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“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.
