Daniel's Desire - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,34
that wasn’t likely right now, not when things had gotten off to such a rocky start.
“Mom, go on and bake the coffee cake,” he told her. “Give me a few minutes with Ryan, Sean and Michael.”
Patrick was on his feet at once. “Stop protecting her.”
“Your brother’s right,” she told Daniel gently. “I don’t deserve your protection.”
“Well, you have it, anyway,” Daniel said. “I won’t let them come in here and hurt you.”
“They’re entitled to their say,” she said.
“In a minute,” he said flatly. “After we’ve talked. Please, Mom, leave us alone.”
She started to leave, then turned back, her gaze on Ryan. “It’s been so long,” she whispered, her voice shaky. “You won’t leave, will you? Not right away.”
“Not without saying goodbye,” he promised.
She nodded, apparently satisfied that she could rely on the word of her eldest son, then left the room.
As soon as he was certain she was out of earshot, Daniel whirled on his brothers. “How dare you come into her home and badger her like this? I thought you were going to give me some advance notice, let me smooth the way.” He focused on Patrick. “Didn’t I talk to you a couple of hours ago? Why didn’t you warn me?”
“Not that it matters, but I didn’t know about the visit till they showed up at my house,” Patrick retorted. “I already knew about your plans for the evening, so I didn’t bother to call. I should have guessed that Mom would run to you the second we showed up.”
“It’s not as if she has anyone else she can turn to,” Daniel said. “Dammit, Patrick, you should be more sensitive. We talked about this.”
“Yeah, well, how dare you try to stop them from saying what’s on their minds?” Patrick replied. “How the hell do you expect to smooth this over, Daniel? Platitudes and apologies aren’t enough, not by a long shot.”
Ryan stepped between them, one hand on Patrick’s shoulder. “Cool it, you two. There’s no need for you to be fighting because of us.”
“There’s every reason,” Patrick insisted, clearly aligning himself with the brothers who’d been abandoned. “Daniel refuses to acknowledge that what our parents did was wrong. If it were up to him, he’d sweep all those years under the carpet. Well, I’ll say it if he won’t. What they did was unconscionable. It can’t be ignored or prettied up.” He scowled at Daniel. “You, of all people, have to know that. You deal with abandoned kids all the time. Our parents did that to Ryan, Sean and Michael, our brothers. How can you defend them?”
Patrick looked as if he wanted to take a swing at Daniel. Daniel would have done nothing to prevent it, but once again Ryan put his hand on Patrick’s shoulder.
“It’s okay,” Ryan said.
Patrick shrugged off the contact. “It’s not okay. Not what they did to you back then. Not what Daniel’s trying to do now. I’m out of here. The rest of you can do whatever the hell you want.”
The tension in the room was thick enough to cut as Patrick stormed out. Daniel tried to find the words to make things right, but there were none. None at all.
“I’m going to check on Mom,” he said finally. He looked at Ryan. “Will you be here when I get back?”
“I promised that I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye,” he said, glancing at the others for confirmation that they would go along with that. They nodded curtly, clearly reluctant to stay but unwilling to break Ryan’s promise.
“Then give me a few minutes. Patrick’s right about one thing. I think it’s important for all of us to get past this.”
Ryan regarded him with a shuttered expression. “I honestly don’t know how that’s possible. I’m not sure what I was expecting when we came here, but I don’t think I’ll find it. Seeing her again…” His voice trailed off. “It just brought all of it slamming back into me.”
“Me, too,” Sean said, his expression grim. “I guess I’d hoped that it would be different once we’d seen her, but it just makes the pain that much worse. We’re not blaming you, Daniel. You had no part in any of this.”
Daniel sighed heavily and glanced at Michael, who looked no happier than the others. Daniel could understand his brothers’ reservations. He had a million of his own. “Please don’t rule out giving them another chance,” he said quietly, then went to see how their mother was holding up.
He found her in the kitchen, her coffee cake