“She wants us to meet with her lawyer,” Liam said, biting off the words. “Get her affairs in order. What the hell is that about? She’s still fine.”
“We don’t need to do that now,” Sean said, instantly going into full-on denial right alongside his brother. “She’s got plenty of time.”
Liam’s bleak expression was enough to call out the lie. Their mom didn’t have plenty of time, and they both knew it. They’d tried doctors, Fae healers, and even wizards, but cancer didn’t play by any rules but its own, and this time the O’Malley boys were on the losing team to the most merciless opponent they’d ever faced.
Liam studied the lawn. “Hedges need trimming. House could do with a coat of paint. Barbecue time?”
Sean nodded. “Day after tomorrow good? I’ll have the afternoon and evening off.”
“Yep. I’ll spread the word.”
They got together at least once a month for a barbecue, bringing all the food and manning the grill, and used the occasion to plan any and all upkeep the house needed. Their mom always baked her famous apple and pumpkin pies for them, but for the first time ever, Sean wasn’t sure she’d be up for baking. Pain scorched through him at the thought, and he clenched his hands into fists at his sides but then forced them to relax.
He needed to chill. Try on a smile. Be brave for his mother, even when the eight-year-old boy inside him wanted to sit down right there on the sidewalk and howl.
“I’m going to go in and see her for a while before I head home for some sleep,” Sean said.
“She’s sleeping now. I got her settled into her recliner in the sunroom out back, and she threw me out so she could nap.” A ghost of a smile crossed Liam’s face. “She’s still pretty tough for such a tiny little thing.”
Sean grinned. At five feet, two inches, their mom had been rapidly outgrown by all of her boys, but there had never been a moment’s doubt about who was in charge.
“I’ll never forget the time she backed you up against the refrigerator and told you that you were, too, going to have the condom talk with your mother, or you were never going to go on a date as long as you lived under her roof,” he told his brother.
Liam threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, man, I thought I was going to die. My face was still purple by the time she finished and I escaped to my room. ‘You are responsible for your actions, Liam, and if I ever find out you’re having unprotected sex, I’ll beat your arse all the way down the street.’”
“She had the exact same conversation with me,” Sean confided, shuddering. “That talk scared me out of the backseat of more than one car, let me tell you.”
“Exactly as she planned. She had the same talk with Blake, Oscar, and Yeats, too, believe me,” Liam said, his gaze trained on a pair of small boys riding their bikes at the end of the street. “Seems like not long ago, that was us.”
Sean turned to watch the boys. It was less painful than staring at his childhood home and wondering how long his mother would still be able to live there. “And now we’re all grown up.”
“No wives or kids, though,” Liam said darkly, kicking a stone off the sidewalk toward the street. It thudded softly when it hit a tire on Sean’s car and bounced back. “Trust me, she brought that up, too.”
Sean’s mouth fell open. “She what?”
“She wants us to get married. All of us. Soon. Doesn’t want us to be alone.”
For some reason, the image of Brynn’s face as she’d enjoyed her pancakes flashed into Sean’s mind, but he pushed it away. She was obviously a complicated woman. The last thing he needed in his life was more complication.
“If she wanted grandchildren, she shouldn’t have married a fire demon,” Sean growled. “I never want to pass this heritage on, and I can’t imagine any of us feel any differently.”
Liam shrugged. “We managed to have a pretty damn happy childhood.”
Sean, who’d started to head for his car, whirled to stare at his brother. “Yeah, until Dad flamed on when that drugged-up wannabe burglar broke into the house.”
The druggie hadn’t been alone, and his accomplice—who’d also been on drugs and who’d been scared to death by the sight of a fiery demon blazing brighter than the noontime sun over the Summerlands—had been carrying a gun.
Sean and his brothers had called 911 and used the fire extinguisher to put out the blaze while their mother kept pressure on Dad’s wound, but it had been too little, too late. Their father had died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, leaving Mom to run a pub and raise five boys on her own.
“I’m never going to subject a woman to anything like that.”
When Liam didn’t reply, Sean shrugged and headed for his car. “I’ve got to get some sleep. I’ll check on Mom this afternoon.”
“It would have to be the right woman,” Liam said, so quietly that anybody without fire demon hearing would never have heard it.
Sean paused, but this time he didn’t look back. They’d been down that road before, and he was surprised that Liam, of all of them, had even a glimmer of hope left.
“There is no such woman.”