At the end, when his back was to her, Alish had smiled. “No women. None at all.”
“Ah!” Sara said.Was he gay? Is that why he’d left his home? He wanted to escape the stigma associated with that? In the 1940s, he would have been an outcast.
Sara looked at the clock. It was nearly ten thirty. For a morning person like her, that was very late. She turned off the light and snuggled under the down coverlet. As she was dozing off, she thought,When it is seen...A movie? Gay man? Harry Adair? A murder of passion? The script? Were they all tied together?
Everything whirled about in her mind.Tomorrow I must see Alish. Must ask her questions, she thought before she fell into a deep, dream-filled sleep.
Twenty
The Brigade was quiet, but one of the band members was setting up to go onstage. Everyone knew they were making an unscheduled appearance because Jack was there. Within an hour everyone in Lachlan under the age of thirty would have heard what was going to happen at the Brigade. Live music and Jack Wyatt singing. It was going to be a profitable night.
Halfway down the narrow bar, Jack, Kate, and Troy were in a booth. The table was full of food and beer. It was Mexican with a Florida touch: seafood and chili. Divine.
Kate was on one side, Jack and Troy across from her. The brothers were absorbed in each other. If Kate were a different person, she might have been angry at being ignored, but she was like her aunt. Sara said the jealousy gene had skipped her. Kate was deeply glad that Jack and Troy had found each other.
The men were sitting close together and quietly asking each other about every detail of their lives. Troy told of having a celebrity mother, and Jack talked of spending time with Sara in New York. The only thing Jack sugarcoated was about their father. Roy Wyatt had been brutal to Jack. Kate knew that if Sara hadn’t come along, Jack would probably be in prison. His juvenile record wasn’t something to be proud of.
As Kate sipped her drink, she noted how much they looked alike. Troy wasn’t as dark as Jack, and he didn’t have the cautious look that Jack always wore, but they both favored their father. She could see Barbara’s softer jawline in Troy, but the eyes were like the photos she’d seen of Roy.
Whatever else you did, Roy Wyatt, Kate thought,that you created these two makes up for it.
As she looked at them, so happy to be together, she thought how sad Jack was going to be when Troy went back to California. “What do you do?” she blurted out to Troy. She hadn’t meant to interrupt them, but it just came out.
They turned to her and Troy smiled. “I have a rich, famous mother. I don’t do anything.”
He said it with so much good humor that Kate laughed.
“I invited him to work with Gil and me.” Jack wasn’t smiling and Kate knew he was upset at the idea of Troy leaving.
“Get on a roof in a Florida summer?” Troy said. “I can’t see that. Maybe—” He broke off as the door opened and in came a long line of firefighters. One by one, they went past the booth, each smiling at Kate and her smiling back.
They were a truly beautiful group of men, all in perfect physical shape, their uniforms pristine.
“No suspenders?” Kate asked.
The captain said, “When they heard you were here, I had to force them to wear shirts.”
“Spoilsport!” Kate called after him.
When the parade ended, Jack groaned.
“They likeyou,” Troy said to Kate.
“It’s mutual,” Jack said. The jealousy gene hadnotbypassed him.
“Maybe I’ll become a firefighter,” Troy said.
“There’s a lot of training,” Kate said. “Hauling equipment up ladders, carrying women and children out of burning buildings, driving that big, long, heavy truck. It takes muscles and brains.”
Troy looked at Jack, who was giving Kate looks to cut it out, and grinned. “Guess I hit a sore spot.”
Jack grimaced. “I sing—she dances.”
Kate smiled. “With every one of them.”
She sounded so happy that even Jack laughed.
He looked around the booth toward the stage. The band was almost set up, and the lead guitarist nodded to Jack. When he sat back, he turned to Troy. “Sure you can do this? We’ve had no rehearsals, nothing. Sometimes I’m slower on songs, sometimes faster.”
