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Teague asked, honestly surprised. His brother
     had visited Teague here precisely once in the year he’d been back. Then it had been
     to ask him for the one and only favor Marsh had ever requested. Teague didn’t doubt
     a certain ethnobotanist was his reason for this visit as well.
    “Well, I’m not here for a game of eight ball.”
    The one thing that Teague appreciated about his half brother was that, unlike most
     of their family, Marshall didn’t play games. You always knew where you stood with
     him.
    “Good thing. Those boys out there would take half your trust fund before you downed
     your first beer.”
    Marshall didn’t take the bait. But then, he never did. And if he noticed Teague’s
     battered face, he didn’t mention it. Not for the first time, Teague wondered what
     Marsh really thought of him. Did he have any idea what kind of man Teague had become?
     Did he care?
    And why did any of it matter now?
    Marsh brushed off a folding metal chair and sat. His Italian leather loafers, hand-tailored
     pleated trousers, rumpled white linen shirt, loose designer tie, wire-rimglasses, and disheveled blond hair made him look like exactly what he was: a slightly
     harried professor who happened to be swimming in family money.
    “Yeah well, they can have it.”
    Teague smiled, on familiar ground now. “Father on your case to leave the ivy-covered
     walls of the university for the ivy-covered walls of the Sullivan law practice again?”
    Marshall ignored the question. “So, have you made contact yet?”
    Sometimes Teague hated being right. Again, he asked himself why it mattered that Marsh
     was only here about the favor he’d promised. It would be wiser to ask himself why
     this particular woman had brought Marsh to ask favors at all.
    “Not yet. Why, is our Miss McClure getting antsy already?”
    “Dr. McClure.”
    Teague didn’t react. “I told you before that this wouldn’t be simple. I’ll let her
     know when it’s time.”
    “But you can get her in?”
    Teague’s sixth sense kicked in. He was careful to keep his demeanor the same as he’d
     cultivated over the last year, that of the wastrel black sheep, member of one of Boudry
     Parish’s wealthiest families who didn’t give a good damn about what anyone thought
     of him. He’d been a natural for the part.
    “Yeah, I’ll get her in.”
    Marsh smiled. “Thanks. I really appreciate your help on this.”
    Marshall’s smile seemed easy and sincere, but theskin on the back of Teague’s neck still itched. “What, is there a promotion in this
     for you if she finds the cure for cancer out there in the bayou or something?”
    Marsh laughed. “You know Sullivan money only buys political offices, not tenure. But
     I will say this is a real boon to our university, and it won’t hurt me any to be the
     one to facilitate Dr. McClure’s research while she’s here.”
    “I’d never even heard of the field before you mentioned it.”
    “She’s made quite a name for herself, both on her own and with the extensive research
     she did with her father when he was alive. He’s a legend. Sort of the Indiana Jones
     of the botany field.”
    Teague heard the words, but he was more interested in watching Marsh’s face. His half
     brother enjoyed his work. That Marshall had been strong enough to follow his own path
     was something Teague admired the hell out of. It was the one true bond he felt he
     had with him.
    As children, their father had made Teague’s life a living hell. But Marsh hadn’t had
     it easy either, despite appearances to the contrary.
    Not that he’d ever appreciated Teague’s attempts to help him out. Teague had always
     been amused by the fact that ironically it was he, perhaps better than anyone else,
     who understood what Marsh had gone through.
    After all, they were both bastards.
    But Marsh hadn’t thanked him for stepping in when they were kids, for using his fists
     when Marsh preferred to use his brains, and that