"What's right?" he tossed back.
She put a hand over the one still clamped to her arm and squeezed lightly. "Rough day?''
"Yes. No. Hell." Giving up, he let her go and leaned back on the hood of her car. It was a testimony to her compassion that she was able to stifle a wince. She'd just had it washed and waxed. "There was this thing at school this morning."
"Thing?"
"You'll probably get some official report or something about it, so I want to give you our side personally."
"Uh-oh, sides. Well, let's hear it."
So he told her, found himself heating up again when he got to the point where he'd seen the bruises on Seth's arm, and ended up pushing himself off the car and stalking around it as he finished the story of how it had been resolved.
"You did very well," Anna murmured, nearly laughing when he stopped and stared at her suspiciously. "Of course hitting the other boy wasn't the answer, but—"
"I think it was a damn good answer."
"I realize that, and we'll just let it go for now. My point is, you did the responsible and the supportive thing. You went down, you listened, you convinced Seth to tell you the truth, and then you stood up for him. I doubt he was expecting you to."
"Why shouldn't I—why wouldn't I? He was right."
"Believe me, not everyone goes to bat for their children."
"He's not my kid. He's my brother."
"Not everyone goes to bat for his brother," she corrected. "The three of you going in this morning was exactly right, and again unfortunately more than everyone would do. It's a corner turned for all of you, and I suspect you understand that. Is that what's upset you?"
"No, that's piddly. Other things, doesn't matter." He could hardly tell her about the investigation into his father's death or the village gossip over it at this precarious point. Nor did he think it would count in their favor if he confessed he was feeling trapped and dreaming of escape.
"How's Seth taking it?"
"He's cool with it." Cam shrugged a shoulder. "We went sailing yesterday, did some fishing. Blew off the day."
She smiled again, and this time her heart was in it. "I'd hoped I'd be around to see it happening. You're starting to fall for him."
"What are you talking about?"
"You're starting to care about him. Personally. He's beginning to be more than an obligation, a promise to be kept. He matters to you."
"I said I'd take care of him. That's what I'm doing."
"He matters to you," she repeated. "That's what's worrying you, Cam. What happens if you start caring too much. And how do you stop it from happening."
He looked at her, the way the sun dropped down in the sky at her back, the way her eyes stayed warm and dark on his. Maybe he was worrying, he admitted, and not just about his shifting feelings for Seth. "I finish what I start,
Anna. And I don't walk away from my family. Looks like the kid qualifies there. But I'm a selfish son of a bitch. Ask anybody."
"Some things I prefer to find out for myself. Now am I getting a crab dinner or not?"
"Ethan ought to have the pot going by now." He moved forward as if to lead her inside. Then, judging the moment when she relaxed, he yanked her into his arms and caught her up in a hot, heart-hammering kiss.
"See, that was for me," he murmured when they were both breathless and quivering. "Want it, take it. I warned you I was selfish."
Anna eased back, calmly adjusted her now rumpled jacket, ran a hand over her hair to assure herself it was in place. "Sorry, but I'm afraid I enjoyed that every bit as much as you did. So it doesn't qualify as a selfish act."
He laughed even as his pulse scrambled. "Let me try it again. I can pull it off this time."
"I'll take a rain check. I want my dinner." With that, she sauntered up the steps, knocked briefly, and slipped into the house.
Cam just stood where he was, grinning. This was a woman, he thought, who was going to make this episode of his life a memorable one.
By the time Cam made his way inside and to the kitchen, Anna was already chatting with Phillip and accepting a glass of wine.
"You drink beer with crabs," Cam told her and got one out of the fridge for himself.
"I don't seem to be eating any at the moment. And Phillip assures me this is a very nice wine." She sipped, considered, and smiled. "He's absolutely right."
"It's one of my favorite whites." Since she'd approved, Phillip topped off her glass. "Smooth, buttery, and not overpowering."
"Phil's a wine snob." Cam twisted off the top and lifted the bottle of Harp to his lips. "But we let him live here anyway."
"And how is that working out?" She wondered if they realized how male the house seemed. Tidy as a pin, yes, but without even a whiff of female. "It must be odd adjusting to the three of you in the same household again."
"Well, we haven't killed each other." Cam bared his teeth in a smile at his brother. "Yet."
With a laugh she walked to the window. "And where is Seth?"
"He's with Ethan," Phillip told her. "They're doing the crabs around at the pit."
"The pit?"
"Around the side." Cam took her hand and tugged her toward the door. "Mom wouldn't let us cook crab in the house. She might have been a doctor, but she could be squeamish. Didn't like to watch." He drew her off the porch and down the steps as he spoke. "Dad had this brick pit around the side of the house. Fell down my first summer. He didn't know much about laying bricks. But we rebuilt it."
When they stepped around the corner, she saw Ethan and Seth standing by a huge kettle over an open fire in a lopsided brick-sided pit. Smoke billowed, and from a big steel barrel on the ground came the scraping and clattering of claws.
Anna looked from barrel to kettle and back again. "You know what, I think I can be a bit squeamish myself."
She stepped back, turned to the view of the water. She didn't even mind that Cam laughed at her, especially when she heard Seth's voice raised in desperate excitement.
"Are you dumping them in now? Oh, man, shit, that is so gross."
"I told him to watch his mouth tonight, but he doesn't know you're here yet."
She only shook her head. "He sounds very normal." She winced a little when she heard a clatter and Seth's wild exclamation of delight and disgust. "And I'd think what's happening around the corner is just barbaric enough to thrill him." Her hand lifted quickly, protectively, to her hair when she felt a tug.
"I like it down." Cam tossed the pin he'd pulled out aside.
"I want it up," she said mildly and began to walk toward the water.
"I bet we're going to knock heads about all kinds of things." He sipped his beer and sent her a sidelong look as they walked. "Ought to keep it all interesting."
"I doubt either of us will be bored. Seth comes first, Cam. I mean that." She paused, listened to the musical lap of water against the hull of the boats, the sloping shoreline. Topping one of the markers was a huge nest. Buoys bobbed in the tide.
"I can help him, and it's unlikely we'll always agree on what's right for him. It'll be essential to keep that issue completely separate when we end up in bed."
He was grateful he hadn't taken another sip from the bottle. No doubt in his mind he'd have choked on it. "I can do that."
She lifted her head as an egret soared by, and wondered if the nest belonged to her. "When I'm certain I can, we'll use my bed. My apartment's more private than your house."
He rubbed a hand over his stomach in a futile attempt to calm himself. "Lady, you're right up front, aren't you?"
"What's the point in being otherwise? We're grownups, unattached." She shot him a look—a flick of the lashes, an arch of a brow. "But if you're the type who'd prefer me to pretend reluctance until seduction, sorry."
"No, I'm all right with it this way." If he didn't overheat and explode in the meantime. "No games, no pretenses, no promises… Where the hell do you come from?" he finished, fascinated.
"Pittsburgh," she said
easily and started back toward the house.
"That's not what I meant."
"I know. But if you intend to sleep with me, you should have some interest in the basic facts. No games, no pretenses, no promises. That's fine. But I don't have sex with strangers."
He put a hand on her arm before she wandered too close to the house. He wanted another moment alone. "Okay, what are the basic facts?''
"I'm twenty-eight, single, of Italian descent. My mother… died when I was twelve and I was raised primarily by my grandparents."
"In Pittsburgh."
"That's right. They're wonderful—old-fashioned, energetic, loving. I can make a terrific red sauce from scratch—the recipe's been passed down in my family for generations. I moved to D.C. right after college, worked there and did some graduate studies. But Washington didn't suit me."
"Too political?"
"Yes, and too urban. I was looking for something a little different, so I ended up down here."
Cam glanced around the quiet yard, the quiet water. "It's different from D.C., all right."
"I like it. I also like horror novels, sappy movies, and any kind of music except jazz. I read magazines from back to front and don't know why, and though I'm comfortable with all sorts of people, I don't particularly like large social functions."
She stopped, considered. They would see, she decided, how much more he'd want to find out. "I think that's enough for now, and my glass is nearly empty."
"You're nothing like my first impression of you."
"No? I think you're exactly like mine of you."
"Do you speak Italian?"
"Fluently."