“The Spider. He says he has news. Maybe he can explain the emails.”
Chapter Thirty
Marjorie
My emotions were tangled. I put them on hold long enough to get the boys off to school and fix a light breakfast for Jade.
Then I couldn’t put it off any longer.
Was there a name for this feeling? This feeling of complete happiness and love mixed with dread?
Bryce loved me. He really loved me, and I’d finally broken through the wall of armor he’d built around himself after discovering the truth about his father. I should be over the moon, and I was.
But I also wasn’t.
Our hell wasn’t over, not by a long shot. Someone was stalking Bryce and my oldest brother, who’d been witness to another heinous crime Tom Simpson had perpetrated.
Now it was coming back to haunt them.
Bryce wasn’t safe. Joe wasn’t safe.
I could escape all of this. I could go forward with my plans for Paris. Indeed, Bryce had told me to go because I’d be safe there.
But he loved me.
And that changed everything.
No way was I leaving him. Not when he needed me. He’d sent his mother and son away, but Evelyn was a senior citizen and Henry a baby. They needed protecting.
I didn’t.
I was a sister to three older brothers, daughter to a father who’d resisted at first but had succumbed to my determination and taught me everything he’d taught my brothers. I could run this ranch as well as any of them. I simply didn’t want to. It wasn’t my interest. It wasn’t in my soul the way it was in theirs.
But I’d done all the chores, learned all the ropes, and I’d built a lot of tenacity along the way.
I could hold my own.
I needed to hold my own.
I needed to be here for the man I loved.
Not to mention my best friend and my brothers. And, though she didn’t recognize me, my mother.
They all needed me, and I would not desert them.
Paris would still be there tomorrow. Next week. Next year. Next decade, even. I was young.
Besides, another brain helping to figure out what was going on now would be an asset.
Bryce had sworn me to secrecy about Justin Valente, and I would keep his confidence. He’d tell Joe, I knew. My brother would be angry, but in the end, he’d be okay. He was Bryce’s best friend. He of all people knew what a good man Bryce was.
Bryce would take care of me, and I would take care of him. We’d take care of each other as equal partners.
Oh, he’d get all Alpha on me sometimes. He’d grown up around my brothers, after all. But I’d also grown up around my brothers. I knew my way around a Steel man, and Bryce was an honorary Steel man. He always had been.
What to do?
First, I’d tell Jade about Bryce and me. As she was the only person who knew how I felt about him, she’d be thrilled.