“Dad came.” Conner switched his candy bag from one hand to the other.
“Yeah.” Vince dropped his arm to his side.
It wasn’t Sam’s day. Why was he there? “Don’t run,” she cal ed out, as Conner took off down the sidewalk. He ran beneath a pool of light from the streetlamp, then cut across the yard fil ed with happy scarecrows and smiling jack-o’-lanterns. Beside her, Vince muttered something she couldn’t quite hear. Which was probably for the best, then he asked, “What does that idiot want?”
“I don’t know. I thought he was out of town.” Within the shadows of her house, Sam rose from the bottom step of her porch, and Conner disappeared into his dark wool coat. So typical of him just to assume he could show up without cal ing.
“Has he suddenly decided to be father of the year?”
“Something like that, but it won’t last.” She shook her head, and her ponytail brushed the shoulders of her navy peacoat. The sound of Vince’s bootheels was heavy and ominous as the two of them closed the distance to Sam. “Promise me you won’t start anything.”
A stitch on his leather bomber’s jacket popped as if he was flexing his muscles like the Incredible Hulk. Vince was a kind, loving brother and a good uncle. He was protective, but he had a few anger issues. He could also hold a grudge longer than anyone she knew. Even her. While Autumn had moved on from her bitter feelings for Sam, Vince had not and probably never would. Even though their mother had been very religious, “Forgive and forget” was a foreign concept for the Haven kids. Especial y for Vince, and while Autumn had moved on, she couldn’t say she’d forgiven Sam. Not that Sam had ever asked for her forgiveness. Never said he was sorry, and she’d never forget. That was impossible. Too much to ask. It was more like she’d just let go of it al and didn’t care.
As she and Vince walked up the driveway, the tension between Sam and her brother pinched the back of her bare neck, and her ponytail felt too tight. “Behave,” she said under her breath. She stopped in front of Sam and looked up into his face, light from the house spil ed across his forehead, the slight crook in his nose and across half his lips. “I didn’t know you were in town.”
“I am.”
Obviously. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”
“I didn’t either until about half an hour ago.” His chin jerked up a little. “Vince.”
“Sam.”
“I need to talk to you a minute,” Sam said as he stared down Vince.
“Me?”
“No. Your brother.”
She was afraid of that. She grabbed Vince’s arm. “Don’t hit him.”
Vince pried her fingers from his jacket. “I won’t hit him first.”
Sam chuckled. “You wouldn’t get the chance to hit me second, frogman.” He walked past them to the end of the driveway and stopped beneath the deep inky shadow of an old oak.
Vince laughed, too, but it wasn’t funny. Vince had been trained to kil , but Autumn had seen Sam knock people out. People bigger than Vince.
“Promise?”
He headed across the driveway, his “No,” trailed after him.
“What’s a frogman?”
She glanced down at Conner’s shiny blond head. She should probably take him into the house, but she didn’t think either man would throw a punch in front of Conner. While they hated each other, they loved Conner more. At least she hoped so. “I think it’s a Navy SEAL.”
“Oh. Is Dad going to hit Uncle Vince?”
“Of course not.” At least she hoped not. “They were just joking around.”
“What are they talking about?”
She strained to hear what they were saying, even leaning forward a little, but only a low murmuring timbre reached her ears. “Man stuff.”
“What’s ‘man stuff’?”
Like she knew? “Cars.”
“Uncle Vince doesn’t have a car. He has a motorcycle and a truck. But his truck isn’t as big as Dad’s.”
From the little she could see, it looked like Sam’s hands were on his hips, and Vince stil had his arms crossed. Again she heard Sam chuckle, then he walked from the inky darkness and across the driveway toward her. “You got a Reese’s in that candy bag?”
he asked Conner.
“Maybe ten or twenty!”
“Good. You can give your old dad one.”
“I got lots of candy. Come in and see.”
Sam looked over at Autumn. “Do you mind?”
Like it mattered. She shook her head and watched Vince move from the shadow toward her. “Give your uncle a hug good-bye,” she told Conner.
“Okay.” Already hopped up on Hal oween candy, Conner ran to Vince and wrapped his arms around his waist. “Bye, Uncle Vince.”
“See ya, Nugget. Give me knuckles.”
Conner held up his clinched fist, then quickly pul ed it back. “Too slow, Joe.” He ran back to Sam, took his hand, and pul ed him up the steps. Autumn waited until they disappeared inside before she asked, “What was that al about?”
“We came to an understanding.”
“What understanding? What did he say?”
Vince swung a leg over the Harley and righted the bike. “Never mind.”
“Vince! What understanding?”
He sighed. “He told me he was going to be around more, so I better get used to seeing him.”
“And?”
“Nothing.” The motorcycle rumbled to life, fil ing the night with dual exhaust and putting an end to the conversation. He backed out of the drive and took off, leaving Autumn to stare after him. There was more to it than “nothing.” She knew Vince too wel to believe him. She let out a breath and headed up the steps to the front door, decorated with a friendly ghost. She was tired from trick-or-treating for the past three hours and hoped that Sam didn’t plan on staying long. She was meeting two prospective brides in the morning and needed to be sharp. She opened the door and headed up the steps as Conner told his latest knock-knock joke. Sam laughed like it was the height of hilarity. It wasn’t.
Conner sat next to Sam on the mint green couch, his coat thrown on the table. Father and son’s blond heads were close together as they hovered over the bag of candy sitting between them. The big number sixteen on Conner’s youth jersey was not only Sam’s number; apparently it had also belonged to someone named Bobby Clarke. “Bobby had a hard shot,” Conner had informed her a few weeks ago. “But Dad’s is harder. He won three times for the hardest shot.”
“Nice shiner,” Sam complimented Conner’s black eye.
“It’s like yours. Last season.”
“I don’t have a scar on my cheek.”
“I know. You probably wil , though.”
Autumn shrugged out of her coat and moved into the dining room. “Don’t make yourself sick on al that candy.”
Conner pretended not to hear her. “You can have a Kit-Kat, Dad.”
“I like Dots. I used to stick al the different colors on my teeth and chase El a around.”
“Who’s El a?”
“My sister. I told you about her.”
“Oh yeah. She died.”
Autumn hung her coat on a chair and moved back into the living room. She was used to having a man in the house. Vince was over al the time, but Sam brought a different energy with him. It wasn’t as aggressive or defensive as in the past, but it wasn’t altogether comfortable either. It was too much. Too much rugged
