‘‘All right.’’ Cautious now, for she saw more than pain, she nodded slowly. There was fury as well, just as brutal. ‘‘You lived through what no child should ever have to live through before you came here. Before the Quinns gave you hope and love and a home. And you became theirs. You became Ethan Quinn.’’

‘‘It doesn’t change the blood.’’

‘‘I don’t know what you mean.’’

‘‘How the hell would you?’’ He shot it at her like a bullet, hot and dangerously sharp. How would she know? he thought furiously. She’d grown up knowing her parents, and their parents, never once having to question what they had passed on to her, what she’d taken from them.

But she would, before he was done, she’d know. And that would end it. ‘‘She was a big woman. I get my hands from her. My feet, the length of my arms.’’

He looked down at those arms now, at those hands that had bunched into fists without his being aware of it. ‘‘I don’t know where I get the rest from because I don’t think she knew who my father was any more than I did. Just another john she had bad luck with. She didn’t get rid of me because she’d already had three abortions and was afraid to risk another. That’s what she told me.’’

‘‘That was cruel of her.’’

‘‘Jesus Christ.’’ Unable to sit any longer, he rose, leaped onto the dock to pace.

Grace followed more slowly. He was right about one thing, she realized. She didn’t know this man, the one who moved in fast, jerky steps with his fists clenched as if he would use them viciously on anything that moved into his path.

So she stayed out of it.

‘‘She was a monster. A fucking monster. She beat me senseless for the hell of it as often as when she figured she had a reason.’’

‘‘Oh, Ethan.’’ Helpless to do otherwise, she reached out for him.

‘‘Don’t touch me now.’’ He wasn’t sure what he might do if he put his hands on her just then. And it frightened him. ‘‘Don’t touch me now,’’ he repeated.

She let her empty arms fall to her sides, battled back the tears that wanted to come.

‘‘She had to take me to the hospital once,’’ he continued. ‘‘I guess she was afraid I was going to die on her. That’s when we moved from D.C. to Baltimore. Thedoctor asked too many questions about how I fell down the steps and gave myself a concussion and a couple cracked ribs. I used to wonder why she didn’t just leave me behind. But then, she got some welfare money because of me and had a live-in punching bag, so I guess that was reason enough. Until I was eight.’’