Twisted

by HELEN HARDT

  Ryan

  I dropped the phone.

  My father?

  My father was dead.

  My mother was…not my mother.

  My whole world had been shattered with one revelation.

  What the fuck?

  Shit! My eyes weren’t on the road. I’d gone off the shoulder and was close to Brown Canyon. The speedometer now said one twenty. I floored the brakes.

  My life didn’t flash before my eyes, but I knew I was toast. Dead toast.

  The tires screeched on the dirt as I swerved to the left.

  Thonk!

  My head hit the dash as the car halted.

  I raised my head, woozy. The car didn’t feel stable. Quickly, I opened the door and hopped out, my head still swimming, my vision blurred.

  Two seconds later, Jake toppled over the cliff and into the canyon below, taking my phone with him.

  Ever seen a grown man cry? Try watching a Porsche fall off a cliff. But I didn’t shed a tear.

  I fell to the ground, my head in my hands, recalling the conversation with my biological mother only hours ago.

  “My father’s dead.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I just talked to him this morning.”

  “What did he say to you this morning?”

  “He said he missed all of you kids. He said he missed me.”

  “Really?”

  “He said he’d come home as soon as he could. As soon as it was safe.”

  My biological mother, Wendy Madigan, was certifiably nuts. I hadn’t believed her when she said my father was alive.

  But the phone call…

  I looked around. I was miles from home, probably two hours by motor vehicle. I had no car, no phone. No one would come around here looking for me, and darkness would descend soon. November was here.

  My body ached, and my head swirled. A minute later, I hit the ground.

  * * *

  I squinted against the sun high in the sky. Where was I?

  I looked around. The redness of the canyon clued me in. The last thing I remembered was flooring the brakes. Where the hell was my car? My phone? What time was it?

  I wasn’t wearing a watch, and I had no idea how much time had passed. Something had happened that I didn’t remember.

  I’d lost the last few minutes before I’d hit my head on something. I touched my forehead and found an egg-shaped knot. Definitely had hit my head. My vision was blurry. I tried to stand, but my legs wobbled like jelly and I fell.

  Tried again. This time I stayed standing, but fought dizziness. I breathed in and out a few times, trying to gain some steadiness. I obviously had a concussion, and I had no idea what had happened.

  I got a sick feeling in my stomach when I looked toward the cliff heading into Brown Canyon. It was a shallow canyon, but Jake wouldn’t have survived it. I walked slowly toward the edge, fighting vertigo. I didn’t trust myself to stand near the edge, so I sat down and looked over.

  And nearly heaved.

  My beautiful blue Porsche lay there, crashed at the bottom of the canyon. I checked my pockets. I wouldn’t have gone anywhere without my phone. Since it wasn’t on me, it must be in the car. It might have survived the fall. On a normal day, I could easily scale down the shallow canyon, but with a concussion? I probably shouldn’t try.

  Not like I had a choice, though. With no phone, I wouldn’t be able to get help, and I needed help. I raked my fingers through my hair. Now what?

  Screech!

  My nerves jumped as I twisted my neck. A pickup had halted, dust flying up from its tires. My brothers, Talon and Jonah, raced out.

  “Ryan!” Jonah yelled. “Thank God!”

  They ran toward me.

  I should have known my brothers would find me. They always took care of me. Of course, they were only half brothers now.

  Now? Christ. They’d always been my half brothers. I just hadn’t known until now.

  They knelt down beside me.

  “Are you okay?” Talon asked. “That’s a hell of a bump on your head.”

  “I can’t remember what happened,” I said. “But Jake is gone.” I pointed down into the canyon.

  “Jake can be replaced,” Jonah said. “You can’t. Whatever happened, I’m glad you didn’t go down with the car.”

  “How long have I been gone?”

  “Depends on when you left,” Talon said. “We got an anonymous phone call this morning saying you weren’t answering your phone, so we went to the guesthouse and found you and the car gone. We figured you’d gone on one of those road benders of yours. Ry, you have to be more careful.”

  “I had a rough day. I needed a little speed.”

  “We understand it was rough. But,” Joe said, “you’re still our brother.”

  “Half brother,” I said.

  Talon vehemently shook his head. “Bullshit. You’re our brother in every way that matters.”

  I believed them. They still loved me like a…well, like a brother. That didn’t change the DNA. I was their half brother. Nothing diminished that.

  “We need to get you to the hospital,” Joe said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine. We’re not even sure how long you’ve been out here. Did you leave yesterday?”

  Yesterday… Yesterday I’d seen my real mother. Ruby had been with me. God…Ruby. I’d gone to her place. We’d made love…if I could even call it that. I’d damn near forced her. How could she ever forgive me? But she had. She’d gone with me to see Wendy. And Wendy had told me—

  “Christ!” I stood, stumbling.

  Jonah grabbed my arm. “Easy, Ry.”

  “I got a phone call.”

  “You remember something?” Talon asked.

  “I got a phone call. From…Dad.”

  “What?” Jonah nearly let me fall to the ground.

  “At least he said it was Dad. He said, ‘Ryan, this is your father.’”

  “Was it Dad’s voice?” Talon asked.

  My mind was muddled, and my head felt like someone was jackhammering it. “I don’t know. I was going over a hundred miles an hour. I almost missed the vibration of my phone.”

  “You answered the phone at that speed?” Joe looked toward the sky. “Jesus, Ry.”

  “I know. I…wasn’t in my right mind.” I still wasn’t. I might never be in my right mind again.

  “Ryan, think,” Talon said. “How long have you been out here? When did you leave?”

  “I saw Wendy. Then I got home.”

  “And?”

  “I went on a drive.”

  “Shit. You’ve been gone since yesterday. Did you spend the night out here?”

  I had no idea. My head hurt like a mother. Had I spent the night out here?

  “He’s been out here all night,” Joe said. “Look at him.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t freeze to death,” Talon said. “This time of year, the temperature can go either way. It was mild last night.”

  Sweat emerged on my brow, yet I shivered. I looked from Joe’s face to Talon’s, to Joe’s again. Hair, jawline, eyes…so like my own.

  Blurry. So blurry.

  Then, blackness.

  * * *

  I opened my eyes, my body jiggling.

  “What the fuck?”

  “He’s awake,” Talon said from the front seat.

  I was in the back seat of Joe’s pickup.

  “You okay?” Talon said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “You passed out. We’re taking you to the hospital.”

  “I don’t need a hospital.”

  “The hell you don’t,” Joe said in his classic big brother voice. “You’ve probably got a concussion.”

  “I don’t need a doctor to tell me that.”

  “You need treatment, Ry. So shut up. We’re almost there.”

  “I’m fine. I’m not sick to my stomach.”

  “You passed out.” Joe pulled the truck to a stop. “We’re here.”
>
  * * *

  A few hours of paperwork later, I was set up in a hospital room.

  “We’ll need to keep you overnight for observation,” a doctor had said.

  I’d told him he was full of shit, but my brothers had wrangled me into the room. Now I lay in bed in a hospital gown, my ass hanging out, eating Salisbury steak and Jell-O. I was surprised at how hungry I was, though in reality I hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours. I’d actually spent the night passed out in the middle of nowhere. As Talon had said, luckily it had been mild weather.

  My brothers—half brothers—had gone out to get me some real food and a new cell phone. I slurped another spoonful of lime Jell-O—yum…nothing like artificial flavoring and coloring—and then looked up at the doorway to my room.

  Pure beauty greeted me.

  Chapter Three

  Ruby

  Even in a hospital gown, his hair a mess, holding a spoonful of green glop to his lips, Ryan Steel was still the most gorgeous man on the planet. He looked up at me, his eyes wide.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hey,” he said.

  I walked swiftly to his side. “Are you all right? Melanie called me.”

  “I’m okay. Just a little concussion.”

  I took the spoon he was still holding and set it on the tray. “What were you thinking? Taking your car out and going completely nuts. You promised me you wouldn’t do anything stupid.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Uh-uh.” I placed two fingers over his lips. “You scared the shit out of all of us. You don’t get to talk yet.”

  “Ruby, I—”

  “What the hell did I just say?” I’d had a hell of a night, dealing with my phone call from dear old Daddy, and I wasn’t about to let Ryan off the hook. “I know you’ve been through a huge turning point in your life, but that doesn’t change how the rest of us feel about you. Your brothers and sister and sisters-in-law were scared out of their minds when they couldn’t find you this morning. And when Melanie called me…” I broke off, tears choking me.

  I gulped them down. Ryan didn’t need to see me like that. He didn’t deserve to see me like that after the stunt he’d pulled.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “I hate to break it to you, but ‘fine’ people aren’t usually lying in the hospital.”

  “Doctors are overly cautious. They don’t want to get sued by the Steels.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Ryan!” I stood and paced around the sterile room. “The doctor was right. I talked to Melanie, and she agreed with his assessment. In case you’ve forgotten, she’s also a doctor.”

  “I don’t want to argue with you, Ruby.”

  “Fine. Then don’t.”

  He paused and then picked up the spoon, swallowing the Jell-O and hovering the utensil over the plate. “About yesterday…”

  “What about it?”

  “I’m sorry I was so…” He sighed.

  “Like I told you. I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. No apologies, Ryan. No regrets.”

  “But I do regret how I—”

  I shut him up, this time by pressing a light kiss to his lips. “Enough.”

  Jonah and Talon walked quietly through the doorway.

  “Food’s here,” Jonah said. “Oh, hey, Ruby.”

  “Hi.”

  “Hungry?” Talon asked. “We brought enough to feed an army.”

  “I’m hungry enough to eat that much,” Ryan said. “The gray meat and Jell-O isn’t cutting it.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. This was Ryan being…Ryan. The Ryan I had come to know was, until recently, always jovial. Always smiling, despite the tragedies that had befallen his family.

  I inhaled. Garlic and basil. Italian. My mouth watered. But I didn’t want to interrupt their brother time. “I’ll be going.”

  “No,” Ryan said. “Please stay.”

  “I don’t want to intrude.”

  “If you feel like you’re intruding, I’ll boot these two out,” he said.

  My cheeks warmed. He’d rather be with me than his brothers? Maybe he had truly forgiven me for my part in the DNA test.

  Jonah and Talon exchanged a glance.

  “We’ll go,” Jonah said, “but only if Ruby promises she’ll see that you stay put until you’re released tomorrow.”

  Way to put me on the spot. I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Ryan had asked me to stay, but it sounded like his brothers wanted me to spend the night here. I was pretty sure that wasn’t what Ryan had meant. Besides, I had work the next day.

  “Give me a break, guys,” Ryan said. “I’m staying put, okay? Give me a little credit.”

  “Glad you’re feeling better, Ry.” Jonah looked to me and then pulled a phone out of his pocket. “Here’s your new cell. It’s all activated.” He tossed it to Ryan.

  Ryan caught it easily. “Thanks, man.”

  “I guess we’re off then,” Talon said and then looked to me. “He’s all yours.”

  How I wished that were true. I was in love with Ryan Steel. Of course I hadn’t told him that, and until I had an inkling of how he felt about me and my part in his DNA test, I wasn’t going to.

  “Tell Melanie I said hi,” I said to Jonah.

  “Will do.” He and Talon left.

  I turned to Ryan. “Let’s see what they brought you.” I opened the bag of takeout and took out a container and opened it. “Yum. Spaghetti Bolognese. Want some?”

  “I do, actually.”

  “Okay.” I picked up the plate that had the remnants of his hospital food, took it into his bathroom, and rinsed and dried it off. I returned and filled it with spaghetti and a slice of garlic bread. “Eat up.”

  “Aren’t you going to join me?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it.” The guys had brought plenty of food. “There isn’t another plate.”

  “You can use this one,” he said. “I’ll eat out of the container.”

  I smiled. Offering me his plate was kind of chivalrous. I wasn’t used to chivalry. “That’s okay. Go ahead and eat. I’ll just take a few bites.”

  I grabbed a plastic fork out of the bag and took a few bites of the spaghetti. Spicy and delicious. And it kept me from having to talk for a couple of minutes.

  I’d promised myself I wouldn’t pester him about our relationship out of respect to everything else he was going through. Not that I would anyway. I’d never had a relationship with a man before. This was all new to me, and I certainly didn’t relish the idea of talking to him about whatever this was between us.

  He continued eating, and the silence became deafening. I took another bite of spaghetti just to have something to do.

  “I didn’t tell my brothers yet.”

  Ryan’s words startled me. I swallowed my mouthful of food and looked up. “Tell them what?”

  “About my father. Your father. What they were into.”

  Right. Wendy Madigan had confirmed my human trafficking theory, and it had made me sick to my stomach. Ryan hadn’t had such a theory, so I could only imagine how the new knowledge affected him. Still, we had no proof his father was actually involved in it. My father, however, definitely was.

  “I don’t blame you. It’s not really a topic for everyday conversation. Especially not when you have a concussion.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “That your father is… Hell, I don’t know.”

  “It is what it is,” I said matter-of-factly. “If I could change my DNA, I would. But I can’t.” Jesus, Ruby. Did you really just say that? “I’m sorry about the DNA comment. I wasn’t thinking.”

  He shook his head. “I have to accept it. Believe me, I’d change my DNA if I could too. I hate that Wendy Madigan is my biological mother. I guess we both come from psychopaths. And for all I know, I come from two of them.”

  “Focus on the good memories of your father, Ryan,” I said.

  I didn’t have any good memories of
my own father, but when I needed some solace, I thought about my mother, Diamond Thornbush. Yes, that was really her name. She might not have won mother of the year, but she had done the best she could, and I never doubted her love for me.

  “He called me.”

  “Who?”

  “My father.”

  I jolted, nearly spilling the Styrofoam container of spaghetti all over my lap. “What?”

  “I know. He’s supposed to be dead. But Wendy said he’s alive.”

  “Wendy’s crazy.”

  “True enough. Still, someone claiming to be my father called me.”

  “Did you tell your brothers?”

  “Yeah. They think it was a hoax. But they also don’t know that Wendy told me he’s alive.”

  “Did you check out the number?”

  “I couldn’t. My cell phone went over a cliff, along with my car.”

  Melanie had told me as much as she knew. None of us were exactly sure what happened, and Ryan couldn’t tell us because of a few minutes of retrograde amnesia. I stared at him, and gratitude warmed my body. He could have easily gone over the cliff with his car and phone, but he hadn’t. Whatever had happened, I was beyond thankful that he was here. Alive.

  “My brothers didn’t ask much about it,” Ryan continued. “They started asking why I had answered the phone when I was going so fast—”

  “Excuse me? Exactly how fast were you going, Ryan?”

  “About one sixty when I picked up the phone. One twenty when I looked again.”

  My heart nearly stopped. What if… Nope. Couldn’t go there. He was here. Safe. Concussed, but safe. I wouldn’t be a nag. That wasn’t what he needed right now.

  “Okay.” I breathed out slowly, calming my urge to give him hell. “What happened?”

  “I got a phone call. A voice said, ‘Ryan, this is your father.’”

  My blood turned to ice in my veins.

  Ruby, this is your father.

  How had our fathers—if it was actually Ryan’s father who called him—said the exact same thing at nearly the exact same time? This was too eerie. For a moment, my mind hurtled to the impossible. Perhaps my father and Ryan’s had been together somehow, both deciding to make a phone call…

  No. That was too outrageous.