Shelter Me by Catherine Mann Page B

family didn’t have enough grief on their plate. Guilt tugged at him, over being here, over being alive when the man they needed so badly wasn’t. He wanted to help them, but at the same time being around Sierra was torture—for both of them.
    Birds chirped along with the barking dogs as Mike just shoveled another bite into his mouth. Joshua dumped more hot sauce on his chili and still seemed to like the meal fine. Distant traffic rumbled, everything but voices filling the awkward silence.
    Nathan looked up from his lunch, the snake’s head rising in sync with him. “Mike, you should move into our new studio apartment in the barn loft. It’s clean. And there’s no risk of hookers or gonorrhea.”

Four
    S IERRA COULDN’T DECIDE who she wanted to kick first—her brother for making the absurd offer or Mike for looking so horrified at the notion of living in her family’s studio apartment. Fine. He didn’t want to be around her anymore. He didn’t have to be so overt about it.
    To be frank, she wasn’t turning cartwheels over the notion of having him in her face—and in her apartment. That loft studio was her only chance at a little privacy and independence. At twenty-three years old, she was ready for a place of her own. She loved her job as a graduate assistant teaching 101-level college courses, and she could have afforded a one-room studio on her own, but the cost to her mom to replace Sierra’s help would be expensive. Not to mention stressful. She had to stay. She understood and accepted this was the right thing to do.
    But back to Mike and his ill-hidden horror over living near her. She ground her teeth and tried to find some kind of Zen centering in the soothing sound of rustling branches overhead.
    He nudged his chili bowl away and placed his wadded paper napkin carefully beside it. “Thanks for the offer, kid. But I’m fine where I am.”
    Nathan curled the boa constrictor around his arm, guiding its face toward Sierra. “You may be okay. But we’re not.”
    Gasping, Lacey grasped her son’s wrist. “Nathan, stop talking and quit taunting your sister—”
    Mike frowned, looking around the table, then pinned Sierra with his golden-brown eyes. “What does he mean about your family not being okay?”
    “Nothing,” Sierra snapped, glaring at Nathan. What happened to her sweet little brother who’d shared his Teddy Grahams and once gave her his favorite G.I. Joe because he’d seen her crying about their father leaving. “We’re handling things. Right, Mom?”
    “We’ve got it under control.” Standing, her mother started stacking mismatched pottery bowls, signaling an end to the lunch picnic with a tight smile on her face.
    Nathan snorted. “Of course, Lacey McDaniel always manages everything.”
    Gramps barked, “Nathan, don’t sass your mother.”
    Bo hissed.
    “Really, Gramps?” Nathan rolled his eyes. “You pick now of all times to remember my name? Great. Maybe while you’re clicking on all cylinders, you could let Sergeant Rambo know how Mom’s struggling to pretend everything’s normal when it isn’t. Or tell him how I almost broke my hand trying to fix the stuck window.”
    Sierra sunk deeper in her chair while her brother kept right on listing all their recent failures.
    “And remember when the pipes burst in the bathroom? Gross. I’m trying to help but I’m still just fifteen freaking years old. There’s only so much I can do with duct tape and a staple gun.” Nathan leaned forward, all hundred and twelve pounds of scrawny teenage manliness clearly zeroing in for the kill. “Dad wasn’t around long enough to teach me much—”
    Lacey slammed the eclectic mix of pottery bowls on the table hard enough to halt him midsentence. “Maybe you could stop talking and realize we’re not Mike Kowalski’s responsibility. Nathan? I mean it. Enough.”
    “Fine. Whatever. I’ll shut up.” Nathan scraped back his patio chair and tossed his napkin in the middle of his