Kennedy and Wyatt were cooking when Erin entered. With only a glance, she could tell they worked well as a team. Kennedy was communicating with American Sign Language and so was Wyatt. Erin followed their exchanges and grinned at their nonsense. It was good to see two brothers who got along, even if they were telling each other to “shove it up your ass” when they disagreed on something.

Erin stepped to the fridge for a cold drink and selected a beer. She almost pulled the tab and drank straight from the can, but then she decided she wanted to try it in a glass instead. In bars, she enjoyed cold beer on tap, which was always served in a glass, and there was no one here who would make fun of her for liking it better that way.

Whatever Wyatt was cooking was soon left to simmer on the stove. Erin sniffed the air and thought it smelled like spaghetti sauce, and she wondered if one of the brothers had made meatballs. She used the frozen kind herself, but that didn’t mean she liked them. She’d worked long hours and hadn’t wanted to be in the kitchen for hours to make a meal for only one person.

The guys joined her at the table with cans of beer.

Kennedy took a long pull of his drink and told his brother, “I can’t believe you put sugar in the marinara sauce!”

“Only two tablespoons. I don’t like the acidity of straight tomato sauce and seasonings. A tiny bit of sugar makes it better.”

“Where did you learn that?” Kennedy asked.

“Chef Boyardee,” Wyatt retorted.

Erin couldn’t help it and burst out laughing at the startled expression on Kennedy’s face. She got up from the table to taste the sauce. When she turned from the stove, she tossed her spoon in the sink and said, “It’s fabulous, Wyatt. But I know your guilty secret.”

“What secret?” he asked.

“You stole Sissy’s recipe.”

He guffawed, throwing back his blond head and closing his eyes. Wyatt rarely laughed, and Erin loved the sound. “Don’t I wish?”

Kennedy stepped to the sink to prepare broccoli for steaming. Erin asked how Jen had seemed to be feeling emotionally the previous day. She doubted the girl could emerge from such a devastating attack without at least some psychological issues.

Kennedy cast her a glance over his shoulder, his expression solemn. “She acts as if boogeymen are hiding behind the curtains and under her hospital bed. When it was time for me to leave, she clung to my hand and asked me not to go. I understand why, of course, but it’s kind of hard for me to sympathize when she knows nobody’s really in her room.”