The Kincaids by Matt Braun

Author:Matt Braun
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2011-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

Julia Webb was a striking young woman. She had auburn hair, eyes green as clover, and a sumptuous figure. Her face lacked classic beauty—sprinkled with freckles, full lips, and an impudent nose—but it was an attractive face, warm and inviting; somehow unflawed despite its imperfections. She had remarkably even teeth, as if filed level with a fine rasp, and when she smiled there was a great pearly flash not unlike rows of cubed dice. By turn she could be charming and spoiled, affectionate and aloof, and she generally left men less bedazzled than stunned. An evening in her company was an ordeal to some, a vivid experience to others; she was either a bewitching creature or a tart-tongued bitch. And according to those who knew her best, she might well be both.

Tonight she hadn’t quite made up her mind. She felt bitchy as a wet cat, but reason told her that the situation called for understanding, larded with affection and gobs of sympathy. Since Owen’s twenty-first birthday, nearly six months past, she had waited for him to propose. And she was still waiting, only now a new and wholly unexpected complication had arisen. The big ninny had gone and got himself a badge. Like some feckless, overgrown juvenile chasing fireflies and stardust, and never a thought for tomorrow.

When he’d first blurted it out her freckles turned hot as live coals, and she put both hands to her head as though it would burst if she didn’t hold it together. She felt betrayed, stung beyond forbearance, mortified by the insipid looks she would face from her friends. Then, even as a sharp rebuff formed on the tip of her tongue, she heard something in his voice, and she listened closer. He was grievously upset, wracked with doubt and guilt, clearly devastated by the session with his father. As he told it, the meeting had been little more than a collision of wills. But it was apparent that his threat to leave Guthrie was more than the old man could bear. And while Julia absolutely loathed the elder Kincaid, she sensed that his anguish might easily reinforce her own desire in this matter.

A spectator of sorts, listening to a verbal account of the fight, she was perhaps more objective than Owen. Pride was at issue here, pride and the stubborn refusal to back down once a stand was taken. More than blood ties, it involved the kinship of strong men who each saw something of himself mirrored in the other, and the clash had been inevitable. Owen had every reason to make the break (the affair with Brad had been merely a catalyst); if none had presented itself he would eventually have invented one. The curious part was that he had yet to realize his own strength of character, and that this alone had precipitated the fight. Perhaps of equal significance, he had something his father lacked—a conscience. And if handled deftly, she might, in time, work this to her own advantage.

They

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