He shrugged. “There was a fight in a bar. I defended myself, but the D.A. didn’t see it that way. It wasn’t my fault.”
The words were familiar. It had been like this before, she thought sadly. When she’d been younger. Nothing had ever been his fault.
“How long are you in?” she asked.
“Fifteen to twenty. I’ll get out sooner. For good behavior.” He leaned toward her. “You seen my girls?”
“I have. They’re great. They miss you.”
“I miss ’em, too. I should write more, I know. Time has a way of slipping by. I’m a busy man.”
He was in prison—how busy could he be? But she knew there was no point in having that conversation.
“I was surprised you’d moved back to Fool’s Gold,” she said. “When did that happen?”
“After Mom died.” He frowned. “I thought you knew. I always stayed in touch with her. I came back when she got sick. It was fast. She went into the hospital and a week later she was gone. I’d just married Bettina and we didn’t have a place, so when I found out Mom had left me the house, I moved us there.”
She shook her head. “You stayed in touch with Mom? You wrote and called?”
“Sure. I wrote you, too. After I left. You never answered. I thought you were irritated or something.”
“I never got the letters,” she said softly, trying to breathe through the pain. Roy had written? She’d thought he’d simply disappeared, abandoning her without a second thought.
“You know what Mom was like,” Roy reminded her. “She had her weird rules.”
Liz remembered. Her last contact with her mother had been the older woman’s request that Liz not bother her again. Someone in the hospital had contacted her through her publisher to tell Liz that her mother was sick. Before she could finalize her travel arrangements, she’d received another call saying her mother had died. At that point, returning to Fool’s Gold for the funeral had seemed pointless. Now she knew that Roy had been there.
“Relationships are complicated,” she murmured, not sure what she should have done differently. There was no real sense of loss, just an absence of connection, and sadness. Roy was her brother—they should have been a family, but they weren’t. They were only relatives.
“I came to see you because of your girls,” Liz informed him. “Melissa e-mailed me a few days ago.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry, Roy, but Bettina is gone.”
He turned away. “I wondered,” he muttered, returning his attention to her, looking more resigned than surprised. “I haven’t heard from her in a while. She took the girls with her?”
“Um, not exactly. Bettina took off a couple months ago. Melissa and Abby have been on their own ever since.”
The color drained from his tired, wrinkled face. “That bitch. She never said a word. Are they all right?”
“They’re fine. Melissa’s been taking care of both of them. When it got to be too much for her, she found me through my Web site. I came right away. Some arrangements have to be made….”
Roy rose and crossed to the window. He stood there, his shoulders bent. “I got no one, Lizzy. Those girls? They’re all I have. Can you take ’em?”
She wanted to say no. She barely knew her nieces and looking after them for a few days was very different than taking responsibility permanently. But even as she tried to refuse, she knew she couldn’t. If the girls didn’t stay with her, they would go into foster care, probably be separated. Who knew what would happen to them.
“I’ll sign whatever papers you want,” he added quickly. “To make it easy on you.”
“Of course I’ll take them,” she replied, smiling when he turned to face her. “But I can’t stay in Fool’s Gold. My life is in San Francisco, as is Tyler’s.”
“He your husband?”
“My son. He’s eleven.”
Roy grinned. “You got a boy? I didn’t know.”
Their mother had known, but obviously she hadn’t felt the need to pass on the information. “He’s great.” She pulled a picture out of her purse and carried it over to Roy.
Her brother stared at the photo. “He’s a good-looking kid.”
“I think so.”
He swallowed. “Maybe San Francisco would be better for my girls. A chance to start over where no one knows about me. I tried to settle in town, but it didn’t go well. People couldn’t get past the family name, you know? You could sell the house and put the money away for them. For college or a wedding or something.”
She thought about the battered old structure that was as tired-looking as Roy. “It would need some work,” she began.
“Not much. I got most of the projects started.”
“I noticed that.”
He smiled sheepishly. “I’m not one for finishing.” The smile faded. “I need you to take care of my girls, Lizzy.”
Perhaps it had always been inevitable that things would end up this way, she thought. “They’ll be safe with me.”
“I know they will. You’ve gone and gotten all fancy, with your books and everything. They’ll like that.”
“They’d like to see you.”