.” She trailed off as Lucas started shaking his head.
“That’s not the reason,” he said positively. “What is it?”
“I feel like a jackass! Waking up practically naked in your bed with half your family standing over us? Not okay,” she said through clenched teeth as a hot blush burned her cheeks. He smiled slowly as he watched her cheeks stain red.
“If that hadn’t happened, would you want to stay?” he asked, suddenly serious, his eyes focused on hers. She looked down and nodded, still blushing. “Why?” he persisted.
“For one thing, I have questions,” she said, hazarding a glance up at him. He was staring at her with an unreadable look on his face.
“Is that the only thing?” he whispered.
“Enough chat, you two. You both need to eat,” Noel called across the table, making Helen jump, which in turn made Lucas chuckle. She and Lucas dug in with all the ferocity of two people who were literally rebuilding their bodies cell by cell. When Helen finally looked up after a solid hour of determined chewing, everyone else was done eating but still sitting around drinking coffee and passing around sections of the paper. It was as if they always spent half of Sunday sharing an enormous brunch, then the other half hanging out around the kitchen waiting for dinner to start. Lost in the shuffle, Helen was surprised to find herself having a good time.
Lucas was still bent over his plate, so Helen took the sports section when Hector put it down, and read up on her beloved Red Sox, who were battling their way through September. She must have been muttering to herself out loud because when she finally put down the stats sheet she had the attention of all the men at the table.
“‘Pitching wins pennants,’ huh?” Castor asked with a delighted smile.
“‘We’ve got too many injuries and no closer,’ do we?” Jason repeated back to Helen, then looked at Lucas. “Okay, you win,” he said cryptically.
“Thank you,” Lucas said through a shaky grin. He leaned back and closed his eyes, and Helen saw a sweat break out on his forehead. She touched his head to see if he had a fever, but Jason was already standing up.
“I got him, Helen,” he said as he came around the table. Jason went to pick Lucas up, but Lucas wouldn’t let him. Instead, he threw his arm over his cousin’s shoulder and allowed Jason to prop him up.
“Just to the stairs, okay?” Lucas asked, and Jason nodded back, the bond between them so strong they didn’t seem to need words to communicate. Helen saw Noel throw up her hands in frustrated helplessness.
“Let him find his own pace,” Castor said gently to his wife. She nodded, like it was something they had been over a million times. Then she turned her attention back to the brunch leftovers.
“Hector! It’s your turn to clear the table!”
Helen noticed Noel had a tendency to parse out her anger as judiciously as she possibly could. She needed a good yell, but she couldn’t scream at Lucas because he was hurt, and she couldn’t yell at Jason because he was helping Lucas, so she picked the next boy she could find. It was the same thing Noel had done when Helen was just waking up, speaking softly to Helen and then yelling for Hector. Poor Hector seemed to get the brunt of her frustration, and from the way he slunk into the kitchen shaking his head, Helen had the feeling he’d been Noel’s favorite whipping boy since Lucas got hurt. For a moment she almost felt bad for him, but when she saw the way Noel stared worriedly after Lucas as he winced his way out of the kitchen, she couldn’t blame her.
Lucas paused before he left the room.
“Dad?” he called back without fully turning around. “Helen has questions.”
Still seated at the head of the table, Castor nodded, deep in thought for a moment, and then stood up. “I thought she might,” he said, smiling kindly at Helen. “Would you like to join me in my study?”
Castor took her to a quiet end of the sprawling house and into a half-unpacked study with a spectacular view of the ocean. Leather chairs and boxes of books in a dozen different languages fought for floor space with rolled-up carpets and un-hung paintings. Two large desks stood on opposite sides of the room. The tops of each were already covered in various papers, envelopes, and parcels.