Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 78576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Mom rushes to him and rubs his shoulders. “Bryce, honey.” Then she turns to me. “Did you need something else, David? Because I think your father and I need to be alone.”
“No,” I say. “I have a lot of questions, but they can wait.”
Mom takes my arm and leads me out the door. “He’ll be okay.”
“I know. But what about you? This is your brother, Mom.”
She nods, swallowing. “I know. I love all my brothers with all my heart, and I can’t stand the thought of being without them. But I have to be strong for your father right now, and later, he’ll be strong for me. That’s what marriage is about, Dave.”
My mother’s beautiful face is tense, and her eyes heavy-lidded. She’s carrying my father right now, something I’ve never seen. It’s always been Dad carrying her when she needed it. I have new respect for my mother. I see a strength in her that I didn’t know she possessed.
I give her a hug. “I understand.”
Then I leave the office and rejoin my brother and sisters in the kitchen.
Angie and Sage are quiet, which is not unusual for Angie but is for Sage.
Henry’s fixing a sandwich at the counter.
“Hey, bro,” I say.
“Hey yourself.”
Henry and I aren’t overly close. We’re very different people. He’s much quieter than I am. But we’re brothers, and we know that.
“You want a sandwich?” he asks.
I’m not hungry, but I nod. “Yeah, I suppose I should eat something.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling the girls.” He takes two plates over to the table and sets one in front of Angie and the other in front of Sage. “Eat.”
Angie and Sage both adore Henry. Something about the oldest kid, the older brother—and he’s always treated them more like his own children than his sisters. Big brother to a fault.
Henry fixes a sandwich for himself and for me, and we join our sisters at the table.
I take a bite of my roast beef sandwich. Steel beef, the best beef ever, and it tastes like sludge right now. Even on Ava’s homemade bread.
We don’t talk, and when we’re done, I rise. “I’m going to get Gary and go home.”
“Yeah,” Henry says. “I was thinking about heading back to my place, but I don’t want to leave the girls alone.”
“Yeah, Henry, please stay here,” Angie says.
“I will, sis. Don’t worry.”
Neither of them asks me to stay.
That’s okay. But I’m not sure I want to be alone either. I was hoping Maddie would spend the night, but she’s acting weird.
Everyone’s acting weird.
And I just have this huge feeling of foreboding.
Maddie told me this afternoon that the Steels were built on a solid foundation.
But more and more, I feel like the house of cards is about to fall.
Chapter Twenty
Maddie
Mom and Dad are ecstatic when I announce that I’ll be going back to college beginning Monday. Everything worked out with the registrar, I got my scholarship back in place, and they found a single room for me in one of the dorms.
Angie, Sage, and Gina are living in the sorority house, where I would be if I hadn’t forfeited my spot to go to Europe.
“This really couldn’t have worked out better, Madeline,” Mom says. “I know it’s a shame that you didn’t get to see Europe, but this way you’ll graduate on time and get back to your own life.”
“I suppose so. What about all the weddings?”
“I haven’t gotten your sisters to nail down a date yet. We were talking about it, but now there’s Jesse and Brianna to consider, I suppose.” She sighs. “I just don’t know how we’re going to afford all of this.”
Dad grumbles behind his newspaper.
My father’s the only man on earth who still reads the newspaper every morning—on paper and not his iPad.
“A small wedding here on the ranch,” he says.
“That may not be what the girls want,” Mom says. “And their fiancés can certainly afford—”
Dad folds his newspaper down sharply. “Stop it now, Maureen. You know how I feel about taking money from the Steel family.”
My mother and father have been going at this since Callie and Donny got together. My mother is a proud woman, but she has champagne tastes on a beer budget. She always has.
And then my father, even prouder, who’s had to rein my mother’s tastes in over the years. He refuses to take a cent of Steel money.
That’s just going to have to change, because Callie and Rory should be able to have the wedding they want. After all, their in-laws-to-be can certainly afford it.
“Dad…” I begin.
“Yes, Maddie?”
“I know the Steels are a sore subject with you, but I’m just wondering. That Steel Trust thing, apparently run by Wendy Madigan, didn’t have a lien on our property.”
“No, they didn’t,” Dad says.
“None of us have been able to figure out why.”
Dad raises his eyebrows. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”