Want Me

“I wouldn’t think of it.”

“Then you learned something hanging around here all those years.”

“That your mother is generous and wants her sons to be happy? Yeah, I got that one.”

Mrs. Fitz nodded and kept on stirring what smelled like beef stew. Shannon smiled at him, patted his arm and went to the big coffee urn that took up half of the completely inadequate counter.

The house was huge, but that was mostly in height. Eight- and nine-foot ceilings, but small rooms. The old oak table where he’d eaten countless bowls of oatmeal dwarfed the breakfast nook. Even the living room barely fit the furniture. How many games he’d watched on those covered couches and chairs. He couldn’t begin to guess. Didn’t matter what season, if there was a game on anywhere on television, the Fitzgerald men were glued to it.

And there’d been snacks followed by huge dinners of meat and potatoes and enough cabbage to choke a horse. “That’s what’s missing,” he said.

Danny, who was now pouring his coffee, Shannon, who was drinking hers, and Mrs. Fitz were all staring.

“Cabbage,” he said, only then realizing he’d made a strategic error. He couldn’t very well announce that he’d missed the stink. “I’m looking forward to some nice corned beef and cabbage soon, Mrs. Fitz. I still think about it all these years later.”

“Well, you’ll have it as you’re staying more than a week,” she answered, turning back to the heavy pot. “And since we had the new exhaust put in, it doesn’t make the house smell to holy hell.”

He grinned and shook his head. This was so much better than a hotel. He should have thought of asking to stay before he’d left Indonesia.

“Danny tells me you work with refugees,” Mrs. Fitz said as she wiped her hands on a tea towel.

“Most of the time, yeah.” Large white plates were put in his hands, and Danny led him to the table carrying a bunch of silverware. “I work for The International Rescue Committee. They set my agenda.”

“Well, don’t stop.” Mrs. Fitz waved impatiently for him to continue. “Tell us what that means.”

“I show up after a natural disaster and help plan and implement redevelopment. We try to recreate villages and towns as much as we can, even if a new design would be better. It’s disorienting having everything you know ripped away in a tsunami or an earthquake. So we study old pictures, drawings and blueprints and figure out how to give people back their equilibrium first, then we add a few extras.”

Shannon wasn’t drinking even though her cup was at her mouth, and she wasn’t even standing near her mom and yet he was watching her. He found Mrs. Fitz again. “It’s challenging work, but very satisfying.”

“I can’t imagine.”

She couldn’t, Nate was sure of it. Not the conditions, not the sweat, the devastation, the utter anguish in every breath.

It was suddenly quiet, a rare thing in the Fitzgerald household, and he wished he hadn’t gone into detail. No, it wasn’t a pretty picture and better that people understood that not everyone enjoyed a comfortable middle-class life, but Shannon’s empathetic expression both pleased him and made him want to kick himself.

Mrs. Fitz finally broke the silence. “Take Nate upstairs, Shannon. He hasn’t seen the changes yet.”

“Now?” Shannon said.

“You’d rather wait and let the food get cold?”

“Come on,” she said to Nate. “I’ll give you a tour.” One hand had a death grip on her coffee mug, the other was in her robe pocket. “You’re going to love what Mom did with Danny’s room.”

“Hey,” Danny said. “He’s supposed to be helping me set the table. And my room’s a mess.”

“You’ve only been here one night,” Mrs. Fitz said. “What have you done?”

“Nothing, Ma. Nothing to worry about.”

Nate had no problem leaving Danny to finish the job by himself, and even less of a problem following Shannon up the stairs. He wanted to check out the pictures that had dotted the old ivy wallpaper, but he ended up watching the sway of her hips instead.

3

SHE’D BEEN ONE OF THOSE kids who loved the limelight, who glowed when she danced and sang and posed. Nate had been roped into attending far too many of her recitals and pageants. He’d been bored out of his gourd, but he’d gone. He and Danny had done their best to cause trouble, and they’d usually succeeded. So it hadn’t been all for nothing. But she’d never swayed like that.

Shannon led him to Danny’s old room, where Nate had spent the night hundreds of times. She grinned as she pushed the door open, and he peeked before stepping in.

“A sewing room?”

“Not just a sewing room,” Shannon said, nudging him forward. “A library, a tea room, a knitting parlor and a quiet room. Mostly a place to escape from the heathens and their games.”

“I didn’t know your mother sewed. Or knit. Or read.”

“She’s … expanding her horizons,” Shannon said, although there was more to it than that if he correctly read her raised brows.

“Has she retired?”

“Yep, she still does the books for the plant when I’m swamped, but she decided when Brady took over as manager that she was going to spend time on things that weren’t cooking or cleaning.”

Speaking of, Danny’s clothes were spread over a very comfortable-looking recliner, what probably was a daybed when it wasn’t a mess of linens, and even over the doorknob of the closet. “At least one of your brothers hasn’t changed.”

Shannon leaned toward Nate and lowered her voice, her breath warm and sweet touching his skin. “He’s actually doing really well at the advertising firm. Don’t tell him I said so, but he’s good. He’s got a gift.”

Too busy inhaling her scent, he almost missed his cue. “Okay, I must be in the wrong house. You? Saying nice things about Danny?”

“It’s probably because I don’t see him very often. Absence makes my tolerance stronger.”

“I don’t think that’s how that saying’s supposed to go.”

“It’s true, though,” she said, eyeing the pile of yarn that had been pushed to the side. “Be warned. You won’t leave here without at least a half-dozen new wool scarves.”

“I’m working in Indonesia. The average yearly temperature is eighty degrees with ninety-percent humidity.”

“As if that’ll dissuade her. Oh, and they’ll be hideous colors, too.”

“I look forward to it.”

“No, you don’t,” she said as she went back to the hallway. “But you can give them away. They are definitely warm.”

“What about your room?”

“Mine? It’s still too small.”

“I’d like to see it,” he said.

For a long stretch of barely breathing, Shannon stared at him, her lips parted. Then she moistened them, the tip of her tongue taking a nervous swipe. “Why?” she asked finally.

“Why?” Shit, he felt as if he were twelve again, caught trying to snatch a peek at Mr. Fitz’s Playboy. “I’m curious about grown-up Shannon’s natural habitat.”