“I appreciate you including me,” Phaedra said, squeezing his fingers ever so slightly.
Both Katrina and Marah were grinning broadly as they led the way into the oversize kitchen and family room. There was a crowd of family who greeted them as they made their way inside.
“Let me introduce you to everyone,” Marah said as she pulled Phaedra from Mason’s grasp. “Everyone, this is Mason’s new friend, Phaedra Parrish,” she said. “Phaedra, this is the family.” Marah gestured around the large oak table. “This is my father, Edward Briscoe, and his wife, Juanita. And that handsome guy right there is my husband, John Stallion.”
Phaedra stared as John came to his feet and shook her hand, his smile warm and inviting. Marah continued down the line.
“That woman over there who looks like me, but not as cute, is my twin sister, Marla, her husband, Michael, and that cutie pie in her lap is their son, Michael Jr.”
“Hi,” the toddler said, eagerly waving both hands in Phaedra’s direction.
“Hi,” Phaedra said, grinning brightly as she waved back at him. “Aren’t you an absolute doll!”
The little boy laughed happily.
Marah chuckled softly. “And this is John’s brother Matthew.”
“He’s mine,” Katrina said as she eased her pregnant body into the seat beside her husband, reaching to kiss his lips as she did.
Marah shook her head as she went on. “The big guy holding that baby girl there is Mark, and his daughter’s name is Irene.”
Mark lifted a hand and gave Phaedra a slight wave. “Nice to meet you!”
“And you probably remember Mark’s wife, Michelle, from the wedding yesterday.”
“Everyone calls me Mitch,” Michelle said as she adjusted a spit towel over her husband’s shoulder, moving him to lift their baby to his shoulder to burp the air from her tummy.
“Hi,” Phaedra said softly. “She’s a beautiful baby!”
Mark grinned. “Thank you. Takes after her daddy!” he said with a wink of his eye.
Everyone shook their head. Marah continued down the line. “And of course, you remember the bride and groom from yesterday, Luke and Joanne.”
“Thank you again for everything,” Joanne said as she looped her arm through her new husband’s, leaning her head against his shoulder. “You and Hooper did a great job!”
Phaedra nodded. “Hooper’s a thrill to work with. I’m glad I was available to assist him.”
“Well, he certainly speaks very highly of you,” Luke added. “Your reputation preceded you.”
“Thank you,” Phaedra said.
“And last but definitely not least,” Marah concluded, gesturing toward the end of the table, “this is Vanessa Long, a dear family friend, and her baby boy, Vaughan.”
“Hey, hey, hey!” Vanessa said, her baby boy clutched awkwardly beneath her arm as she maneuvered a plate in one hand and a bottle in the other.
“I declare,” Juanita intoned, moving swiftly to take the baby from Vanessa’s hold. “Girl, you gon’ drop that baby holding him like that!”
The family laughed, heads shaking.
“Y’all gon’ make my boy soft the way you keep coddling him,” Vanessa said. “I need to keep him on his toes. If he bounces once or twice, it’ll toughen him up.”
Juanita gave the woman a swift slap to the back of her head.
“Ouch, Aunt Juanita!” Vanessa yelled. “That hurt.”
“Love tap!” the brothers chorused, everyone breaking out into laughter.
Wide-eyed, Phaedra was suddenly aware of the large hand pressing gently against her lower back, Mason standing comfortably beside her.
“You look overwhelmed!” he said teasingly. “You don’t have any siblings, do you?”
She hesitated, her gaze moving along the row of eyes that were staring back at her. Stammering slightly, she shrugged. “I was raised as an only child,” she said, “so this is very different for me.”
Michelle nodded. “You get used to it,” she said. “I was an only child, too.”
“So was I,” Joanne echoed.
“Please, have a seat,” John said, gesturing toward the two empty place settings across from him and Matthew.
“Thank you,” Phaedra said as Mason guided her to a chair, pulling it out as she took a seat. He dropped into the chair beside her.
“Ignore this bunch,” John said, meeting Phaedra’s gaze. “They always get out of hand at family breakfast.” His smile was warm and welcoming.
“You all do this often?” Phaedra questioned, her curiosity piqued.
“Every Sunday,” John answered. “Once our business went public, Aunt Juanita insisted on it. She felt like we were losing touch with each other.”
“It was the only way to get them to relax over a meal,” Juanita said, still rocking Vanessa’s baby in the cradle of her arms.
“We have two rules for family breakfast,” Marah said. “Everyone must show up unless they’re out of town. And there is no business discussed. Ever.”
“Wow,” Phaedra said, impressed. “And everyone always complies?”
John nodded. “It’s kept us grounded. Spending a few hours together just being brothers with our families has kept us from taking ourselves too seriously.”
“So, where are you from, Phaedra?” Luke asked, resting his chin in his hands as he leaned on the table.
“N’Orleans,” Phaedra answered. She twisted a napkin nervously in her lap.
“So are we!” Katrina said excitedly. “Or at least that’s where our parents are from. Our father was active army, so we were military brats and traveled around, but the older kids, Mason, Donovan, Kendrick and Kamaya, were all born in New Orleans. I was born in Germany but I can’t tell you where the rest of them were born.”
Phaedra glanced toward Mason. “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
Mason laughed. “There are nine of us.” He cut an eye at his sister. “Our family meals are quite a bit bigger,” he said, his sister nodding her agreement.
Phaedra shook her head and laughed, totally in awe of it all.
Food suddenly appeared out of nowhere, platters of every breakfast item imaginable being passed around the table. Between the food and the fellowship, it was an overabundance of everything. So much so that Phaedra felt as if she were on sensory overload.
She pushed at the eggs on her plate, her stomach still doing flips as she realized she was actually having breakfast with her brothers. Her brothers. John, Matthew, Mark and Luke. The only family she had left. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and then a second before opening them to find John staring at her curiously. She gave him a slight smile, unnerved by the look he was giving her.
A lanky teenager suddenly entered the room, waving his hand sheepishly at everyone around the table. “Good morning,” he said as he reached for an empty plate. Greetings rang back in his direction.
“Collin Broomes, you’re late,” Katrina chastised, her eyebrows raised as she massaged a hand over her swollen stomach.
“Sorry, Mom,” the man-child named Collin answered. “I was helping them muck the stables. It took longer than I expected.”
“I hope you took a shower,” his mother said, her tone questioning.
Collin rolled his eyes. “Yes, ma’am. That’s why I’m late.” He moved to an empty chair at the kitchen counter, his plate now filled with bacon and toast.
Matthew chuckled. “I wasn’t expecting you to do that before breakfast, son,” he said, pride gleaming from his eyes.
The teen nodded. “I know, sir, but I wanted to get it out of the way so that I could ride after breakfast. If that’s okay?”
“That’s definitely okay,” Matthew said. He nodded in Phaedra’s direction. “Phaedra, this is our son, Collin
. Collin, this is Miss Parrish, your uncle Mason’s friend.”
Collin tossed his hand hello, his mouth stuffed with food.
“Please, call me Phaedra,” she said, waving back.
“Nice to meet you, Miss Phaedra,” Collin answered after swallowing. He pointed a finger in Mason’s direction, winked at his uncle and grinned.
Mason shook his head as he cut a quick glance at Phaedra.
“Y’all are funny,” Phaedra said, lifting her eyes to meet his gaze. She laughed, dropping her manicured hand against his thigh as she leaned her shoulder into his. A jolt of electricity shot through his body and he felt himself quiver from the sensation.
Mason was enjoying every ounce of the moment, conversation flowing with ease. Phaedra didn’t seem at all bothered by the family gathering. He understood that this was not at all what she’d been expecting and he was impressed by her sportsmanship, his charming companion seeming very much at ease with their additional breakfast companions.
“So, Phaedra, do you have family in New Orleans?” John suddenly asked.
Phaedra shook her head. “No,” she said, her voice catching deep in her throat.
Mason noticed her discomfort at the question. He intervened on her behalf. “Phaedra’s mother just passed away a few weeks ago,” he said softly.
“Oh, we’re so sorry,” Marah interjected, everyone turning to stare at the young woman.
“We’re very sorry for your loss,” Matthew added.
Phaedra nodded, biting down against her bottom lip. She suddenly missed her mother more than she had imagined possible.
“We lost our parents many years ago,” John said as he reached a large hand across the table to brush his fingers against the back of her hand. “I know it’s not easy.”
Phaedra met his stare, holding it ever so briefly, before she pulled her hand from his, clutching her palms together in her lap. She turned to meet Mason’s intense gaze, then dropped her stare into her lap with her hands. Tears suddenly pressed hot behind her eyelids. She felt her body begin to shake and she was grateful for the chair beneath her bottom, which kept her from falling to the floor. She swiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands, heat rising to her cheeks as she fought to contain the rise of emotion that was threatening to spill out of her.
“What about your father?” Katrina asked softly. “Is he still alive?”
Everyone in the room was suddenly taken aback when Phaedra suddenly began to sob, her body quivering out of control. Concern wafted thickly around the space.
“Phaedra? What’s wrong?” Mason questioned, wrapping an arm around the back of her chair as he leaned in to whisper in her ear. He pressed a napkin to her cheek to stall the flow of saline that rained over her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Phaedra apologized. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean…” she gasped, trying to catch her breath as the sobs racked her body.
Mason gently caressed her back, his large hands stroking the width of her shoulders. He was without words, not having a clue what he could say to soothe her. His gaze met John’s, the man’s stare acknowledging the same sentiment, both lost when it came to a woman’s tears.
Juanita was suddenly at her side, a box of tissues in hand. The older woman brushed a warm hand against Phaedra’s shoulder. “It’s okay, baby. You cry if you want to,” she said as she lifted Phaedra’s chin with her fingers, brushing the young woman’s tears away. She suddenly hesitated, staring deeply. “I declare, child, you look just like Luke when you cry. He gets the ugly face, too,” she said, shaking her head.
John laughed. “I was just thinking the same thing,” he said, hoping to diffuse the seriousness of the moment. “But your ugly face is definitely prettier than Luke’s is,” he added.
Luke rolled his eyes. “First off, I don’t cry, and when I do, I don’t get the ugly face.”
“Yeah, you do,” Mark chimed in. “And you used to boo-hoo like a baby back in the day. Right up to your sixteenth birthday you’d cry if someone looked at you funny.”
Sixteen years old himself, Collin laughed heartily at the thought.
“That is so not true,” Luke said.
Phaedra suddenly came to her feet, the napkin in her lap dropping to the floor. She turned her attention to Juanita, who was still trying to console her, something in the woman’s stare seeming to acknowledge more than she’d spoken. “Did you by chance know my mother, Miss Juanita? Her name was Arneta Parrish.”
Juanita paused, the name spinning through her thoughts. Her eyes suddenly widened, her body tensing. She took a swift breath. “Your mother was Arneta Parrish?”
Phaedra nodded, her gaze still locked with Juanita’s.
“Why don’t you and I go fix your face?” Juanita said, her hand pressing against Phaedra’s arm. “We can talk where it’s quiet.”
“You know, don’t you?” Phaedra questioned suddenly.
“Know what?” John asked curiously, noting the rise of tension that had suddenly filled the space between the two women.
Both turned to stare in his direction. Juanita’s gaze moved back to Phaedra, her body starting to shake with nervousness. Phaedra was still staring at John, her gaze moving from his face, to Matthew’s, then to Mark and Luke before she locked eyes with him one last time, his stare still questioning.
Phaedra’s next words came like lead weights dropping heavily against a wooden floor. “Your father, James David Stallion, was my father, too.”
Chapter 6
Phaedra was visibly shaken as she maneuvered her way down the front steps of the family home. Not having a clue how to access the driver and car who’d brought her there, she began to walk as fast as she could, wanting to be as far from all of them as she could possibly manage.
Nothing that had happened in the past ten minutes had been as she’d imagined. After dropping the bombshell that she was James Stallion’s only daughter, she’d spewed every detail of what she knew, the words spilling out of her mouth like water from a faucet. She couldn’t even remember taking a breath as she’d told them all how James and her mother had had an affair resulting in her conception.
Phaedra hadn’t known what to expect, but she’d not been at all prepared for the wave of hostility that had suddenly engulfed her. Mark had been the most vocal, insisting there was no way possible for them to share a bloodline. But it was John and his wealth of silence that had been the most unnerving. And when she’d been done, having no other information to share, John had stormed out of the room, brushing past her with a rage that left her feeling completely annihilated, his anguished stare cutting through her like ice.
* * *
“She’s lying,” Mark said as he paced the floor in the home’s library. “There is no way she’s our sister. We don’t have a sister. We can’t have a sister.”
John stood staring out the large picture window to the fields in the distance. Matthew stared where he stared as Luke drummed his fingers against the oak-topped desk.
“Would Dad have cheated on our mom?” Luke questioned, looking from one brother to the other. He’d only been two years old when his parents had died, and the thought discredited everything he’d ever been told about them.
“No,” Mark answered, still pacing, his footsteps heavy against the polished wood floors. “Never!” he said emphatically.
“We really don’t know that,” Matthew stated, meeting Mark’s intense glare. “We would hope not, but anything is possible. Besides, she looks just like us,” he noted, turning to face his brothers. “Maybe Dad did step outside of his marriage.”
“I know you’re not buying that load of horse crap,” Mark scoffed. “Are you, John?”
They all turned to John for a reaction, the man still staring out into space. Their big brother hadn’t said anything at all since Phaedra’s pronouncement. The sting of h
er words had stunned him into silence and all he had been able to do in that moment was leave the room before he said something he would later regret. He’d left and Matthew, Mark and Luke had followed closely on his heels.
Now he was thinking about their father and their mother, having idolized the two since forever. Their father had always called their mother “Sug,” short for “Sugar,” his sweet and honey, he used to say. John remembered wanting what his mom and dad had when he grew up and found a wife, their love so magnanimous that he and his brothers use to look on them with awe. He’d wanted to love his woman as hard as he remembered James having loved Irene, and he did, his heart so full for his wife, Marah, that he couldn’t ever imagine life without the phenomenal woman.
John also couldn’t fathom the thought of being unfaithful to Marah and he couldn’t begin to rationalize his father having committed such a crime against his mother. There had been little the couple hadn’t shared or done together. John had vivid memories of the two bowling together, camping together and just enjoying the beauty of each other’s company. They’d been the perfect complement to each other. His father had been stern and commanding, with only one weakness, his wife. Irene Stallion had been the epitome of virtue, a woman with a huge heart of pure gold. She’d been the most giving person John had ever known, devoting her time and energy to more causes than any of them could ever begin to count. But not once did she sacrifice her children or her family, the Stallion boys always front and center in her mind and her heart.
John smiled as he remembered the many kisses and hugs and secret touches of affection that had passed between his parents when neither thought anyone was paying attention. The two had shown so much love for each other that to now discover that maybe their relationship hadn’t been so perfect was truly challenging his spirit.
Hearing his name being called pulled him back to the moment.
“John, what do you think?” Matthew was questioning, echoing Mark’s query.
John turned to face them, his dejected expression causing each of them concern. He shrugged his shoulders, one teardrop escaping past his thick lashes. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. Right now Aunt Juanita seems to know more than any one of us ever did.”
Forever a Stallion Page 4