Breathless

by HELEN HARDT

  Desperate? I didn’t like the sound of that. No way was she coming near my son.

  “What’s her number? I’ll call her and set her straight.”

  My mom pointed to her cell. “It’s on my phone.”

  “You didn’t take down her number?”

  “I…guess I wasn’t thinking. Everything that’s gone on, and I’ve been packing all day.”

  “The packers were supposed to take care of all of that.”

  “I didn’t trust them with the breakable stuff. They clomp around here like they own the place, trailing dirt and sand onto the carpet.” She shook her head. “I didn’t like it. Didn’t like having strange men in the house.”

  My mother had been wary of strange men since my father’s death. She was still dealing with what he’d been, and I understood completely. So what did I do? Instead of heading straight home after Ted Morse had come to her house, I’d fucked Marjorie Steel. What the hell was wrong with me?

  “Mom, it’s okay. I’ll call Frankie and take care of everything.”

  “She’s his mother, Bryce.”

  “Yeah, she is. But have you thought about the big picture here? What if she falls in love with Henry and wants to take him from us?”

  My mother gasped, her fingers covering her mouth. “But she already gave up her rights!”

  “Do you think that matters? She’s his biological mother. The courts favor mothers over fathers. If she decides to pursue something”—I swallowed, the thought killing me—“we could lose him.”

  “No. Just no.” She wrung her hands together.

  “Exactly. I will not let that happen. She has no rights, so there’s no reason we need to let her see him.”

  “I’m sorry, Bryce. I haven’t been thinking straight lately. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

  I said nothing, just gave her a quick hug. I knew well what the matter was. My father. My psycho father. We were both still dealing with the truth of what he’d been.

  I grabbed her phone and hit last call received.

  No way was that wayward bitch coming near my son.

  Chapter Forty–Three

  Marjorie

  My brothers were still in the office, but I’d left after Bryce stormed out so quickly. I had no idea what his problem was, and I tried not to care.

  Still, I cared. Maybe I didn’t try very hard. Or maybe, more likely, I cared anyway, despite knowing I’d be better off if I didn’t.

  The clock was nearing nine p.m. when the doorbell rang.

  My heart leaped. Bryce had returned! Not that he’d be here to see me, but I couldn’t help the way my body responded. My sisters-in-law were still in the family room. I was nearest the door, so I walked through the foyer and opened it without looking in the peephole.

  I smiled brightly, and—

  Then frowned.

  Bryce Simpson did not stand in the doorway.

  Colin Morse did.

  Colin Morse had come to my home…while all of my brothers were here. Not a good combination.

  “Hey, Marj,” he said.

  “What are you doing here, Colin?”

  “After you canceled on me today, I got worried. Is Jade all right?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “You didn’t give me much of an explanation.”

  “I told you something came up and we couldn’t make it. I didn’t owe you anything else.”

  “May I come in?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good—”

  “Who is it, Sis?”

  I turned at Talon’s voice. This was, after all, his home too.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could—

  “What do you want, Morse?” Talon asked, not overly nicely.

  Colin cowered slightly. He tried to hide it, but his discomfort in Talon’s presence was apparent. Talon had pummeled him once, and since then, Colin had been through torture and rape at the hands of Bryce’s father.

  “Tal…” I pleaded with my gaze. Talon, of all people, knew what had befallen Colin.

  “I just want to make sure Jade is okay,” Colin said, not meeting Talon’s gaze.

  “It’s late.”

  “I know, but she and I were supposed to talk today. I was worried.”

  “She’s fine, as I’m sure my sister told you. She’ll reschedule your meeting.”

  “Come in, Colin,” Jade said from behind me. “We can talk now.”

  Talon’s facial muscles tensed. “It’s late, blue eyes.”

  “I know, but I’m feeling okay for once, and I’d like to get the talk with Colin over with, honestly.”

  Colin stepped inside tentatively.

  “Fine,” Talon said. “I’ll be joining you.”

  “We agreed that Marj and I would talk to him,” Jade said.

  “Because I was otherwise engaged,” he said. “I happen to be free as a bird at the moment.”

  “Maybe another time,” Colin said, his lips trembling slightly. “You’re right. It’s late.”

  “You’ve interrupted us already,” Talon said. “If Jade wants to talk to you, you’ll talk to her.”

  “With Marj,” Jade emphasized. “Aren’t you still talking to your brothers?”

  “Yeah, we’re working on things.” He touched Jade’s cheek lovingly. “All right. But Sis, don’t leave them alone for a microsecond.”

  “I won’t.”

  My brother had no idea how truthful I was being. I was every bit as interested as Jade to hear what Colin had to say, and I had plenty of questions for him.

  Melanie and Ruby were in the family room, so I led Colin to the formal living room, which we hardly ever used. However, it was quiet and secluded and no way would anyone overhear us from Talon’s office or the family room. Not that I cared. I’d tell them all everything eventually. But Colin needed to feel secure if I was going to get the truth out of him.

  He walked in tentatively, looking a little scared to sit down on the gold silk brocade sofa. When Jade took a seat, he sat next to her at the opposite end of the couch.

  “Do you need anything?” I asked Jade.

  “Maybe some peppermint tea,” she said.

  “You want some?” I asked Colin.

  “No. Just some water.”

  “Okay. No talking until I get back.”

  I quickly prepared Jade’s tea and returned with the cup and a glass of water for Colin. He sat stiffly on the couch, quiet. Apparently they’d taken me seriously when I said no talking, though I hadn’t meant small talk.

  I sat in the chair closest to Jade. I was tempted to take the couch between her and Colin, but that felt…strange. I wanted to protect Jade, but I felt I could do it better next to her, where we could both look at Colin. Make it two against one.

  I waited a few seconds for one of them to say something, but neither did.

  “So why are you here, Colin?” I asked to break the ice.

  “I told you. I was worried about Jade.”

  Again, I waited for Jade to reply. When she didn’t, I said, “We’re looking for the real reason.”

  “That is the real—”

  “Colin, we weren’t born yesterday.” I met his gaze sternly. “You don’t come over to your ex’s home—where she lives with her muscled husband—at nine at night to see if she’s okay.”

  Colin opened his mouth, but no words came out. His face had returned to normalcy, handsome and high cheekboned, no longer gaunt from being starved and tortured by Tom Simpson. The only remnants were a few scars on his brow and one on his jawline, which would fade given more time.

  Clothes hid the rest of the scars. Joe had told us in detail how he’d found Colin—naked and shaved, skin and bones with bruises and lacerations. He was wearing long sleeves, which made sense in February, but we were having a mild winter. I’d been wearing T-shirts and tanks around the house.

  Jade bit her bottom lip, a gesture we had in common. Then she reached toward Colin and laid her hand on his. I stifled the surpr
ised jerk that threatened me.

  “I understand what you’ve been through, and I’m so sorry.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Colin said.

  His tone was…ambivalent. Was he lying? I couldn’t tell.

  “Your father does,” I said, not in the nicest way. “Even though my brother was the one who rescued you.”

  Colin reddened…and again said nothing, just fidgeted with the left sleeve of his shirt.

  “You need to call him off,” I continued. “We’re dealing with enough crap right now.”

  “Marj…” Jade began.

  “I’m right, and you know it,” I said. “You’re pregnant. Melanie’s pregnant. You guys don’t need more crap coming your way. None of us do. We’re all victims here in our own way, and none of us are responsible for what happened to you, Colin.”

  “I just said I don’t—”

  “You said you don’t blame Jade. What about Talon? What about Joe? What about what your father tried to do to him?”

  “I stopped that.”

  “As you should have. But he’s still up to something, and you’re going to tell us what it is.”

  Chapter Forty–Four

  Bryce

  “Please, Bryce,” Frankie said through my phone. “I just want to see him.”

  “No,” I said for the third time. “It’s not going to happen. You relinquished your parental rights, and I owe you nothing.”

  “I know that. I just thought, since I was in town—”

  “You thought wrong. You have no idea what’s going on in my life right now, and you’ve upset my mother. I can’t have that. Henry is fine. He’s a happy, healthy toddler. You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

  “But I—”

  “This conversation is over, Frankie. Don’t call here again.” I pushed End so violently that my mother’s phone slipped from my hand and clattered to the floor.

  Had I been too harsh? I couldn’t bring myself to care. Too much else cluttered my mind.

  My son. My mother. The Steels. My new position. Ted Morse.

  And Marjorie.

  At the top of the heap was Marjorie Steel.

  I had to get her out of my system.

  Just thinking of her had my groin tightening, despite the nerve-racking phone call I’d just completed. Despite my mother wringing her hands a few yards away from me.

  “It’s taken care of,” I told her. “If she calls again, don’t answer.”

  She nodded and walked toward Henry’s nursery, presumably to check on him.

  Since my father’s death, my mother had let me be in charge of major decisions. She’d been a housewife her whole life, leaving such things to my father. Those days were over, and she was going to have to learn to stand on her own two feet. Would she be able to do that living with me on the Steel ranch? I didn’t know, and I couldn’t dwell on it. For the time being, I needed her help with Henry, and the two of them needed each other. I’d always be there for her, but she also needed to be an individual who didn’t depend solely on another person.

  I gazed around the house. Only furniture remained. Most of the little things that made the house a home—photos and paintings on the walls, books on the shelves, my mother’s collectible cherubs on the mantel—had all been packed up and were probably on a truck somewhere, waiting to arrive at the Steel guesthouse.

  I continued toward the kitchen to get a glass of water when a lone picture frame caught my eye. It sat on the floor in the corner of the small nook in our foyer. The glass had been broken and the photo scratched.

  My mother and father’s wedding photo.

  It had stayed in place after my father’s death. Many times I’d thought about trashing it, but it wasn’t mine to trash. I hadn’t existed when the photo had been taken. It was my mother’s to do with as she pleased, and she hadn’t moved it.

  The other photos that had sat in that nook—a few of my baby pictures, one of Henry, and a couple other family photos—were all gone, presumably packed up.

  But this one…

  I bent down and retrieved it. I was always amazed at how much I resembled my father. In this wedding pic, he was young, blond, blue-eyed, and handsome. He looked genuinely happy. Genuinely normal.

  My mother was radiant in her wedding gown, her hair glowing around her shoulders. She was beautiful. She still was, with silver hair and light-brown eyes.

  But she’d aged so much in the past year.

  We all had.

  I looked again at my father’s image.

  Was he already messed up then? What had caused him to become what he was?

  Thanks to the Steels’ investigation and the information that had come out when arrests were made, I knew he’d been corrupted by power and money, beginning when he was in high school. Had he already done heinous things by the time he’d wed my mother? Joe would know. The Steels hadn’t told me everything they’d found, at my own request. I’d needed to keep my sanity.

  But sanity be damned.

  If I was to truly make sure I didn’t become my father, I needed to know everything there was to know about him—what he’d done and why.

  What could make a good man turn bad? Could anything? Or was he never a good man to begin with?

  With the photo in hand, I headed into the nursery. My mother was standing at the crib, gazing down at a sleeping Henry.

  “Mom?”

  She turned. “He looks so much like you when you were a baby.”

  “I don’t know about that.” I smiled. “He’s so beautiful.”

  “So were you. Just gorgeous. Just like…” She looked upward wistfully.

  …your father.

  The two words she didn’t say.

  I’d been told all my life how much I resembled my father. Even his mother—my grandmother, may she rest in peace—had said the same thing, said how much I looked like my father at every age. She’d been gone over a decade now. Thank God she never knew who her son really was.

  I cleared my throat and held up the wedding photo. “I found this on the floor in the foyer.”

  “Oh.” She quickly grabbed it from me. “The movers must have dropped it.”

  “Mom…”

  “They must have— Oh, it’s no use. You already know I destroyed it.”

  “I had a feeling.”

  “Do you know how difficult it is to look at this photo of what has always been the second happiest day of my life?”

  “The second happiest day?” I said.

  “The first happiest day was the day you were born, Bryce.”

  I warmed with love for my mother. “I understand. Even though I wasn’t expecting him, the day I got Henry has turned into the happiest day for me.”

  “Children do that. You were so precious to me. We tried, but we never got blessed with another.” Then she shook her head. “I used to love to gaze at this photo. To remember how happy your father and I were then, and we were happy. At least I was. I always thought your father was. But now I look at it and I feel sick. It was all a lie.”

  “Why did you leave the picture on the floor, Mom?”

  “That’s where I threw it.”

  “Why didn’t you throw it out?”

  “I don’t know. I wanted to. I was ready to pick it up and hurl it into the nearest trash can.”

  “And…?”

  “Instead I left it on the floor.” She shrugged her shoulders lightly. “I don’t know why. Maybe I wasn’t quite ready to let it go.”

  “Let go of what? Dad’s dead.”

  “Let go of the memory of what we had.” She sighed. “Or rather, what I had. I have no idea what he thought we had. I thought I knew him so well, and now… He was the loving husband and father who went off and did unspeakable things.”

  “I know. All those business trips when I was young.”

  “He was an attorney then, before he was mayor. He had some high-profile clients. It made sense that he’d travel. I never thought to question any of it. How could I hav
e been so naïve?”

  “We were both naïve.”

  “You were a child, Bryce. This isn’t on you.”

  “Mom, I haven’t been a child for the last twenty years. This is on me too.”

  “Don’t do that to yourself,” she said.

  “I could give you the same advice.” I took the photo from her. “What do you want me to do with this?”

  She looked to the ceiling for at least a minute, seemingly lost in thought. Then she met my gaze. “Throw out the frame and the broken glass. Keep the picture. Hide it in a book somewhere. I know it’s ridiculous, but although I don’t want to see it, I can’t bear to part with it.”

  “I understand.” I walked to the crib, leaned down, and kissed my sleeping son lightly on his forehead. “I’ll take care of this, and then I’m going out for a while.”

  “At this hour?”

  “Yeah. Just back to Joe’s. He has some information I need.”

  “All right. I love you, honey.”

  I kissed my mother’s cheek. “Love you too, Mom.”

  Chapter Forty–Five

  Marjorie

  Colin stared at his lap for seconds that seemed like hours. Jade seemed to feel sorry for him, and I knew I should as well. He’d been to hell and back, but so had my brother. So had all of us in our own way, and his time to talk was running out. I had no idea how long Talon would allow him in this house. He could storm out of the office any minute and demand Colin leave, and he’d be well within his rights.

  Still, I waited for Jade to make the first move.

  And I waited.

  Until I could wait no longer.

  “We’re waiting, Colin,” I said.

  He messed with his sleeve again.

  “What’s wrong?” Jade asked.

  “I got a tattoo on my forearm. It itches.”

  “What did you get?” She leaned slightly forward.

  “It’s bandaged up. But it’s…nothing really.”

  Yeah. He got a tattoo. Who cared? “We’re waiting,” I said again.

  He finally met my gaze. “Would you believe me if I told you I have no idea what my father’s up to?”