A Margin of Lust (The Seven Deadly Sins #1)(27)

His mouth broke into a grin. "You sure?"

She nodded.

"Terrific. We're gonna make a killer team."

Gwen would have chosen another adjective.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


Gwen thumped two grocery sacks on the kitchen counter.

"What's for dinner?" Jason added three more bags to the assortment.

Gwen began sorting through foodstuffs and putting things away. "How about hot dogs?"

"For dinner?"

"I like hot dogs." Tyler, who had been busy dunking chocolate chip cookies into a glass of milk, spit crumbs across the kitchen table as he spoke.

"Gross. Don't talk with your mouth full." Jason pulled a towel from the refrigerator door and snapped it at his brother.

"Stop!" Tyler scooted sideways to avoid it.

Jason flicked the makeshift whip toward Tyler again and landed a blow on his upper arm with a loud thwack. Tyler howled in pain. Jason began twisting the dishrag for another strike. Gwen reached from behind and yanked it from his hands. "Enough."

Jason turned on her, his face set in defiant lines. She stared into his eyes until he looked at his shoes.

"Do I need to talk to your father?" she asked.

"I'm going upstairs." He mumbled something she was glad she couldn't understand and left.

Tyler sat on the window bench struggling to hold back his tears and rubbed his arm. There was only three years difference between him and Jason, but Tyler seemed much younger. It wasn't only the angelic blue eyes and blond hair that gave him the air of innocence; it was his nature. Gwen sat beside him and pulled him close. No matter how hard he fought against it, he was the sweet, sensitive one in the family.

"You okay, buddy?" she asked.

"Why is he so mean?" Tyler's voice broke.

"Teenagers are... difficult."

"No, he's really mean. A lot meaner than last year and he was a teenager then."

"Yeah, well there are these things called hormones," Gwen said.

She gazed out the kitchen window. Her eyes fell on the rusted swing set in the backyard. She remembered the Christmas Eve Art assembled it in the dark while she held a flashlight. All three of her children had a note from Santa in their stockings instructing them to go to the yard for their gift. Over the years, those swings had been transformed into rocket ships, pirate vessels, and flying carpets. They were good years. Safe years. When had life gotten so difficult?

After a subdued supper, the kids went to their rooms to do homework, and Gwen and Art settled in front of the TV. Art picked up the remote, but left it unused in his lap. "I was thinking."

Gwen waited.

"We should get out of town for a couple of days. Get away from the craziness."

"Just you and me?" She could hear the hope in her voice. It sounded pathetic.

Art looked up. "I thought we'd bring the kids. Emily's been asking to go camping."

Disappointment settled on Gwen's shoulders. He was a good father, an excellent employee, a stellar friend and coworker, but not very interested in being a husband these days.

After previewing property that morning, she'd stopped by the school to drop off the lunch Jason had left on the counter. As she was driving away, she saw Art. He and the pretty school counselor, Lorelei Tanaka, were standing on the front steps deep in conversation. So deep, he never looked up to smile or wave when she drove by. He never even saw Gwen.

The image of them so close together, her hand on his arm, gazes locked onto each other's faces rose in her mind like an unwanted ghost. She was sure it was nothing. She was being paranoid, insecure, but she closed her eyes to shield herself from it the way a child pulls the covers over their head.

Lorelei, although she had the dark hair and Asian eyes of her ancestry, had the same petite, youthful frame as Jenny, her father's second wife. And Art reminded Gwen of her father in many ways. Paul Goddard wasn't a school principal. He'd been a veterinarian before he retired, but he was the kind of veterinarian who volunteered at the local wounded, indigenous, animal shelter, did spays and neuters on a sliding scale based on income, sponsored Little League teams and never turned away a kid with a stray kitten. He was a local hero of sorts, beloved in their small town, and he'd been her hero.

She didn't blame him for leaving her and her mom, not at first. She was sure her mother had let him down somehow. She must have, or he wouldn't have run off with Jenny.

At twelve Gwen didn't understand the distinction between Jenny's thirty years and her mother's forty. Old was old. Besides, attributing a motive to her father as shallow as trying to bolster his ego by seeking the adoration of a younger woman was unthinkable.

After he married Jenny, Gwen became convinced his new wife had been the problem all along. She hated Jenny with a hatred so pure only a child could manufacture it. But it had done no good. Instead of seeing Jenny for the schemer she truly was, her father had only reprimanded Gwen for her rudeness.

One Friday afternoon she perched on the front steps outside her mother's small apartment, her pink Barbie suitcase by her side. She'd been waiting a long time. It was her Dad's weekend, and he was late. Again.

As she sat, an idea struck her. When she was small, her dad took her on his big animal rounds on Saturdays. He would introduce her to the ranchers as his assistant. He always said, "Don't let her size fool you. She's the best vet-in-training in these parts."