Wayward Dreams by Gail McFarland Page B

Harry shifted from one foot to the other, as if he could hardly wait to get to the next thing. Harry had changed. It was as if something was eating at him. Nothing you could put a finger on, but something was definitely bothering him.
    He was still Haru, eldest son of Ketsuko and Gabriel Jordan; Morehouse College and Wharton Business School graduate; owner and CEO of NeoTech Integrated Security Systems. He looked the same, trim and muscular, serious and brooding, until you made him laugh—something that simply didn’t happen often enough to suit Kemi.
    Harry was nearly two years older than Kemi and a shade or two taller than his own six feet. Their shared Asian and African-American heritage was easily seen in his brother’s caramel skin and dark, almond-shaped eyes. His hair was close-cropped, instead of long and shoulder-sweeping like Kemi’s, and it emphasized his strong, square jawline. Nobody would ever say Harry wasn’t a good-looking man.
    If I were a woman, I’d look at him twice—maybe even three times , Kemi thought, watching Harry jab the button again.
    Built with the shoulders you expected to find on a man who’d played football back in high school and college, Harry looked like a man who could push his way through almost anything. If Harry Jordan had been another kind of man, he would have used his exotic, hard-bodied good looks to set women’s hearts aflame, coast to coast. Instead, he had spent the first thirty-five years of his life focused on one thing: being number one. And he was good at it.
    Even before starting elementary school, Akemi had just about heard it all—how clever and smart his big brother was, and it was fine with him. Mother, father, two sets of grandparents, and the kids down the street had all compared him to his older brother. And maybe some other brother would have been jealous, but Kemi never found space in his heart or his soul for such a rancid emotion. Besides, why would he ever be jealous of Harry? He was too good at being who he was, and he saved Kemi the trouble of overworking himself.
    Already reading in English by age three, Harry had been intrigued by their obaasan ’s books and magazines. He’d begged their grandmother for help and read everything he could get his hands on; in time, he had mastered the 1,750 symbols of the Japanese alphabet.
    Amused that one of her half- gajiin grandsons was even interested, the old woman indulged his curiosity. And then Harry had just about knocked her socks off. He managed to work his way through the ninety-nine sounds, formed with five vowels and fourteen consonants. Now he spoke the language well enough to honor their Japanese-born mother and her family. And Obaasan Ran never said another word about either of her grandsons being half- gajiin .
    Surprisingly, it had been their father’s parents who had fussed most about their charming grandsons. Maybe it was because they’d grown up in Atlanta, and all the grandparents had to do was walk around the corner to check on the boys.
    Kemi stifled a chuckle, remembering how, even after all these years, Patricia Jordan still didn’t quite trust the pretty Japanese woman her only son had brought home from college. She’d never made it an issue of race, she just didn’t think any woman was ever going to be good enough for her son—or her grandsons.
    Patti-cake hadn’t been able to compete with Obaasan Ran’s language trick, so she settled for teaching Harry to fry chicken and bake a killer sweet potato pie. Loving their grandmother, and knowing his presence pleased her, Harry had stayed by her side in her kitchen, tasting and stirring and measuring. Patti-cake had watched and guided his every move, earning Harry the eternal gratitude of both his brother and his mother, who couldn’t duplicate that pie to save her life.
    Shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his tailored trousers, Kemi knew his brother would never