“Yes. Did your dad tell you that?”
Andrew answered, “He said your dad did. So we thought you might too.”
“Will you teach us?” Alex asked, continuing their back and forth.
“Sure.”
When they mentioned their father owned an air jet, I had to slow them down.
“You can’t start learning on something like that.”
It went like that for hours. Somewhere along the way, they’d brought food their housekeeper Marley had made. They were curious like sixteen-year-old boys were. They even asked me questions about girls.
By the time I sent them inside so they wouldn’t be missed, I was dead on my feet. I didn’t plan to stay too long. I enjoyed a shower and a good night’s sleep in a bed fit for a king. I woke up hard as a rock, Jolene still playing in my head.
“Today is a new day,” I said to no one.
I cleaned up the space so the housekeeper wouldn’t ask too many questions and get my brothers in trouble.
My brothers. I hadn’t accepted those words until now. I might have lost a mother, but I’d gained two brothers. And that was something.
I did my best to ignore what they’d told me about their mom getting letters and pictures over the years, presumingly of me. They said she cried every time.
It was hard to accept when the woman herself denied me like I meant nothing to her.
Pushing those thoughts aside, I was relieved to find my truck where I parked it. I got in and stilled.
A faint scent of perfume I recognized assaulted my nose. My cock involuntarily jerked as it began to harden.
Damn you, Jolene. I remembered that look on her face when she got out of the truck and hesitated. I could have sworn she was waiting for me to make a move. I’d left that dangling or hanging there because I’d been tempted by the temptress herself.
“Today is a new day,” I said to myself again.
I resolved that I would never see her again, until I did.FifteenJoleneMy father caught me before I could race to my grandmother’s bedside.
“She’s sleeping,” he whispered in my ear.
He didn’t let go until I relaxed in his arms. Under my own power, I curled an arm around myself as I took in the sight before me.
“How is she?”
My question didn’t come out as a whisper as I intended. Gran’s eyes fluttered opened. When they landed on me, her mouth curved, or so I thought, under the plastic covering it.
“Her oxygen is low,” Dad was saying as I ignored him.
Gran curled her finger in a gesture for me to come and so I did.
I fell across her chest as tears streamed down my face. Her hand stroked my hair.
“It’s okay, child. I’m not gone yet.”
“Don’t, Mom,” Dad warned. “You need that oxygen.”
I couldn’t see their faces because I enjoyed her soothing touch and I wanted to always remember it.
“I’m not dead yet, Christian. Remember who’s the parent.”
Though she sounded strong, she wheezed between every word.
“Mother.” A woman spoke before she seized my shoulder and yanked me upright. Then I met the eyes of my Aunt Tasha.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said, letting go of me and dusting her hand on her impeccable pantsuit before directing her next statement to my father.
“Why is she here?”
“Tash,” Dad said with all the weariness in the world weighing his shoulders down.
“She’s here because I want her here,” Gran said from behind us.
“Mother, stop with removing the oxygen mask,” my aunt directed, barely glancing at her mother.
A man in a crisp white lab coat strolled into the room.
“I’m here to check on the patient,” he said.
Aunt Tasha nodded and herded me out of the room with a well-placed grip on my bicep. But I’d had enough of being manhandled. I shrugged her off and gave her my best impression of rabid dog eyes.
“Please, girl.” She rolled her eyes. “If anyone has a right to be pissed, it’s me. If you think your presence here will get you a cut of the family fortune, think again.”
“Tasha.”
My father walked up and got between us.
“Christian. If you want to give your spawn a share of your cut, that is fine. But we aren’t cutting another slice for her.”
“Mom wanted her here.”
I’d had enough. I angled my body forward so I could get back in the conversation.
“Do you even care about your mother? Because I do. I don’t need her money to love her.”
She ignored my words as much as she’d ignored me my whole life.
“You mean nothing to me. You’re just my brother’s little indiscretion.”
I curled my hands into fists. “You’re just jealous because apparently your Botox not only froze your face and heart, but your ovaries too.”
When her jaw went slack, I giggled. I couldn’t help it. For so many years, I’d wanted to tell her off and now I had. But even I had to admit that was mean. I would regret the statement later. Rumor had it, her husband had left after several times she’d failed to reproduce. But I was tired of being considered nothing because I was born.