Heart of Steele (22 page)

“Um.” Ryder put his leg down and sat forward.
“What?”

“
Ken
, means understand.” Steele didn’t
look away from his dad’s glare. “And
faither
means
father.”

The silence in the room grew stifling.

“I did not know about Ryder until this
spring.” He made a fist. “
I
swear. On your mother’s grave,
Steele.”

The air left Steele’s lungs like he’d been
gut-punched.

Angus’s eyes watered as he looked back and
forth between his sons. “Never before have I done that, Ryder me
boy, but I do this before both of you so you’ll know I speak the
truth.”

No one moved. Steele had to force air into
his lungs. “Dad, I...” He was a rotten son, making Dad feel the
need to do something that extreme, but the man knew how to get his
point across. He believed Angus told the God’s-honest truth.

“Well, fuck me.” Ryder stood and walked to
the door. “You’re not getting me to swear on my mother’s grave.”
His voice sounded reedy.

“Ryder.” Steele turned to face him. “I’m
sorry. I had to know.”

Facing the door, his brother’s shoulders
dropped. “I understand. But you can understand why it pisses me the
fuck off.” His last words were loud and sharp.

“Now you know where I’ve been coming from,
brother.” His tone wasn’t exactly quiet. “I felt betrayed.” He
pointed to Angus. “By my own father...” He took a long breath and
let it out. “And by my best friend.” The words poured out and eased
the ache around his heart.

Ryder breathed fast and grabbed the door
handle. “I’ve had enough for one day.”

“Ryder.” Angus’s voice echoed off the
walls.

They both turned to look at their father.

He pointed a finger at Ryder. “The one thing
the son of a Scot never does is disrespect his father by walking
out on him.”

His brother’s jaw worked. “One thing you fail
to remember. I had no father growing up. I had no siblings.” He
looked at Steele, then back at Angus. “So don’t expect me to jump
right aboard with all your rules.” He blinked. “Sir.”

Angus seemed appeased. “Go then, son, but
promise me one thing before you do.”

Steele and Ryder exchanged wary looks.

“The both of you, promise you’ll look after
the ranch for me. Two weeks, starting tomorrow.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Steele
walked to the end of the bed.

Ryder took a step closer. “Two weeks?”

The old man held up his hands. “I can’t tell
you what I’ll be doing, but my doctor and I agreed today that it
needs doing.”

Steele’s brows lowered. “What is it? Cancer?
Your heart?”

“I just said, son, that I cannot tell you.”
He snapped the words out, then took a breath and visibly calmed. “I
can tell you it’s not life-threatening. It’s something I need to
do, though.”

Steele crossed his arms over his chest. “Does
Val know about this?”

“Och!” He made a dismissing gesture with his
hand. “Your sister is against it, but she said she’d help out on
the ranch...if one of my sons refused to do it.” He glared at each
of them in turn.

“You don’t scare me, old man.” Steele gave
his dad a half smile. “Much.”

Ryder snorted. “If this is how it’s gonna be,
I’m reconsidering my blood connection to you, Angus, my half-crazy
faither
.”

Angus’s mouth dropped open. Then a roaring
laugh came out of him. He held his stomach and guffawed like he
was
half-mad.

Steele chuckled until moisture filled his
eyes. It was good to see his dad alive and vibrant again. The last
two days had been some of the scariest of his life. “We’re all
half-crazy, Ryder.” He smacked his brother on the shoulder. “So
you’ll fit right in.”

They looked at each other as if they just
finally saw the resemblance, the connection, and the possibilities
for their future.

Angus was sniffing and wiping his eyes. He
wasn’t... He’d only seen his father cry once. At his mother’s
funeral.

“Ah, a good laugh’ll bring out the tears in a
man’s eyes.” He made the excuse, but Steele could hear emotion in
his voice.

“So you two boys will work the spread for the
next two weeks, then when I get home, we’ll have a
swallee
or two, or maybe even get
blootered
.”

Ryder let out a quick laugh. “I don’t know
what that means, but I’m guessing you’ll be introducing me to that
Scotch, then.”

“Aye.” Angus grinned. “Now get on with you.”
He gestured to the door. “Let me have some time with my eldest boy
before the nurses come and shoo him away.”

Ryder opened the door. “Good night.” He met
each of their gazes, then left.

“Now you sit and listen while I talk.”

Steele sat back and crossed an ankle on the
opposite knee. “Talk, but then it’s my turn. You won’t be getting
away without telling me what’s so all-fired important for you to be
gone from the ranch for two weeks.”

“I won’t tolerate that tone from you, boy,
and neither do I have any inclination to tell you my private
plans.” He gave a solid nod and picked up his cup, drinking out of
a straw.

“You sure that’s just water in there?”

“It is right now.” His eyes twinkled. “Unless
you brought your old man a wee bit of the brown liquid I love.” His
father could charm a snake into dancing beneath a horses’
hooves.

“Not until your doctor okays it.”

Angus grumbled something inarticulate. “Well
then, let’s get down to business.” He resettled on the bed. “I’ve
been lax, I wanted to give you space to come to terms with this. I
should have tackled it head-on.”

“I’m not going to like this, am I.”

“I don’t think so, but as we’ve found out,
the truth is better out than in.”

It took him a minute to figure out what he
was saying. “Okay. What truth are you going to lay on me
today?”

“Son, I cheated on your mother.”

Steele rested his elbows on his knees, and
his head in his hands. “Is this going to be the story of your life,
now?” He didn’t know if he had the strength for this. His father
could regale a person for hours with his tales.

“I’ll keep it short because I understand you
have a gal waiting for you at the ranch.”

“Please do. And her name is Tracy.”

“I hear she’s lovely, too. And that’s what
this is about, son. Women. Your mother was my first, and there was
only the one other.”

Steele looked up at him.

“I thought that’d get your attention.” He
stared off into a corner. “We knew each other in school, your mom
and I, but she wouldn’t have much to do with me. I joined the glee
club and took up a musical instrument just so I could sit by her in
the band, and stand behind her in the church choir. I generally
made a fool of myself to get her attention.

“She dated other men.” Angus’ face pulled
down into a frown. “I was working as a hand on my uncle’s ranch,
and she went out with the rich ranchers’ sons. I didn’t think I had
a chance until the graduation dance. I swept her off her feet with
the fancy footwork taught to me by my mother.”

He’d heard all this before. “And you were
married at nineteen.”

“Yes. Once she realized I was the one...” He
leaned forward, his smile secretive. “She couldn’t wait to have
me.”

“Ah, Dad, can we skip to the part after the
honeymoon?”

Angus laughed. “We pulled together a little
band, just four of us, and we’d practice in the barn until the wee
hours of the morning. Once we got good enough, I acted as manager
and got us on a circuit. We had a regular route we’d take, east
through Texas and part of Louisiana, then back again. We did this
for three weeks out of every month.”

“Sounds like my touring schedule.”

He dismissed him with one hand. “You’ve got
it easy, with the private jet and the assistants.” He wagged an
eyebrow. “But oh, the fun we had.” He shook his head.

“After you and your sister came along, well,
things changed. Your mom didn’t like leaving her babies for that
long, so she’d do the local shows, but wouldn’t go into Louisiana
with the band, so we hired another singer.”

Steele waited, then the significance of those
words hit him. “Ryder’s mother.”

“Yes, Gwen Landry, but I never knew her as
Landry. She used a different last name. She was a widow, trying to
keep the patch of land her husband left her with. A good lady,
Ryder’s mom.” He shook his head. “By the time you were three and
your sister six, your mom and I were not having a happy marriage.
It’d been years since we’d shared a bed.”

“Why didn’t you divorce her?” Wasn’t that the
right thing to do? Get a divorce,
then
find another
woman?

“We never spoke of divorce. We loved each
other, but our lives grew apart.”

“And Gwen was the answer for you?”

Angus met his gaze. “It was the wrong answer,
and I know that now. After a while, Gwen quit the band, then soon
after, my uncle and his son died in a fire. I inherited the ranch
and the band broke up. Your mother sat me down right in that
kitchen at the ranch house. She said she’d love to be a farm wife,
but only if I started acting like her husband again.”

The kitchen that Val and he had asked Dad a
dozen times to update. “That’s why you never changed it?”

“Yes. Appliances broke and were replaced, but
the room has stayed nearly the same. It was a reminder to myself
that your mother had given me another chance, and I’d be a fool to
ever forget it.”

“Did she know about Gwen?”

“I don’t think she did, son, but I don’t
know.”

He stood and paced to the window. “That’s
what bothered me most about this whole thing. The way you betrayed
Mom.”

“I have no excuse. I’m sorry for what I did,
but I’m more sorry that you and Ryder didn’t have a childhood
together.”

Steele pressed his hand against the cool
window glass. “Maybe that’s what Gwen was afraid of. That you’d
take Ryder from her.”

“Could be, could be. As I think on it now, I
wonder if she wanted a child of her own, since her husband couldn’t
give her one.” He yawned.

“I think we’ve talked enough for one night.
I’ll get out of here so you can get your rest.”

“Sit one more moment, Steele.”

He moved the chair closer to his dad and
sat.

“Val tells me you’ve got a good woman now,
and I trust that you wouldn’t bring her home to the ranch if she
wasn’t important to you. Keep her. Treat her right. Stay faithful
to her, and if things aren’t working out, don’t run to another
woman. Be true to her.”

Angus closed his eyes. “My greatest regret in
life is trying to fill my lonely bed with a woman I didn’t
love.”

With one quick apology, his dad had diffused
the anger that had driven Steele for too long. It gave him a clear
vision of where he wanted his relationship with Tracy to go.

Angus started snoring softly.

Steele stood. He should stop and see Val, see
what the hell was going on with Angus and his two-week furlough.
Instead, he pulled out his phone and dialed her number as he left
the hospital. “Val, where’s he going?”

He needed to get home. His gut told him
something was not right.

Tracy woke in the guest bedroom as Steele
climbed in next to her. “Hi.”

He kissed her. “Hi.”

“How’s your dad?”

Steele settled on his back and pulled her to
lay half on top of him. “He’s good. He’s going away for a couple
weeks, and asked me to watch the ranch.”

“Mm hm.” She wouldn’t be here. Her flight to
Montana left at eleven the next morning, and the ride she’d
arranged through Val would be here at seven. She had only a few
hours left with Steele.

He shifted his body so his erection pressed
along her hip.

She’d love to ride him one last time, taste
his salty cum, let him coax an orgasm from her. That would be using
him, though, and something she would never do. “Turn over.”

“Huh?” He cupped her ass and thrust his hips,
sliding his cock along her skin.

“Turn over and I’ll rub your back. You seem
tense.”

“I know a better way of relieving my
tension.” He kissed her neck and nibbled her earlobe.

She just couldn’t take advantage of him like
that, and she didn’t want to tell him she was leaving yet. “Let me
do this for you.” She pushed back, out of his hold, and waited.

Even in the low light, she could see his
frown. “All right, your way first.” He flopped onto his stomach,
his hands under his head. “Then I get my way.”

Tracy reached for her lotion and warmed some
in her hands. He had to be exhausted. He’d barely had three hours
sleep the night before. She rubbed her palms over the broad expanse
of his shoulders, down his strong back, and just under the
waistband of his briefs.

She hated to do this to him, hated to just
leave, but neither of them was ready for a relationship. That’s
what she kept telling herself, anyway. The truth was, if he came
out and admitted he had a brother, took her into his confidence,
she’d cancel her travel plans and work out her brother’s housing
plans long-distance.

He groaned and shifted. “Feels good,
sugar.”

She added more warm lotion and softened her
strokes. He’d be asleep in minutes. She, however, would probably
not get another second of rest.

****

At six, she inched out of bed, leaving Steele
sound asleep, still on his stomach. After she showered and dressed,
she took her bags downstairs and set them by the front door. She
paced the kitchen for a few minutes, looking for some courage, but
her ride would be here any time. She had to do this now.

Running up the steps before her nerve failed
her, she burst into the guest bedroom. “Steele.”

He sat up, blinking. “What is it?” His bare
chest rose and fell quickly.