Razed (Barnes Brothers #2)(61)

Keelie could see it now, with the clarity that came from years—and knowledge.

Her mother was many things. Genuine wasn’t one of them.

That faint quiver of her lip, the way her eyes had widened. How she’d pressed a snowy square of linen to her lips.

A man had come around the side of the car and wrapped his arm around her and Keelie had been staggered. They were beautiful, like the Barbie and Ken dolls some of the girls she knew liked to play with. Keelie had been more prone to drawing on them or just taking them apart and putting them back together with different pieces—the Princess of Ireland doll and her red hair with the body of a doll from Africa. Arms from Asia. Legs from who knows where. Then she’d draw all over them. Crazy little pictures.

Of course, that usually ended up with her getting in trouble—usually just sweetie . . . we have to talk . . . discussions, followed by chores where she had to earn money to pay for the dolls.

Sometimes, it had led to calls to the caseworker and visits to a counselor, but for the most part, her experience in foster care hadn’t been a bad thing. She was lucky, she knew that.

All of her bad luck had started when she went to live with her mother.

“They’d come to take me home,” she murmured. “I was fourteen and I’d been living with the same family for almost two years. I liked them. They liked me. We weren’t falling apart crazy for each other, but we . . .” She shrugged, thinking of the Huxtables, how the father got up to work the farm and how, sometimes, he’d let her ride out with him in the summer. “We were happy. It was almost a fit. Then my mom showed up.”


*

Zane was almost certain nobody wore a brood quite as well as she did. With her knee drawn up to rest on the wide lip of the window’s ledge, her head resting against the window frame, she stared outside, but he knew it wasn’t the slow sprawl of the city or the sun-gilded vista of the desert she saw before her.

She was trapped somewhere back in her past.

“I’m sorry.”

Keelie swung her head around. “Why?”

“I’m making you sad. I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s okay.” She came over, sat on the edge of the bed. “I mean, hey, it’s kind of stupid, isn’t it? Girl spends years in foster care and then bam. Gets to go be with her real mom. I ought to be happy, yeah?”

He reached out, covered the hand she’d curled into a fist.

“That depends on the mom.”

Her eyes met his.

Leaning in, he cupped her chin in his hand. “My mom is wonderful. Whether she still scares me a little—”

“A lot,” Keelie cut in. She arched a brow and said, “I’ve seen you guys around her. She scares you. A lot. It’s almost cute.”

He leaned in, bit her lower lip. Since he was there, he kissed her, soft, slow, taking in the taste and just the . . . moment. The fact that he was here with her, that he could press his mouth to hers, hear the way her breath caught. Before he could lose his mind to that moment, though, he eased back. “Whether she scares me a little or not,” he said, “I know the five of us sort of hit a jackpot all around and our parents are amazing. I also know that not all parents are like that. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

“Yeah?” She lifted a brow at him, smirking. “Wait. Let me guess. You know some kids who had to actually work for their own car or something?”

He reached up and caught a hank of her hair, tugged. “Smart-ass.”

He turned away, spying a pair of jeans he’d left folded over the foot of the bed. “You got a chip on your shoulder about money, Keelie.”

“I’ve got reasons.” Her voice slid into a cool tone.

He shrugged. “I figure you think you do. But a person having money doesn’t change one simple fact . . . a person is still a person and some of them are *s, while some of them aren’t. Case in point—Zach has a pretty decent chunk of money. And under most circumstances, he’s not an *.”

He turned back to her, tried not to stare at the way she sat with the sheet draped around her. He wondered what she’d looked like in college—if she’d done toga parties or she’d just curled her lip in that obnoxious, appealing way of hers.

“I’ll grant you that.” She cocked her head.

“Now let me tell you about Abby’s mom.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the dresser, trying to decide just how much he could say here, how much he should say. A lot of this was public record. It wasn’t anything unknown. Too much of Abby’s life had been made public years ago. She had her own life now and she kept it private, but she’d clawed and fought hard to make it that way.

“Did you ever see the show they were in?” he asked.

Keelie shrugged. “Not much. It was winding down by the time I was old enough to pay attention. But I’ve caught some of the reruns. Cutesy sitcoms aren’t my thing, but they are just as adorable now as they were then as kids.” She lifted a brow. “It’s almost sickening.”

“Yeah . . . I could tell how disturbed you were with that awwww face so many women make at weddings.” He chuckled. “And some people thought there was some chance they wouldn’t end up together. So . . . since you watched a few episodes of Kate + Nate, I guess you noticed Abby’s hair when she was younger.”