place. Inner walls had been knocked out to make some rooms larger, while other spaces had been divided with flimsy chipboard partitions. Plumbing and electricity had been badly installed and seldom maintained, and as the house had settled, some of the flooring had acquired a slant. Stained glass had been replaced by aluminum-framed windows, and fishscale shingles and corbels had been covered with vinyl siding.
Even in its ruined condition, the house possessed a winsome charm. Unknown stories lingered in abandoned corners and rickety staircases. Memories had seeped into its walls.
With the help of his brothers, Mark and Alex, Sam had made structural repairs, gutted and remodeled a few of the main rooms, and leveled some of the flooring. There was still a long way to go before the restoration was finished. But this place was special. He couldn’t get rid of the feeling that it needed him somehow.
To Sam’s surprise, Alex seemed to have a similar fondness for the house. “Beautiful old girl,” Alex had said the first time Sam had walked him through the place. As a residential developer, he was familiar with every possible complication of building and remodeling. “She’ll need a hell of a lot of work. But she’s worth it.”
“How much money will it take to get the place in decent shape?” Sam had asked. “I just want it shored up enough that it won’t collapse on me while I sleep.”
The question had brought a glint of amusement to Alex’s eyes. “If you flush hundred-dollar bills down the toilet continuously for a week, that amount would just about cover it.”
Undeterred, Sam had bought the property and started work on it. And Alex had brought his construction crews to help with the more difficult projects, such as replacing the header beams on the front porch and repairing damaged joists.
“I’m not doing this for you,” Alex had replied when Sam had expressed his gratitude. “I’m doing it for Holly.”
A year earlier, on a rainy April night in Seattle, their only sister, Victoria, had died in a car wreck, leaving behind a six-year-old daughter. Since Victoria had never given anyone a clue about who the father was, Holly was an orphan. Her closest relations were her three uncles: Mark, Sam, and Alex.
Mark, the oldest, had been appointed as Holly’s guardian, and he had asked Sam to help him raise her.
“I don’t see how that could work,” Sam had told Mark. “I don’t know the first damn thing about being a family.”
“You think I do? We had the same parents, remember?”
“We have no business trying to raise a kid, Mark. Do you know how many ways there are to ruin someone’s life? Especially a little girl’s.”
“Shut up, Sam.” Now Mark had begun to look worried.
“What about parent-teacher conferences? Taking her to the men’s room? How do we do stuff like that?”
“I’ll figure that out. Just let us live here.”
“What about my sex life?”
Mark had given him an exasperated glance. “Is that really your priority, Sam?”
“I’m shallow. Sue me.”
But eventually, of course, Sam had agreed to the arrangement. He owed it to Mark, who was dealing with a tough situation he’d never expected nor asked for. And even more, he owed it to Victoria. He’d never been close to her, never been there for her, so the least he could do was help her orphaned daughter.
What Sam hadn’t counted on was that Holly would have stolen his heart with such ease. It had something to do with the artwork and pasta necklaces she brought home from school. And the glimpses of Victoria that he saw in her, the crinkle-nosed grin, her absorbed gaze as she made a box out of Popsicle sticks and glue, or read a book about talking animals. Having a kid in your life changed you before you were even aware of it. It changed your habits and opinions. It changed the things you worried about and hoped for.
And it made you do dumbass things like adopt an ugly bulldog with eczema and hip problems when no one else wanted him.
“Here you go, buddy,” Sam said, lifting Renfield from the truck and placing him carefully on the ground. The dog lumbered after him as he walked to the front porch.
Alex huddled in a battered wicker chair, drinking a beer.
“Al,” Sam said casually. He kept a close eye on Renfield, who was lumbering up a specially built ramp. Bulldogs and stairs were never a good combination. “What are you doing here?”
Alex was dressed in frayed jeans and an ancient sweatshirt, completely unlike his usual businesslike attire. His unshaven face was cast with the sullen shadow of a man who’d been drinking steadily for most of the afternoon.
An unpleasant chill chased down the back of Sam’s neck as he remembered how often their parents had worn that glazed look. It had seemed as if they’d been drinking a different kind of alcohol than everyone else. The liquor that made other people cheerful, relaxed, sexy, had turned Alan and Jessica Nolan into monsters.
Although Alex had never sunk to that level, he was not his best self while drinking. He became the kind of person Sam wouldn’t have had anything to do with if they weren’t related.
“Took the afternoon off,” Alex said, raising the bottle to his lips, draining the rest of the beer.
He was going through a divorce after four years of marriage to a woman he should have known better than to get entangled with in the first place. His wife, Darcy, had managed to chew through a prenup like a beaver through balsa wood, and was now in the process of dismantling the carefully ordered life Alex had worked so hard to build.
“You met with your lawyer?” Sam asked.
“Yesterday.”
“How’d it go?”
“Darcy’s keeping the house and most of the money. Now the lawyers are negotiating for my kidneys.”
“Sorry. I’d hoped it would work out for you.” Which wasn’t exactly the truth. Sam had never been able to stand Darcy, whose sole ambition in life was to be a trophy wife. Sam would have bet the vineyard that his brother was being traded in for a more affluent husband.
“I knew when I married her that it wasn’t going to last,” Alex said.
“Then why’d you do it?”
“Tax benefits.” Alex glanced quizzically at Renfield, who was butting his head against his leg, and he reached down to scratch the dog’s back. “The thing is,” he said, turning his attention back to Sam, “we’re Nolans. None of us will ever have a marriage that lasts longer than the average house plant.”
“I’m never getting married,” Sam said.
“Smart,” Alex said.
“It has nothing to do with being smart. It’s just that I always feel closer to a woman knowing I can walk away from her at any moment.”
At the same time, they both detected the smell of something burning, drifting from the open windows. “What the hell is that?” Sam asked.
“Mark is cooking,” Alex said.
The front door opened, and Holly rushed outside, giving a little squeal as she saw Sam. He laughed and caught her as she hurled herself at him. When they saw each other at the end of the day, Holly always acted like they had been apart for weeks.
“Uncle Sam!”
“Hey, gingersnap.” He gave her a noisy kiss. “How was school?”
“Miss Duncan taught us some French words today. And I told her I already knew some.”
