She felt the sting of tears in her eyes and turned away before Kevin could spot them and see her for the fool she’d been. When the phone beside the bed rang, she was only too eager for the distraction. She grabbed it, even as Kevin protested.
“Yes, hello.”
“Is Kevin there?” a man demanded roughly.
“Yes. May I tell him who’s calling?”
“Bobby Ray.”
She rolled over and handed the phone to Kevin, who was regarding her with a watchful, worried look. “ Bobby Ray,” she mouthed silently.
He took the phone with obvious reluctance. “This had better be good, Bobby Ray, or I’ll have to break every bone in your body.”
Bobby Ray was shouting now, cursing Kevin. Gracie could hear just about every bitter word, enough to know that Bobby Ray was blaming him for something.
“If you don’t calm down and tell me what the hell is going on, I’m hanging up,” Kevin said quietly, sitting on the edge of the bed, his back deliberately toward Gracie.
“Sara Lynn’s gone,” Bobby Ray said bleakly, but still at full volume, which suggested he’d been drinking for some time now. “She’s run off with that son-of-a-bitch jeweler.”
“I warned you,” Kevin began. “I suppose they made off with all the money, too.”
Gracie shut him off with an elbow to the ribs. “This is not the time for a lecture,” she whispered fiercely. “Tell him to come over.”
“Here?” Kevin asked, whipping around to stare at her incredulously.
She nodded, already scrambling out of bed and searching for clothes to put on. Kevin stared at her for a minute, then sighed heavily.
“Come on over, Bobby Ray. We’ll figure out something.”
He slowly replaced the receiver on the hook. “Mind telling me why you’re so all-fired interested in having my cousin drop by to spill his guts?”
“He’s upset, drunk most likely from what I heard. He needs to talk. He needs our help.”
“He needs my help, you mean. This is my problem, not yours.”
She regarded him wryly. “Actually, it’s Bobby Ray’s problem, don’t you think? What he needs from us is moral support. I’m as good at giving that as you are. Better, more than likely, since you seem to think he’s an idiot for marrying Sara Lynn in the first place.”
Kevin stood up and jerked on his pants. “My opinion of Sara Lynn is no secret. That doesn’t mean I’m incapable of being sympathetic.”
“We’ll see,” Gracie responded.
“The minute Bobby Ray gets here, I’m going to take him out to Greystone Manor. There’s no reason for you to get mixed up in this,” he repeated, his expression grim, his jaw set determinedly.
“Is it that you think I can’t offer a shoulder to cry on?” Gracie demanded indignantly. “Is it that you don’t want me to know the family secrets? Or do you just like carrying all those burdens around singlehandedly?”
He glowered at her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I think you enjoy having everyone lean on you. It’s the only kind of intimacy you understand.”
“Don’t be absurd.” He turned his back on her and went scrambling for his shirt and shoes.
“I think I’m right,” she persisted. “I think you’re afraid if they start to solve their own problems, they won’t need you anymore and you’ll be left all alone.”
“I have never in my life heard such worthless psychobabble,” he said, and stormed out of the bedroom without a backward glance.
Gracie stayed right on his heels. “Prove me wrong,” she said.
He sat on a chair in the darkening kitchen and yanked on socks and shoes. “I don’t have to prove anything to you or anybody else,” he muttered.
“Maybe not to me,” she agreed quietly. “Maybe you just need to prove it to yourself.”
20
Bobby Ray was weaving and bleary-eyed when he stumbled his way onto Gracie’s front porch twenty minutes later. At least he’d had the good sense to call the area’s only cab for the ride over. Kevin watched his arrival with a mixture of disgust and trepidation. He had a feeling this was a very bad idea, in more ways than one.
Gracie had turned his cousin’s crisis into some sort of test, and for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what she was up to. It was absolutely absurd to think that these incidents gave him some sort of perverse pleasure, which was what she was implying. He wanted Bobby Ray—all of them, for that matter—to stand on their own two feet. It just hadn’t happened. In all these years, they’d run to him every time they’d so much as stubbed a toe.
As much as he wanted to haul his cousin as far from Gracie’s as he could take him, there was no way to pull it off now. She was waiting inside with a pot of coffee brewing and a plate of cookies warm from the oven. Apparently, she thought they were going to have some sort of blasted tea party.
Bobby Ray made it to the front door under his own steam. He even tried to throw a punch at Kevin, but Kevin anticipated it and Bobby Ray’s aim was off anyway.
“Ought to tear you apart,” Bobby Ray said.
“Ditto,” Kevin said, tucking an arm around his cousin’s waist and guiding him into the kitchen. Bobby Ray leaned heavily against him.
Kevin tried to make himself remember all the good times they’d had as boys. They’d gotten into more mischief than brothers or best friends. In fact, back then, Bobby Ray had been his best friend.
He knew precisely when that had changed. They’d been at college then. Roommates, in fact, though Kevin had been finishing up law school and Bobby Ray was still a senior thanks
