Page 3 of Boy of Chaotic Making

She pulled back enough to swat him with a reticule hanging from her wrist, then embraced him again, burying her face into his chest. “I was practically grown when you left!” she objected, then started bawling into his shirt.

He blinked rapidly to control his own tears. Squeezed her tight and pressed his face into her hair, just under the rim of her hat. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, throat constricting. “I tried to reach out to you—”

“Oh, stop.” She pulled back and fished into her reticule for her handkerchief, then carefully dabbed her eyes. “Stop it right now. We all tried.” She sniffed. A tear fell free from her dark eyelashes. Quieter, she repeated, “We all tried.”

Swallowing against a lump in his throat, Merritt gestured to the door. “There’s a fire inside, and some chairs. I think I scared off the other guests.”

Beatrice laughed—or maybe sobbed—and nodded. Merritt jogged out to fetch her suitcase. Urged her to take the chair closest to the fire. She lowered into it and then pulled off her gloves and warmed her hands.

“It’s ...” He sat beside her, still stunned and at a loss for words, his pulse racing laps from his head to his feet and back. “It’s so good to see you.”

She smiled, lips pinched together, eyes watery. Reached out to his face—he leaned forward in his seat so she could touch his jaw. She flicked back his hair. “This is nonsense.” She laughed.

“I know.”

She pulled back and looked him over. “All grown up.”

Merritt grinned. “I was grown before I left.”

“Hardly!” Dabbing her eyes some more, she added, “You were barely a man. Mother, well, she caught us up on everything.” She needn’t explain what; Merritt had let the ordeal with Ebba, his old fiancée, slip, and he imagined his father had been asked to account for his actions. After all, he’d known Merritt was a bastard long before Merritt did, and he’dorchestrated the whole mess. “Regardless, Merritt ... you’re my brother. I love you. Always have, always will.”

His pulse tripped on a lap. Merritt found himself turning away, digging into his pockets for his own handkerchief. A minute passed as he found it, used it, and tried to work down that sharp ball lodged in his throat. “Thank you,” he whispered.

She beamed. “I read your book.A Pauper in the Making. You absolutely drew on our trip to Connecticut for the train scene!”

He chuckled. “I did, I did.”

“And the next one?”

Clearing his throat, Merritt folded up the handkerchief. “It releases in May. May 18. Did ... Did you like it?Pauper?”

“I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I didn’t!” Beatrice slapped his knee, and the simple gesture shot him back twenty years to their shared home in Cattlecorn. So many of her mannerisms were the same—even the way she dabbed at her eyes. “I never thought writing interested you. Did you write much before?”

“Started in my early twenties.”

“Well, you have a knack for it. A little scary for me. The book, not the knack.” She winked. “But I read it all anyway.”

His cheeks hurt from smiling. “But tell me more about your children. Bethany and Maggie. And your husband. Was ... Was it George?”

“Yes.” She grabbed the sides of her chair and scooted a little closer. “George. Our eighth wedding anniversary is coming up.” She sighed and relaxed into her seat. “Bethany is almost seven. Maggie is four. There was another, but, well, it didn’t work out.”

Strength fled his shoulders. “Bea, I’m so sorry—”

She shrugged. “It happens, Merritt. Happened with our own mother, if you remember.”

He nodded. “I ... do. I hadn’t thought about that for a while.” A stillborn, delivered two months early. Had the baby survived, Merritt would have had a younger brother, right between him and Beatrice in age.

“But the two I have keep me plenty busy!” She slapped his leg again. “But I heard a rumor—”

“Merritt?”

Both of them turned in their chairs to see a newcomer, dressed in a long wool coat, her dark hair twisted up and pinned, a small purse in her hands. Her cheeks were flushed, either from the cold or exertion, maybe both. She was tall and lean, with high boots and a red scarf.

Merritt rose from his chair, pulse picking up where it’d left off. “Scarlet.”

He crossed the room to her in a sort of trance. Beatrice was his younger sister by roughly four years; Scarlet was his older by two. His first playmate, his first defender. He still remembered her voice through the wall as Peter Fernsby tossed his things onto the lawn, yelling at him to stop it, stop it,Please, Father, stop!

When he neared, she lifted a delicate hand and touched the scarf around his neck. She let out a fluttering breath. “You kept it all these years.”

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