Page 36 of Lone Star

She let out a deep breath that she knew gave away any calm she was about to feign. Oh well. Let him know. She should have done this days ago.

“Hi, Uncle Charlie. I need your help.”

Knoxville

Sixteen

Because Albie wouldn’t settle on a place for his new shop, Ghost was letting him use a coned-off section of one of the big steel storage warehouses at Dartmoor to work on furniture. Judging by the sad array of half-turned table legs laid out on the work bench, he hadn’t been very productive so far.

Fox had crossed the vast concrete floor silently, setting his booted footfalls down with a deft quiet he’d mastered long ago, so he whistled to announce his arrival when he pulled up on the opposite side of the cone barricade.

Albie – perched on a stool, bent over a sketch with his brow furrowed unhappily – lifted his head, glanced around, and then got marginally unhappier when he saw who it was.

“Nope,” Fox said lightly, before his brother could speak. “You don’t get to act like I’m a stray cat turning up on your doorstep. Not when, one, this isn’t even a doorstep, and not when, two, you’re the one who got on a plane and chased me here.”

“I didn’t chaseyou.”

Fox grinned at him. “The remarkable part for you is that there was any chasing at all.”

Albie sighed and set down his pencil.

“How goes it with your lady love?”

“She’s not my – it’s fine. Things are fine,” he said, correcting hastily, jaw set.

“Really? Because I’ve heard you don’t even know how to kiss a woman after a date.”

Albie’s eyes went comically wide. He looked panicked. Then he scowled. “You bloody gossip. Who told you that?”

Fox slouched sideways and let his shoulder rest against the cool steel of the wall. “Your girl works for my girl. They talk, you know.”

Albie glared at him a moment longer – then groaned and wiped a hand along his jaw. “Fuck,” he said with great feeling. “I’m–”

“Pathetic.”

“Rusty. I’ve forgotten how to date someone properly.”

“Albert, you never knew. Tell me honestly, now: Have you ever been with anyone who wasn’t a club groupie looking for a wild night out?”

“You’re one to talk.”

“I” – Fox splayed a hand across his own chest – “never claimed to be a relationship man. You, though, have all the makings of a boring old sod with a wife and two-point-five, picket fence and all, but none of the savvy as to how to get there.”

Albie snorted. “Not a relationship? What do you call what you have with Eden?”

“A mutual understanding,” Fox said, ruthlessly shoving down the unhelpful little voice that piped up in the back of his mind. The one that was asking for things he didn’t begin to understand or recognize in himself. “And if you’re not pathetic, explain these flaccid attempts at table-making.” He gestured to the three half-formed legs resting at Albie’s elbow.

Albie glanced at them, mouth twisting with obvious disgust.

“Distracted?” Fox guessed. “Or losing your touch with wood?” He made an obscene gesture, and barked a laugh when Albie gave him two fingers in return.

“What’s wrong with you?” Albie asked, closing his sketchbook with the air of a man who’d decided he wouldn’t get any more work done. “Why are you acting like a court jester? Why are you so…happy?”

He couldn’t deny it; hewashappy. He’d gone to sleep with a smile on his face and woken up in the same condition. There was probably something wrong with him, but he’d accepted that fact a long time ago.

“Because,” he said, “I got a call last night from our lovely niece.”

“Which one?”

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