Nora Roberts: Blood Brothers

Fox snorted, pulled them out. He’d bought two for just this purpose. Father and son unwrapped, bit off, chewed in perfect harmony. “The counter looks good, Dad.”

“Yeah, it does.” Brian ran a hand over the smooth, eggshell surface. “Mrs. Larson’s not much for color, but it’s good work. I don’t know who I’m going to get to be my lapdog when you head off to college.”

“Ridge is next in line,” Fox said, thinking of his younger brother. “Ridge wouldn’t keep measurements in his head for two minutes running, and he’d probably cut off a finger dreaming while he was using a band saw. No.” Brian smiled, shrugged. “This kind of work isn’t for Ridge, or for you, for that matter. Or either of your sisters. I guess I’m going to have to rent a kid to get one who wants to work with wood.”

“I never said I didn’t want to.” Not out loud.

His father looked at him the way he sometimes did, as if he saw more than what was there. “You’ve got a good eye, you’ve got good hands. You’ll be handy around your own house once you get one. But you won’t be strapping on a tool belt to make a living. Until you figure out just what it is you want, you can haul these scraps on out to the Dumpster.”

“Sure.” Fox gathered up scraps, trash, began to cart them out the back, across the narrow yard to the Dumpster the Larsons had rented for the duration of the remodel.

He glanced toward the adjoining yard and the sound of kids playing. And the armload he carried thumped and bounced on the ground as his body went numb.

The little boys played with trucks and shovels and pails in a bright blue sandbox. But it wasn’t filled with sand. Blood covered their bare arms as they pushed their Tonka trucks through the muck inside the box. He stumbled back as the boys made engine sounds, as red lapped over the bright blue sides and dripped onto the green grass.

On the fence between the yards, where hydrangeas headed up toward bloom, crouched a boy that wasn’t a boy. He bared its teeth in a grin as Fox backed toward the house.

“Dad! Dad!”

The tone, the breathless fear had Brian rushing outside. “What? What is it?”

“Don’t you-can’t you see?” But even as he said it, as he pointed, something inside Fox knew. It wasn’t real.

“What?” Firmly now, Brian took his son’s shoulders. “What do you see?”

The boy that wasn’t a boy danced along the top of the chain-link fence while flames spurted up below and burned the hydrangeas to cinders.

“I have to go. I have to go see Cal and Gage. Right now, Dad. I have to-”

“Go.” Brian released his hold on Fox, stepped back. He didn’t question. “Go.”

He all but flew through the house and out again, up the sidewalk to the square. The town no longer looked as it usubeen that horrible week in July seven years before.

Fire and blood, he remembered, thinking of the dream. He burst into the Bowl-a-Rama, where the summer afternoon leagues were in full swing. The thunder of balls, the crash of pins pounded in his head as he ran straight to the front desk where Cal worked.

“Where’s Gage?” Fox demanded.

“Jesus, what’s up with you?”

“Where’s Gage?” Fox repeated, and Cal ’s amused gray eyes sobered. “Working the arcade. He’s…he’s coming out now.”

At Cal ’s quick signal, Gage sauntered over. “Hello, ladies. What…” The smirk died after one look at Fox’s face. “What happened?”

“It’s back,” Fox said. “It’s come back.”