"Dad likes to walk in the woods." Bryan loved using that word. Dad. He tried to use it often, without making it a big deal. "Mom, too. They sure kiss a lot." He made smacking noises with his lips so Connor would laugh. "Beats me why kissing's supposed to be so damn neat. I think I'd gag if a girl tried to put her mouth on me. Disgusting."

"Revolting. Especially the tongue part."

At that, Bryan executed very realistic vomiting sounds that had both boys rolling with laughter.

"Shane's always kissing girls." Connor rolled his eyes. "I mean, always. I heard your dad say he's got an addiction."

Bryan snorted at that. "It's weird. I mean, Shane knows all there is to know about animals and machines and stuff, but he likes having girls hang around. He gets this funny look in his eye, too. Like Devin does with your mom. I figure some girls must zap some guys' brains. Like a laser beam."

"What do you mean?" Connor had gone very still.

"You know, zap!" Bryan demonstrated with a pointed finger and cocked thumb.

"No, about Sheriff MacKade, and my mom."

"Jeez, he's really stuck on her." The hot dog was thoroughly burned. Concentrating, Bryan blew on the end before biting in and filling his mouth with charcoal. "He hangs around her all the time and brings her flowers and junk. That's what my Dad did with Mom. He'd bring her flowers, and she'd go real dopey over them." He shook his head. "Screwy."

"He comes around because he's looking out for us," Connor said, but the sweet taste in his mouth had gone sour. "Because he's the sheriff."

"Sure, he looks out for you." Involved with his hot dog, Bryan didn't see the panic in his pal's eyes. "Maybe that's how he got stuck on her in the first place, but man, he's gone. I heard my mom and dad talking the other night, and Mom said how she got a kick out of seeing the big, bad sheriff—that's what she calls him—out of seeing him cow-eyed over Cassie. Cow-eyed." Bryan snickered at the term. "Hey, if they get married, we'd be cousins and blood brothers. That'd be great."

"She's not getting married." Connor's voice lashed out so fast and furious that Bryan nearly bobbled the rest of his dinner.

"Hey—"

"She's not going to marry anyone, ever again." Connor leaped to his feet, fists clenched. "You're wrong. You're making it up."

"Am not. What's your problem?"

"He comes around because he's the sheriff, and he's looking out for us. That's it. You take it back."

He might have, but the martial glint in Connor's eyes sparked one in his own. "Get real. Anybody can see Devin's got the hots for your mom."

Connor was on him like a leech, knocking Bryan back, rolling over the dirt. Surprise and panic gave him the first advantage as his fists pummeled at Bryan's ribs. But it was his first fight, and Bryan was a veteran.

Within a few sweaty moments, Bryan had Connor pinned. Both of them were scraped and filthy and breathing hard. In reflex, Bryan bloodied Connor's lip, snarling like a young wolf. "Give up?"

"No." Connor jabbed an elbow out and had Bryan granting. Into the brambles they rolled, gasping out threats and curses.

Again Bryan pinned him, and again he raised his fist. He stopped, froze. He would have sworn he heard something, something that sounded like a man dying, but it didn't sound of this world.

"You hear that?"

"Yeah." Connor didn't loosen his grip on Bryan's ripped T-shirt, but his eyes darted left and right. "It didn't sound real, though, it sounded like..."

"Ghosts." The word came through Bryan's cold lips. "Jeez, Con. They're really here. It's the two corporals."

Connor didn't move a muscle. He didn't hear it anymore, just the owls and the rustle of small animals in the brush. But he felt it, and he suddenly understood. That was what war was, he thought, stranger against stranger, brother against brother. Fighting. Killing. Dying.

And he was ashamed, because Bryan was his brother and he'd raised his fist to him. Raised his fist, he thought as tears stung his eyes, as Joe Dolin had done to Mama, and to him.

"I'm sorry." He couldn't stop the tears, just couldn't, not even when Bryan stared down at him. "I'm sorry."

"Hey, it's okay. You hit good." Uncomfortable, he patted Connor's shoulder before he levered himself to his feet. Systematically he tugged aside brambles and picked thorns out of his clothes and flesh. "You just got to work on your guard, is all."

"I don't want to fight. I hate fighting." Connor sat up and curled himself into a ball of misery.

Bryan cast around for something to say. "Man, we're a mess. You're going to have to come up with a good story for how we got our clothes torn and stuff. Maybe we could say we were attacked by wild dogs."

"That's stupid. Nobody'd believe that."

"You come up with one, Con," Bryan coaxed. "You're real good at stories."

Connor sighed, kept his head on his knees. He didn't want to lie. He hated lying as much as he did fighting. But he didn't think he could stand seeing disappointment in his mother's eyes. "We'll say we lost the baseball in the blackberry bushes and got all caught up in the thorns."

It was simple, Bryan decided. And sometimes simple was best. "How about your lip? It's going to puff up real good."

"I guess I fell down."

Bryan wiped his hands on his dirty jeans. "Does it hurt? You can put one of the soda cans on it."

"It's okay."

"Look, Con, I didn't mean anything by what I said. Nothing bad about your mom, I mean. She's great. If I thought somebody was saying something bad about my mom, I'd beat the hell out of them."

"It's okay," Connor said again. "I know you weren't."

"Well, what'd you go at me like that for?"

Calmer now, Connor rested his chin on his knees. "I thought Sheriff MacKade was coming around because he liked me."

"Well, sure he likes you."

"He's coming around for my mother. He's probably been kissing her, and maybe even more. You know?"

Bryan shrugged. "Well, since he's stuck on her..."

"Everything's been good. Everything's changed, and it's so great the way it is. We've got the apartment, and Mama's happy, and he's locked up. Now everything's going to be ruined. If she marries the sheriff, it'll ruin everything."

"Why? Devin's cool."

"I don't want a father, not ever again." Dark eyes dominated Connor's dirty, tear-streaked face. "He'll take over, and things will change back. He'll start drinking and yelling, and hitting."

"Not Devin."

"That's what happens," Connor said in a fierce whisper. "It'll all be his instead of ours, and it'll all have to be his way. And if it isn't, he'll hurt her and make her cry."

He had an image of Devin making a vow, offering his hand on it, right here in the woods. But he pushed it aside.

"That's what fathers do."

"Mine doesn't," Bryan said reasonably. "He'd never hit my mom. He yells, but she yells back. Sometimes she yells first. It's pretty cool."

"He hasn't hit her yet. She just hasn't made him mad enough."

"She makes him real mad sometimes. One time, she made him so mad I thought smoke was going to come out of his ears, like in a cartoon. He picked her right up and threw her over his shoulder."

"See."

Bryan shook his head. "He didn't hurt her. They started wrestling around on the grass, and she was yelling at him and swearing. Then they started laughing. Then they started kissing." Bryan rolled his eyes. "Man, it was embarrassing."

"If he'd really been mad—"

"I'm telling you, he was. His face gets real hard, and his eyes, too. He was really steaming."

"Did it scare you?"

"Nah." Then Bryan moved his shoulders again. "Well, maybe it does just a little, when I do something to make him really mad at me. But it's not because I think he's going to belt me or anything." Bryan let out a long breath, then shifted so that he could drape an arm over Connor's shoulders. "Look, Con, Devin's not like Joe Dolin."

"He fights."

"Yeah, but not with girls, or kids."

"What's the difference?"

Connor was about the smartest person he knew, Bryan thought, but he could be so dopey. "You just socked me, right? Are you going to go home and whip up on Emma?"

"Of course not. I'd never—" He broke off, brooding. "Maybe it's different. I have to think about it."

"Cool." Satisfied, Bryan rubbed his sore ribs. "Let's break out a soda, and you can make up a ghost story. A really gruesome one."

* * *

Because Devin had awakened early, he was up and feeding the pigs when he spotted the two boys crossing from the woods with their gear and bag of trash. He lifted a hand in greeting, then cocked a brow when he saw the scrapes, bruises and ripped shirts.

"Must have been some night," he said mildly. "Run into bears?"

Bryan chuckled and greeted the exuberant Fred and Ethel. "Nah. Wolves."

"Um-hmm..." He studied Connor's puffy lip. "Looks like you put up a hell of a battle." He started to reach out for Connor's chin, but the boy jerked back.

"We lost the baseball in the berry bushes," Connor said flatly. "We got tangled up, and I fell."

"Your mothers'll probably buy that," Devin decided. "Your dad won't," he told Bryan. "But he'll let it slide." He emptied the bucket of grain into the trough and had the pigs squealing greedily. "How'd it go otherwise?"

"It was great." Bryan stepped onto the bottom rung of the fence to watch the pigs. "We ate hot dogs and marshmallows and told ghost stories. We even heard the ghosts."

"Sounds eventful."

"Thank you for the tent," Connor said stiffly.

"No problem. Why don't you hang on to it? I imagine you'll use it again before I will."

"I don't want it," Connor said, with a lack of courtesy so out of character, Devin only stared. "I don't want anything." He dropped the tent on the ground. "I have to go." He stood for a moment, chin jerked up, waiting for Devin to show him what happened when you sassed.

But Devin only studied his face, and there was puzzlement, rather than anger, in his eyes. "Put some ice on that lip."

Shoulders stiff, Connor turned and walked quickly away, without a word to his friend.

"I'll keep the tent, Devin." Mortified, and irritated, Bryan shot Connor's back a seething look. "He doesn't mean to be a jerk."

"He's ticked at me. Do you know why?" When Bryan kept his head down, his hands in his pockets, Devin sighed. "I don't want you to break a confidence, Bry. If I've done something to hurt Connor, I'd like to make it right."

"I guess it's my fault." Miserable, Bryan scuffed his shoe in the dirt. "I said something about how you were stuck on his mom, and he went nutso."

Devin rubbed a hand over his suddenly tensed neck. "Is that what you fought about?" No answer again, and Devin nodded. "Okay. Thanks for telling me."

"Devin." Loyalty had never been a problem for Bryan before. Now he felt himself tugged in different directions. "It's just—he's just scared. I mean, Con's not a wimp or anything, but he's scared that if you have, you know, like a thing going with Mrs. Dolin, things'll be like they were. Before, you know. He's got it stuck in his mind that you'd start punching out on his mom the way that bastard—I mean the way Joe Dolin did." Bryan looked around, but Connor had already disappeared into the woods. "I tried to tell him he was off, but I guess he didn't really believe me."

"Okay. I got it."

"He'll probably hate me for telling you."

"No, he won't. You did right, Bryan. You're a good friend."

"You're not mad at him, are you, for talking back?"

"No, I'm not mad at him. You know how Jared feels about you, Bryan?"

Pleasure and embarrassment mixed, tinted his cheeks. "Yeah."

"I feel pretty much the same way about Con, and Emma. I just have to give him time to get used to it."

She'd tried not to worry. Really she had. But when she looked out the window and saw Connor crossing toward the inn, the relief was huge. Cassie set aside the flour she'd taken out for pancakes and went to the kitchen door of the inn.

"I'm down here, Connor. Did you have—" She saw the bruised face, the torn clothes, and her heart froze in her chest. She was outside like a bullet, terror seeping out of every pore. "What happened? Oh, baby, who hurt you? Let me—"

"I'm all right." Still seething, Connor jerked away from her. The look he aimed at her was one she'd never seen from him before. It was filled with fury and disdain. "I'm just fine. Isn't that what you always told me after he hit you? I fell down, I slipped. I walked into the damn door."