Don't Tell (8 page)

Surprise took an upward surge as he pulled into his driveway, finding a classic T-bird taking up more than half the width.

„David,“ he muttered, joy and annoyance competing. He parked his car as far to the left of the T-bird as he could, ending up partially on the snow-covered grass. The recent spring thaw teased, leaving piles of slushy ice in its wake. He’d have a shoe full of slush before he got into the house. But joy won out. David was here. And Max had missed him.

Max found the door unlocked and the sizzle and aroma of stir-fry met his ears and nose. He dropped his briefcase on the hardwood floor of the foyer and hung his overcoat on one of the pegs Grandpa Hunter had hammered into the wall sixty years ago. He’d finally come home.

„David!“

„In the kitchen.“

Max let his nose lead the way and found his brother dramatically shaking vegetables in a large wok over the gas stove. David looked up with a grin and the years seemed to melt away. „About time you got home.“ He dropped the long handle of the wok to fold Max in a bear hug. The seconds ticked as the brothers held tight in a true embrace. Similar in size and weight, they’d made a formidable pair, once upon a time. And despite the two years separating them, they’d always been a pair. With a last hard squeeze, David let go first and turned back to his cooking.

Max looked over David’s shoulder at the sizzling vegetables. „How long have you been here?“

„Since me and Ma finished your grocery shopping three hours ago.“ David rolled his eyes to the ceiling as if praying for patience and Max laughed. „Your cabinets are officially stocked.“

„Better you than me.“ Max’s heart softened. „She went to a lot of trouble for me.“

„She’s glad to have you home. Finally.“ David did something magical with his wrist and all the vegetables took a dangerous slide, miraculously ending up back in the wok.

Max took a fond look around him. The kitchen was garish and old, enormous goldenrod and lime vegetables adorning the walls. Grandma Hunter hung the wallpaper when Max was a boy and he’d hated it as much then as he did now. But it was as much a part of this place as the horseshoe hung over the door and the antique table and cane-backed chairs. Ma called them antiques. Grandma had just called them old.

„I’m glad to be home. That smells good.“

David smirked. „I thought you had a dinner meeting.“

„Appetizers.“ It had been a steak, but… well, that had been hours before.

With a flourish, David served, then joined him at the old table. „Sit and enjoy. You got some calls while you were gone.“

Max’s back tightened against the cane-backed chair. „Who?“

„Your realtor in Denver. You got an offer on your condo, a good one. I told her to take it.“

Max’s eyes widened in shocked disbelief. „You told her what?“

David chuckled. „You’re still so easy, Max. I told her I’d give you the message. But you should take it; it’s a great offer.“ He paused. „Then somebody named Ed called.“

„And?“ Ed was the one friend he’d made in the years he’d lived in Denver.

David bit his lip, hesitating. „He said the wedding went off without a hitch.“

Max drew a deep breath, then let it out as a sigh. „Well, I guess that’s that.“

David set his fork down and propped his chin on his fists, elbows on the table. „Max, what happened?“

Max eyed his brother warily, then all resistance melted at the caring look in the gray eyes, so like his own. „Her name was Elise. We dated for two years, I asked her to marry me, she accepted, then backed out six months ago saying she’d met someone ‘more compatible.’“ It was impossible to keep the bitterness from his voice. „That was her wedding that went off without a hitch.“

David blinked once. „Well, that was concise.“

„Yeah, well, that’s the meat of it“

David’s fists lowered to the table in one controlled savage motion, sending the silverware bouncing. „You mean to tell me you were engaged and you never told us about her? You never once brought her home to meet us? Even Ma? For two years?“ His voice rose on each question, so by the last one he Was close to shouting.

Max winced. „Something like that.“

David shook his head, his expression stunned. „Why the hell not?“

Why not? „I don’t know. Maybe because I knew you wouldn’t like her.“

David visibly forced himself to calm down. „And why would you think something like that?“

Max pushed the food around on his plate. For all his hunger a few minutes before, he’d lost his appetite.

„Because you wouldn’t have.“ He shrugged, shifting uncomfortably under his brother’s steady gaze. „She wasn’t---

like us.“

„What, she was like… Protestant?“

Max snorted a chuckle, unprepared for David’s wry humor. „No, actually she wasn’t anything. An agnostic. But that wasn’t it. Elise was… She was… Dammit, Dave, every way I start to say it makes it sound like I was ashamed of you, and that wasn’t it.“

„So say it and let me judge.“

Max took a bite and contemplated his answer as he chewed and swallowed. „Elise was uptown. She was sophisticated and dramatic. She was an actress.“

„No! Say it isn’t so!“ David drew back in mock horror, crossing himself.

Max frowned. „You don’t have to be so sarcastic. I’m trying very hard here.“

„Sorry.“ David rose and got two beers from the refrigerator and a bottle opener from the drawer. „Here. Peace offering.“

„Okay.“ Max took the bottle, still frowning.

„So, how did you meet Miss Uptown Gir-irl?“ David gestured with his bottle, singing the last two words of the Billy Joel song.

David was making him feel better despite himself. He’d always been able to do that. „She had a part in a local production of Richard the Third and she came to me to do some research. I don’t know, Dave. I was fascinated. She was different than any of the women I’d seen over the years.“

„How so?“

„She was… incredibly beautiful.“

„You never picked out any other kind, Max.“

„That was true before.“

The bottle hit the table with a thud. „No way in hell am I hearing this again. You’re not going to tell me that you haven’t been able to attract a single beautiful woman in twelve friggin’ years?“

Max’s eyes narrowed. None that stuck around long enough after seeing his scars to become anyone special. „Something like that.“

„Dammit, Max! All that half-a-man stuff was bullshit years ago and it’s bullshit now.“

„No, David, it’s not.“

„You lost the wheelchair before you even went to Denver. I ought to know – I roomed with you in Boston every damn year just to kick your ass to rehab.“

„And I’m grateful for that.“ Max was more than grateful. He was forever indebted to David for giving up four years of his twenties to bully him back to almost full mobility. He could walk on his own two feet because of David. How could he ever begin to repay that?

David crossed his arms over his chest. „I hate it when you use that tone of voice.“

Max raised a brow. „What tone of voice?“ he asked quietly.

David muttered an explicit curse. „That tone of voice. The one that says ‘Don’t touch me.’ Don’t you understand anything at all? I don’t want your fucking gratitude, Max. I never did.“

Max felt his own hackles rising. „Then what do you want?“

David pushed back from the table and began to clean the kitchen, looking for anything on which he could vent his anger. One of Grandma Hunter’s plates shattered as he threw it against the old porcelain sink. „I want you to talk to me.“ He turned and faced his brother, anguish plain on his face. „I want my brother back.“

The heartfelt plea struck deeper than any other words could. Max’s eyes slid shut and he felt emotion thicken in his throat. „I’m back, Dave.“

„Your body is back, Max. I want you“ Incredibly, David’s voice broke. „I missed you.“ He swallowed hard, fighting the tears. „I love you. We all do. Come home, Max.“

Max’s shoulders sagged as he dropped his face into his hands. How could he have hurt the people he loved the most this way? „I never told Elise.“

David knelt on the cold linoleum and pulled Max’s hands from his face. „You never told her about the accident? About the wheelchair? Why the hell not?“

Max’s laugh was strangled and coarse. „Because I’m a… what did you used to call me?“

„A self-pitying sonofabitch.“

„Yeah. That’s what I was.“

„So you could never bring her home, because she’d hear it from one of us.“

„Something like that.“

„Max.“ Compassion mixed with disgust.

„I know.“

„No, you don’t. Ma thinks you’re ashamed of her.“

Max looked up, his expression fierce. „I never once felt that.“

„Then why have you stayed away so long, Max? Why did you move clear across the country? And don’t say because of the job. You could have gotten a position at any university in Chicago. And why when you came home were you always so… remote?“

Max looked away. „Lots of questions.“

„You come up in conversation occasionally,“ David replied dryly.

„And what’s the verdict?“ Max heard the sneer in his own voice, but could no more have exorcised it than he could have competed in a 5K race. Not anymore anyway.

David rocked back to sit on his heels. „Guilty. We think you feel guilty. For Pop.“

„That has got to be the most ridic – “ He broke off as David raised a brow knowingly. Damn David for being so intuitive.

„It’s stupid to feel guilty after all this time, Max.“

Max looked down at David, still on his knees. „I guess I owe you guys an explanation.“

David just shrugged at that. „So why did your Elise marry someone else?“

Max bit his lip and chose to ignore Elise’s most obvious reason. „She said she needed someone with more… pizzazz.“

„She said ‘pizzazz?’“ David’s laugh came rolling from his belly. „I didn’t think that uptown people were allowed to use that word.“

„You think you’re so brilliant.“ But Max couldn’t quite pull off the scorn he’d been trying for as his own lips were twitching. David was so good at making him laugh.

„I picked up a few things at Harvard.“

„Maybe a few nurses at the rehab center.“

„I had to have something to fill the lonely hours you were in class.“

„You’re a big jerk.“

„Ooh, tough guy.“

Max sobered. „She said I wasn’t spontaneous enough for her.“

„Well, that’s true enough.“

Max’s brows bunched under his frown. „Excuse me?“

„You’re not spontaneous, Max. Face it. You think too damn much.“ David rose and dusted off his knees. „I have to go now. I have three engines to work on tomorrow.“

Max pulled himself to his feet, wincing as the ever-present pain seared his hip. „How’s the business coming?“ David had started his own garage with his share of Grandma Hunter’s inheritance.

„We pulled a profit last year. Finally.“ David busied himself with his gloves and coat. „Oh, you had one other message. Somebody named Caroline.“

Max’s heart jumped. „My secretary.“

David waggled his brows. „Oh, really?“

„Shut up. What did she say?“

David grinned. „Only that she’d arranged for the moving service to pick up your things. Somebody’s coming for them tomorrow and she wanted to be sure someone would be home.“

„She works fast.“ Her face appeared in Max’s mind’s eye, her blue eyes laughing up at him while her dimple deepened. Then his mind’s eye drifted lower, remembering the way she’d filled out that blue sweater. Oh, man. He’d bet his subconscious was busily concocting some interesting fantasies to populate his dreams tonight.

„Oh?“

Max frowned. „Get your mind out of the gutter.“ Which is exactly where his own mind had been headed. „She is a perfectly delightful young woman with a son.“

„And a husband?“

„No. She doesn’t have one of those.“

„And you’re going to be spontaneous?“

Damn, Dave was good at reading his mind. „I was considering it.“

David barked a laugh and moved to the front door. „Only you would consider being spontaneous, Max. Only you. I’d like to meet this Caroline in person.“

Max felt a surge of jealousy stab his heart, so sudden it shocked him. He didn’t even want to think of David looking at Caroline, much less meeting her. „Don’t – “ He cut the command off mid-sentence, but the single angry word echoed and the rest of the sentence hung suspended between them. Don’t you dare. Unmistakable hurt filled David’s eyes and Max suddenly felt lower than dirt.

„I said I’d like to meet her, Max, not run off to Tahiti with her. I can get women all on my own. I don’t need to steal yours,“ he added quietly. He pulled the front door open and Max winced, more from the frost on his brother’s face than the cold air that rushed to fill the entry way.

Max made it to the door in time to clasp his brother’s shoulder. „David. I’m sorry.“

„Yeah.“ David’s single word was filled with harsh rebuke.

„Please. Can you turn around and look at me?“ Max waited until David turned, but found he couldn’t meet his brother’s hurt eyes after all. Max dropped his gaze to the hand that held his cane so tightly that his knuckles were white. „I’m sorry. I…“ He shook his head and turned away. „Thank you for dinner.“ And even Max could hear himself use the tone David so despised. He waited, expecting the door to slam shut. But it didn’t.

Instead, David’s hand clasped his shoulder. „What happened, Max?“ he asked softly. „What happened to make you think I could ever hurt you?“

Max dropped his head, abruptly and utterly exhausted. And then the words came. As if he could have stopped them had he tried. „She couldn’t stand to look at me. Elise. Couldn’t bear it when other people looked at me with…“ He let the thought trail, the silence heavier than the word would have been.

David said nothing, just squeezed his shoulder hard.

„She said she wanted a normal man.“

There. It was out. Finally. It echoed in his mind. Normal.

Normal. What that joker she married in Denver was. What he wasn’t.

A long beat of silence followed. Then David cleared his throat.

„Good for her. You’re not normal.“

Max’s throat closed. Tears stung his eyes for the first time in more years than he could remember. It was amazing, truly amazing the difference made when the exact same words were uttered with different intent. When Elise had said them they were heartless and cold, devastating him. When David said them they formed a warm blanket, embracing him. Devastating him.