Michael in tow. Would her grandfather welcome her back? Or order her to go? She squared her shoulders. There was no way she’d leave when Mama had asked her to come home.

      Cori pulled Michael back as he extended a СКАЧАТЬ