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“Have it your way.” I set the salad on the table.
The boys ambled in.
“You eating with us tonight, Miss Jade?” Donny asked.
“Yes, sweetie. I’ve missed seeing your face at the table.”
He still wouldn’t call her Mom. Jade looked slightly disappointed, but she smiled anyway. She was determined to let the boys go at their own pace.
My eyebrows shot up.
Their own pace.
Little boys weren’t the only creatures who needed to go at their own pace. Was I rushing Bryce?
He’d wanted me last night. The physical evidence couldn’t have been faked.
But Bryce was fighting his own demons—demons I understood well.
Many times I’d wondered if I might be headed down the same path as my own mother. Insanity. These things could be genetic, though Melanie insisted that if any of us were going to follow the path of our mother, we’d have shown signs by now.
Bryce was concerned, with good reason.
His father was a complete psychopath—possibly even worse than Ruby’s father had been.
Tom Simpson had lived a double life—devoted husband and father, attorney and mayor of Snow Creek by day. Psychotic pedophile rapist by night.
The stuff nightmares were made of.
Nightmares Bryce must have every time he nodded off to—
“Marj!”
I turned. Jade was doubled over in her chair. I rushed to her. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. Get Talon. Please.”
Chapter Eight
Bryce
I signaled the bartender at the dive in Grand Junction. “Another here, please.”
He pushed the rotgut bourbon down the wooden bar. It landed right in front of me. The guy was good.
I shot it quickly, letting it claw like fire-dipped tentacles down my throat until it warmed my belly.
Joe had told me about this place. He’d stumbled in one night when he was at his worst and had gotten some really good advice from an old-timer. I wasn’t looking for advice so much as an escape. The Steels were bound and determined to make me some kind of honorary brother. I should be flattered. Thrilled.
But I didn’t want it. All I wanted was to make an honest day’s pay for an honest day of hard labor.
I signaled to the barkeep for another. The glass slid down the wooden bar once more and then stared up at me, the brown liquid swirling.
I turned my head away from the drink. Another man about my age sat at the end of the bar, and a few stragglers sat at tables. A cocktail waitress was taking their orders. She sported cropped platinum-blond hair with black roots. Her face was pretty but worn, but her body… She wore a pink tank top and a denim miniskirt with stiletto sandals. I wondered if she also worked as a stripper. Her legs were muscular and could easily make their way up and down a pole. A decent chest too.
She met my gaze. Her eyes were a striking dark blue.
I smiled and picked up my shot, gesturing to her.
