“What do you care?”
Ben dropped his armload of flags to the ground. “I wouldn’t say I care. It’s obvious you like it here and your mom doesn’t. Did you mean what you said about finding us a clean source of water and moving on?”
“Yes,” Lucy said, taking the bottle of water Ben handed to her from his backpack.
“Because that’s what she wants, or what you want?”
The odd-tasting water slid down her throat, coating her tongue with the residue she could never quite wash away. But it was water, and two weeks ago she would’ve licked puddles off the hot road to save her life.
“I don’t know,” Lucy said, handing the water back to Ben.
His smile was honest, and it nearly made his awkward face handsome. Lucy smiled back, unable to help herself. “You almost looked like your dad there for a second.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Better than my mom.”
Lucy dried her palms on her jeans before taking the stick back up. “What’s she look like?”
“Bailey’s my mom.”
“Bailey? The nurse?”
Ben sighed and re-shouldered his backpack. “Oh, I know. How did such a little shrimp of a guy come out of Bailey and Lander? It’s a genetic joke that gets trotted out for a laugh all the time, so go ahead and have your giggle.”
“I wasn’t thinking that so much as . . . ugh,” Lucy said, turning red for reasons that had nothing to do with the heat.
“Well, yeah, there’s that too,” Ben agreed, falling into step beside her with his armload of blue flags. “But my dad can’t exactly be picky, you know? He had a kid with Nora and that didn’t turn out so great—”
“Wait, Nora’s daughter was Lander’s?”
“She told you about that?”
“Yeah.” Lucy looked away, answering the tiny vibe the earth had thrown her. “Here.”
“There was nothing I could do,” Ben said stiffly as he planted the flag.
“So she was your sister then?”
“Half sister, yeah,” Ben answered as they veered away from the smattering of blue flags waving behind them. “Anyway, after Rachel got killed by the lion, Dad started showing me how to manage the garden right, measure the acid in the dirt for the different vegetables and make sure they each have the proper sun exposure. It’s not an easy thing, if you want to do it right.”
Ben was swept away in the surge of importance as he talked about his duties, and Lucy let him go on through the next two flags before asking a question. “So was your dad hoping he and Bailey would be able to . . .” She trailed off, unable to finish the sentence politely.
“Make a big, healthy baby?” Ben asked, his eyebrows raised in two mocking points. “Maybe. That or by then he’d realized Nora wasn’t going to be having any more kids and he realized it was Bailey or bust.” He giggled at his own joke, but Lucy didn’t join in.
“What do you mean? Surely there’s someone else willing to . . .”
All humor slid from Ben’s face as he looked at her. “You seriously didn’t know? Jeez, Lucy, open your eyes. How many women have you seen around here?”
A cold tremor passed over Lucy despite the heat, and her witching stick jumped even though there was no water beneath it. “I thought . . .” Her words gave out as her mind jumped back to Lynn’s first shooting session from on top of the hotel. People had littered the streets, staring up at them with their eyes shaded. But none of them had been women.
“Thought what?”
“I don’t know. I guess maybe that they were out . . . you know, just doing things.”
“Doing things?” Ben laughed outright. “You’re something. No, it’s been Bailey and Nora for a long time. Then here comes your mom into town with her long hair and her birthing hips—”
“You can’t be serious,” Lucy interrupted. “Lander wants to get Lynn pregnant?”
“Sure, why do you think he’s the one that’s sitting with her while she’s shooting? You really think he doesn’t have better things to do?”
Lucy looked to the city, shading her eyes against the glare and searching for the flash of the rifle among the thousands of panes of glass. “He wouldn’t force her, would he?”
“What, rape her? My dad? Nah.” Ben dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “He likes to get people to do what he wants, not make them.”
“No danger of that then,” she said. “Lynn’s not interested.”
Ben reached up and awkwardly patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, I don’t like the idea either. I might be small, but I’m still my dad’s son. And right now, I’m the only one he’s got. I’m hoping he’ll realize you turned out small, and kinda stupid too, so he’ll give up the idea of making a baby with your mom.”
“Well, let’s hope so,” Lucy said through gritted teeth, and swept her stick across the sand. The rush of surprise and anger was sending tremors through her skin, making it impossible to listen for the quiet pull of water.