The Foster Family (7 page)

“What about out past the gazebo?” Kerry asked, dropping the inquiry and heading down the path toward the small outbuilding practically at a run.

“He doesn’t garden out there,” Malcolm shouted after him, hearing the laughter in his own voice. The younger man was infectious with his enthusiasm.

“Why not?” Kerry called back over his shoulder, not even slowing as he took the steps up to the gazebo’s deck, toes grazing every other one.

“Actually”—Malcolm followed Kerry’s gaze over the gazebo deck’s railing when he joined him—“I never asked. I don’t really know. Too much work, I guess.”

The area was untouched from when they had moved in nearly ten years ago. Feral and unkempt and completely unlike Charlie’s taste, that spot had an air of disheveled glory. Malcolm had never really wondered or asked why Charlie didn’t stretch his influence beyond the screened-in hut. He didn’t mind the look of the place himself. There was something somehow comforting about there still being a bit of their property they hadn’t tamed. Like there might still be a surprise lurking where they rarely ever ventured.

“You have a job to do,” Malcolm reminded Kerry after a long stretch of time passed in silence. “And I suppose your boss probably expects you to sell some flowers for the price of the gas you’ll be charging to her company card.”

Kerry turned back to him, face flushed, eyes bright, and mouth stretched in a happy grin that Malcolm suddenly realized had been missing on him from the very first. His everyday scowl was pretty, framed by golden, sun-touched curls and stormy-gray eyes, but smiling and animated, he was downright beautiful. “So show me where you plan to work this year, then,” Kerry said, voice filled with excitement.

Malcolm let out a laugh. “Not me, boy. Charlie. You, maybe, but I don’t garden.” He let the shiver that passed through him grow to exaggerated proportions. “Dirt under my nails. No thank you. But I can tell you one job I do know Charlie won’t miss doing is taking all that burlap down.” He turned and waved a hand over the yard. “He’s been complaining for two weeks now that it should already be done.”

“Okay.” Kerry headed back toward the yard, peeking under the rough material on a few bushes as he passed them. “He’s right.” He turned a cheerful expression on Malcolm. “You really don’t know shit about this, do you?”

Malcolm lifted an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. The kid—no, he wasn’t a kid at all, and he wished he didn’t have to keep reminding himself of that. It only served as proof he was pushing thirty-five himself. The young man was mouthy. Malcolm would never admit it out loud, but he liked that. Well, except for the swearing. He liked them when they spoke up, said what was on their mind. It was so tiring trying to guess. Annoying when he and Charlie decided to pick someone up and brought him home only to discover that their play partner for the night expected Malcolm to read his mind just because he was the Dom. He didn’t get that vibe from this guy. Not exactly. There was something tentative about him, sure, but he didn’t seem the type to not say what was on his mind, at least.

“So, then, you can start there,” Malcolm said, leading the way back to the main yard and gesturing to the shrouded plants. “I have calls to make and dinner to get started. You can work out here until he gets home.” Too late, he realized he’d made an assumption about being obeyed. He resisted glancing over his shoulder to see the younger man’s reaction. Wouldn’t do now to show he’d made a mistake. Not until he got some sense of how Kerry reacted to the order, anyway.

There was a slight hesitation, a pause in the footfalls behind him, and then Kerry spoke. “I have to bring the truck back to the shop.”

Not outright refusal, then. Tentative acceptance? “Does your boss not offer landscaping services?” he asked.

“Um, no, actually.”

Malcolm turned to see Kerry shaking his head.

“She sells the plants,” Kerry explained. “That’s it. If you want to hire me, you’ll have to take me as I come. No vehicle, no tools.”

He chuckled. “I’m pretty sure Charlie has more tools than God ever did. Take the truck back. I’ll follow. We’ll pick up anything you might need to work the backyard from the shop. For now, have a look around the place while I get into something more comfortable.”

Kerry nodded, apparently perfectly willing to let Malcolm boss him around.

Adept at reading the signs after looking for them for so long in strangers, seeing them every day in Charlie, Malcolm saw the way Kerry’s shoulders shifted, loosening, squaring. His face softened, as though he was secure having direction. Was it instinct? Learned? Or a conscious decision to let go?

Not wanting to be caught staring, Malcolm swiveled toward the house and went inside. The whole thing was dangerous, he knew, but Kerry was too interesting to pass up.

As he made his way through the house, Georgie wound her lithe, petite frame in and out of his legs. “You’re going to kill me, little girl, if you don’t watch it,” he told her, gently picking her up when he reached his office door and setting her on the table just outside. He took a moment to smooth her ruffled fur, then went inside and closed the door.

No one but him came in here, and he flipped the light switch on and gazed around the tidy, minuscule room. He didn’t need a lot of space. All he really needed was a door that locked. Not even Charlie had a key. Though he knew where to find the spare, it was a bit of knowledge he selectively forgot unless there was an emergency. This room was Malcolm’s sanctuary, because even as attuned as he was to Charlie’s needs after half their lives together, he still had to regenerate. To do that, to keep from collapsing completely when those needs got heavy, he needed quiet, alone time, and space.

The latch clicked softly and he let out a breath. His gaze fell on a picture of Charlie on his desk and he picked it up, gazed at it a minute, then set it back.

“Nothing’s really changed, babe,” he told the image. “We’re surviving, yeah?” Did they need this? Still? After so long making it work, just the two of them, did they really still need this anymore?

Glancing out the window, Malcolm caught a glimpse of Kerry crossing the yard. The reaction, as always, was instant and bone-deep and utterly inexplicable. It rarely happened anymore. Hadn’t happened in years, probably, to anyone but Charlie. He’d convinced himself he and Charlie were good just the way they were. But he knew it wasn’t true. There were too many things he couldn’t give his lover that he deserved, and as Kerry sauntered across the yard, stopping once to smell the lilacs and grinning like a fool as he took another look around, Malcolm knew this was something he definitely could give.

A guy Charlie had things in common with. A friend. A lover who could give him the physical things he craved that Malcolm could not. And maybe Malcolm could find what he craved in the younger man too. Someone who’d let him take care of him. Someone who needed looking after.

As long as he didn’t scare everyone off the idea in the process.

“You’re doing that freaky thing again, Mal,” he told himself. “Just calm down.” That moment was when he realized he was rubbing fingers against his shirt, against his stomach just at the top of his belt. He couldn’t feel the uneven skin through the fabric, but he could feel the unnatural tingling of old damage and sighed. It was still stimulus that kept him out of his head, and it took all his willpower to move his hand away and let the thoughts run through him. He hated thinking. Yet he needed to think because he could not go into this heart-first. He had to use his head.

If he didn’t, Charlie would get hurt, and he could not have that.

Kerry will get hurt.

He squashed that thought. He wasn’t going to hurt him either. No one was going to get hurt this time.

A
FTER
THE
last few days of chaos, it was comfortable to have direction. And yes, I recognized I had just been dictated to. So why did it feel so much like I had a place to belong, even just for one afternoon, compared to perching on the edge of Lissa’s life, wondering where my own had gone?

Malcolm was right about the tools. Charlie was a hoarder of garden paraphernalia. He had everything under the sun imaginable, and a great deal of it was pristine, as though it had never been used. Some of the shovels, rakes, and hand tools were decades old and showed wear and tear as well as dedicated cleaning and care. I ran fingers over the items’ wooden handles and oiled tips. Charlie put a lot of effort into looking after tools that were probably older than I was.

They reminded me of the last place I had lived. Nash Jones had been a single man, accepted as a foster parent if he stuck to one kid at a time and because he had started out his career as a counselor. His had been one of the better foster homes I’d lived in, and Charlie’s stash of old, well-used, and well-loved tools reminded me of Nash’s woodworking shop.

“His grandfather’s,” Malcolm said quietly.

I still jumped, and he put a hand on my shoulder.

“I thought you were in the house.” It was practically an accusation, but I had a thing about people sneaking up on me like that. How often had that sort of sneak approach preceded a punch in the head or someone flicking my glasses off my face? Instinct brought my hand up to hold them in place.

“I was,” Malcolm said. “I remembered that the wheelbarrow is in the garage.” He held up a key ring with a single key on it. “You’ll probably need it.”

“Yeah, I will.” I accepted the key. “Thanks.”

He nodded.

“I wasn’t going to use those,” I assured him when he didn’t leave or say anything else. I tapped the bridge of my glasses in a really obvious attempt to make my jumpy reaction look like something else. I pointed to the newer, metal-handled shovel and rake. “I can use those.” They were heavier than the old wooden tools, but I wasn’t about to lay hands on Charlie’s precious heirlooms. God. What was it even like to know who the people were who had owned them, never mind have any piece of them left in your life when they were gone?

“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

I shook my head. “They belong to his family.” I turned from the array and smiled up at him. “We going into town now?”

Malcolm studied me for a few moments over the rims of his sunglasses. “Yes,” he said finally. “Let’s go.”

We drove back to the shop by way of the gas station, Malcolm following my bright-pink truck in his demure sedan. Lissa had left already, and there was a note on the cash register for me. She’d left a key for her place under the cash drawer. I pocketed it and met Malcolm in the lot.

“You’re sure about this?” he asked.

I nodded as I got into the car beside him.

“Do you want to call your boss?”

“Why would I?”

He stared at me.

“Really. There’s no need. She doesn’t want to know anyway.” Most people didn’t want to know the less comfortable parts of people’s lives. That was how you got through the system without losing yourself. Never ask for anything, and never tell them anything that matters. Basic survival. People always like you when they know nothing about you but that you have a nice smile and say please and thank you on cue.

He handed me his phone. “This is what you do, Kerry. You be safe. Call her and tell her where you will be. Give her the number and address.”

I sighed and dialed her number. I was right. She wanted nothing to do with me taking off with Malcolm.

“Liss, just write the address down, okay? He’s insisting.”

Malcolm took the phone from me. “You disapprove,” he said, and I sank down into the seat beside him. He listened for a long time, a patient smile on his face.

“And if I give you my word not to touch him, will that appease you?”

He listened more, nodding, and finally smiled. “Of course Charlie will be there. Charlie is always there.” Pause. “No.” He glanced at me and grinned. “He will return to you in the morning unmolested, I give you my word.”

“What?” I glared at him, but he held up a hand to silence me. “I thought—”

He clapped a hand over my mouth.

My eyes probably bugged out, but he turned his head away to gaze out the window as he recited his address, his phone number, where he worked, his work number, and I was expecting him to rattle off his Social Security number but he only chuckled softly and said good-bye.

“She is not my mother!” I said when he removed his hand.

“But she cares a great deal about you. I have no issues with giving her reassurance that nothing untoward will happen to you while you’re in my care.”

I swiped the back of my hand over my mouth. “You promised not to touch.” I mustered my best glare and shot it at him.

He chuckled.

It was the kind of thing that could easily piss me off, but he gazed at me until I squirmed in my seat.

“While I drive,” he decided, “you will talk.”

“Talk?”

He nodded as he pulled the car out of the parking lot. “There is a story to you being passed out on the beach, robbed—if I’ve put the pieces together correctly—and kicked out of your home. I want to know what happened.”

“And if I tell you it’s none of your business?”