Flare, page 4
“It’s Sadie.” She shows her dimples as she points to the name tag on her lapel.
Callie gives me the stink eye.
Yeah, I deserve it. Mean girl isn’t my style.
“I’m so sorry, Sadie.” This time I smile and do my best to make it look real. “Could we get some water please?”
“Of course. The bus person should’ve brought it by now. I’ll get that right away. Do you know what you’d like to order?”
“Meatball sub for me,” Callie says.
“One meatball sub. Check. And you?”
“I don’t know.” I sigh. “I think I’ll just have a salad. And a side of garlic bread.”
“Perfect.” She pencils some notes on her pad. “I’m about to take a break. Do you mind if I join you?”
I’m having déjà vu.
Didn’t a waitress take a break with us just a few weeks ago? Yes. Her name was Nora.
“Uh…sure,” Callie says.
Damn it, Callie…
“Wonderful. Let me just put your order in and make sure you get those waters.”
I’m shooting darts at Callie with my eyes.
“What did you want me to say?” Callie asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe…no?”
“She’s new in town. We can’t be rude.”
“Didn’t we just go through this a couple of weeks ago with that other new waitress? Nora?”
“Right. I forgot about that.”
“Of course you forgot about that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re head over heels. Everything is falling into place for you, Cal. But if you recall that day with Nora, she was after Donny.”
“Oh…”
“Callie, you’re usually quicker than this.”
“You’re right. Sorry, Ror. I totally wasn’t thinking.”
“Right. You weren’t thinking that lovely Susie there was all over Brock the other night.”
Callie opens her mouth to respond, but before she does, Susie—er…Sadie—returns with our waters and sits down with us.
“Thanks for letting me join you. It’s so difficult meeting new people.”
Okay, that’s a lie. Meeting new people in a small town is strikingly easy, and didn’t she just say she’s met so many new people?
“Not a problem,” Callie says. “We met another waitress this way just a few weeks ago. Her name is Nora.”
“Not Nora Bates? She’s my roommate.”
This just keeps getting better and better.
“Maybe,” Callie says. “I don’t know her last name.”
“Blond? Very bubbly?”
“That’s her,” Callie says dryly.
“Déjà vu,” I say softly.
“Excuse me?” Sadie says.
“Nothing. Where are you from, Sadie?”
“A suburb of Denver. Broomfield. I did two years of community college, and I have an associate’s degree in hospitality.”
She’s young, then. Younger than both Callie and me. Possibly even younger than Maddie.
A perfect age for…
Brock.
“How old are you?” Callie asks.
Nicely done, Cal.
“I’m twenty-four. How old are you?”
Twenty-four. Older than I pegged her for. In fact…she’s Brock’s exact age.
“Twenty-six. I’m starting law school in January.”
“That’s wonderful! And you?” Sadie says to me.
She’s asking me for my age, which I’m not ashamed of, except that I’m four years older than Brock, who she clearly has her sights set on.
“I teach music here in town,” I say, deliberately dodging the age question. “Piano and voice.”
“Wonderful,” she says.
Right. Wonderful.
“So tell me all you know about the Steel family,” Sadie gushes. “I met one of them the other night, when we met at the bar.”
“Right,” I say. “Brock Steel.”
“He’s positively delicious. A great pool player too.”
“All the Steels are good at pool,” Callie says.
“Are they? They must be good at everything.”
“Callie is engaged to a Steel,” I say.
“You are? Oh my God, which one?”
“Donny. Donovan.” Callie waves her left hand.
Sadie grabs her hand and gawks at the ring. “This is positively gorgeous. Donovan, you say? He’s the blond one. Nora has quite a thing for him.”
“Well, he’s taken,” I say dryly.
“Of course he is. You are absolutely the luckiest woman in the world.”
“I won’t disagree with you there.” Callie smiles.
“How about you, Rory? Are you seeing anyone?”
How am I supposed to answer that?
“She is,” Callie says. “Brock.”
“You are? He didn’t say anything to me that he was seeing anyone.”
“Well, they’re quite an item,” Callie says.
“Callie… Actually, we haven’t been seeing each other that long.”
“I’m certainly glad you told me,” Sadie says. “But we just saw you the other night at Murphy’s, and he didn’t act like you two were together.”
“She just said they haven’t been seeing each other that long,” Callie says.
“Oh. I guess I’ll stay away from him then. There’s certainly no shortage of hot Steel men.”
“For sure there’s not,” I say.
For sure there’s not? Those words aren’t even in the right order. What the hell is wrong with me?
I discreetly look at my watch. Only five minutes have passed? Her break is probably for at least fifteen. Ten more minutes of this torture.
“Do you two know all the Steels?” Sadie asks.
“Our family owns a ranch adjacent to theirs,” Callie says.
Thanks a lot, Callie.
“So you’ve known them a long time, then?”
“Yeah, forever.” Those words from me.
“That’s so great. So you’re engaged to Donny. And he’s…the son of Jonah?”
“No, he’s Talon’s son,” Callie says. “Brock is Jonah’s son.”
“Awesome. What other delicious men are there to choose from?”
“Donny has a brother, Dale,” Callie says. “But he’s married.”
“Such a shame,” Sadie gushes.
Callie continues. “Brock has a brother as well. Brad. He’s been in a relationship for the last two years.”
“There’s another blond one though, right? Nora was telling me.”
“Yeah. Henry Simpson. He’s the son of Marjorie Simpson, née Steel, and he’s also in a relationship. He has a brother named Dave, dark hair and blue eyes. And that’s it. The rest of them are women.”
“Is Dave seeing anyone?”
“Dave’s a womanizer,” I drawl.
“That’s not a bad thing,” Sadie says. “Reforming a womanizer is fun.”
Is it? I meet Callie’s gaze. She just reformed a womanizer. She can take this one.
But to my surprise, she says nothing.
“Dave Simpson it is, then. I guess he’s my only shot.”
“Your only shot at what?” Callie asks.
Good for her. Callie’s going to make Sadie say it.
“At a Steel, of course.”
“Snow Creek has its share of hunky cowboy men,” Callie says. “The Steels aren’t the only family in town.”
“They’re the only family that matters. They own this town, don’t they?”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Callie says.
“But I thought—”
“Rumors,” I say. “They’re abundant in a small town. My sister’s right. Don’t believe everything you hear.”
Chapter Six
Brock
It takes about a half hour to drive the perimeter. Nothing of note is visible from the car in the road.
“Now what?” I say to Dad.
“We have a couple of choices,” he says. “We can walk through on foot, walk in a few miles and see what there is to see. Or we can go see Doc Sheraton. Check out his land.”
“He may not be there.”
“All the better,” Dad says.
“If he has a home there, a road has to go in.”
“Exactly.”
“What if he’s there? I think he’s… Dad, I just remembered. He and Brittany are here in Wyoming. Rory mentioned it.”
She mentioned that when she told me she and Callie had searched Doc Sheraton’s house while Pat was there, house-sitting.
“Hmmm…” Dad says.
“What?”
“Let’s go talk to them, then.”
“Is that the best way to handle this?”
“I don’t know. Do you have another idea?”
“You heard the story that Rory and Callie told you. Brittany Sheraton was involved with what Pat Lamone did to them. In fact, whatever they drugged Rory and Callie with was probably from a veterinary office. And it’s quite possible…” My mind races.
“What aren’t you telling me, son?”
“I don’t know. This is just conjecture, but Donny and I, when we met with that nurse, Donny asked if atropine—the stuff Uncle Tal was poisoned with—had a veterinary use. It does.”
“Yeah, it does. But that doesn’t mean…”
“Doesn’t it? I mean, at this point, don’t we have to take every clue we have to try to piece them together any way we can?”
Dad grips the steering wheel with white knuckles. “You’re right, son. I think Uncle Bryce and I… I think we’ve gotten a little complacent in our old age. We thought the bad years for the Steels were over. Apparently we were wrong. Dead wrong.”
“Dad, I like Doc Sheraton. I always have. But honestly? How well do we really know him? If his daughter is capable of drugging other girls and helping to photograph them in compromising positions, what kind of man is he? Really?”
“A widower. A single parent. A small-town vet.” Dad sighs. “A small-town vet who lost a lot of his business when Uncle Bryce and I made a decision ten years ago.”
Wow. Total zinger.
Guilt. Dad and Uncle Bryce felt guilty, so they let Doc Sheraton rent the property adjacent to what he owned here in Wyoming.
Doc needed a side hustle. He trains guard dogs.
Still… Why does he need our property?
If we go to Doc Sheraton now, start talking to him…
But he doesn’t have anything to do with us. I can’t even believe it. Except that… If Dale, Donny, and I are right, and whoever is using our property for nefarious purposes uses guard dogs…
But of course they could get their dogs anywhere. We can’t assume they got them from Doc Sheraton. He’s not the only person in the area who trains guard dogs.
But now… With Pat Lamone possibly being a relative?
My God, it’s all converging…
It’s all converging in a way that makes me want to hurl.
So many questions.
Did Pat Lamone have any idea he might be a relative ten years ago, when he poisoned Diana? If so, that’s certainly not the way to make nice with the Steel family to get part of our fortune. Pat Lamone is no brainiac, but he’s not that stupid.
But…he is back in town now. Right around the same time that Donny and Callie became an item. And right around the same time Uncle Talon got shot.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I say to Dad.
“All I’m thinking, Brock, is that we have a lot of little pieces of evidence—”
“Little pieces of evidence?”
“Wrong word. Sorry. And insignificant certainly isn’t the word I want either.”
“No, I’d say they’re damned significant. Especially the one about your brother being shot.”
“Unrelated… Seemingly unrelated pieces of evidence,” Dad continues, “that may not be so unrelated after all.”
“What is the common thread?”
“The common thread seems to be my esteemed half uncle. William Elijah Steel.”
“Steel? Not Pat Lamone?”
“It seems to all come back to him. I mean, look at everything. We’ve got the stuff Brendan Murphy uncovered under his floorboards, including a birth certificate for William Elijah Steel.”
“Yeah, but the rest of the stuff has nothing to do with William Steel. It has to do with our family and the lien we hold on Murphy’s.”
And liens we hold on the rest of the freaking town, but I’m not ready to tell Dad that Callie and Donny have done that research.
“Right,” Dad says, “but it does have to do with the Steel family. Then we have Talon’s shooting. Talon’s poisoning. The fact that someone had access to the atropine, which does have veterinary uses. We have the Steel property, and our family being implicated in”—he swallows—“something truly evil.”
“Right.”
“Then we have the GPS coordinates. Left for Donny by who knows who, along with an orange diamond ring that apparently once belonged to my mother, and which is now missing again.”
“True.”
“Someone left us these coordinates for a reason. And Doc Sheraton happens to rent this particular parcel of property.”
“And Doc Sheraton trains guard dogs, and guard dogs are most likely being used by whoever…”
“Right,” Dad says.
“So it’s all related, somehow. Who the hell is getting past our security, Dad? We’ve been so focused on other things, but someone left that glasses case in Donny’s mirrored cabinet, and someone took the orange diamond ring from Uncle Talon’s safe.”
“And the Monarch Security logs from those times just happen to be missing.”
“Have you and Uncle Bryce found a new security company yet?”
“We’re working on it. But we have to keep Monarch in place for now. We can’t just stop being monitored.”
“True.”
“I’ve known those people at Monarch for years. I can’t believe they’d…”
“Dad,” I say, “if they were compromised, they were given a lot of money.”
“Who has more money than we do?” Dad asks. “No. It’s not money, son. My old man may have been an asshole and a liar, but he taught me well. Only one thing trumps money.”
“And what’s that?” Though I already know the answer.
“Life, son. Someone’s life was threatened.”
I nod.
“And if whoever is doing this knows what they’re doing, they didn’t threaten one person’s life. They threatened the lives of their loved ones. That’s what will really get you.”
“You think?”
“You’re young, Brock. Unmarried, and you have no children. But I can tell you this for sure. If someone threatened my life, I’d fight like hell. But if someone threatened your life? Your brother’s? Your mother’s? All three of you? I’d roll over so fast you wouldn’t see it coming. I would do anything to save your life.”
I regard my father, and even though he’s looking forward, driving, I see the truth in his eyes.
He would gladly do anything to spare the lives of each one of us.
As much as I am harboring anger at my father—anger for keeping our family’s history from us—I see him for who he truly is at this moment.
A man. A man with sun damage to his skin and callouses on his hands from working outside. A man with wrinkles around his eyes, silver threading through his thick dark hair. A hard-working man who loves his family beyond anything else.
A man who would sacrifice everything for us.
A man who maybe has made mistakes, but he made them for the noblest of reasons.
“So someone at Monarch…”
“Someone high up,” he says. “They got to someone high up. Not the CEO of the company. He’s single. Has no loyalty to anyone but the Steels. We’re his paycheck. Uncle Bryce and I made sure of that years ago.”
“How long have you been using Monarch Security?”
“Forever. Your grandfather contracted them when I was just a baby. When I was threatened.”
My jaw drops. “What?”
“I don’t know the details, Brock. If I did, I’d tell you. There’s no use hiding any of this from you now. All I know is that when I was just an infant, someone threw a rock through the window of the main house, right into my nursery.”
My flesh goes numb. Someone threatened a child? A baby?
But why am I surprised? Whoever’s behind our current situation used an innocent baby to deliver drugs.
Dad continues, “My father got a state-of-the-art—for that time—security system, and he financed— Oh my God…”
“What?”
“He financed Monarch Security. Made sure they were always at the top of the heap of what’s going on in security. He fucking financed them, Brock. How could I have neglected to consider that?”
“You had a few other things on your mind. Are you saying our family owns the company?”
“No. It would be a lot simpler if we did. But we are their major client.”
“What does it matter, then?”
“My father. He had a lot of enemies. He—”
“What, Dad? For God’s sake, what?”
Dad pulls the car over to the side of the road and turns to me, his face stern.
“Brock, we have a problem.”
Chapter Seven
Rory
“Thank God,” Callie says under her breath once Sadie’s break is finally over and she has to go back to work.
First thing she does is bring our lunch.
She smiles. “It was positively fabulous talking to the two of you. I hope we can talk again sometime.”
I flash a smile, and I hope it looks sincere. “Sure.”
Callie doesn’t flash a smile. But that’s just Callie. She simply nods.
“Geez, Cal,” I say. “You might be a little nicer. After all, it’s my guy she’s after, not yours.”
“Your guy?” Callie lifts her eyebrows.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell he’s feeling. But…”
“I know. You can’t help who you fall for.”
“It’s ridiculous. I’ve got an amazing bisexual woman who’s interested in me, and I’m hung up on an alpha Steel guy.”
