Rugged Fire [Rugged Savage Valley, Colorado 4] by Edith DuBois

too close.
    “It’s okay, boys. I got her from here.”
    Lianne maneuvered and got her front door open.
    “I think I’m in love,” Jamie sighed as they stumbled into the house.
    “Whatever. I expect some friggin’ ginormous blueberry pancakes for this.”
    Waving at the Yeats twins as they stumbled off the porch, Lianne closed her front door and locked it. Trudging up the stairs to her room a few minutes later, she could hear Jamie snoring off her drunken rebellion. She shook her head, knowing Jamie would be groaning about her debauchery and blaming it all on her father in the morning, but it wasn’t long before Lianne’s annoyance faded.
    As she crawled into the bedcovers and sleep crept closer, the curl to her lips came back. She drifted off, dreaming of front-door kisses, knowing she’d be a smile machine for days.

Chapter Three
     
    “Boys, boys! Surely you don’t mean to go out?”
    Seb continued drinking his protein shake while Will answered, “Good morning, Mother. You’re up early.”
    “The sun hasn’t even risen yet, boys. Houses aren’t built so that you may leave their warmth and comfort before the dark has lifted. What sort of mad shenanigans are you two up to? I swear you get more and more like your fathers every day.” His mother shivered, and Seb felt like reaching out to her, but then she pulled her robe tighter around her frail shoulders. “Those two couldn’t stand to be off the water. Every morning it was the same. I don’t know how many times I warned them away. I thought they’d fall in. I thought they’d both suffer hypothermia and then pneumonia and then leave me here to raise you two alone. And I told them several times that all that rowing couldn’t possibly be good for their bodies. Too much strain on the shoulder and the back. Once a month, perhaps, would have been acceptable, but every morning . I never could fathom such a thing. No doubt it weakened their bodies and left them unable to battle the cancer as they should have.”
    Seb licked the shake off his upper lip and peered over at his mother. She was staring into the fridge, the yellow light casting odd shadows across her face. “Did you having trouble sleeping?” he asked.
    He’d heard this same rant countless times, and he’d heard hundreds of variants of this same rant just as many countless times. He loved his mother dearly. That was never a question. But every time she went into the subject of their fathers, he couldn’t help thinking that she was angry. Angry that she’d tied her life so completely to theirs. Angry that she could never leave Savage Valley as long as they were alive. Angry that now they were gone, she was too afraid to go on her own.
    He didn’t know what to do to help her. He tried to be patient and understanding and never get upset with her incessant worrying.
    But underneath it all, he couldn’t stop thinking that she regretted everything. Her marriage, her sons, her life, her sacrifice. What woman should be forced to live like that? How could he ever ask it? He couldn’t. He never would. Neither him nor his brother. They’d already discussed it, and each time his mother went off, he was sharply reminded of why he could never condemn a woman to a life like hers.
    “Of course not,” his mother answered. “I slept normally. I merely wanted a warm glass of milk.” She blinked her eyes, grabbed the milk carton, and bustled over to the counter, her slippers scuffling across the tile floor of the kitchen. “I see you two have your wetsuits on. Are you going to the lake?”
    “We’ll only be a couple hours. You don’t have to worry about us,” Seb said.
    “At least have a boiled egg. You can never go wrong with a hard-boiled egg, my boys. And whatever are you slurping down over there, Sebastian? Is that one of those shakes with god-knows-what in them? They are much too rich. They can’t possibly be good for the constitution on such a brisk morning as this and you planning on such