allow herself to ask him why he’d pick her and not Maura; she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear that Maura was too busy preparing to serve all humanity as a physician. “When it rains, it pours,” she said. “My sister asked me the same thing. So you have to make the same promise she made.”
“Anything.”
“Don’t let anything happen to you.”
“Deal,” he said, clinking his can to her glass. “So you have what, nieces? Nephews?”
“One of each. I could find myself with five kids if you and Violet check out on me.”
“You’d make a fine guardian, being a teacher and all.”
Lily shook her head. “I never planned to have kids.”
“Because you lost your brother?”
She nearly choked with outrage. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“It’s pretty obvious, Lil. You love kids. I can see that in you. But you’re scared to be a mother and I bet it’s because you never got over a loss you don’t even remember.” He paused, and she could think of no reply. Then he asked, “Are you mad?”
Still she said nothing.
“Hey,” he said. “I never planned to have kids, either. And look at me now—Mr. Mom.”
She noticed that the wine was imparting a pleasant buzz. It occurred to her to ask for a refill, but she had to drive home. “You’re the one who makes a fine guardian,” she said.
He looked at her, startled. “You’re really something, you know?”
No, she didn’t know. “That’s not the sort of thing people say to me.”
He brushed the back of his hand against her arm briefly, yet she felt that touch all the way to the middle of her heart. No, she thought, this was wrong. “Sean—”
A car’s headlamps swung across the backyard, illuminating the garden. Sean frowned. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”
They stepped out onto the driveway just as a man got out of the driver’s side. Small and wiry, he looked both vaguely familiar and hopping mad.
“Something the matter, Duffy?” asked Sean.
It was Charles McDuff, the greenskeeper from the golf course.
“A little something, I’d say,” the older man replied with a hint of a Scottish brogue.
The passenger door opened, and Lily’s heart dropped to her stomach. She felt it land like a lead weight. She heard Sean catch his breath.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“We need to talk about your nephew.” Duffy glared at Cameron.
The boy tossed his head and glared right back.
chapter 31
“So did your uncle just completely freak on you?” asked Jason Schaefer. He kept his voice down to a low murmur so Duffy, the greenskeeper who was overseeing their punishment, couldn’t hear them.
Cameron was snapping on oversize coveralls in preparation for his enforced community service. Because they’d trashed the golf course, he and his two friends would be spending a long time with the greenskeeper. A very long time.
“So did he freak out or what?” Jason prodded.
Cameron sat down to put on the waders Duffy had provided. “Yeah, I guess.”
It was worse than that, actually. His mother, had she been alive, would have gone into freak mode, crying and wringing her hands and wondering what people would say. His father would have bust a cap, too, thundering warnings about how Cameron was jeopardizing his future.
His uncle and Lily, who for some reason had stayed late the night Duffy had gone to the Schaefers’ and threatened to bring in the cops, had reacted with an almost eerie quiet. Sean had thanked Duffy for bringing Cameron home and promised a call to the police wouldn’t be necessary—this time.
Then he and Lily had taken him inside. Cameron had expected anger or at least a frustrated “What were you thinking?”
His uncle hadn’t freaked. Neither had Lily. They hadn’t said much at all and Cameron had the uncanny feeling they both knew exactly what he was thinking, probably better than he did.
“Well, shit,” said Andrew Meyer, their other accomplice. “I wish you’d listened to me. We had a story and we should have stuck with it.”
“You had the story,” Cameron muttered. “You told it to anyone at school who’d listen.”
“I only told one person, just one,” Andy said. “She promised she wouldn’t say a word.”
“Idiot,” Jason said.
“You’re the one who sang like a bird when the coach questioned you,” Andy said.
“Only after you told them to question me,” Jason snapped.
“All right, that’s enough chatter,” Duffy said. “You gentlemen have some work to do.”
“Yes, sir, right away, sir.” Andrew snapped him a salute.
The sarcasm seemed to be lost on Duffy, an old guy from Scotland, and Cameron was just as glad. The