As for Robbie, he was lean, flexible. In school he’d joined the swim team but he missed many practice sessions. Eventually, he quit. Burke said his youngest son’s problem was that he was too easygoing, too likable, too much loved by women.
Unlike the Exton sisters, the differences between Adam and Robbie Hatten made them incompatible. They didn’t understand each other at all.
Robbie plopped down in a big chair, facing his brother. “I thought that after yesterday with Vera, you’d be in a better mood today. Or are you mad because you think you have to stay here to keep me out of trouble?”
Adam continued to glare at his brother. “Where were you all night?”
“I don’t kiss and tell.” His eyes were sparkling.
Adam thought how he wished his brother was ugly. But Robbie looked like something off a poster of a rodeo star: dark brown hair, dark blue eyes, dressed in denim and leather. He’d been a cute kid and now he seemed to be endlessly surrounded by women, young and old. “Do you have everything ready for college?”
Robbie laughed. “That’s months away.” He put his empty plate on a side table. “We can’t all be like you, big brother. We’re not perfect in everything we do. You were great at sports and had top grades. And now you love a girl who is sane and sensible. She’s not even overly pretty. Nothing flashy for you. Now, that little Kelly...she’s enough to make a man sweat.”
Adam bared his teeth. “Man? You’re just a kid.”
Robbie stopped smiling. “I grew up fast after you ran off to save the world. Dad was depressed. His favorite son was in far-off Africa, and all his dreams were gone. I tried to put his attention on me but it didn’t work.”
“By ‘attention’ do you mean getting yourself arrested for drunk driving?”
“That was cleared.”
“Of course it was. Dad got you off.”
Robbie frowned. “Kids today aren’t like you and Vera. You’ve been more or less married since you were, what? Two years old? Dad and Mr. Exton were like medieval lords plotting to join the farms. After you ran off and left Vera behind, nobody was sure what was going on. Dad said it was too bad Kelly was older than me or I could marry her. One day she was here at the pool wearing a bikini. I said I was more than willing to help him join the farms.”
“And what did Dad say to that?”
“That he’d thought of asking for Kelly’s hand himself. He said, ‘Think she’d have me?’ I told him he should ask.”
Adam could only stare at his brother. He’d never had that kind of camaraderie with their father. Their conversations had been about school grades and how well or poorly Adam was doing on the sports fields. Trying to get himself back under control, he lowered his voice. “You wouldn’t really go after Kelly, would you? She’s years older than you and she’s about to become a veterinarian.”
Robbie stood up. “Five years, four months, one week and two days. That’s the age difference.” He turned away, lit a cigarette, then looked back at his brother. “You go to far-off Africa to take care of kids, but you ought to look at people around here. Kelly Exton will probably marry that half-wit stepson of Dr. Carl. She’s afraid that if she doesn’t, she’ll piss off the doc. If that happened, she wouldn’t have a vet job around here. Then she’d have to go somewhere else, which means she’d have to leave her mom. Mrs. Exton won’t leave the farm but she can’t run it by herself. Vera is running away with you, so Kelly would have to stay here in Mason. And do what? Take on Vera’s job at the travel agency? Give up her animals? Might as well rip out her soul.”
Adam was surprised that Robbie knew so much about Vera’s kid sister. “I get it. It’s a stack of building blocks. If Kelly doesn’t marry Paul, everyone’s expectations of life will be destroyed. But she is going to marry Paul. Vera told me so yesterday. You need to stay out of it!”
Robbie gave his brother a cold look. “You never see past whatever you want, do you? You and Dad had a fight, so you ran away. And now you come back and give us orders of what to do with our lives. Then you plan to leave again. Tell me, who died and made you king?”
“Dad,” Adam said before he thought. It was too flippant.
Robbie’s anger increased. “You think you are fit to take his place? That it’s your birthright? You haven’t earned any rights around here. And as for Kelly Exton, I like her. A lot! And I have the money to open a clinic for her. Screw Dr. Carl and his loser son. That guy would sell Kelly for a bag of apple tree branches.”
Robbie smashed his cigarette in an ashtray. “Oh, hell. It’s no use talking to you. Go back to Africa, where they make you feel good. Don’t get involved with us.” He stormed up the stairs and slammed his bedroom door.
Adam fell back against the big desk chair made of leather and carved oak. He and Vera used to call it “Burke’s throne.”
“He rules the world from there,” Vera had said.
“The world of Mason, Kansas,” Adam had said, and they’d laughed together.
He looked around the big house. His parents had built it when he was just a kid and he remembered marveling at it. Lots of wood, lots of stone. The fireplace went to the ceiling and covered most of a wall. Burke’s huge desk and chair were situated so he could see everything: kitchen, living room, dining room, outside to the garage.
As Adam looked around, he thought about what Robbie had said and what he’d said in return.
Vera’s little sister was not someone Adam had thought about much. She’d always been a cute kid with big blue eyes and animals all around her. She’d never been afraid of worms or bugs, or the big animals, either. Last night when she’d brought Xander back, he waved at her through the window. She’d barely moved her chin in recognition.
He didn’t know when their bickering started. She’d always seemed so quiet and complacent that maybe he just wanted to get a reaction out of her. Of course she knew his barbs were all in good fun.
Didn’t she?
For a moment, he thought about his younger brother and Kelly. Robbie was good-looking, rich, adored by women. Was Kelly the one he couldn’t get? The unattainable one? Would Rob think of it as a notch on his bedpost if he could break up Kelly from the man she loved?
For a moment, Adam closed his eyes. Robbie going after Kelly and probably getting her would cause masses of problems between the two families. If Robbie broke Kelly’s heart—which he would, of course—Vera might hold it against Adam. Robbie’s lechery, his insatiable need to conquer, could hurt a lot of people.
He had a vision of Vera flying home from Africa to try to settle the mess her sister was in because of Robbie. On the other hand, maybe Robbie was right about Pauly being a wimp. Sometimes it felt like the marriages in this town were arranged in childhood. He and Vera; Kelly and Paul. They may as well have been betrothed when they were in elementary school.