"What did you eat?"

His father glanced at him from over the rim of his mug. "Little Debbies."

When Carson's lip curled, his father chuckled. Score one for the old man.

He'd set the whole thing up beautifully, stage-managing a decline so precipitous, Julie had been forced to send an e-mail. Your father's going feral. He needs looking after, and I'm not up to it.

Carson had suggested a housekeeper.

He needs you, she'd said. Just you.

Two days out from breaking ground on a new emba.s.sy building in the Netherlands, he hadn't been able to travel right away, but he promised to come as soon as he could.

A week later, he got another call. The old man had slipped on the icy front porch and banged up his leg, and the hospital social worker echoed Julie's opinion. Lengthy recovery for a man his age ... I think he'd benefit ... No family in town capable ...

Carson came home.

It was so much worse than Julie had said.

The house looked like a badger was living in it. Random junk spilled over every available surface, and his childhood bedroom housed a floor-to-ceiling a.s.sortment of discarded furniture and old copies of Life magazine. Dad kept the thermostat too low, survived on convenience-store food, and smelled stale.

Less than six months since Carson's mother had died, and Martin Vance had turned himself into a shambling, grumbling, Sudoku-obsessed cry for help.

"Just about got the front room cleared out," Carson said. He opened the bread bag and grabbed two pieces of bread to slot into the toaster. "I'm going to tackle the spare room next."

Work, don't think.

That was the motto.

No glancing at his backpack where it leaned beside the front door. No speculating about when he'd be released from small-town bondage and allowed to return to the real world again. Speculation got him nowhere, and there was so much to do.

"What do you mean, you're going to tackle it?" Martin asked.

"I'm going to clean it out."

"You're not touching my collectibles."

"Collectibles?"

"In the spare room. That stuff is worth money. I'm going to sell it on eBay."

"You haven't got anything worth a dime up there." You don't have an Internet connection, either. Or the first f.u.c.king clue how eBay works.

What's your game here, old man?

Because his father was definitely up to something. At first, Carson had been so shocked by the rapidity of the downward slide, he hadn't noticed the incongruities. Like the fact that there was dirt ground into the living-room carpet, but the bathroom still sparkled, and so did the interior of the microwave.

Like the way he'd heard Dad whistling as he got dressed two mornings in a row.

Like how when he wasn't watching, the random, strewn-about junk started rearranging itself into more orderly piles. As if somebody couldn't keep himself from tidying it up.

Carson knew a bluff when he saw one. He'd played enough poker with his father as a kid. It was the only thing they knew how to do together without arguing.

"All that furniture's going to appreciate in value," Martin said.

"All that furniture's trash, and it's going to the dump."

"Over my dead body."

Carson had never much liked poker-all that speculating about what the opponent was going to do, figuring out bets and odds when he just wanted to act and be done with it. But what could he do but play the game? Even if he cleaned up the house, forced his father to eat vegetables and shower and take his vitamins, there was a d.a.m.n good possibility that once he finished and left, he would get called back six weeks or six months from now to effect another rescue.

If he folded now, laid down his cards, and walked out of the house ... well, then he was an a.s.shole.

He didn't want to be an a.s.shole. He just didn't want to be here. And his father knew it.

Stymied, Carson wiped his hand over his mouth and muttered, "Jesus Christ."

"Keep taking the Lord's name in vain, and you won't have a roof over your head."

"I barely have a roof over my head now, Dad. I'm sleeping on the G.o.dd.a.m.n couch."

"Last warning."

He raised his hands in a gesture of peacemaking.

His father made a gravelly noise in his throat and took another sip of coffee, setting the mug back onto the table with a defiant thump that matched the pure stubbornness in his eyes.

The toast popped.

There was no point to the argument. It was just a symptom of a problem that wasn't ever going away-he and his father couldn't find any ease with each other. Mom had made their relationship work, and without her around, they fell into the same old ruts and wore them deeper.

Part of him wanted to confront his father with the truth. You brought me back here on purpose because you want me to move home. I'm not going to do that. We don't even like each other. I know you're lonely, and I'm sorry you're depressed, but I can't help you. You have to get on with it.

But Martin Vance wasn't the kind of guy you said that to. He was a stiff, principled man who'd been a curmudgeon even before he got old. If Carson said those words, he and his father would have it out, then they'd never speak to each other again.

He couldn't bring himself to do it.

The second hand swept around the bird clock. He slathered margarine on his toast and set to eating it.

Martin worked out a possibility in the margin of his puzzle book. He dropped the pen and looked out the window with an abstracted expression. "I'm sure Julie's got a room at the inn."

The statement hung in the air, suspended. Its subtext swelled and filled the s.p.a.ce between them.

I'll see your ten and raise you fifty.

By Ruthie Knox.

Ride with Me.

About Last Night.

Room at the Inn.

How to Misbehave.