Lost Cause

“He said he was going to stay for a few days. I gave him a key to the house. But I had to go back to work, of course, and he isn’t here. I hope…” She swallowed. “I think I overwhelmed him.”

“What’s he like? Is he nicer than he sounded on the phone that time I called him?”

“I don’t know yet. He’s cautious. He rides a big, black motorcycle, and he told me he had a bad accident a few months back when he lost control on a mountain curve. He just got out of a cast last week. His hair is longish, and he’s sinfully handsome even if he is our brother…”

“You mean, since he’s our brother.”

Suzanne laughed. “Right. He has to be, doesn’t he?”

In her mercurial way, Carrie shifted gears. “Why didn’t you call me then?”

“I assumed you’d be in class. Also…he wanted to take it slow. I think the idea of two of us scared him.”

“I can see that. Wow. He sounded so…indifferent. To the point of cruelty. I thought if he ever made contact it would be years from now.”

“I know!” Suzanne heard an engine and hurried to the front of the house, only to be disappointed by a glimpse of the back of a souped-up pickup she recognized as belonging to a teenager in the next block. “He seems genuinely curious, Carrie. But also… I don’t know. I got the feeling he wishes he wasn’t.”

Her sister was silent for a moment. “Boy, do I understand that.”

They’d become so close, Suzanne sometimes almost forgot that Carrie had been less than thrilled to find out she was adopted, and had taken weeks before she was willing to talk to Suzanne. So it made sense that she, more than Suzanne, truly understood that their brother, too, felt conflicted.

“Why hasn’t he come back?” her sister asked in frustration. Carrie was more impulsive, less patient than Suzanne.

“I don’t know. I told him if he needed space not to worry, so I can’t exactly call the cops and ask them to put out an APB.”

“Suzanne…you’re sure this guy is Lucien?”

“You mean, versus some con man trying to take me for everything I’m worth?” It felt good to laugh. “I’m sure. He looks so much like Daddy, it…shook me.”

“Do you want Mark and me to come up this evening?”

Suzanne hesitated. “You, maybe,” she finally said, slowly. “Can you come?”

“The minute Mark gets home to be with Michael. He’s due any minute. Do you want me to call when I’m going out the door?”

“No, I’ll just expect you when I see you.” She paused. “Thank you, Carrie.”

“Are you kidding? I can hardly wait to meet him!”

After they’d said goodbye, Suzanne took the phone back to the kitchen, then peeked out the front window again before deciding she didn’t want Gary to catch her waiting there like some parent annoyed because he’d violated curfew. She would just…get on with her evening, she resolved. Pretend her long-lost brother hadn’t popped into her life before fleeing out of it again. Pretend she wasn’t waiting for the sound of a key in the lock with as much anxiety as that terrified parent.

Or the big sister she’d always been.

GARY EASED HIS BIKE down the street and to the curb in front of Suzanne Chauvin’s house. Dusk had come and gone, and now he was a little embarrassed that he hadn’t come back sooner. He hadn’t wanted to assume she’d feed him, so he’d grabbed a bite out, but he found himself worrying that Suzanne had plunged into an orgy of cooking, like women did, and was in there gazing sadly at too much food gone cold.

A strange car was in the driveway, a bright blue Miata, which meant his sister had company. Gary was pretty sure he knew who it was.

His anxiety had heightened the closer he got to Suzanne’s house, but he’d made up his mind to see this thing through, so he grabbed his bag and walked up to the door. There he hesitated, then rang the bell.

Suzanne came to let him in and exclaimed, “You don’t need to ring! Pretend you live here.”

“Thanks.” He stepped in with a wary glance. “You have company?”

“Carrie’s in the kitchen.” She gave him an apprehensive look. “I hope you don’t mind that I called her.”

What could he say? “No, that’s fine.”

“Why don’t you go put your bag in your room, and then come meet her. Have you eaten?”

“Yeah. I hope you hadn’t planned dinner,” he said awkwardly.

She flapped a hand. “Don’t worry. I know all of this feels strange.”

Strange? That was one way of putting it, he decided, depositing his bag on the bed in the guest room, then starting back to the kitchen.

At first glance, the two women sitting at the table looked so much alike he couldn’t have guessed which was Suzanne if he hadn’t just seen her and known what she was wearing. Two dark heads were bent toward each other, two fine-boned hands fingered wineglasses. Dinner plates were pushed to one side. From the smell, he guessed they’d had spaghetti.

He must have made a sound, because both heads lifted in unison and he found himself being inspected critically by his little sister Carrie.

Yeah, he could tell them apart after all. Her hair was curly, he saw, but more important was the challenge in her brown eyes, the tilt to her chin. Little Carrie was feistier than her sister, less inclined to trust. And to weep, thank God.

“Carrie,” he said, trying out the sound of her name.

She stood. “That’s me.”

Her gaze seemed to take in the scuffs on his boots, the deliberately relaxed way he held his hands at his sides to hide his tension, the set of his shoulders, the length of his hair. He doubted she missed a thing.

“So, you decided it wasn’t too late, after all.”

He recognized her reference to the phone call she’d made to try to persuade him to make contact with Suzanne. Far as he’d been concerned, the overture had come too late to mean jack.

But it would seem he’d been wrong.

“Getting chewed out makes a man think.”

If he’d expected her to blush, he’d miscalculated.

“Good,” she said with satisfaction.

“So you’re the baby.”

She planted one fist on her hip. “If by that you mean your baby sister, yes, I am.”

“Linette.” He sampled the taste of that name, too.

“Lucien,” she fired back.

“Let’s go with Gary.”