Cover of Night by Linda Howard Page A

did rocks,” she said, trying to keep the conversation going. How long would he keep talking? “No mountaineering at all. Have you climbed any of the big ones?”
    “It wasn’t that type of mountaineering,” he mumbled, edging toward the top of the stairs, and she knew his unusual talkativeness was over. Just then, two stories below, she heard the sound of childish voices raised in an argument, and she knew her mother and the boys were home.
    “Uh-oh. Sounds like trouble,” she said, bolting for the stairs.
    She knew something was wrong just from the looks on their faces when she reached the bottom floor. All three looked angry. Her mother was holding the picnic basket, her mouth compressed, and she had the boys separated, with one on each side of her. The twins were red-faced with anger, and their clothes were dirty, as if they’d been rolling in the dirt.
    “They’ve been fighting,” Sheila reported.
    “Tannuh called me a bad name!” Tucker charged, his expression mulish.
    Tanner glared at his brother. “You pushed me. Down! ” His outrage was evident. Tanner didn’t like losing in any situation.
    Cate held up her hand like a traffic cop, stopping both of them in the middle of continued explanation. Behind her, Mr. Harris came down the stairs, carrying his toolbox, and the boys began shifting in agitation; their hero was here, and they couldn’t swarm him as they usually did.
    “Mimi will tell me what happened,” Cate said.
    “Tanner got the last piece of orange, and Tucker wanted it. Tanner wouldn’t give it to him, so Tucker pushed him down. Tanner called Tucker a ‘damn idgit.’ Then they started rolling around and punching each other.” Sheila looked down at both of them, frowning. “They knocked my lemonade over and it soaked my clothes.”
    Now that she looked, Cate could see the dark, wet patches on Sheila’s jeans. She crossed her arms and looked as stern as possible as she did her own frowning. “Tucker—” she began.
    “It wasn’t my fault!” he burst out, clearly furious at being singled out first.
    “You pushed Tanner first, didn’t you?”
    If anything, he now looked even more mutinous. His little face turned red, and he was all but jumping up and down. “It was—it was Mimi’s fault!”
    “Mimi!” Cate echoed, thunderstruck. Her mother looked just as stunned by this turn of events.
    “She shoulda watched me better!”
    “Tucker Nightingale!” Cate roared, galvanized by his blame-shifting. “You get upstairs and sit in the naughty chair right now! How dare you try to blame this on Mimi! I’m ashamed of the way you’re acting. A good man never, never blames someone else for something he did himself!”
    He shot a pleading look for understanding and backup at Mr. Harris. Cate wheeled and gave the handyman a gimlet stare, just in case he was thinking of saying anything in the least sympathetic. Mr. Harris blinked, then looked at Tucker and slowly shook his head. “She’s right,” he mumbled.
    Tucker’s little shoulders slumped and he began dragging himself up the stairs, each step as ponderous as a four-year-old could possibly make it. He began crying on the way up. At the top he paused and sobbed, “How long?”
    “Long.” Cate said. She wouldn’t leave him up there any longer than half an hour, but that would seem like forever to someone with Tucker’s energy. Besides, Tanner would have to spend some time in the naughty chair, too, for calling his brother a “damn idgit.” Okay, this meant they both knew the word damn, and how to use it. Her children were swearing already.
    She tucked her chin and scowled at Tanner. He sighed and sat down on the bottom stair, waiting his turn in the naughty chair. Nothing more had to be said.
    Mr. Harris cleared his throat. “I’ll pick up a new lock tomorrow while I’m in town,” he said, and beat a path to the door.
    Cate drew a deep breath and turned to her mother, who now seemed to be sucking really hard on her