Chapter 2

The old Yakimizu place was worse than he remembered it. It couldn't have had a coat of paint in at least fifteen years, and the porch was falling down on one side. And from what he could see by the moonlight, he didn't think the roof was going to keep anyone dry.

"See, I told you," Naruto said eagerly, seemingly oblivious to the house's decrepitude. "The lights are all on. That kid never sleeps; he keeps his mother up all night."

Sasuke glanced at his brother and thought that the sooner he got him away from this harpy, the better.

"Come on," Naruto said, already out of the car and halfway up the broken sidewalk that led to a fence that had half collapsed. "Are you afraid of this? If you are—"

"If I am, you'll double dare me, right?" Sasuke said, one eyebrow raised.

Naruto grinned, his teeth white in the moonlight; then he half ran up the porch steps toward the front door. "Don't step on that, it—Oh, sorry, did you hurt yourself? The house needs some work."

Rubbing his head where a board from the porch had smacked him, Sasuke gave a grimace to his brother. "Yeah, like Frankenstein needed some fine tuning."

But Naruto didn't seem to hear his brother as he eagerly rapped on the door, and within seconds it was opened by a young woman. . . . And Sasuke's mouth fell open in disbelief, for this woman was not what he had been expecting.

Sakura was not a Siren luring men to her; she wasn't going to inspire sonnets written to her beauty. Nor was she going to have to worry about men falling at her feet in lust. She had long pink hair, which looked to be in need of a washing, pulled back at the nape of her neck. She wore no makeup, and her pale ivory skin had a few off-white-ish spots on her chin. Her viridian eyes were huge, seeming to almost swallow her face; they certainly overshadowed her tiny mouth. As for her body, she was short and fragile-looking, and from the way her bones protruded from her clothes, she needed a good meal. The only thing of substance about her were her breasts, which were huge—and were marked by two large wet circles.

"Shanaro!" she said as she looked down at herself; then she scurried back into the house. "Come in, Naruto, make yourself at home. Kenji is—thank God—asleep for the moment. I'd give you some gin, but I don't have any, so you might as well help yourself to the fifty-year-old brandy, which I don't have any of either."

"Thanks," Naruto said brightly. "In that case I think I'll have champagne."

"Pour me a bucket full of it too," came the answer from a darkened doorway.

Naruto looked at Sasuke as though to say, Isn't she the wittiest person you ever met?

But Sasuke was looking around the room. It had been a long time since he'd left what Naruto referred to as his "house in the clouds."

"You live so much in private jets and private hotels and private whatevers that you've forgotten what the rest of the world is like," he'd said too often. So now, Sasuke looked about the room in distaste. Shabby was the word that came first to his mind. Everything looked as though it had come from the Goodwill: nothing matched, nothing suited anything else. There was an ugly old couch upholstered in worn brown fabric, a hideous old chair covered in what looked to be a print of sunflowers and banana leaves. The coffee table was one of those huge, cast off wooden spools that someone had painted a strange shade of fuchsia.

The nicest thing Sasuke could think about it was that it looked like a place where Kenichi Senju would live.

Naruto punched his brother in the ribs and nodded toward the doorway. "Stop sneering," he said under his breath; then both men looked up as Sakura reentered the room.

She emerged from the bedroom wearing a dry, wrinkled shirt, and most of the spots on her chin were gone. When she saw Sasuke glance at her, she gave another swipe, removed the remaining spots, then gave a half smile and said, "Baby rice. If he got as much in him as I get on me, he'd be one fat little hog."

"This is my cousin Sasuke," Naruto was saying. "You know, the one I was telling you about. He'd be really grateful if you'd let him stay with you until his heart mends."

This statement so stunned Sasuke that all he could do was stare at his brother.

"Yes, of course. I understand," Sakura said. "Do come in and sit down." She looked at Sasuke. "I'm sorry Kenji isn't awake right now, but you'll get to see him in about three hours. I can assure you of that," she said, laughing.

Sasuke was beginning to smell a rat. And the rat was his little brother. The brother he had helped raise. The brother he had always loved and cherished. The one he would have died for. That brother seemed to have done a real number on him.

Long ago Sasuke had figured out that if he kept his mouth shut long enough, he'd learn everything he needed to know. Many times his silence had achieved what words could not, so now he sat and listened.

"Can I offer you some tea?" Sakura asked. "If I can't afford champagne, I can afford tea. I have chamomile and raspberry leaf. No, that one's good for milk, and I doubt if either of you need that," she said, smiling at Sasuke as though he knew everything that was going on.

And Sasuke was indeed beginning to understand. Now he noticed a few things about the room that he had overlooked before. On the floor was a stuffed tiger. No, it was Tigger from Winnie-the-Pooh, and there was a cloth book against the edge of the sunflower chair.

"How old is your son?" Sasuke asked, his jaw rigid.

"Twenty-six weeks today," Sakura said proudly. "Six months."

Sasuke turned blazing eyes on his brother. "May I see you outside?" He looked at Sakura. "You must excuse us."

When Naruto made no move to get off the old brown sofa, Sasuke dug his hands into his brother's shoulders and pulled him upward. One advantage Sasuke had was that wherever he went he made sure there was a gym available so he could keep in shape. Naruto thought that standing on his feet fourteen hours a day was enough exercise, so now Sasuke had the advantage and he nearly lifted his softer brother into a standing position.

"We'll only be a minute," Naruto said, smiling at Sakura as Sasuke half dragged him from the house.

Once they were outside, Sasuke glared at his brother, his voice calm—and deadly. "What are you playing at? And don't you dare lie to me."

"I couldn't tell you or you would have run back to your damned jet. But actually I didn't really lie to you. I just omitted some details. And haven't you always said that no man should assume anything?"

"Don't turn this back on me. I was talking about strangers. I didn't think my own brother would—Oh, the hell with it. You go in there and tell that poor young woman that a mistake was made, and—"

"You're going back on a sacred oath. I knew you would."

For a moment Sasuke closed his eyes in an attempt to regain strength. "We are no longer in elementary school. We are adults and—"

"Right," Naruto said coldly, then turned toward the car that waited at the curb.

Oh, Lord, Sasuke thought. His brother could carry a grudge into eternity. In one step he caught Naruto's arm and halted him. "You must see that I can't follow up on my promise. I could look after a half-grown boy, but this is . . . Naruto, this is ababy. It wears diapers."

"And you're too good to change them, is that it? Of course, the great and rich"—he sneered the word—"Sasuke Uchiha is too good to change a kid's diapers. Do you have any idea how many times I have emptied bedpans? Inserted catheters? That I have—"

"All right, you win. You're St. Naruto and I am the devil incarnate. Whatever, I can't do this."

"I knew you'd go back on your word," Naruto muttered, then turned toward the car again.

Sasuke sent up a little prayer asking for strength, then grabbed Naruto's arm again. "What is it you've told her?" he asked while envisioning his secretary flying to Konoha and taking over the kid. No, the baby.

Naruto's eyes brightened. "I told her you were my cousin and you were recovering from a broken love affair and it was the first Christmas you'd had without your lover, so you were very lonely. And that your new apartment was being repainted, so you had nowhere to stay for a week. I also said you loved babies and she'd be doing you a favor to let you stay with her for a week and take care of Kenji while she job hunts during the day." Naruto took a breath.

It wasn't as bad as Sasuke had at first thought when he'd heard that "broken heart" remark.

Naruto could see his brother relenting. "All I want is a little time with her," he said. "I'm mad about her. You can see that she's wonderful. She's funny and brave and—"

"And has a heart of gold, I know," Sasuke said tiredly as he walked toward the car. Juugo was already out and had the back door open. "Call Hyuga and tell her to get here fast," he ordered. It felt good to give an order. Naruto made him feel as though he were back in nursery school.

Sasuke turned back to his brother. "If I do this for you, you are never to ask anything from me ever again. You understand? This is the all-time, ultimate favor."

"Scouts' honor," Naruto said, raising two fingers and looking so happy that Sasuke almost forgave him. But at least the good news was that now that Naruto had lied to him, he felt free to do a little underhanded business of his own. He most definitely would get his competent secretary to bail him out of this.

Naruto could see by his brother's face that Sasuke was going to do it. "You'll not regret this. I promise you."

"I already do," Sasuke muttered as he followed Naruto back into the house. And once they were inside, it took Naruto all of about four minutes before he excused himself, saying he had to get up early; then he left the two of them alone.

And it was then that Sasuke felt especially awkward. "I . . . ah . . ." he began, not knowing what to say to the young woman who stood there staring at him as though she expected him to say something. What did she want from him? A résumé maybe? Such a document might list several Fortune 500 companies he owned, but it wouldn't say anything about his ability—or in this case his inability—to change diapers.

When Sasuke said nothing, the woman gave him a bit of a smile, then said, "I would imagine that you're tired. The spare bedroom is in there. I'm sorry, but there's only a narrow bed. I've never had a guest before."

Sasuke tried to give her a smile in return. It wasn't her fault if his brother was in love with her, but, truthfully, Sasuke couldn't see what there was to love about the woman. Personally, he liked his women to be clean and polished, the kind of women who spent their days in a salon having every hair and pore tended to.

"Where are your bags?"

"Bags?" he asked, not knowing what she meant. "Oh, yeah. Luggage. I left it at . . . at Naruto's house. I'll get it in the morning."

She was looking at him very hard. "I thought—" She looked away, not finishing her sentence. "The bedroom's through there, and there's a little bathroom. It's not much but—" She broke off as though she weren't going to allow herself to apologize for the inadequacy of the room.

"Good night, Mr. Uchiha," she said, then turned on her heel and went through another doorway.

Sasuke wasn't used to people dismissing him. In fact, he was more used to people fawning over him, as they usually wanted something from him. "Right," he muttered. "Good night." Then he turned and went into the room she'd indicated. It was, if possible, worse than the rest of the house. The bed stood in the middle of the room, with a clean, frayed old red-and-white quilt spread over it. The only other furniture in the room was an overturned cardboard box with a lamp on it that looked as though Edison might have used it. There was a tiny curtainless window and two doors, one that looked as if it might lead to a closet and the other the bathroom. Inside that room was all blazing white tile, half of it cracked.

Ten minutes later, Sasuke had stripped to his underwear and was huddled under the quilt. Tomorrow he'd send his secretary to buy him an electric blanket.

It couldn't have been more than an hour later that he was awakened by a sound. It was a scraping noise followed by something that sounded like paper being crumpled. He'd always been a light sleeper, but years of jet travel had made things worse; he was now nearly an insomniac. Quietly, barefoot, he padded into the living room. There was enough moonlight that he could see the shadow outlines of the furniture and keep from bashing into it. For a moment he stood still listening. The sound was coming from the woman's room.

Hesitating, he stood outside the open doorway. Maybe she was doing something in private, but as his eyes adjusted he could see her in bed, see that she was asleep. Feeling like a Peeping Tom, he turned away to go back to his own bed, but then the sound came again. Peering into the darkness, he saw what looked to be a cage in the corner, but as he blinked, he saw it was an old-fashioned wooden playpen and sitting up in it was what appeared to be a baby bear.

Sasuke blinked, shook his head, then looked again as the bear cub turned its head and grinned up at him.

He could distinctly see two teeth gleaming in the pale silvery light.

Without thinking what he was doing, Sasuke tiptoed into the room and reached down to the kid. He fully expected the child to let out a howl, but he didn't. However, the baby did grab Sasuke's face and pinch in a way that made Sasuke's eyes water with pain.

After removing the little hand from his face, Sasuke carried the child back into his own room and put him down onto the narrow bed, pulled the quilt about him, then said sternly, "Now go to sleep." The baby blinked up at him a couple of times, then squirmed around so he was lying crosswise on the bed, and promptly went to sleep.

"Not bad," Sasuke said in admiration of his own accomplishment. Not bad at all. Maybe Naruto had been right when he said that his older brother had a way with children. Too bad Sasuke hadn't used his firmest tone with that horrid boy so many years ago. Maybe . . .

He trailed off as he realized that he now had no place to sleep. Even if he turned the kid around, the bed was too narrow for the both of them as the child was as fat as a Christmas turkey. No wonder his first impression of him was that he was a bear cub.

So now what? Sasuke thought, looking at his watch. It was four A.M. and Suna wasn't open, so he couldn't do any business. Ah, he thought, Suna might be closed, but Kumogakure was open.

After putting his wool suit on to protect him from the cold, he retrieved his portable phone from his coat pocket and went to the window, where the signal would be better, and dialed. Five minutes later he was being hooked up to a conference call with the heads of a major company that Sasuke had recently bought. In the background he could hear sounds of an office Christmas party, and he could tell that the managers were annoyed to be missing the fun, but it didn't matter to Sasuke. Business was business, and the sooner they realized that the better.