“My brother trusted me with these kids. Whatever you and Crystal might have thought of him, he was a caring father. I’m not going to let him down.”
She crumpled the paper cup in her hand and dropped it into the wastebasket. “There’s no money. You understand that, right?”
“Hey, I’m a dumb jock, but I can add and subtract.” He loosened his tie and glared at her. “You’re starting to piss me off. No, I take that back. You’ve already pissed me off a number of times today.”
She glared up at him. “You’ve made me angry today, too.”
“Pissed, Lily. The word is pissed.” He spoke so loudly that heads turned in their direction.
Her cheeks burned. “How mature of you. That will probably go into the report to the probate judge.”
“What, that you have a way of pissing people off?” He offered a disarming smile despite his words. “Let’s end this discussion and go see the kids.”
“This discussion is not over.”
“Yeah, it is. You’re off the hook. You can go home now. I’m not going to walk away from this.”
“You’ve walked away from everything else in your life,” Lily pointed out. “Crystal told me so. She said you walked away from your career.”
“We’re talking about kids here, not a career. You don’t walk away from kids. I won’t be perfect at this but I’ll put everything I’ve got into it.”
She drew herself up, already thinking of a counterargument. Then his words sank in and her shoulders relaxed a little. “Good answer.”
chapter 23
“Lily and I have news,” Sean announced to Cameron and Charlie when they arrived home. He tried to sound positive and upbeat. That was what the social worker and the counselor advised him to do. Sound positive and upbeat without denying the tragedy. Reassure the children that life would go on and things would get better.
Like they could get any worse. What was worse than being a kid and losing both parents on the same day?
Sean had been an adult when his mother died five years ago, and he still bled from that wound. One of the last things she’d said to Sean had always puzzled him. She told him to fall in love, settle down, make a family. “It’s what you were made for, more than any of us.” Over the past five years, he’d done his best to ignore that advice. Now, looking at his nieces and nephew, he thought of her. She’d always had a great sense of humor.
“Hi, Lily,” said Ashley, playing with a plastic spatula on the floor by her feet.
“So what’s the news?” Cameron asked, his arms tightly folded across his middle.
“We had a meeting with your mom’s and your dad’s lawyers today to read their wills. They both left you pretty much everything they possessed.”
“Everything?” Charlie’s eyes goggled.
“Almost. Your dad left me his golf clubs, and there were bequests to Red, Travis, Grandpa and some others. And your mom remembered her mother and Lily, here.” Good old Lily, he thought. He was still ticked off by the things she’d said to him, challenging his fitness to take care of this family. It was like she wanted to undermine his confidence.
She offered a hard-won smile. “Your mother wanted me to have her clothes. She was always after me to dress more fashionably, you know.”
“And that’s all?” Charlie asked. “That’s absolutely all? There wasn’t anyone else who gets something?”
“Not that I recall.” Sean looked at Lily. “You?”
“I think that covers it.”
“Phew.” Charlie slumped back against the sofa cushion.
“Is there someone else who should have been mentioned?” Sean asked.
“Nope, not at all, no way,” Charlie said immediately.
She was a funny little thing, Sean reflected. In a lot of ways, his niece was hard to know. Cameron glared at her and mouthed something Sean couldn’t discern. She stuck her tongue out at him.
“So are we getting placed in foster homes or what?” Cameron asked.
“Of course not,” said Sean.
“Why would you think such a thing?” asked Lily.
“We’re in the foster-care system. I was wondering if we’d be farmed out to foster parents.”
Charlie’s chin trembled. “I don’t want to be in foster care.”
“Your brother’s full of sh—crap,” Sean said. He tried to be patient with Cameron’s attitude, but it was hard. “Nobody’s going to farm you out anywhere. You’re going to live with me. Or actually, it would be more accurate to say, I’m going to live with you. Right here in this house.”
It felt surreal to be saying it. Sean had gone from having no one