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a sorry collection of too-big jeans, cut off at the knees and showing a good bit of his boxers, sneakers with no laces, a ragged T-shirt of indeterminate color and a pilled hoodie enlivened by a skull-and-crossbones pattern in neon green. “Thanks for the 411,” he drawled, making it plain he’d already mastered contempt, even before hitting his teens. “I probably couldn’t have figured that out on my own.”
    Zane sighed inwardly and reminded himself to be patient. Maddie Rose had seen that he and Landry had it good, in comparison with most poor kids, but Nash had been through the proverbial wringer.
    “You hungry?” he asked the boy, stooping to pick up the duffel bag by its frayed and grubby handle.
    “I’m always hungry,” Nash replied, without a shred of humor. “Just ask Dad. I’m a royal pain in the ass, wanting to eat at least once a day, no matter what. Too bad the kind of motels he could afford didn’t have room service.” A beat passed. “I was lucky to get a bed.”
    Zane felt a clenching sensation—sympathy—but he didn’t let it show. He remembered all too well how poverty ground away at a person’s pride, how he’d hated it when people felt sorry for him and Landry. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “We’ll find you some food once we’ve left the airport.”
    Nash said nothing. He simply put his earbuds back in and rocked to some private serenade, ambling alongside Zane as they left the terminal and made their way to the outdoor parking area, where the truck waited.
    Slim was there, pressing his nose against a partially lowered window as they approached. He gave a happy yelp of welcome and scrabbled to and fro across the backseat, unable to contain his excitement.
    “You have a dog?” Nash asked, opening up his ears again and almost, but not quite, smiling.
    “His name is Slim.” Zane confirmed the obvious with a nod, as he opened the truck’s tailgate and tossed the duffel bag inside. “Knows a thing or two about hard luck, I guess.”
    “Then we ought to get along,” Nash replied, sounding far too world-weary for a twelve-year-old. “The dog and me, that is.”

CHAPTER THREE
    N ASH LOOKED AROUND the ranch house kitchen with a discerning eye—surprisingly discerning, in fact, for somebody in a skull-and-crossbones hoodie, with six inches of underwear showing above his belt line.
    “Man,” he said, quickly evaluating the long-neglected space surrounding them. “This place is seriously underwhelming.”
    “Kind of like your manners,” Zane retorted lightly, but without rancor. In the few hours he’d spent with this young half brother of his, he’d begun to understand the kid a little better. Nash probably thought he was doing a good job of hiding what he felt, but he was scared all right, jumpy as a cat in a room full of cleated boots. Ready to be shunted off at a moment’s notice to the next place where he wouldn’t fit in, and determined not to let anybody know he gave a damn when it happened. He’d consumed three cheeseburgers, a double order of curly fries and a milk shake when they stopped for lunch on the outskirts of Missoula, prompting Zane to wonder if Landry had fed him a meal or two before hustling him on board the first westbound plane with an available seat.
    And then there were those god-awful clothes. Going by appearances, his duds being rumpled, worn-out and not recently washed, the kid might have made the whole trip in the cargo hold instead of the main cabin. Landry, the multimillionaire investment whiz, couldn’t have sprung for a few pairs of jeans and some T-shirts?
    Most likely, Zane thought, with a stifled sigh, his brother hadn’t wanted to be bothered with anything so mundane as taking the boy to the nearest mall and outfitting him with the basics. After all, he had to get to Berlin, where he had an Important Meeting.
    The message in that was obvious: the meeting was important, but Nash wasn’t. Susan, the soon-to-be