“The usual,” Dad says. “Two.”
“You got it.” Luke slides two drinks in front of us.
Dad raises his glass. “To my second born.”
I grab mine and clink it to his. When will he get the idea that I’m not a fan of whiskey? But this is my dad, the man who saved my life. He means well. The least I can do is taste the stuff. I take a sip.
And I unceremoniously choke. “Damn, Dad. What is this stuff?”
“You were expecting Peach Street?”
“Of course not, but my God.” Yeah, not a fan of Peach Street either, but there’s no telling Dad that.
“You get used to it,” Dad says. “In fact, you learn to like it on occasion.”
“I’m not sure about that.” I absently push the glass away from me.
Dad takes another sip and then exhales. “It takes a bit, but there’s a strange beauty in the causticity of it.”
“That beauty is eluding me, I’m afraid.”
“Sometimes you find beauty where you least expect it,” he says. “I learned a lot about myself in this place. Met a man named Mike, who in some ways I think might have been my guardian angel.”
Guardian angel? Surely I didn’t just hear those words from Talon Steel.
“I was older than you. Thirty-five,” Dad continues. “I remember because I’d just met your mother.”
I raise my eyebrows. It’s no secret that my mother means the world to me. She and I are close in a way she isn’t with Dale, Diana, or Brianna.
“Tell me more,” I say.
“Nothing more to tell,” he says, “except to remember that sometimes the most beautiful things in life aren’t obvious. Not at all.” He takes another sip, finishing his rotgut bourbon.
I pull the drink back toward me, pick it up, take another sip, this time holding back the grimace. For my father. For the man who rescued me all those years ago.
Talon Steel never does anything without a reason, so I vow to understand his motive in bringing me here.
I vow to always see the beauty in everything.
How quickly one forgets.
I’ve let all the shit that’s been raining down on me the past several weeks fuck with me. I put my ethics on the back burner. I almost let Callie—the best thing that ever happened to me—go.
And now I’m lying to my mother, telling her I’m in the office doing the job she trusts me with when I’m in the city dealing with more secrets I’m keeping from her.
Stick a fork in me. I’m done.
I speed up the car. No need to go in and drink rotgut to find answers.
I already have them.
They lie at home. At the ranch. With Callie. With Mom and Dad. With Dale and Ashley.
They lie within me.
I pick up my phone and make a call.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE