Page 16 of Bend Toward the Sun
Harry cracked open a grainy eye. Last night, it had been just before 4:00A.M.when he’d glanced at the clock on his phone. When he finally fell asleep, his subconscious was unsettled, and he dreamed of bourbon-hued eyes.
Rowan.
Groaning, he lay back on the pillow with an arm over his face.
Somehow, she’d been aloof and earnest at the same time. Effortlessly engaging, unpolished, funny. Vulnerable in ways she probably tried not to acknowledge, but shrewdly self-contained. A woman well-armored.
And Christ, she was gorgeous.
Duncan pummeled the door again. “Dude.”
“Fuckoff,” Harry growled, yanking down the zipper of his sleeping bag. When he rolled onto his side, his back and right hip screamed in protest. He had no extra weight on his already lean runner’s body. The air mattress in the otherwise empty room had lost volume in the night, leaving his ass and shoulder to hit the hardwood beneath.
Harry made a wrong turn upstairs and got lost on the way to the kitchen. After living in an L.A. condo for nearly ten years, thehouse felt mammoth inside, like a museum. The walnut floors had been refinished to their former glory, but they were creaky, giving little discordant squeaks here and there. Each room was awash in sunlight, and most were bare, with no drapes or blinds on the windows. To make the move easier, Ma and Dad had sold most of the furnishings from the house where Harry’d grown up. The result was a mostly vacant space where the loud voices and laughter of his noisy family bounced freely off the freshly primer-painted walls.
When he made it to the kitchen, Duncan was cracking a wise-ass comment to their brother Nathan. They were the bookend brothers—Nate was the oldest Brady kid by seven minutes, a fact he never let his twin, Patrick, forget. Duncan was the youngest son, and originally the only one who’d stuck around to help with the family contracting business. Patrick was a pharmacist in Philly, their brother Malcolm was a big shot author living in New York, and Arden, the youngest child and only daughter, was off at college in Ohio.
“He lives!” Duncan’s voice reverberated between the kitchen’s cream tile and high post-and-beam ceiling. “Listen, something’s wrong with the plumbing in the second-floor bathrooms, so we’re sharing the one down here, between the three of us. Be quick about your business.”
“You’re one to talk, Ducky. I heard about your forty-five-minute showers in high school,” Nate said.
“We barely had time to brush our teeth some mornings because you always took so long to jerk off,” Harry added.
Duncan speared a middle finger at them both.
Harry hopped up to sit on the edge of the kitchen countertop, and Duncan handed him a mug of coffee. Nate tossed him a roll of powdered doughnuts and a Tastykake. “Bon appétit, lad,” he said. Harry caught the doughnuts, but the Tastykake hit the floor.
“You two are trying to kill me,” Harry mumbled. He sipped the coffee and grimaced. “Duncan, did you brew this coffee with piss?”
“Kiss my ass,” Duncan growled. “This isn’t the Holiday fucking Inn.”
Duncan picked up the Tastykake, ripped open the crinkly plastic package, and ate most of it in one bite without getting a single crumb in his tidily trimmed black beard. He squinted at Harry. “What kind of breakfast do you require, Dr. House? Figs and granola and endive, or some shit like that?”
“Hey man, you pronounced ‘endive’ correctly. I’m impressed,” Harry said.
Duncan grunted. “Last woman I dated was a vegetarian,” he muttered around a mouthful of Tastykake.
They all nodded sagely, and Nate handed Harry a banana. “Family meeting is in twenty minutes, bud. At least go put a shirt on.”
THEBRADY FAMILYsat in a semicircle on the floor of the sunken den, one of the few carpeted rooms in the house. The morning was cool, so the two-story fireplace along the back wall housed a crackling fire made from wood they must have scavenged from around the property. Above the den, an open-railed mezzanine led to the hallway where the upstairs bedrooms were.
“Let’s talk about getting that vineyard into shape.” Gia Brady’s hair was cropped into a lively bob, the silky black strands threaded liberally with silver. Harry had never seen Ma’s hair cut so short, but it suited her. She wore a bright melon-colored sweater paired with a green-and-burnt-orange plaid scarf that complemented her dark skin. Her only jewelry was a simple gold wedding band.
“Maybe we should have furniture and working bathroomsbefore we start worrying about the grapevines?” said Dad. A hot mug of coffee sat poised in his big paw-like fist. Harry wondered if he’d discovered yet how awful it tasted.
Gia blinked at her husband over a pair of square-framed reading glasses, tapping a pen against a notebook. “I want as much work as possible done by hand out there, William.”
Duncan breezed in, sighing loudly as he lowered himself to the carpet. “It’s not even nine in the morning and you’re already talking business? Jesus, woman.”
Ma jabbed a pointed fingernail at him. “Do not blaspheme under my roof, Duncan Callum.”
“Harry,” Nate said, “tell us about the botanist.”
Harry sat up straighter. “Ah, what about her?”
“You’re the only one of us who has really met her. We got her résumé for the consultant job we posted in the Linden newspaper.”
“Really? Already?” That didn’t match up with what she’d told him last night at the party. Harry distractedly rubbed the pad of his thumb across his chin where she’d pressed a kiss with the tip of her finger. “Is Duncan going to give me shit if I talk about business?”