“I hope not as well,” I say, “but with everything else that seems to be reappearing…”
“So Brock told you.”
“He did. It made me sick. A lot of things have made me sick lately. It’s getting easier to stomach each time I learn something new…which in itself is disturbing.”
“I know. I hear you, Ava.”
“You know about…Wendy?” I ask.
Donny nods. “Yes.”
“So you know I’m not a full-blood Steel.”
Donny frowns slightly. “You’re more of a full-blood Steel than I am.”
“I didn’t mean—”
Donny nods, though he doesn’t smile. “I know you didn’t. Blood doesn’t matter. Dale and I were fathered by a man who sold us into slavery for five thousand dollars.”
I drop my jaw.
“I guess you don’t know everything,” Donny says.
“Donny, go easy on her,” Callie says. “This is difficult for all of us.”
“I know. I’m only saying that blood doesn’t matter. Our ancestors don’t matter. What matters is who we are. Who we want to be.”
I nod, swallowing. “I’m so sorry for everything you and Dale have been through.”
“It’s ancient history, Ava. It sucked. I won’t lie. But it was so long ago, and we’ve had amazing lives here on the ranch.”
“I know. So have I.”
“So our true parentage doesn’t matter. We’ve all got major skeletons in the closet.”
I take a drink of water. “How can we find out what this FLMC is up to now?”
“I don’t even know if they still exist,” Callie says. “I graduated eight years ago.”
“Our family doesn’t have anyone at that school anymore,” Donny says.
“True. Maybe it’s nothing.”
But even as I say the words, I don’t believe them. The FLMC, whether they’re related to the original or not, are still around.
The question is what they’re up to, and whether it’s good or bad.
Chapter Forty-Six
Brendan
The bar is busy for a weeknight, and hours pass before I remember to check my phone. Hmm. No text from Ava yet. I text her quickly and stuff my phone back into my pocket…just in time to see Pat Lamone walk into the bar.
Lord.
Did his mother tell him?
It’s not my problem, but man…
He walks to the bar and takes an empty seat right in front of me.
“What can I get you, Lamone?”
“Answers,” he says.
“Look, I’m sorry about your birth mother, and—”
“I can’t talk about that.” His tone is robotic. “Not yet.”
“So she told you.”
He nods.
“What can I get you?” I ask again.
“Scotch. Neat.”
I pour his drink and slide it in front of him.
He downs it in one gulp and slides it back to me. “Another.”
I pour another, set it in front of him. “If you have another after that one, I’m taking your keys.”
“No problem. I walked over here.”
“You still living at Mrs. Mayer’s place?”
He nods, downs the second drink.
I don’t want to get into his life any more than I already am, but I’m a bartender. This is what I do.
“Spill it,” I say. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“My grandmother,” he says.
“Dyane Wingdam. Also known as Wendy Madigan.”
“Yeah. I went to see her tonight. At the hospital in Grand Junction.”
“I see.”
“I wanted answers. I needed answers. Answers my birth mother couldn’t give me. Answers about my grandfather. The man who made me a Steel.”
“I understand, but how did you expect to get answers from a comatose woman?”
“I don’t know, but my trip turned out to be in vain.”
Now my curiosity is piqued.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means…the very day that I meet my birth mother and learn the circumstances of my birth…my grandmother…” He stares at his drink, picks it up, swirls the scotch in the glass.
“For God’s sake, Lamone, what? What are you trying to say?”
“She’s gone. Her hospital bed was empty.” He slides the glass toward me once more. “Another.”
Continue reading the Steel Brothers Saga with Book Twenty-Seven