Summer Return by Elise K. Ackers

Author:Elise K. Ackers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin Enterprises, Australia Pty Ltd

Chapter 16

A few days passed and Dean wondered if the increasing absence of his brother was symbolic. It was a new style if it was. Maybe Ethan was weaning off them this time. Lifting up and out slowly. Better, Dean supposed, than the alternative.

It kept him up at night, thinking how his kids were going to handle it.

First their mother, then their uncle? Kids could only lose so much so fast. And they were at that age now where they would remember the hurt. Whatever occasion Ethan deigned to come back for in the future wouldn’t earn him so warm a welcome, Dean was sure.

And that photograph.

He shouldn’t have yelled at Nina. It had been fear that had pushed him to anger. He wished he could take the moment back. It had been such an innocent, lovely thing to do. He saw that now.

Standing in the garage, sweat moistening his collar, Dean shut the bonnet of the Commodore with a satisfying bark of sound. He thumped his fist on it. ‘She’ll run right now, Norm. Don’t put anything in it but unleaded, okay?’

‘Sure thing, sure thing.’

Norm was in his early eighties. And he left his common sense at home as often as his dentures. Thankfully, he was wearing his teeth today. And big Coke-bottle glasses that magnified his eyes and made them disproportionate to his face.

‘That brother of yours sure fixed up Mike Nguyen.’

Dean straightened. ‘What?’

‘Yep. Mike was floored.’

‘What do you mean, “fixed him up”?’

‘And Nick Camilleri.’

‘Norm. Norm, look at me. What do you mean?’

Norm went on as if he hadn’t heard Dean, and maybe he hadn’t. ‘He’s real good with his hands, that one. Quick, too. So what do I owe you?’

Dean rang up the invoice, got the money off Norm, and sent him on his way. Then he stood in the street and waited for someone to pass.

As luck would have it, Catherine O’Hara was taking an early lunch.

‘Cath. Looking good.’ He waved her over.

She crossed the street, holding a large sunhat to her head. Her sunglasses were purple. ‘Yeah, yeah,’ she said. ‘What do you want?’ She chuckled, and he grinned.

‘There’s rumours,’ he began.

‘I love rumours.’ She set her bag of shopping onto the footpath, readying herself for a chat.

‘What’s my brother up to?’

Her hands found her hips. Her nails were purple too. ‘Why, he’s working. Didn’t you know? Sam fixed him up with a few folks needing things done. Broken steps, window seats, storage units. He’s been knocking some furniture together, mending things. He fixed that bloody honesty box out the front of Shauna’s place for her. I was really hoping that was going to go to God this year. Those kids never whack it hard enough.’

Dean waved at an imaginary nuisance, but the irritation was in his mind. ‘He’s working?’

‘Bev wouldn’t let him start on her window seat till she’d seen his certifications. He had to get them scanned and emailed to the library, can you imagine? Mind you, for the trouble I think he upped his price.

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