“Let’s take a walk,” he said. “Let’s go somewhere private.” He took her hand in an easy gesture. “That’s something we’ve never had in this relationship—privacy.”
Lily’s mouth went dry. The R-word. He’d just said the R-word.
“But the kids—”
“Red’s in charge of the kids tonight.” He paused, then offered his trademark aw-shucks grin, the one that melted her bones. “I asked him to do it. I asked him to keep them until late. Until really, really late.”
“Sean, I—”
“Hey, Mr. Underdog,” called an overly hearty voice. Beau Murdoch and his wife strolled arm in arm across the parking lot.
“It’s the big dog himself,” Sean said. He shook hands with Beau’s wife, Barbara, and introduced her to Lily.
“Nice job today,” Murdoch said. “I would’ve told you sooner but you got mobbed.”
And you had to go sulk, Lily recalled, but she didn’t say so. She watched them go. “I can tell the two of you are going to be great friends.”
“Right.”
The Murdochs put their arms around each other like high school sweethearts, and for some reason, that made her self-conscious. “You’re sure the kids are all right with Red?” she asked.
“Absolutely. I heard something about another swim in his hotel pool, and he’ll probably teach them to play blackjack.”
“Oh, dear—”
“Oh, nothing. Blackjack is a life skill.”
“It’s not in my curriculum.”
“Believe me, I use blackjack a lot more than I do long division.”
“You know what?” she said. “I’m not going to let you annoy me tonight. Today was an incredible day and I don’t feel like being annoyed.”
“I never annoy you,” he protested.
“Right. Never. Got it.” She stuck her hands in the pockets of her Wonder Bread hooded sweatshirt. “You should ask me what was so incredible about today.”
“My round.”
It’s all about you, she thought, desperate to find fault with him. “Besides that.”
“All right, what else?”
“Charlie read an article in the paper this morning,” she told him, eager to avoid the topic of the R-word. “I’d have to give her a score of a hundred percent for comprehension.”
A grin broke over his face. “Yeah?”
“She’s really improving. At this rate, she’ll be ready for fourth grade by the end of summer.”
“You’re really something, Miss Lily Robinson.”
“Charlie is really something.” She paused, thinking about the little girl’s unforced comprehension. “I think she’s been holding out on us. She’s been capable of reading the whole time and simply refused or let herself be blocked.”
“Why would she do that? For the attention?”
Lily frowned, puzzling that. The stealing last April—that had been a classic bid for attention. Willfully avoiding reading, now, that was more complex. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I need to work on this. I should have volunteered to help her ages ago. If I had—” She bit her lip, unable to finish.
“Now, honey.” His hand found the small of her back, a perfectly natural gesture that nearly unraveled her. “Don’t go thinking that way or you’ll make yourself nuts.”
“It’s not so nuts. If I’d helped Charlie sooner, maybe I never would have asked Crystal and Derek to come to the conference that day last April. And then they never would have—”
“Damn it, Lily, stop,” Sean said. “You’re blaming yourself for them, same as you’ve spent your whole life blaming yourself for your brother. It doesn’t work that way. You’re not that important. It rains on the just and the unjust, don’t you know that?”
“That’s from the Bible.”
“Don’t look so surprised. I’m a dumb jock, but I know my catechism. Listen, you’ve worn the hair shirt about Crystal and Derek long enough. Get over yourself. Quit thinking you’re responsible for the state of the universe.”
She stared at him, stunned. He had never spoken to her with such cutting anger.
The anger appeared to startle him, as well. He seemed to conquer it right away, though, a grin easing across his face. “I guess what I’m saying is, it’s time to take off your shirt.”
She tried not to let his humor or the gleam in his eye affect her. “I’d freeze to death.” She moved away from him, sticking her hands in her pockets and walking along the dimly lit trail. “And how about Cameron today? He was amazing.”
“Oh, I get it, change of subject.”
“Well, he was amazing.” She refused to swerve. “Red got a call about him from Teen People magazine. I can see the headline now, ‘From Vandal to Victor.’” She gave an exaggerated shudder. “One media star in the family is enough.”