He rapped on the doorjamb. Both the vice principal and Seth glanced over, with two dramatically different expressions. Mrs. Moorefield smiled in polite welcome. Seth sneered.
"Mr. Quinn."
"Yeah." Then he remembered he was supposed to be here as a responsible guardian. "I hope we can straighten this out, Mrs. Moorefield." He stuck his own polite smile into place as he stepped to her desk and offered a hand.
"I appreciate your coming in so quickly. When we have to take regrettable disciplinary action such as this against a student, we want the parents or responsible parties to have the opportunity to understand the situation. Please, Mr. Quinn, sit down."
"What is the situation?" Cam took his seat and found he didn't like it any more than he used to.
"I'm afraid Seth physically attacked another student this morning between classes. The other boy is being treated by the school nurse, and his parents have been informed."
Cam lifted a brow. "So where are they?''
"Both of Robert's parents are at work at the moment. But in any case—"
"Why?"
Her smile returned, small, attentive, questioning. "Why, Mr. Quinn?"
"Why did Seth slug Robert?"
Mrs. Moorefield sighed. "I understand you've only recently taken over as Seth's guardian, so you may not be aware that this isn't the first time he's fought with other students."
"I know about it. I'm asking about this incident."
"Very well." She folded her hands. "According to Robert, Seth demanded that Robert give him a dollar, and when Robert refused to pay him, Seth attacked him. At this point," she added, shifting her gaze to Seth, "Seth has neither confirmed nor denied. School policy requires that students be suspended for three days as a disciplinary action when involved in a fight on school premises."
"Okay." Cam rose, but when Seth started to get up, he pointed a finger. "Stay," he ordered, then crouched until they were eye to eye. "You try to shake this kid down?"
Seth jerked a shoulder. "That's what he says."
"You slugged him."
"Yeah, I slugged him. Went for the nose," he added with a thin smile, and shoved at the straw-colored hair that flopped into his eyes. "It hurts more."
"Why'd you do it?"
"Maybe I didn't like his fat face."
With his patience as frayed as Seth's jeans, Cam gripped Seth by the shoulders. When Seth winced and hissed in a breath, alarm bells went off. Before Seth could evade him, Cam tugged the arm of the oversized jersey down. Nasty little bruises—knuckle rappers, Cam would have called them—ran from Seth's shoulder to his elbow.
"Get off me." His face heated with shame, Seth squirmed, but Cam merely shifted him. Scrapes were scored high on Seth's back, red and raw.
"Hold still." Cam moved his grip and laid his hands on the arms of the chair. His eyes stayed on Seth. "You tell me what went down. And don't even think about lying to me."
"I don't want to talk about it."
"I didn't ask you what you wanted. I'm telling you to spill it. Or," he said, lowering his voice so only Seth could hear, "are you going to let that punk get away clean?"
Seth opened his mouth, closed it again. He had to set his jaw so it wouldn't wobble. "He was pissed off. We had this history test the other day and I aced it. An idiot could've gotten an ace, but he's less than an idiot and he flunked. So he kept hassling me, dogged me down the hall, jabbing at me. I walked away because I'm sick to death of ISS."
"Of what?"
Seth rolled his eyes. "In-School Suspension. It's boring. I didn't want to do more time, so I walked. But he kept jabbing and calling me names. Egghead, teacher's pet, and all that shit. Didn't let it bother me. But then he shoved me back against the lockers and he said I was just a son of a whore and everybody knew it, so I decked him."
Shamed and sick, he jerked a defiant shoulder. "So I get a three-day vacation. Big deal."
Cam nodded and rose. When he turned around his eyes were nearly black with fury. "You're not suspending this kid for defending himself against an ignorant bully. And if you try, I'll go over your head to the Board of Education."
Shocked to the core, Seth stared up at Cam. Nobody had ever stood up for him. He'd never expected anyone to stand up for him.
"Mr. Quinn—"
"Nobody calls my brother a son of a whore, Mrs. Moorefield. And if you don't have a school policy against vicious name-calling and harassment, you damn well should. So I'm telling you, you better take another look at this situation. And you better rethink just who gets suspended here. And you can tell little Robert's parents that if they don't want their kid crying over a bloody nose, they better teach him some manners."
She took a moment before speaking. She'd been teaching and counseling children for nearly thirty years. What she saw on Seth's face at that moment was hope, stunned and wary, but hope nonetheless. It was a look she didn't want to extinguish.
"Mr. Quinn, you can be certain that I will investigate this matter further. I wasn't aware that Seth had been injured. If you'd like to take him down to the nurse while I speak with Robert and… others—"
"I can take care of him."
"As you wish. I'll hold the suspension in abeyance until I've satisfied myself with the facts."
"You do that, Mrs. Moorefield. But I'm satisfied with the facts. Now I'm taking Seth home for the rest of the day. He's had enough."
"I agree with you."
The child hadn't looked shaken when he'd come into her office, she thought. He'd looked cocky. He hadn't looked shaken when she'd told him to sit down and called his home. He'd looked belligerent.
But he looked shaken now, finally, with his eyes wide and stunned and his hands gripping the arms of the chair. The thin, hard shield he'd kept tight around him, a shield neither she nor any of his teachers had been able to so much as scratch, appeared to be deeply dented.
Now, she decided, they would see what they could do for him.
"If you will bring Seth into school in the morning and meet with me here, we'll resolve the matter."
"We'll be here. Let's go," he said to Seth and headed out.
As they walked down the hall toward the front doors, their footsteps echoed hollowly. Cam glanced down, noted that Seth was staring at his shoes.
"Still gives me the creeps," he said.
Seth shoved at the door. "What?"
"The way it sounds when you take the long walk to the VP's office."
Seth snorted, hunched his shoulders and kept walking. His stomach felt as if a thousand butterflies had gone to war inside it.
The American flag on the pole near the parking lot snapped in the wind. From an open window behind them, the pathetically off-key sounds of a mid-morning music class clamored. The elementary school was separated from the middle by a narrow swatch of grass and a few sad-looking evergreen bushes.
Across the small outdoor track stood the brown brick of the high school. It seemed smaller now, Cam noted, almost quaint, and not at all like the prison he'd once imagined it to be.
He remembered leaning lazily against the hood of his first secondhand car in the parking lot and watching girls. Walking through those noisy hallways from class to class, and watching girls. Sitting in the butt-numbing chairs during brain-numbing classes. And watching girls.
The fact that his high school experience came back to him in a parade of varying female forms made him almost sentimental.
Then a bell rang shrilly, and the noise level through the open windows behind him erupted. Sentiment dried up quickly. Thank God, was all he could think, that chapter of his life was over.
But it wasn't over for the kid, he remembered. And since he was here, he could try to help him through it. They opened opposite doors of the 'Vette, and Cam paused, waited for their eyes to meet. "So, do you figure you broke the asshole's nose?"
A glimmer of a smile worked around Seth's mouth. "Maybe."
"Good." Cam got in, slammed the door. "Going for the nose is fine, but if you don't want a lot of blood messing things up, go for the belly. A good, solid short arm punch to the gut won't leave as much evidence."
Seth considered the advice. "I wanted to see him bleed."
"Well, you make your choices in life. Pretty good day for a sail," he decided as he started the engine. "Might as well."
"I guess." Seth picked at the knee of his jeans. Someone had stood up for him, was all his confused mind could think. Had believed him, defended him and taken his part. His arm hurt, his shoulders ached, but someone had taken his part. "Thanks," he muttered.
"No problem. You mess with one Quinn, you mess with them all." He glanced over as he drove out of the lot and saw Seth staring at him. "That's how it shakes down. Anyway, let's get some burgers or something to take on the boat."
"Yeah, I could eat." Seth swiped a hand under his nose. "Got a dollar?"
When Cam laughed and punched the accelerator it was one of the best moments of Seth's life.
the wind was out of the southwest and steady so that the marsh grasses waved lazily. The sky was clear and cheerfully blue, the perfect frame for the heron that rose up, out of the waving grass over the glinting water, then down like a flashing white kite to catch an early lunch.
On impulse, Cam had tossed some fishing gear into the boat. With any luck they'd have fried fish for dinner.
Seth already knew more about sailing than Cam had expected. He shouldn't have been surprised by it, he realized. Anna had said the boy had a quick mind, and Ethan would have taught him well, and patiently.
When he saw how easily Seth handled the lines, he trusted him to trim the jib. The sails caught the wind, and Cam found speed.
God, he had missed it. The rush, the power, the control. It poured through him, clearing his mind of worries, obligations, disappointments, even grief. Water below and sky above, and his hands on the helm coaxing the wind, daring it, tricking it into giving more.
Behind him, Seth grinned and caught himself just before he yelled out in delight. He'd never gone so fast. With Ray it had been slow and steady, with Ethan work and wonder. But this was a wild, free ride, rising and falling with the waves, shooting like a long white bullet to anywhere.
The wind nearly took his cap, so he turned the bill backward so the breeze wouldn't catch it and flip it away.
They skimmed across the shoreline, passed the waterfront docks that were the hub of St. Chris before they finally slowed. An old skipjack no longer in use was docked there, a symbol to the waterman's way of life.
The men and women who harvested the bay brought their day's catch there. Rounder and sea trout and rockfish at this time of year, and…
"What's the date?" Cam demanded as he glanced over his shoulder.
"Like the thirty-first." Seth shoved up his wraparound sunglasses and stared at the dock. He was hoping for a glimpse of Grace. He wanted to wave to someone he knew.
"Crab season starts tomorrow. Hot damn. Guarantee you tomorrow Ethan brings home a bushel of beauties. We'll eat like kings. You like crabs, right?"
"I dunno."
"What do you mean you don't know?" Cam popped the top of a Coke and guzzled. "Haven't you had crab before?"
"No."
"You'd better prepare your mouth for a treat, then, kid, because you'll have it tomorrow."
Mirroring Cam's move, Seth reached for a soft drink himself. "Nothing you cook's a treat."
It was said with a grin and received with one. "I can do crab just fine. Nothing to it. Boiling water, lots of spices, then you pop those snapping bastards into the pot—"
"Alive?"
"It's the only way."
"That's sick."
Cam merely shifted his stance. "They aren't alive for long. Then they're dinner. Add a six-pack of beer and you got a feast. Another few weeks, and we're talking soft-shell blues. You plop 'em between a couple pieces of bread and bite in."
This time Seth actually felt his stomach roll. "Not me."
"Too squeamish?"
"Too civilized."
"Shit. Sometimes on Saturday in the summer Mom and Dad used to bring us down to the docks. We'd get us some soft-shell crab sandwiches, a tub of peanut oil fries, and watch the tourists try to figure out what to eat. Laughed our asses off."
The memory made him suddenly sad, and he tried to shake off the mood. "Sometimes we sailed down like this. Or we'd cruise down to the river and fish. Mom wasn't much on fishing, so she'd swim, then she'd head to shore and sit on the bank and read."
"Why didn't she just stay home?"
"She liked to sail," Cam said softly. "And she liked being there."
"Ray said she got sick."
"Yeah, she got sick." Cam blew out a breath. She had been the only woman he'd ever loved, the only woman he'd ever lost. The missing of her could still creep up and cut him off at the knees.
"Come about," he ordered. "Let's head down the Annemessex and see if anything's biting."
It didn't occur to either of them that the three hours they spent on the water was the most peaceful interlude either had experienced in weeks.
And when they returned home with six fat striped bass in the cooler, they were for the first time in total harmony.
"Know how to clean them?" Cam asked.
"Maybe." Ray had taught him, but Seth was no fool. "I caught four of the six, that ought to mean you clean them."
"That's the beauty of being boss," Cam began, then stopped dead when he saw sheets snapping on the ancient clothesline. He hadn't seen anything hanging out on the line since his mother had gotten sick. For a moment he was afraid he was having another hallucination, and his mouth went dry.
Then the back door opened, and Grace Monroe stepped out on the porch.
"Hey, Grace!"
It was the first time Cam had heard Seth's voice raised in happiness and pure boyish pleasure. It surprised him enough to make him look over sharply, then nearly drop the cooler on his foot as Seth let go of his end and dashed forward.
"Hey, there." She had a warm voice that contrasted with cool looks. She was tall and slim, with long limbs she'd once dreamed of using as a dancer.
But Grace had learned to put most of her dreams aside.
Her hair was boyishly short, and that was for convenience. She didn't have the time or energy to worry about style. It was a dark, honey blond that was often streaked with paler color during the summer. Her eyes were a quiet green and all too often had shadows dogging them.
But her smile was pure and sunny and never failed to light up her face, or to set the dimple just beside her mouth winking.
A pretty woman, Cam thought, with the face of a pixie and the voice of a siren. It amazed him that men weren't throwing themselves at her feet.
The boy all but did, Cam noted, surprised when Seth just about ran into her open arms. He hugged and was hugged—this prickly kid who didn't like to be touched. Then he flushed and stepped back and began to play with the puppy, who'd followed Grace out of the house.
"Afternoon, Cam." Grace shielded her eyes from the sun with the flat of her hand. "Ethan came by the pub last night and said y'all could use a hand around here."
"You're taking over the housework."
"Well, I can give you three hours two days a week until—''
She got no farther, for Cam dumped the cooler, took the steps three at a time, and grabbed her into a loud, enthusiastic kiss. It set Seth's teeth on edge to see it, even as Grace stuttered and laughed.
"That's nice," she managed, "but you're still going to have to pay me."
"Name your price. I adore you." He snatched her hands and planted more kisses there. "My life for you."
"I can see I'm going to be appreciated around here—and needed. I've got those pink socks soaking in some diluted bleach. Might do the trick."
"The red sock was Phil's. He's responsible. I mean, what reasonable guy even owns a pair of red socks?"
"We'll talk more about sorting laundry—and checking pockets. Someone's little black book went through the last cycle."
"Shit." He caught her arched-brow look down at the boy and cleared his throat. "Sorry. I guess it was mine."
"I made some lemonade, and I was going to put a casserole together, but it looks like you may have caught your supper."
"Tonight's, but we could do with a casserole too."
"Okay. Ethan wasn't really clear about what you'd need or want done. Maybe we should go over things."
"Darling, you do whatever you think we need, and it'll be more than we can ever repay."
She'd already seen that for herself. Pink underwear, she mused, dust an inch thick on one table and unidentified substances sticking to another. And the stove? God only knew when it had last been cleaned.
It was good to be needed, she thought. Good to know just what had to be done. "We'll take it as it goes, then. I may have to bring the baby along sometimes. Julie minds her at night when I'm working at the pub, but I can't always find somebody to take her otherwise. She's a good girl."
"I can help you watch her," Seth offered. "I get home from school at three-thirty."
"Since when?" Cam wanted to know, and Seth shrugged.
"When I don't have ISS."
"Aubrey loves playing with you. I've got another hour here today," she said because she was a woman constantly forced to budget time. "So I'll make up that casserole and put it in the freezer. All you have to do is heat it up when you want it. I'll leave you a list of cleaning supplies you're low on, or I can pick them up for you if you like."
"Pick them up for us?" Cam could have knelt at her feet. "Want a raise?"
She laughed and started back inside. "Seth, you see that that pup stays out of the fish guts. He'll smell for a week otherwise."
"Okay, sure. I'll be finished in a few minutes and I'll be in." He stood up, then stepped off the porch so Grace wouldn't hear him through the door. Manfully, he sized up Cam. "You're not going to start poking at her, are you?"
"Poking at her?" He was blank for a moment, then shook his head. "For God's sake." Hefting the ice chest, he started around the side of the house to the fish-cleaning table. "I've known Grace half my life, and I don't poke at every woman I see."
"Okay, then."
It was the boy's tone that made Cam run his tongue around his teeth as he set the cooler down. Possessive, proprietary, and satisfied. "So… you got your eye on her yourself, huh?"
Seth colored a little, opened the drawer for the fish sealer. "I just look out for her, that's all."
"She sure is pretty," Cam said lightly and had the pleasure of seeing Seth's eyes flash with jealousy. "But as it happens I'm poking at another woman right now, and it gets sticky if you try that with more than one at a time. And this particular female is going to take a lot of convincing."