To capture something forhimself.
She’d be surprised to know he was looking for that, too.
Shame stopped him cold—the shame of wanting a woman he was taking so much from.
She deserved more than an indifferent encounter with a man like him—a man who had loved and left so many times, he couldn’t begin to puzzle out how to stay. A man who would be taking her home soon.
This woman was a keeper.
She deserved someone who knew how to keep.
“Kit!” he shouted over a distant rumble of thunder. “Get over here now!” Shivering, he strode toward his car, wishing for the jacket he’d left inside.
A crack of lightning sent Kit sprinting from behind the building in a mad dash across the unkempt lawn. “Bye, Tana!” he called, waving, his sleeve riding up, a good two inches too short.
“Got time to shop for new clothes tomorrow?” Campbell asked, his mind only half on his words. He’d left his bag and six rolls of undeveloped film inside the rec center.
As they slid into the car’s cozy confines, he set his camera on the console, his hand trembling. Just the chill in the air, nothing more. “Growing boys need things, don’t they?”
Kit stalled for a half-second, then yelped like an excited pup and pumped his fist. “Yeah! Man, oh man, I need jeans and shoes for gym, and I saw this awesome hat in this store with a purple MTV logo. We could maybe get pizza, too and…”
As Kit rattled off a week’s worth of plans, Campbell braked at the end of the drive and peered through the rainy gray shroud. Fontana stood in the same spot, arm looped around a column, her face—not the most perfect but undeniably the most photogenic he’d ever seen—drawn in stark shades of dejection and embarrassment.
She didn’t understand. She’d done nothing wrong, asked nothing a hundred women hadn’t asked before. And he had not, no matter what anyone thought, accepted every offer. It wasn’t like he never turned anyone down. Or thathewas never turned down, for God’s sake.
Only this time, something was different. Vastly, unarguably.
He felt…well…
He simplyfelt.
Forcing his attention to the shimmering asphalt, he shifted into first. The car shot forward, fishtailing.
“Cool,” Kit said, grinning.
Campbell grimaced and reached to check Kit’s seat belt, giving the strap a firm tug. His gaze flicked away for a split second. “Never,” he warned, eyes back on the road, the devotion in his brother’s bringing a salty prick to his own, “everdrive like that. It was stupid and reckless. I’m sorry I let my mood get the better of me.”
“Mood? Like you’re angry at me?”
Campbell took one hand off the wheel, wondering, even as he reached, if Kit would let him touch. He ruffled the tuft of matted hair, then let his hand settle at the back of his brother’s neck—warm, damp, baby-smooth skin. “No, not at you, kiddo. I’m not angry at anyone. I’m…” He stopped short, uncertain how to explain.
“You’re still mad athim.” Kit rolled the window down and back up. “That’s why you want to leave, want us to move. Why you stayed away.”
Campbell shook his head, a dart of apprehension lighting his belly. “Who?”
Kit slid down in the seat, his feet rising to the dashboard just like Fontana’s had. “Dad.”
The word dropped between them like a pebble dropped in a murky pond.
Plunk, then silence.
“Ah,” he said, and swallowed roughly. He was probably always going to be mad at the old bastard, which spoke to his need for therapy. “He was a different father to me, I hope, than he was to you. Younger, more stressed with work when I came along, I don’t know.” He squeezed the wheel and wondered how to describe a horrible relationship with kind words, for someone who never needed to know the truth. “I think he tried his best or wanted to. And I know he loved you.”
Although I’m pretty sure he didn’t love me.
Kit shuffled his feet on the dashboard. “You’re not going away again, or I mean, not without me, right? Even if I’m not sure I want to move? You won’t get angry?”
Campbell met his brother’s gaze. “I’m not. Iwon’t. You can talk to me. We can make some of these decisions together.” He glanced back at the road, its edges dissolving into a sunset horizon of blue and gold. “You going to trust me about that?”
