“Nothing,” Davy said testily. “And no, she didn’t. And it’s none of your business. We both just need some, ah, breathing room.”
Now he was alarmed. Davy usually had to be pried away from his bride Margot’s side with the use of a crowbar and a pair of oversized bolt cutters. When the McClouds fell in love, they fell hard.
“Breathing room is a piss-poor idea,” Sean said. “Awful things happen when women have too much breathing room.”
“What the hell do you know about it?” Davy demanded. “You’ve never been married, you snot-nosed punk.”
Sean didn’t bother responding to that. “So is she pissed at you?”
Davy threw up his hands. “Sure, she’s pissed at me.”
“Why? If you don’t tell me, I’ll just call Margot and ask her.”
“Oh, Jesus. No. Please don’t do that,” Davy said fervently.
“So out with it. Go on. Spit it out.”
Davy struggled, helplessly. “I just…well, we’re not…she’s just angry at me because I can’t, um…” His voice trailed off, miserably.
Sean squinted at his brother, perplexed. “Can’t what?”
Davy dropped into the chair again, evidently unable to speak.
Sean gazed at him with dawning horror. “Holy shit. Are you talking about sex? You can’t have sex? With Margot the walking wet dream? What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you seriously ill?”
“No,” Davy spat out the word. “It’s just that…she’s, ah, late.”
Sean gazed at his older brother’s slumped form, unable to make out his expression in the dimness. “Late?” he echoed. “Late for what?”
“Use the tiny brain God gave you and figure it out,” Davy snarled.
Sean cogitated for a second, and sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh! Oh, shit! You mean, like, that kind of late?”
Davy’s sigh was jerky and labored. “Yeah. She can’t be sure yet. Her cycle isn’t regular. But she’s never been this late before.”
“Oh, man, that’s too much information for me. I’m not sure I can handle the intimate details of my sister-in-law’s reproductive cycle—”
“Grow up and deal with it, jerk-off,” Davy snarled. “You asked.”
“True, true,” Sean soothed. “Sorry. So can’t she just, you know, do a test, or something? Put you out of your misery?”
“Not yet.” Davy’s voice was clipped. “There’s some complicated reason why you have to wait a certain number of days before a test is valid. She explained it to me. I don’t remember the details.”
“Oh.” Sean pondered this news. “Uh, well? So? Shouldn’t I be crossing my fingers? Isn’t this a good thing? A cousin for Kevvie. Cool. They can tumble around on the rug like a couple of puppies.”
Davy shook his head. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Sure, it’s a good thing. It’s a great thing. Fantastic. Yeah. But I can’t—I can’t—”
“You can’t have sex with your wife because you think she may or may not be pregnant? That’s pretty medieval.”
“Yeah, that’s what Margot thinks.” Davy stared down at his fists, clenched before him on the table as if he were trying to hang onto something invisible.
“It’s not going to be like it was with Mom,” Sean said cautiously. “Living out here with Dad was like living in another century. Margot’ll have third millennium medical care, from a major medical center—”
“I know that.” Davy’s voice was taut. “I fucking know that.”
Davy’s eyes were shut, but Sean knew what his brother saw. Their mother, bleeding to death from an ectopic pregnancy, while the truck tires spun out in three feet of snow. His father, trying to stanch the blood. Ten-year-old Davy had been driving, or trying to.
Sean, Kev, and Connor had stayed behind in the snow shrouded house. He’d been four. Old enough to know that something terrible was happening. It was one of his earliest memories. Maybe not the earliest, because he remembered Mom, like a glow in the back of his mind. Or rather, he remembered remembering her. He shook the poignant feeling away. “Statistics are on your side. Women these days—”
“I know the statistics,” Davy said. “I’ve informed myself, Margot’s informed me. I’ve been lectured, scolded, screamed at.”
“Ah. I see,” Sean murmured.
“When she told me…Christ.” He rubbed his eyes. “She thought I’d be happy. Hell, I thought I’d be happy. But I almost lost my lunch.”
“Whoa,” Sean murmured. “Drag.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. Ever since then it’s like I can’t breathe.” He swallowed, audibly. “I close my eyes, and I see blood.”
Sean whistled. “Ouch. I can see as how that might put a crimp in a guy’s boner.”
“This is not a joke,” Davy growled.
“Do I look like I’m laughing?” Sean touched his brother’s shoulder. It was rigid as steel cable, vibrating with a charge that was approaching lethal. The guy had to chill, before he hurt himself.
Or worse, wrecked something irreplaceable.
It had been such a relief, to see his tight-assed brother finally loosen up and get happy. He was so in love with Margot, he was goofy with it. He was having fun for the first time in his more or less grim life.
No way in hell was he going to let Davy fuck that up.
He folded his arms over his chest, considering his options.
“I don’t know why it threw me.” Davy sounded lost. “Considering how much we get it on, it’s amazing it hasn’t happened sooner.”
“Got it on, that is,” Sean corrected. “Past tense. That’s all over for you, buddy. Kiss your dick goodbye. You’re never having sex again.”
Davy glared at his brother, slit-eyed. “Do not fuck with me, Sean.”
“Oh, I won’t,” he assured his brother. “Neither will Margot. Nobody will, being as how Mr. Big-n-Friendly’s gone south, leaving your bride to shrivel alone, sexually unfulfilled. What a waste. Poor Margot.”
“Keep your trash mouth away from Margot, punk.”
“What an asshole, letting that sexy lady sleep alone,” Sean mused. “But she’ll land on her feet. Just looking at Margot makes a guy want to procreate. Being as how you’re giving her all this breathing room, it shouldn’t take her long to find someone capable of—nngh!”
Bam, he was clamped to the wall, Davy’s forearm pressing his trachea. Good. He struggled to breathe. It worked. He’d goaded the grizzly out of its cave. Now all he had to do was not get killed.
“You know what your problem is?” Davy spat. “You never know when to shut up. You’re going to learn. So shut…the fuck…up.”
Sean gave him a big, unrepentant grin. “Make me, meathead,” he wheezed. “Let’s take it outside. I don’t want to trash the kitchen any more than you already have.”
Davy jerked his hand away. Sean’s feet hit the floor.
He massaged his throat as he followed Davy out, and barely got into guard before Davy’s boot swooshed past his face, displacing air.
Woo-hah. Yes. Savage joy jolted through him. A no-rules fight with somebody as dangerous as he was,