Karen Rock - Under An Adirondack Sky

“Yeah, like you listen to me.” Connor’s lower lip pushed out and red blotches appeared on his pale face.

Aiden’s hands balled on his lap. Behind them a couple kids started chanting “A hundred bottles of beer on the wall” and Ms. Day rose and scooted down the aisle.

“You’re not going to screw this up,” Aiden stated. “Got it? When the superintendent comes, I want you to—”

“Screw what up? It’s my life. I’ll do what I want.” Connor plugged the wire back into the phone.

Anger boiled up Aiden’s throat and singed his tongue. He grabbed the phone and pocketed it, making Connor jump. “It’s not your life until you’re eighteen. Until then, you follow my rules or get the consequences.”

“As in grounded?” Connor’s narrow mouth trembled at the corners. “You’ll make me stay home after school every day to watch Mom, Daniel and Ella? Oh. Wait.” He tapped his chin, his tone biting. “I already do that.”

“Things can get worse,” Aiden threatened. “I’ll take away your Xbox.”

“Have it. I barely get to play it as it is.”

“And your TV.”

“Same thing.”

“Connor—”

The scent of something floral and exotic enveloped him as Ms. Day stopped at their seat. Leaned close.

“Is everything all right here?” she asked, her voice so low Aiden strained to hear it over the bus chatter.

Concerned blue eyes fell on Connor, who ceased grabbing for the cell and subsided in the seat’s corner.

“Fine,” muttered Aiden. The hairs on his forearms rose when her hand gripped his shoulder as the bus bounced. She swayed on her feet and he nearly gave in to the impulse to grab her waist and steady her. No denying it, she attracted him like no other woman he’d ever met.

“Connor?” she prompted, as if she hadn’t heard Aiden’s assurance.

“I want my phone.” Connor brought his foot up to the seat and rested his head on his knee.

She squatted so that she was at eye level with the boy and Aiden’s chest. He shifted, uncomfortably aware of her proximity and his response to it. “And why did you lose it?”

Connor shrugged and turned his face away, speaking to the window. “Ask him.”

Ms. Day peered up at Aiden, the sudden, intense focus of her stare doing something strange to his heart. “What happened?”

“I wanted him to listen to me, so I took it away.”

She blinked long blond lashes. “Did you ask him for it?”

This was ridiculous. Was she trying to counsel him on the bus? The retreat hadn’t even started.

“No. I didn’t ask him.”

“Why not?”

Connor looked up and glanced between the two of them.

“Because he wouldn’t have given it to me.”

“How do you know?”

“Look. How long have you known my brother? A month or so? I’ve known him for fourteen years. Raised him for ten of them. I think I know him better than you.” Aiden shoved the cell phone back at Connor who, contrarily, glanced at it, then refused to take it. What was the kid trying to prove? That Aiden wasn’t guardian of the year? He didn’t have time to worry about that.

So why, under Ms. Day’s observant stare, did it seem to matter?

“Connor, would you have stopped listening to your music if Aiden asked you?” she inquired in that oh-so-reasonable tone that put Aiden on the defensive.

“Probably not.”

Aiden shot him a surprised look. At last. Honesty. Then again, he’d never known his brother to be a liar.

Ms. Day nodded slowly. “We’ll schedule some family counseling sessions and focus on communication, then.”

A short laugh escaped Aiden. “You think that’s all we need? To talk more?”

She rose and gripped the back of the seat, her pretty face looking less assured. “I think it’s a starting point.”

Her graceful back bent as she slid past her eager seatmate and resumed their animated conversation. Connor plugged in his earbuds and slouched against the window. Aiden leaned his head back on the seat and stared up at the rounded bus ceiling.

A starting point...

Her naive words lingered in his ear, curled through his mind, fired up his imagination. He glanced at his zoned-out sibling.

What new beginning could they have?

They might be sitting close now, but he felt farther from his brother than ever. Would Connor show the necessary progress needed to convince the superintendent in just two weeks?

* * *

THE BUS GROUND to a stop on the dirt-and-pebble drive before a stately white farmhouse with red shutters and a wraparound porch. Rebecca angled her neck from side to side, working out the kinks that’d formed as she’d nodded and listened to the chattering school psychologist beside her. It’d been hard to focus on the guy with the Walsh brothers just a seat behind and diagonal to her. She’d wanted to observe their interactions and begin planning therapy activities guaranteed to help Connor and her other three students to make the gains they’d need to demonstrate at the showcase.

Instead, she’d heard all about her seatmate’s IRONMAN training, something called the paleo diet, gruesome details of his various knee surgeries, his five cats (okay, that’d perked her up) and why, after spending his teenage years training to be a hypnotist-mentalist, he’d decided to use his “powers” for good as a school psychologist.

Oo-kay...

And no, she did not want to be hypnotized at this time, thank you very much, though she’d get back to him. Yes, she’d had to promise, she wouldn’t forget.

Sheesh.

After eight hours of his chain saw voice buzzing in her ear, she needed a break. Maybe even earplugs. Definitely some aspirin and a scroll through her photo library of Freud. She already missed the pup so much. Luckily, her neighbor Marcy had agreed to let him stay for the next two weeks.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rebecca saw Aiden stand to his impressive height, his dark hair nearly brushing the bus’s ceiling.

When he turned to his brother, she gave in to temptation and studied his strong profile. His short, straight nose stopped above a full mouth and strong chin, the jut of which underscored his stubborn side. Yet the tired smudges beneath his eyes, the furrow of his brow, suggested conflict and struggle, too. Something about his face, about him, appealed to the therapist in her and made her want to help him...though it wasn’t her place or her job. She was here for Connor, no matter how much his older brother snared her attention.

“So the bone was just sticking right out of my...” crowed Jeff Cringle, the man beside her.

“Let’s save that one for the campfire, okay?” Rebecca shot to her feet and shouldered her backpack. Enough was enough. Maybe Jeff could turn his “war stories” into a sing-along.

Knowing the teenagers, they’d like the gore factor, too. A win-win.

She waited for the jostling kids and weary adults from the rear of the bus to shuffle by, then looked up when an empty space appeared.

Aiden’s thick eyebrows rose over his startling hazel eyes and he nodded for her to move ahead into the aisle.

“Thanks,” she murmured. Warmth crept up her neck when her shoulder brushed his chest as she slid in front of him.

“You’re welcome.” The deep baritone of his voice rumbled by her ear.

She released a breath once she stepped into the sunshine, then gasped. Turning in a circle, she soaked in the wild beauty around her.

Living with her wealthy aunt, Rebecca had grown up surrounded by beautiful things: one-of-a-kind art pieces, music played by world-famous orchestras, elaborately plated food she’d stared at before devouring. But this untamed riot of nature robbed her lungs of air.

Tree-covered mountains surrounded the farmstead’s large clearing. Their pinnacles rose above the cloud puffs dotting the azure sky, their sides alternating between rocky cliffs and lushly forested angles. It looked as if someone had adjusted the whole world’s tint to green. Who knew there were so many shades of it? Mint, emerald, hunter, olive, kelly, teal and that fancy one that was always the last in her old crayon boxes—what was it? Chartreuse! She couldn’t come close to naming all of them, she thought, studying the sweeping tree lines and thick brush. The effect instantly released the tension in her shoulders and relaxed her tight neck.