Solid Soul (Forged of Steele #1)

Kylie sighed. No, she hadn’t wanted to hear anything negative about Sam. She had been too much in love to see his faults and refused to let anyone else talk about them, either. A sickening sensation swelled in her stomach at the thought that history was about to repeat itself with her child. “That’s why I can’t let Tiffany make the same mistake I did, Lena.”

“Don’t you think you and Chance might be overreacting just a little? It’s not like Tiffy and Marcus planned to cut the entire day of school. They were skipping the last two classes to go somewhere, probably to the mall,” Lena pointed out.

“And that’s supposed to be okay?” Kylie’s nerves were screaming in frustration and anger each and every time she thought about what her daughter had planned on doing. She remembered when she had cut school with Sam. Instead of going to the movies like the two of them planned, he had taken her to his house, where they had spent the entire day in his bedroom doing things they shouldn’t have been doing and things neither of them had been prepared for. But all she could think about was that Sam Miller, the star player on the Richardson High School football team, was in love with her. Or so she’d thought. Silly her.

“You need to calm down before you talk to Tiff, Kylie. I understand you’re upset, but your anger won’t help. You know how headstrong she is. She’s just like you when you were her age.”

Kylie sighed deeply. Again that was the last thing she wanted to hear. “She broke her promise to me, Lena. We’ve had a lot of talks. She had promised me that she would let me know when she was interested in boys.”

“And had she come and told you about Marcus, then what? Would you have given her your blessings or locked her up for the rest of her life? Girls like boys, Kylie. That’s natural. And you’ve had so many talks with Tiffy that she probably knows your speech by heart. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you’re laying things on a little too thick? Tiffy is a good kid, yet you’re judging her by the way you lived your life, by your own past mistakes. It’s important to you that she ‘be good’ because you don’t think that you were.”

Kylie’s eyes began filling with tears. “I only want what’s best for her, Lena. I made a foolish and stupid mistake once and I’ll do anything within my power to keep her from making the same one.”

Lena got up, came around the table and hugged her friend. “I know. Tiffy is going to be fine. I’ll be here to help you anyway that I can. You know that. I just don’t want you to build this brick wall between you and her. That same kind of wall your mother built with you.”

Kylie wiped away a tear from her cheek. Although she and her mother had a fairly decent relationship now, Kylie would never forget when Olivia Hagan had let down her only daughter by upholding her belief that by getting pregnant out of wedlock, Kylie had committed the worst possible sin.

“I’ll never let that happen,” Kylie vowed quietly.

Chapter 2

“That’s the crisis you called this meeting for?” Sebastian Steele asked, turning away from the window and looking across the office at his brother with both amazement and amusement on his face.

Chance glared first at Sebastian, and then at his other two brothers, Morgan and Donovan. They were sitting in front of his desk and looking at him with the same expressions. “Your nephew is putting a pretty face before his studies and that doesn’t add up to a crisis to any of you?”

When all three chimed the word “no” simultaneously, Chance knew talking to them had been a waste of his time.

At the age of thirty-six, Chance was the oldest of the group. Next was Sebastian, fondly called Bas, who was thirty-four. Morgan was thirty-two, and Donovan was thirty. Of the four, Chance was the only one who had ever been married. Bas was presently engaged, but the other two claimed they enjoyed their bachelor status too much to settle down anytime soon.

“Look, Chance,” Morgan said as he stood up. “It’s normal for boys Marcus’s age to like girls. So what’s the problem?”

Chance rolled his eyes heavenward. “The problem is that the girl is only fifteen and they were planning to cut school together and—”

“No,” Sebastian interrupted. “They planned to cut a couple of classes, not school. There is a difference.”

“And he of all people should know,” Donovan said, grinning. “Considering the number of times he used to play hooky. I understand they still have a desk in Mr. Potter’s math class that says, ‘Sebastian Steele never sat here.’”