SEALs of Honor: Shadow by Dale Mayer Page B

broccoli,” she said with a laugh, knowing that was a sore point with her brother. He glared at her, then dropped his hand and slowed until he was beside Swede. She watched as he asked the big man something and grinned when Swede threw his head back and laughed. Then he nodded and said, “Absolutely.”
    “That was unfair,” Shadow protested. “I don’t like broccoli much either.”
    “Well, you’re likely as big as you’re going to get by now,” she quipped. “And it’s not just broccoli he won’t eat, it’s pretty much anything green.”
    “Oh. Well, I do like spinach and kale and chard.”
    “See, all the good stuff.” Behind her Kevin chattered happily with Swede and Cooper, seemingly happy to run along beside everyone. “Thank you,” she said.
    “For what?”
    She caught his sideways glance and beamed up at him. “For not treating him any different.”
    She was lifted in his arms as he raised and lowered his shoulders in a shrug. “He isn’t any different. He’s a young boy caught up in dealings that had nothing to do with him.”
    “True enough. Same for me.”
    “You have a special relationship with him.”
    The sentence was delivered as a statement and not a question, but she couldn’t help but feel that there was a question in there anyway. “He’s alone a lot. So I try to step in.”
    “Your parents travel?
    “No,” she said shortly. “They are busy.”
    “Right.” And he fell silent.
    She hadn’t meant to shut the conversation down but what was she to do when the questions arose about how broken the relationship was between her brother and parents.
    She sighed. “Linda is father’s third wife. I’m a product of his second and my mother died of an overdose when I was little. I was raised by governesses until Father remarried. He chose another non–maternal type of woman, and I could see how Kevin was suffering. I’d moved out and he had a really hard time after that. So I stepped in to make his world a little happier when I could.” She grinned as she glanced back to see him chattering nonstop behind her to the two men. “He’s become remarkably normal in the meantime.”
    “You’ve done a good job raising him,” Shadow said quietly.
    “They raised him, I just helped to balance out the cold emptiness of living in that household. I remember it well.”
    “Your mother, was it deliberate?”
    She didn’t try to misunderstand. “I don’t know. We’ll never likely know. I was Kevin’s age. And the cold front between my parents was already nasty. If she hadn’t died, a divorce was in the immediate offing.”
    “Children are the real victims in a situation like that. It’s not easy for anyone.”
    She studied his chiseled profile, detecting something long ago that had hurt him a lot. “Did your parents’ divorce?”
    “No.” He gave her a smile completely devoid of any humor. “My father killed my mother instead.”
    *
    Shit, he hadn’t meant to say that. In fact, he wasn’t sure the last time he told anyone. It wasn’t exactly ice breaker conversation.
    And the last thing he needed was sympathy. If she showed him any pity, he’d dump her on the ground so she’d have to walk the rest of the way. Although he couldn’t, it wasn’t in him to do something like that. But…he held his breath and waited for her response.
    When it came it blew him away.
    “You know, I often wondered if that didn’t cross my father’s mind a time or two. I knew he didn’t kill her as in he didn’t force feed the pills down her throat, but I’m sure he was hoping she’d do it herself sooner than later.” By the end of her sentence, she’d lowered her voice to a husky whisper as she glanced behind them to make sure her father couldn’t hear her.
    “What happened to his first wife?” he asked curiously. If that woman had died then maybe someone should be taking a look at the senator.
    “Nothing so gruesome. They divorced and she has since remarried. I’ve met her at a