Edge (Gentry Boys #7) Read online

  By the time the girls were finished showering Evie with greetings her pale blue dress was covered in splotches of water and even a few spots of dirt. She didn’t seem to mind. She looked me over thoughtfully.

  “Don’t even tell me you came to the hottest party of the year without a date,” she said.

  “No date. Looks like I’ll be in the bachelor’s corner with Angus The Dog.”

  “Hmm. So what’s the deal, Con? No women in your life?”

  “I have plenty of women in my life.”

  “I meant the kind you’re willing to keep company with for more than two hours.”

  I tried to glare. “You can be painfully nosy, Evie.”

  She snorted. “Get used to it. I plan to play the part of nagging sister-in-law to perfection.”

  Just then Saylor, Cord’s wife, came out of the house, her arms loaded with a giant fruit tray. She took in the sight of the kids and the dog and the spreading puddles of water that were quickly turning to mud and her mouth fell right open. I couldn’t really blame her. In spite of my best efforts we’d managed to turn this corner of the yard into a soggy disaster. Saylor set the tray down on a nearby table and put her hands on her hips. Automatically I felt myself cringing like I was in grade school and about to be sent to detention.

  Saylor just shook her head and laughed though.

  Evie bounded right over to her, squealing, “Thank you my precious angel, THANK YOU for the party!”

  About two seconds later there were people everywhere, as if the gates of Disneyland had just opened. Well, that was probably an exaggeration. Crowds didn’t usually bug me, but then again I wasn’t usually making an effort to be on my best behavior so I didn’t often worry about who was around. I saw a few people I didn’t know and assumed they were friends of either Evie or Stone. Then I saw Creed and Chase accompanied by their wives and boisterous children, most of whom spotted the dog in the pool and made a beeline for us.

  “Conway!” called Saylor as she arranged food trays on a long table. “Do me a huge favor and make sure none of the kids manage to climb into the pool, okay?”

  “Sure,” I shouted back even though I understood a promise like that was probably as feasible as holding a cup of sand in my palm for an hour.

  Around me kids of all sizes jockeyed for positions around the little plastic pool while the puppy leapt to and fro in ecstatic glory over so much attention. Cord’s twins were the oldest and tried to maintain some order but gave up when two of their cousins stuck their heads in the water and then popped up to spit sprinkler-style at the other kids.

  “Knock it off,” I said in my best imitation of a parental voice. I was cracking up on the inside though. I remembered doing the same thing with Stone when we were that age.

  One of the boys who had been spitting, Chase’s son, peered up at me with defiant blue eyes.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “You know who he is, Derek,” said Cami in a withering voice.

  Derek gave me a grin that seemed rather devilish for a six year old. “Are you him?” he asked.

  “Who?”

  “The bad Gentry.”

  I hunkered down to his level and looked him in the eye.

  “Maybe,” I whispered in an ominous voice.

  This kid was awesome though. He just laughed.

  Somehow there was a pink baby doll floating around in the pool. Angus The Dog decided it must be his new toy and started chewing away on its arm. A tiny red-haired girl didn’t agree. She started wailing.

  “My baby!” she sobbed.

  “Kellan!” shouted one of the older girls. “Why’d you throw her doll in?”

  Kellan, one of Chase’s other boys, stood up and blinked at me with four year old boldness. “I didn’t do nothin’!”

  “Angus The Dog, don’t eat it!”

  “My baby!” howled the red-haired girl again, futilely reaching out with her dimpled little hands.

  “Hold on, kid.” I gently pulled the girl away from the edge because she was reaching so far over I was afraid she would fall in.

  Angus The Dog had released the doll. The thing floated on the far side of the pool and I thought I could scoop it out easily. I was wrong. The instant I had my hand around a rubbery arm the dog let out a playful growl and chomped down on a plastic leg, yanking it away with a surprisingly strong shake of his head. It was enough to cost me my balance and send me toppling over. I didn’t get completely immersed but my shirt suffered a pretty good soaking. At least I managed to pull the doll away from the dog in the process.

  “Here you go,” I said, handing it over to the little girl. The kid looked like her mom, Deck’s wife. I tried to remember her name.

  “Thank you,” she said, only it kind of sounded like ‘Dank you’. She gazed at me with grateful eyes as she clutched her baby doll and then scampered away. Isabella. That was her name.

  I gave up trying to brush the water off my shirt and whipped it over my head so I could wring it out.

  “All right, kids,” I grumbled, “How about we find some fun elsewhere for a little while? I think Uncle Conway’s had enough of the pool for now.”

  Derek looked at me curiously. “But you’re not really our uncle, are you?”

  “Figure of speech,” I stammered, wondering it was really a subconscious slip of the tongue. Aside from Deck’s little girl, all the kids surrounding the pool were actually my nieces and nephews. They just didn’t know it. But then again, neither did their fathers.

  Cami spoke up with an air of self-importance. “Conway is our dad’s cousin. Just like we are all cousins.”

  “That’s right,” I said and hoped that was the end of the family ties discussion. I assessed the condition of the pool, which had grown astonishingly muddy in a very short period of time. With one arm I lifted the jittery Angus The Dog and set him on the ground. “Why don’t one of you kids run inside and grab a towel to dry him off?”

  Both Cami and Cassie sprinted for the back door while the other children drifted over to a toy-filled sandbox in the opposite corner. While I’d been busy playing babysitter and pet entertainer the party had officially started. Some of the guests I was blood related to, some I vaguely recognized as being in Evie and Stone’s social circle and some I’d never seen before.

  A pair of pretty young women wearing expensive jewelry sipped drinks and smiled at me flirtatiously. I gave them a polite nod and that’s all. Not that they weren’t hot. Under the right circumstances I would tear that shit up. But if I wanted to bone away I knew where to find plenty of bargains. This was my brother’s engagement party.

  All of a sudden there he was. Stone and I locked eyes and for a jarring moment I felt like I’d shot backwards in time to another day, nearly two years ago. It had been here, in this very backyard, when my brother and I first set eyes on each other after four long years of being estranged. I didn’t like to think about those years much and I was guessing he didn’t either. I’d never visited Stone in prison, never answered his letters. That might make me sound like the worst kind of bastard but I had reasons that made sense to me at the time. I thought he had betrayed me. By the time I found out otherwise things were different. I was different. I figured the best favor I could do for my brother, my best friend, was to stay away so he didn’t get sucked into the grim, violent vortex that my life had become.

  I should have known the end could never be that simple, not between two brothers who had once been everything to each other. I should have realized that Stone wouldn’t let me go so easily, no matter how hard I pushed him away.

  Stone’s face broke into a wide grin and several long strides later he was standing right in front of me. Impulsively I grabbed him in a hug and he flinched with shock for a second. After all I was a well known badass these days, not the happy hugger type. Then with a short laugh my brother hugged me back.

  He stepped back and clapped a hand on my shoulder, scrutinizing me. “What’s up, little brother? Are times so tough y
ou’re running out of wardrobe options?”

  “Huh?” I glanced down and realized I’d forgotten to put my shirt back on. “Damn.”

  Stone was amused. “Did you arrive in that condition or were you subject to a strip search?”

  What the hell had I done with my damn shirt anyway? I remembered squeezing the water out of it and then I might have flung it onto a tree branch yet when I looked over at the area where I’d been managing the aquatics I didn’t see anything that looked like abandoned clothing.

  “Give me a break,” I grumbled, “I was doing a good deed.”

  Stone jerked his head in the direction of the two women who had been eyeing me a moment earlier. “I see a few of the ladies are enjoying your sacrifice.”

  “Yeah, I saw them. Who are they anyway?”

  “Friends of Evie’s.” He raised an eyebrow. “Want me to introduce you?”

  I shifted uneasily. Stone was well aware of my scandalous history with women and he was trying to show me that he trusted I would be a gentleman. The problem was I knew how this could end up and a dirty fuck with some classy stranger sounded way too appealing. Stone might trust me but I didn’t completely trust myself.

  For some reason Roslyn’s face flashed across my mind. An age old hunger stirred inside of me. Ever since that awkward encounter last night I’d been going back and forth between trying forget I’d ever seen her to wishing I hadn’t acted like such a prick.

  “Better not,” I finally told my brother and he looked at me curiously.

  Luckily I was saved from the task of explaining anything because the Gentry twins, Cami and Cassie, were back.

  “Mommy said to give you these,” said Cami, handing me a folded towel while her sister quietly offered a clean shirt.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Cami nodded. “She put your disgusting, wet shirt in the wash.” Then she beamed. “Hi, Stone!”

  “We were just looking at Evie’s ring!” exclaimed Cassie, bouncing on her toes. “Did you get down on one knee when you proposed? Was she surprised?”

  “Did she say yes right away?” Cami demanded to know.

  “Of course she did,” said Cassie, with an indignant frown. “She did, didn’t she?”

  “She did,” confirmed Stone, smiling down at the two girls. Then he adopted a serious look and dropped theatrically to one knee, shifting to a solemn tone. “And I told her she had just made me the happiest man on earth.”

  “Wow,” breathed Cassie. “I hope someday a man says something just like that to me.”

  “Gross,” Cami groaned, rolling her eyes at such sentimental hogwash. I laughed. That little girl was a trip.

  “You shut up,” Cassie snapped at her sister. “You think I don’t see you making out with that Justin Bieber poster on your closet door every chance you get?”

  Cami’s face reddened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes you do. You even say his name in your sleep.”

  “Liar!”

  “Bieber lover!”

  The girls seemed on the verge of coming to blows and I wouldn’t know what to do if that happened so I was glad when their father appeared and told them to help bring some of the food out.

  Stone stood back up and whistled. “A few more years and Cordero’s going to have his hands full with those two.”

  I pulled the shirt over my head. It was a simple dark blue polo that must belong to the man of the house. “I wouldn’t worry about Cord’s girls. I’d worry more about any poor, lovesick boy who dares to ring the doorbell.”

  Chase found us a few seconds later. He had his youngest son, a strapping blonde toddler, by the hand, however the boy kept trying to shake free of his father’s grip and escape. Chase managed to corral the boy while regaling us with tales from the front lines of an American high school. He was a dedicated teacher, a loving husband and father and altogether pretty high on the list of my favorite people. Eventually his pretty wife, Stephanie, came by to say hello and scoop up the baby.

  “Does he need to be changed?” she asked her husband.

  “Nah, he’s fine.” Chase said.

  Stephanie lifted the boy and sniffed, making a face. “Survey says otherwise.”

  “Want me to take care of it?”

  “I got him. Can you see what the other rug rats are up to though? It looks like they’ve dug up part of Cord’s irrigation system.”

  Chase gave us a wry wave as he set out to distract his other offspring from vandalizing his brother’s property. He also gave his wife a quick kiss on the cheek before she carried the toddler away. She smiled at him. Somewhere deep inside my chest, in a place that I didn’t acknowledge very often, a dull pang surfaced and then faded. I realized I envied them, all these happy couples.

  “You okay, man?” Stone asked me. I wondered what kind of expression had crossed my face because my brother was looking at me somewhat worriedly. Even after all this time, after all the years we’d spent apart, after all the ways we’d changed from the boys we had been, he still knew me better than anyone.

  “Absolutely,” I told him and then nodded at the approaching figure. “By the way, here comes your bride.”

  Evie bounced right into Stone’s arms and I squashed the brief surge of jealousy. Every one of these men deserved their incredible women. I was alone because I’d made sure of it. Besides, it had been so long since I was in any kind of relationship I probably didn’t have it in me anymore.

  None of this would ever be said out loud, not even to Stone.

  Instead of brooding and reminiscing, I made an effort to be gracious and cheerful as I wandered through the crowd, pausing to chat with people I knew and then politely greeting those I didn’t. Saylor and Cord had outdone themselves with the party preparations and the atmosphere was full of boisterous fun and celebration. When Creed’s wife, Truly, stood on the picnic table to give a rousing, southern-accented tribute to the happy couple I raised my cup and drank to honor them along with everyone else.

  The sun was beginning to set when Deck Gentry found me. “You avoiding me, hero?”

  I bumped knuckles with him and chuckled. “Not lately.”

  He stared at me and then grinned.

  We had something of a checkered past, Deck and me. After everything had gone to shit in Emblem my own mother had tossed me out like spoiled meat. I was seventeen and full of bitter fury yet Deck and Jenny had taken me into their home and tried to steer me toward a normal life. I’d thanked them for their efforts by getting into a hundred different kinds of trouble and then storming out. Even though Deck had long since forgiven me I still knew I had a lot of making up to do.

  “What’s with the hero jab, though?” I asked.

  Deck clucked his tongue, still grinning. “My daughter seems to think you saved her precious baby from the jaws of death.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, from the jaws of a puppy at any rate.”

  “That still makes you a hero in the eyes of a little girl. And since the little girl has me wrapped around her pinky finger, I guess that makes you my hero too.” He started whistling that old song, Wind Beneath My Wings so I knew he was messing with me.

  I let him bust my chops for another few minutes but when he casually tried to switch topics to the people we knew in common I clammed up. Deck had once been a force to be reckoned with and in a big way he still was but he’d long ago opted out of the wild life.

  Still, I knew what he was doing. He was trying to get a feel for how much trouble I was invested in these days. That wasn’t his problem and anyway aside from street racing and numbers rackets I’d been laying low lately. I’d seen too many boys sent away for double digit years for the crime of dealing in more hardcore stuff. I’d suffered through a few jail visits myself and that was enough to make me realize I didn’t want to make it a permanent lifestyle.

  It wasn’t quite enough to make me go legit though.

  Deck knew when to back off and when he realized he wasn’t going to get any
where on the subject tonight he stopped trying and made me promise to stick my head into his tattoo shop soon and say hello.

  “By the way,” he said, “you talk to Creed at all tonight?”

  Actually I’d barely talked to Creed in years. There was nothing specific that had ever gone down between us but Creedence Gentry was a pillar of stoic honor and I sensed that he still didn’t quite trust me after all the crap I’d pulled, all the trouble I’d gotten into. The Gentrys all had committed their fair share of trouble in their youth but they were solid, law abiding guys now. They had a lot to protect. I understood. I wanted to protect them too. So I never pushed Creed, who might have felt like he needed to offer me much more than a cool nod at family gatherings if he knew the truth, if he knew that we were actually brothers.

  “We haven’t run into each other,” I said carefully.

  It was getting late at this point for the family oriented crowd and people were starting to leave. Stone and Evie were busy hugging their guests goodbye while Deck scanned the yard, wondering aloud where his wife had gone.

  “You looking for Jen?” Saylor called. “Izzy was getting kind of tired so I told Jen she could lay her down on one of the girls’ beds.” She pointed at me. “As for you Conway, don’t you dare try to escape without saying goodbye.”

  “Well,” said Deck, “I better go hunt down my girls. Make no mistake though, I will remember your promise and I’ll be expecting a visit.”

  “You got it,” I said.

  Now that the party was winding down I decided to make myself useful and help clean up.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Cord said when he spotted me piling paper plates into a black garbage bag.

  “I don’t mind,” I said and tied up the top of the bag.

  “Well, in that case how about helping me move that bitch of a cast iron table back to the patio?”

  I helped move the table. I helped fold up the chairs. Cord’s girls started untying all the balloons and batting them across the yard. I figured they’d been waiting all day for the chance to do that. Someone must have decided to keep Angus The Dog indoors for the last few hours but now he came bounding outside like a hairy cannon ball.