It had been hard to say. The right thing to say, but so hard. From the worry in Lauren's face, Thomas knew she had the same concern he did. That although Marcus heard the words, nothing in his past or present gave him the ability to believe them.

When Thomas left for his family in the past, whether for a short trip or to break it off, he left. Which is why Thomas had to prove to Marcus that wasn't going to happen again.

He couldn't think about it too much, because it tore him apart to leave Marcus suffering, to only be able to convince him through the deed, which required the passage of time.

Marcus thwarted in his intent was not a pleasant person. Sex had been savage, stilted, and Thomas had woken alone, aching and bruised, to find Marcus already gone to his gallery. He'd left a Thermos of terrible coffee for Thomas' cab ride to the airport.

The rings and the chain were still on the mantle where Marcus had put them. Thomas deliberated, then took them with him. He wanted to look at them, think about them, remind himself. He wanted Marcus to see he'd taken them.

The connecting flight had been delayed, so he'd gotten home late, after midnight.

He'd found out from a sleepy Les where his mother was.

Somehow, the tranquility of the one a.m. hour seemed appropriate for the conversation. That, and his urgency to get back to Marcus. Following the gravel road, Thomas walked the mile to the church under a silent starry sky. He was accompanied by the Murphy's coon dog, who saw him pass their house and fell into step with him, always up for a stroll.

Even a Catholic church as small as theirs was had a tabernacle, where vigil prayer went on twenty-four hours a day over the extra communion wafers that had been blessed by the priest as the actual flesh of Christ. The Catholics in the area, including his mother, took turns. Apparently, she'd chosen the 12:30-1:30 a.m. time slot, probably because she wasn't sleeping well.

She hadn't slept well since their father died, really. Still learning to sleep in a bed by herself, he assumed. A couple times when he'd woken earlier than her, he'd seen her curled up in Les' single bed.

When she took a late hour like this, Thomas' practice of faith had been to meet her on the steps to walk her home. He'd taken over that responsibility as a teenager, when his father had to work long hours. He wouldn't let the boys help with things that interfered with their homework. So this was one thing Thomas could do.

It was a ritual he remembered now with deep affection, how his mother would loop her arm through his as they walked so he could keep her from tripping over loose rock.

He'd talk about problems, skirting around the one that was uppermost in his mind.

She'd walk silently next to him, pauses he now knew reflected her understanding of what his real worry was. She'd tell him to pray, to ask God to help him to find his true self.

Tonight, he looked up at the stars, the vastness of the sky and the world in which he lived, and knew who he was. All he wanted was for her to accept that, the way she accepted God's wisdom for the many things she couldn't understand.

As he thought about it, it was all about family. Les, Rory, Mom. Marcus. It wasn't a spigot that turned on and off, no matter how his Mom or even Marcus wanted to believe it was, to uphold their view of the world, or to protect a heart that had already been invaded. He was in Marcus' heart, in his soul, and he couldn't be shut out. Same with his mother. Just as Walter Briggs had said.

When there was full surrender, a lot of things became clearer. To be head of a family meant something far different than just being there - it meant making the hard choices he knew would be best for all of them, as Marcus had demonstrated to him that day in the way he'd handled Rory.

Tonight he would tell his mother he loved Marcus. Tomorrow, he would make sure Les knew she shouldn't get married until she finished school, and he'd invite her boyfriend down and make sure he understood the same. Rory would get off his butt, figuratively speaking, and start pulling his weight. Then he would go to Marcus.

The asshole had left him one message. A business card next to the coffee, one of his gallery associates, with a scrawled note saying "If you don't come back, deal through John on your paintings. It will be easier for both of us." Thomas had torn up the card and left it on the table. Idiot.

When he got there, Elaine was just coming out, pulling her light jacket over her shoulders. She saw him, a momentary start, then recognition. Smiling, she came down the steps. He hugged her when she was still a couple steps up, so they were eye to eye.

"Hi, Mom."

"Hello, son. I'm glad you're home. You didn't have to come out here. I'm sure you're tired from your flight."

"I wanted to come. I wanted to talk to you. Here." Elaine's eyes stilled, studied his face. "All right. Why don't we sit here, on the stairs?" As if she felt better with all the symbolic strength of God at her back. He didn't fault her for that, but he hoped she'd use it as a comfort, not a reinforcing army to turn this into a combat.

He sat next to her, pressing close as he usually did when they walked, to give her warmth. She seemed to have shrunk some since Dad died, and seemed more fragile and often cold.

Though he knew he was risking the hurt of having her pull away, he took one of her hands, enclosed it in both of his. "I do pray, a lot, Mom. I always have, because I believe you. And I believe in Him. You know that?"

She pursed her lips, looked down at their joined hands. "I know that, Thomas. I know you love God. You've always had a very loving heart." He nodded. "I try. I'm worried about what I'm about to say to you, but I really need you to hear it. I consider Marcus my family, the way I consider you, Les and Rory my family. The way Les' boyfriend will become our family if they get married. Marcus has no family, nothing but me. I want to give him all of mine, because I can't imagine a better family for him to be a part of. If I can only give him myself, so be it. But he doesn't just need me, Mom. I think he needs all of us." He took a deep breath. "If you can't accept that, then I'll integrate you both into my life, but I won't turn my back on Marcus anymore. You understand?" She did free her hand as he expected, but to cup the rosary in her hands, stroke the base of the wooden cross with her fingers. Thomas had made it for her in shop in seventh grade, learning how to make the round beads, sanding and smoothing the small cross piece, carving it out of one piece of wood. He'd chosen a pretty piece of oak for it.

"I need you to say something, Mom." Closing his hand into a tense fist at his side, where she couldn't see it, he tried to keep his tone mild. "Or, if you don't want to, I can walk you on home."

"You were always so articulate, so well spoken. Quiet, but when you spoke, you had your thoughts in such good order it was like poetry at times. Whereas Rory still trips over his tongue around girls or even my friends." She smiled, though there was a wistful sadness to it that made him want to put his arm around her. "He was right," she murmured. "I did always know. It wasn't even in those things, because Martha Wingfield's child is...like you, and he's as rough as a fence post. But it was a clue for me, I guess."

"Mom, what...who's 'he'?"

"Your friend Marcus told me something once," she said abruptly. "That time he came down here to talk you into going to the Berkshires." At Thomas' expression, she shook her head. "He didn't tell you about it. Neither did I. I guess the both of us said more than we should. I didn't pay attention to it, but sometimes..." She glanced back up the steps at the face of her church, her eyes lingering on the stonework on the front. "There are those who hate Catholics. For no reason other than we're different. It's that way for a lot of people, I know. But I've been thinking that it's not the differences that frighten people. That's not the root of it. It's that we can be different and yet be so much the same.

"It didn't sink in then, what he said to me that day. And I don't think what I said sank in, either. But the odd thing is I think it did later for both of us, on almost the same day. That day he got the call about his father. Like so many things that God tries to tell us, we have to do it the way we think is best before we try doing it His Way. And sometimes he sends us reminders if we stray too far. That's how much He loves us."

"Mom." Thomas put a hand over hers again and found it colder, so he caught both of them and sandwiched them in his, warming them along with the rosary beads that dangled off the side of his palm. "You're confusing me." She smiled. "So much of what goes on in your head when you paint, that's a universe beyond my understanding. But when it's like this, the day to day, you've always been a person who likes plain speaking. That day, when he was so angry about what I did to your painting..." She took a deep breath. "The look on his face. There was nothing more important to him than protecting you, protecting your happiness.

"Sometimes, when you're desperately, foolishly in love with someone, you find out what they keep in the shadows of their soul has nothing to do with you or how they feel about you. Sometimes they're afraid if they let that out, let go of what they've been trying too hard to handle a certain way for so long, things will change. They don't realize that's what love is about. Being willing to open up and change the way they do things, do it together. Be different, in the new way."

"Marcus isn't desperate or foolish."

"Oh, Thomas. When it comes to you, he's quite both." She freed a hand and ran it down the side of his face, stroked through his hair. "This is getting curly again. You should visit the barber. Rory's is getting long too. Maybe you could go together." She sighed.

"I didn't want to see it, because it confused me. How could I see the same things I felt for your father, and he for me, in the way the two of you are together? Not the kissing and touching, or the things you say. It's deeper than that. The way you look at each other, even in the most casual moments. The way the air around you just seems right when your loved one's in the room, in the house." Her eyes were distant, soft. Sad. "The way you finish each other's sentences, think of thoughts the other one has a moment earlier. The way you laugh and smile easily with each other, at jokes that if other people said them, it wouldn't be the same. And still, none of that comes close to describing it, you know? It's this feeling so much a part of you that you don't have to feel it."

Thomas nodded, struck speechless, held still by that gentle, maternal touch on his hair.

"I thought...it was easy when I thought it was sinful, something to do with the flesh. But what I'm seeing is more than that. It's love, and love isn't a sin. So how can God be so cruel as to give that feeling to two men or two women if it's a sin? I've always believed God to be compassionate. Loving." A tremulous smile touched her face. "This is very hard for me, Thomas. Can you help me understand?"

It was the first time he'd been invited to talk to her like this. Thomas wasn't certain how much would be too much, but grasping the resolve that brought him here, he knew he wouldn't take the risk of it being too little.

"You're right, it's not just about..." She colored some, looked away and Thomas had to bite back a grin despite himself. He squeezed her arm, drawing her attention back to him.

"I mean, he's hard not to think about that way because he's overwhelming. And I guess at first I thought I was just like anybody else. Hormones, etcetera. But I think about other things, want other things with him as well. Like being with him every day.

Figuring out dinner, what to watch on TV. He has this thing when he's on the phone, I can tell if he's pleased or getting pissed just by the way he twists a pen in his fingers. To hold onto his temper, or to focus, he doodles, does weird Celtic stuff like a tattoo artist on paper.

"When he took me to the Hill farm, Mom...it was there. Like he'd stepped into my mind and figured out what I wanted the most, even before I knew it. It's like he's the one who holds the book of my life, and I'm waiting with all this breathless excitement to see him turn the page. I can see us being there, close to you, going back and forth to New York when we're needed, but renovating it, building a home there."

"You didn't fall in love with New York?"

"I fell in love with Marcus," he said simply. The first time he'd ever said it so easily to his mother. The first time he ever thought he could say it. "New York was home because he was there, the way this is home because you, Rory and Les are here. If that's where he wants to be, and as long as I know you're okay, I'll be happy there. But there's something about here, North Carolina...there's a peace, a steady constancy to it."

"Out of all my children, you've gone the furthest away in distance, as well as in your hopes and dreams." Elaine nodded, her eyes as steady and thoughtful. "But your heart, the core of you, has always been about home, family. And I think that's where the puzzle falls into place for me."

He raised a brow. "How so?"

"We may not always act like it as we should, or deserve it, but there's something instinctual that makes us want to love our family unconditionally. That's why we're called a family. And you said that Marcus doesn't have that. He would have found it in various places, with friends, but that's not the same. It was you who called to him. He knew you epitomized everything that family is about. Loyalty, sacrifice, no matter the personal cost."

She laid her hand on his stomach then. He shifted, but she made a noise, holding him still. "Love and joy. Laughter. He couldn't have made a better choice. And because he was smart enough to seek it in you, he may be a finer man than I gave him credit for being."

"Mom." Thomas' throat was tight as she curled her fingers into the front of his sweatshirt.

"And you may not listen to Marcus, but you'll listen to your mother. You're having an appointment with Dr. Lassiter next week or I'm making it for you. You're going to get a complete physical. If he says you've got something like an ulcer going on, you're going to do whatever he says to make it better, even if that means you cut back on your hours at the store."

"But we've got the planting rush about to - "

"My eldest son happens to be a very important artist who makes boatloads of money. We'll be hiring some help. And Rory...what you did before you left, it was good for him. You're right. We were wrong to treat him as if he were helpless, as if he deserved our pity. He's still a man, and he deserves to be treated like one. He'll be the general manager of the store. Your father left me in charge of operations until I say otherwise, and I'm demoting you. You're holiday help and part-time grunt only." He looked away, this time at the church. "Mom, are you okay with...this?" She turned to look as well. As she did, she leaned back against him, putting a hand up along the side of his face. It encouraged him to put his arms around her, squeeze her tight, until she made an "oof" noise that made him grin, even as tears stung the back of his eyes.

"I don't know, Thomas," she said at last. "I know what the Bible says. I know what I've been raised to believe. But I've always turned to the church in comfort during the hardest times of my life because I believe He's about Love at the root of everything.

"Though I don't understand it, I can't deny it anymore, that what you feel for one another is as real as what I was given with your father. If you don't take and make a life out of that, you'd be a fool. And I didn't raise a fool. So I think it's time for it to be between the two of you and God, and I'll pray for you both." He squeezed her again, holding her tightly so his heart wouldn't break. "I love you so much, Mom. I never stopped. I never would have, no matter what." Her shoulders hitched in a little sob. She put her face into his shoulder and he felt her swallow, then she drew back, squared her shoulders and gave his hands a pat.

When she gave him a quick smile, her eyes glinted and she swiped at an escaped tear.

"Let's get home now. Tomorrow you'll go back to New York and get that smart-mouthed Yankee's butt on a plane back here. If you aren't back in time for your doctor's appointment, I'm coming to get you both. And I can promise you, New York is not ready for me."

* * * * *

"I thought you'd left."

Lauren paused at the open door of the gallery, arching a brow. "And a good morning to you too. We thought we might stay one more day."

"Statue of Liberty's open for viewing. Then there's the Guggenheim. I'm busy." He glanced at her. "Where's Josh?"

"Getting us coffee down the street. He'll be here in a minute." She glanced over at the woman going through a box of receipts. "You must be Linda, his general manager.

We heard good things about you the other night."

Linda nodded with a smile, a wary glance at Marcus.

When she and Josh had been unable to get Marcus to answer his cell after lunch, Lauren had suggested they try the gallery, since it was not far from their hotel. Since they both knew Thomas had headed back that morning, they'd agreed they weren't going to return to Florida until they were sure Marcus was going to be okay. She was glad they'd gone with that intuition.

Lauren put her hands on her hips. "Linda, I think you want to take a personal day.

Your boss is acting like a jerk, and I'm more equipped than you are to slap him around until he pulls the stick out of his ass."

Marcus raised his head, met her cold blue stare with one of his own. "You come here to fight?"

"No. But if you're rude to me one more time, that's what it's going to be." Marcus slapped the ledger closed, extended it to Linda. "File that in the back."

"Please," Lauren added. "He meant to say please." After Linda disappeared, Lauren made her way to the counter, one casual step at a time, surveying the layout and artwork in this front area. Marcus stood behind a high walnut counter. His restless energy made him prefer to work on his feet. He'd told her it made a better impression on clients if the proprietor was standing when they arrived anyway, as if waiting just for them. With his forbidding expression today, she thought they might scream and run the other way.

When she got to the counter, she pivoted on her heel, presenting her back to him to see what art he'd chosen to place in his direct line of sight.

There were a couple of Josh's sculptures on pedestals of course, the first thing people saw when they came in. But on the wall, with a distinct but discreet block letter sign, "Not for Sale - Other Work by This Artist Available" was a farm scene. A man leaning shirtless against a fence, watching the sun set, the image so vibrant and strong, so real, that anyone would feel they were standing just a few feet behind that man.

Watching. Absorbing everything he was.

She turned back to face him. "You put him here, where you could see him every day."

"Get out, Lauren. I mean it. You don't want to be around me today, and I'm not in the mood for games."

Lauren put her palms flat on the carved and polished wooden surface and looked up into his face. Marcus was truly intimidating when he was pissed and broody, and there was an even deeper level to it, something volatile and dark, layers of past poison injecting itself into the present. Everything pulsing off him said he wasn't in control, and what's more, he didn't really give a fuck that he wasn't.

She'd once stood toe-to-toe with Josh, called forth his demons and unleashed them upon herself. She'd taken him down with nothing but nerve and the expert use of a whip that, in the face of a powerful man's rage, hadn't lasted five seconds. The nerve had. The love had.

Marcus was a different entity, with even more violent spaces. She could sense that, but just like with Josh, she believed she knew the core of the man. So when she reached up with both hands to frame his face, she wasn't surprised when his hands caught her wrists. But he didn't push her away. He held her there, his grip squeezing her as if she were a lifeline.

"You're a great Mistress, Lauren," he said quietly. "But you're a woman. I'm stronger, bigger and a hell of a lot meaner than you'd ever dream of being. You value our friendship, you don't fuck with me today."

Thomas had said something about the polish being all seared away when they were in the kitchen. She understood it now, seeing the coldness in his eyes.

"Marcus, if you value our friendship, you'll take your hands off my wife. Now. I mean it. Because I am bigger and stronger." Josh set down the coffee cups on the entrance table and moved forward, his gray eyes hard. He took Lauren's elbow, drew her away. When he did, Marcus let go.

Josh took her wrist in one hand, looked at the red marks and looked at Marcus.

"Josh - "

He'd leaned over and snagged the front of Marcus' shirt before Lauren finished the thought. "What the hell is the matter with you?" Marcus yanked loose, shoved Josh back and came around the counter.

"Stop it, both of you."

But Marcus wasn't after Josh. Lauren realized it a blink after Josh did. They both lunged after him, but it was too late.

Marcus ripped the framed picture off the wall hard enough to tear a gash in the sheet rock and broke it over his knee. The frame snapped like kindling in his frustrated hands. He tore the canvas loose as Lauren cried out and Linda emerged from the back, her eyes round. Taking the coffee, he dumped it over the now ruined canvas.

"Marcus - " Lauren leaped forward.

Josh picked up the nearest statue, a hefty bronze of a Minotaur, and yanked Lauren back as Marcus turned on her, rage gripping his features. Josh struck him across the jaw with it, knocking Marcus back into the wall.

"Josh!" Lauren tried to move forward again, but Josh held her firmly.

Marcus was breathing hard, leaning against the wall. Blood slipped through his lips, proving the blow had made an impact, not just in the evidence of the blood but in his sudden stillness, hunched against the wall as if he couldn't move, as if frozen by the horror of a Medusa's gaze. A look into his Fate, his life without Thomas.

Josh handed the statue to Lauren. Despite the fact he needed her to be his Mistress on a lot of levels, he didn't assume the mantle of submissive in any way when her wellbeing and protection was at risk. "You stay right here," he ordered her. "Not a step."

He moved to Marcus. When he got there, he reached out, laid a careful hand on Marcus' shoulder.

Marcus raised his gaze, and it was as if Josh was looking into a hell-filled abyss, all the conflict and turmoil roiling in the green of his eyes. "He's coming back, Marcus," Josh said.

Marcus shook his head. "He'll get down there, and it will all be about his mother and...what he has to be. He can't walk away from his responsibility to them."

"He's not walking away from anything," Josh said firmly. "That's why he is going back, Marcus. Have faith in him."

"I do. I know who he is, everything about him." Marcus abruptly straightened, shrugged past Josh and squatted by the mess on the floor. Running his fingertips over it, the layers of now wet paint mixed with coffee staining his hand. "I know him inside like it's my own inside, my breath and bone. This painting...it captured his soul." Is it bad to just stop? Maybe it hurts less. Maybe Emile, Toby and Mike were the lucky ones.

Marcus shook his head again. Stood. "I'm sorry," he said with forced politeness to Lauren, and included Linda and Josh in his gesture. "I can't be here today. Linda, please close up. Don't clean this. I'll do it later."

Lauren did step forward now. "Where are you going?" Instead of answering, he looked at the statue in her hand and shifted his gaze to Josh. "You hit me with a Royce sculpture? Do you know how frigging expensive that piece is?"

"It's bronze. Something even harder than your head would be needed to dent it.

And I'm not the one who just shredded the painting you paid thousands of dollars for at an auction."

"Your hand." Lauren caught it, and Marcus noticed the gash caused by the wood frame, the nails. "When was your last tetanus?"

Marcus pulled away. "Leave it." He stared down at the wreckage. "It will heal over.

It always does. Doesn't even leave a scar."

When he was a boy, they'd had a cat on the Iowa farm whose eyes were always messed up, as if the poor beast suffered allergies. Upon eventual inspection, they discovered his eyelids grew inward and his lashes were abrading the surface of his eyes. Of course, by the time they figured it out, the corneas were scarred such that the cat lost part of his sight, but he lived a fully functional life anyway.

It occurred to him then that he might have a peculiar phenomenon like that cat.

Perhaps the scars from all of his wounds were on the inside, a protection method that allowed him to maintain his looks, his most potent survival weapon. But somehow, along the way, the wounds had begun to fester. Because of Thomas, his torment and savior both.

He had to make peace with it. He had to go back to the beginning. Where he could turn the wounds into calluses, before he bled to death internally.