Between Darkness and Daylight by Gracie C. Mckeever Read Free Book Online Page B

you!"
    "Don't you think you're taking this whole rebellious youth thing just a little too far, Ransom? Just how far do you think you’d get out there on the streets all alone, in your pajamas?"
    "I’d manage." Ran flushed, pushed past him to go back to his bedroom.
    Zane followed several steps behind. "You and your father deserve each other, you know that? You're both incorrigible."
    Ransom froze in his tracks just outside his bedroom door and turned a such a wounded look on him, Zane's heart dropped at his own betrayal.
    Ransom looked as if Zane had just killed his mother, and Zane felt like he had, too.
    "I hate you." Ransom continued into his room and slammed the door behind him.
    That was not something that would ever have gone on in his mother's house when he was growing up. Adair Youngblood-Baldwin did not like closed doors in the house where she lived and paid bills. And no way would Zane or Sage have gotten away with all the back talk— especially that ‘hate’ word—not without having to retrieve several teeth from the floor.

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    Zane pounded the door with his fist a couple of times. "You can hate me all you want, Ransom, but you’d better be dressed and ready to leave this house in fifteen minutes!" Then he went to a far corner of the loft to let off the rest of his steam with the extensive model train collection he’d bought and set up for Ran. He played with it more often than the kid did, especially at times like this.
    Right about now, he wanted to blow up a set of model trains like the dad on The Addams Family did on a regular basis. Maybe there was something to be said for being creepy and kooky.

    * * * *

    Ransom came out twenty minutes later, instead of fifteen, pushing Zane's buttons further. But he was freshly showered and clad in a just-pressed red-checked flannel shirt and a pair of baggy carpenter jeans that, despite their name and intent, still looked too clean and neat to wear for a painting job.
    "What?" Ransom raised his arms away from his body.
    "You're going to wear brand new clothes for this job?"
    Ransom reached around his bedroom doorjamb, retrieved a knapsack from the floor, and flung it over one shoulder. "Bringing sweats to change into."
    "You're smarter than I give you credit for."
    Ran smirked. "What about you?"
    "Me?" Zane put a palm on his chest. "This is your party, not mine."
    "You're not even going to help me just a little?"
    "We'll see." Zane pushed the kid towards the door. "Let's get moving.
    We're already—"
    "Late. Yeah, yeah, I know."

    * * * *

    Ransom knew he’d acted like a total spoiled brat earlier, knew he did it a lot. Half the time didn't like his own self, so he knew he wasn't very likable to his uncle. He couldn't blame the guy for calling him out and 42
    Gracie C. McKeever
    wouldn't have blamed him if he just decided to drop him off at his father's doorstep and never looked back again.
    He didn't know why he did it, picked and picked until he got on what his uncle called his "reserve nerves." It would be nothing more than he deserved if Uncle Zane had taken a belt or extension chord to his hide. But he never had, no matter how atrocious Ransom acted with him. The worst he’d done was that cuff upside the head at the police station, and Ran had deserved it. Heck, he might have done the same thing if faced with a nephew like him. Besides, he’d gotten much worse from his dad as a small child, and for way less serious offenses. His uncle had to know he didn't mean it when he said he wanted to go live with his father. No sane person would want that for himself, not in a million years.
    Ran glanced at his uncle's profile now, admiring the strong lines as Zane quietly sat in his window seat and looked at the bird's-eye view of the Hudson River scenery flying by. Ran imagined his own hair stopping at the nape, neatly cut around the ears just so, instead of the long wild mane he favored. Even with the long hair, everyone who saw