Maddie ends up dragging me toward the makeshift stage where Jesse and his bandmates are. She locks eyes with Dragon Locke. Dragon’s a loner. Really sexy in a dark rocker kind of way. I don’t particularly like the way he’s looking at my little sister, but last I heard, he was dating someone in Grand Junction.
Bree is hanging with us as well. She also can’t seem to keep her eyes off Dragon Locke. Or my brother.
She’s not quite twenty-two years old—way too young for either of them.
But there is something about a rocker. Of course, one is my brother and one is my cousin, and the other two can’t hold a candle to Donny Steel, who is mine and all mine.
The selfish part of me wants to tell the world. Shout from the rooftops that I’m engaged to Donovan Steel. That we’re going to be married. I’m going to be the mother of Steel children.
I look around at the crowds of people making the rounds, and I spy my parents.
And it dawns on me for the first time. I’m going to be a Steel. I can help my parents.
Wow.
It was never my intention to get involved with Donny for any mercenary reasons—despite Lamone’s assertion that Rory and I are gold diggers—but it is a nice fringe benefit.
Of course, my proud parents probably won’t take any money from Donny. That’s all in the future anyway. We didn’t talk about when we’d get married. It could be a year or two from now for all I know.
But…
Donny is now the city attorney for Snow Creek. What about my law school? The only two law schools in Colorado are in the Denver area.
My heart sinks. No biggie, right? Donny and I can just wait to get married. But being away from him for three years… I can’t stomach the thought of it.
Online courses are an option, but I wanted the in-person classroom experience.
We’ll work it out one way or the other. I’ll talk to Donny about it. But not tonight. Tonight is for his father.
Tomorrow, maybe… Still, law school will take fifth or sixth place on the list of what’s important now. First we have to find out who shot Donny’s father. Then why the Steels seem to own the town of Snow Creek, and what the heck the Fleming Corporation is. Then…Pat Lamone and Brittany Sheraton and those damned photos.
Yeah…law school is way down the list of what’s important right now.
Tonight, I’m going to try to have a good time. Donny won’t leave me alone for much longer. He said he wanted to spend the first part of the party hanging with his dad, playing the dutiful son. It’s certainly not role-playing. Donny is a dutiful son. He’s slightly closer to his mother than to his father, but he adores them both.
I can see it in his eyes whenever he talks to or about his father. That man has Donny’s utmost respect.
Of course he does. Talon Steel adopted them, took them away from…
I feel like I’m back in a damned cage.
Those words still haunt me when I allow them to float to the top of my mind. I try not to. I don’t want to think about what Donny may have been through in his young life. Whatever happened, he’s grown up to be an amazing man. A man with such strong ethics—when he was faced with breaching them, he couldn’t.
There are so many things to love about Donny Steel. His strength is merely one of them. His brilliance, his sense of humor, and of course the fact that he’s the most gorgeous man on the planet.
Rory scurries up to me then. “Hey, Cal, could you come up and help us for a minute?”
Brianna and Maddie say in unison, “I’ll do it.”
“Actually, I need Callie for this.”
The two of them give us pouting looks as Rory drags me behind the makeshift stage.
“What is it?” I ask.
“It’s Jesse. He just told me that he and the guys are going to go see Pat Lamone later tonight. They’re going to get those pictures.”
My heart drops to my stomach. “No. They can’t.”