Ravenous (Steel Brothers Saga 11)

“Or Morse went to them.” Joe shook his head. “This is fucked up. So fucked up.”

“This is our life now, Joe,” I said. “It is what it is.”

He grabbed his cell phone. “Time to coordinate with the Spider.”

That afternoon, Henry, my mother, and I left our little house in town for the last time as inhabitants and moved into the guesthouse behind the main ranch house on Steel Acres. As I’d assumed would happen, my mother insisted I take the master suite. Good thing I hadn’t made love to Marjorie in that room. The smallest room had been set up as Henry’s nursery, and my mother chose another one, leaving the room where Marjorie and I had slept empty.

I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

If the room were taken, I wouldn’t be able to go in there and remember.

Of course, if my mother or my son were living in the room… Yeah, that would be worse.

We’d chosen to use the furniture already in the house, so only Henry’s crib, our personals, and a few antiques of my mother’s had been moved in.

My mother bustled around the kitchen, Henry on her hip. “It’s stocked,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it,” I said.

“I’ll whip us up some dinner.” She set Henry in his high chair. “You hungry, doll?”

Henry gurgled happily.

“What do you feel like? They left us plenty of beef.”

“I’m not that hungry, Mom. Just make whatever sounds good.”

“Are you feeling okay?”

My mother had no idea what a loaded question that was. “I’m good. Just not hungry.”

I hated lying to my mother.

Hell, I hated lying, period.

How could I possibly be my father’s son? That man had perfected lying to an art.

The worst lie I’d ever told? That horrid note I’d left for Marjorie last night. I’d felt sick writing it, and I still felt sick. Between that and what I was recalling from my childhood, I might never feel physically good again.

Marjorie.

She’d said those three words I longed to hear.

I love you.

She’d said them in the middle of a climax, but so what? I had no doubt she’d meant them.

How I’d longed to return her sentiment, for I did love her.

I loved her so damned much.

And here I was, living on her ranch, and I had to stay as far away from her as I could.

I stepped outside the kitchen onto the patio. The hot tub whirred in the distance—the hot tub where I’d found Marjorie last night.

I grabbed my hair and pulled. How the hell was I supposed to live in this house?

You have to, Bryce. You just have to. You have to do this for your son and your mother. They need you.