Because of The Brave - lanyon Josh - Страница 15

He glanced aound the large barn Lyndee now used for storing automobiles and excess furniture and equipment. Even inside the mostly empty structure the car had been covered carefully, protected against the elements. It was clean, and sported a good coat of wax, the victim of only a small amount of corrosion from the salt of winter. His father had always babied and protected the car and its use had been firmly regulated with an eye toward longevity, even though neither he nor his son really ever understood why his mother had become so attached to it.

The end result was that the car was-in actual fact-the proverbial vehicle driven by the little old lady from Minnesota to and from church on Sundays and not much more. Things had worn out and been replaced. Gasoline formulas had changed; but the Road Runner, with a lot of care and some very clever reupholstery and mechanical work, looked very nearly as good as new.

Now, looking at the guts of the thing, it wasn’t hard for even Peter, who knew he was thick as a brick emotionally, to see that his dedication to the car sprang from the well of inadequacy he felt when it came to his mother.

Peter heard footsteps, unmeasured and purposeless, coming toward him from the direction of the house. “Here you are.” Peter looked up to see Robin lean in an indolent way against the rear fender on the driver’s side, a cigarette in his hand. Robin took a drag. “I thought I would find you with the car, although you’re mother said you’d be long gone by now.”

Peter put the brush down and crossed his arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Robin blew a thin stream of smoke from between lips that were thick and soft looking and hid a faint smile, but he only shrugged.

“I probably would have, if I’d had wheels,” Peter admitted.

Robin had an arm crossed in front of him and rested his elbow on it while the hand that held the cigarette hovered close to his mouth. He looked at Peter-peered at him really-but that hand, with the smoke rising in curls from it, obscured his thoughts as neatly as if he’d put on a mask.

Peter hated to admit it, but the hands attracted him. They’d been gentle and caring with his mother but looked strong and capable. Long fingered and elegant with well-manicured nails. He’d always liked hands; always liked competent and efficient professionals. Robin struck him as both easygoing and sensitive. The way he stood there, silent and still made Peter feel… not good precisely, but not bad either.

“Does it shock you that I want to leave?” he asked finally.

Robin rubbed his littlest finger across his full lower lip, and on another man Peter might have thought it was a deliberate way to call attention to a feature that was dead sexy, but Peter thought in Robin’s case it might just be something he did unconsciously. There were lots of things about Robin that Peter found hot and not the least of them was that he was man enough to handle the gentle ministrations required to care for a deteriorating human.

“You think wanting to run away is weak,” Robin said finally.

“It is weak.”

Robin shook his head. “Wanting to run is normal.”

He took another drag on his cigarette, and when Peter walked over and took the half burned smoke from his hand, asking for a drag with his eyes, Robin’s brown ones sparked with interest. “Running is weak.”

“Easy for you to say.” Peter puffed and held the smoke in his lungs. It had been a while since he’d quit, a couple of years. Watching Robin, watching his hands and—mostly—his mouth as the filter touched his lips, Peter had the overwhelming desire to put it to his own.

Robin closed his eyes and shook his head. “Not easy.” He still grinned, but in a more self-deprecating way. “I wasn’t able to do it for my own mother. I think that’s why I can do it with yours.”

“What’s it really like? Her days here?”

Peter still held Robin’s cigarette. Robin got a fresh one from the pack when Peter didn’t relinquish it and he lit up.

“I feed her when she’s awake.” That accent wrapped around the words and caressed them. The soft cadence of it; its musicality wrapped around Peter a little too. “Then I give her pain medication and she drifts back off. When she wakes again she eats a little more. Her appetite is dwindling. She’s sleeping more and when she can’t she’s restless and uncomfortable. I spend a lot of time adjusting fabric and pillows. Soothing. Like the princess and the pea.”

Peter grinned, although he felt like he should want to cry. “I don’t doubt that.”

“She is going downhill fast, Peter.”

Peter tried to imagine a world without his mother in it. Maybe not nearby but somewhere. A vague presence he could refer to when he was about to do something stupid or dangerous or even heroic; mother would hate this, mother would like that. A boy’s magnetic north. A point on the compass long after boyhood is a memory.

“How long?”

“I can’t tell you that.” Robin put one of his elegant hands on Peter’s arm and Peter stared at it for a minute. When Robin misinterpreted his interest in it and would have removed it, Peter caught it in his own hand and held it there, gripping the fingers tightly.

Brown eyes looked at him curiously, but the fingers stayed where they were. They stood and smoked together for a little while longer.

Peter finally spoke. “My mother has no idea who I am.”

Robin met his eyes. “It’s time you told her.”

Peter crushed his butt under his foot and picked it up again, years of conditioning that made him hold it till he could throw it in the trash. He walked toward the bin. “I can’t.”

“Then you have no idea who she is either.”

Peter stopped in his tracks. “Maybe not.”

“Don’t wait too long to find out,” Robin said. On his way out of the barn he reached a hand out and squeezed Peter’s shoulder, and as Peter watched him walk back toward the house he couldn’t help but admire the man’s build and the fine way he moved underneath the fairly shapeless scrubs he wore.

The fantasy was right there, his imagination worked overtime, yet that was part of the reason he’d come home. Part of why he couldn’t bear to talk to his mother. Sooner or later, he’d have to tell her that it might not be possible for him to go back to the job he knew made her so proud. Her hero, just like Dad.

Peter pulled his mom’s car battery out and put it on the floor of Lyndee’s truck on the passenger side. When he returned to the kitchen to wash up and get a last cup of coffee he found Lyndee supervising the cooking of the noon meal.

“Hi, I was just going to come and get you,” she told him, returning her attention to a girl he thought was probably college age. “You put the cheese on the sandwiches, hon, just not Ed’s; he’s lactose intolerant.”

Lyndee followed him when he took his coffee to the side of the room and stood, sipping it. “I made up a guest room for you, so it doesn’t look too much like a room for one of my guests, if you know what I mean.” She wrinkled her nose. “I think you should stay here.”

“Aunt Lyndee, I—”

“Don’t do it, Petey.” She rose up toward him and took his face in her hands, pulling it down. He wanted to pull away but he couldn’t find the will to hurt her feelings so he stayed where he was. “Don’t throw away the last chance you have to be with your mom.”

Lyndee let him go and he turned away to finish his coffee. “I’ll stay tonight. I have to get some things from the auto supply store for the Road Runner.”

“Don’t forget that while you’re caring for that car its owner needs a little TLC as well.”

Peter chugged the bitter dregs of his cup and held the mug, wondering if he should give it to Lyndee or take it to the sink and rinse it. “Robin seems great; she’s in his capable hands. She doesn’t need a lot more than that, I’m thinking.” He hated himself for the way it sounded to his ears. He knew his aunt would call him on it.