Banks looked at Clancey, grimaced and sighed. “I guess I am. Good night, Clancey.”

“Good night. I’ll make breakfast,” she blurted out. “What time?”

“I get up at five.”

She nodded. “Okay. Five.”

He smiled tenderly and shooed Brenda out the door.

“Saint Brenda to the rescue,” he grumbled as he walked toward his room.

“Now, now, she’s like a saint herself, in some ways,” Brenda chided.

He stopped and turned. “And am I the sort of man who starts anything with an innocent just for fun?”

She searched his black eyes. She smiled. She shook her head. “She’s very special, our Clancey,” she replied. “We can’t let Morris get her.”

“No way. I’m calling in everybody who owes me favors. She’ll be safe. Here, at work, anywhere.”

“This man, Hollister, who looks out for her,” she began a little worriedly.

“Her big brother,” he said, and he smiled. “He’s looked after both of them for years. She worked for him before she worked for me.”

“I see.”

“You’d like him,” he replied. “I hated his guts at first, of course, until I realized that he didn’t have designs on Clancey...” He stopped dead, realizing that he’d given himself away.

But Brenda didn’t tease him. “She’s a lot like you,” she said. “And she doesn’t judge people the way Grace seems to these days.”

He grimaced. “Grace isn’t the woman I remember.” He sighed. “The thought of her coming home was turning my life upside down. I thought it was all I wanted from life. And then I drove Clancey and Tad home from a movie just before Halloween.” He averted his eyes. “She got pneumonia from walking with Tad to school and on to work in freezing cold without a proper coat. I took her to the hospital.” He smiled wistfully. “It’s been a long time since I had to take care of anybody besides you.”

“She’s frail, for all her fierceness,” Brenda replied. “Morris must have been a horror to live with. She and Tad have had a challenging life.”

“It’s going to get better from here on out. Do you have plans for Thanksgiving?”

She shook her head.

“You can come down here.” He drew in a rough breath. “I’ll have to invite Hollister. If I don’t, they’ll feel obliged to go over to his place for it, because they promised.”

“You just said he was nice.”

“Well, he’s nice as long as he thinks of Nasturtium in there as just a little sister,” he added, and he wasn’t smiling.

Brenda didn’t laugh until she was in her room, with the door closed.

It wasn’t daylight when Clancey, fully dressed, went into the kitchen to make breakfast for Colter.