Blinding Trust (Mitchell Family, #7)(8)

I put that magazine down and grabbed the next one. This particular magazine was well known and all about musicians. Zeke and his band were on the cover, wearing only pants. They were all covered in tattoos, and not the pretty kind, like Colt had. Two of the members had one side of their heads shaved. They had their tongues out and were holding up live rats like they were going to eat them whole. Zeke had his arms crossed and was looking over with a sly grin on his face. He rubbed me the wrong way and it wasn’t just because I was being a selfish mother.

I opened the article and read about all the members and what they had come from. Zeke met the twins while doing a show in New Orleans. Once the three of them got together, they were signed and added the last two members. The story went on to talk about how fame had caused the band to have troubles. All of the after parties, the drugs, the booze and the women, had created a group of men that barely had working livers.

It went into each member in detail, finally ending with Zeke being the last. I read all about his alcoholic father and what he went through as a kid, relying on just his sister to be fed each day. They talked about his first wife and how she couldn’t handle the lifestyle any longer. He’d met his second wife at one of his rehab trips and they’d had a very public affair, not caring who knew or how many people they hurt.

It went on to say how he and his wife had reconciled and they were seen at a fertility clinic. The article was claiming that a child would calm down the troubled star. I thought the article was crap. You can’t bring a baby into that kind of environment to act as some sort of last result therapy. It appalled me.

When my phone started ringing, I realized that I had completely lost track of time. I was certain that my frozen items had melted all over the back storage compartment.

Hello?

Hey, darlin’, it’s me. I’m just checkin’ on you.

I looked at the clock and saw that it was eleven thirty. I am leaving the store now. Do you want me to pick up lunch?

I can make us something and have it ready when you get here.

Okay, we’ll see you in about twenty minutes.

Alright, darlin’. See you then.

Addy was in the back watching the dinosaur show, not paying any attention to me in the front seat. I started on our way back to the ranch, feeling worse than I had before I read the articles. I was scared to even show Colt. I knew he was worried too.

Once we pulled up at the house, Colt came out to help with the bags. Sure enough, ice cream was dripping out of one of them. He held up the bag in the driveway.

I gave him a guilty look and handed him the articles. “I sat in the parking lot reading all about our visitor.”

He cocked his eyebrow and grabbed some more bags. “I don’t want to know, do I?”

I grabbed Addy out of her seat. She’d fallen asleep and I was trying not to wake her. “Not really,” I whispered.

As soon as I had laid our daughter down for her nap, I headed into the kitchen to find Colt examining the things that I had purchased. He was reading one of the labels when he noticed me standing there. “This stuff sounds disgusting. Meat has to be better for you than what’s in this stuff. There ain’t no way in Hell that I would eat liquid beans instead of beef.”

I laughed, thinking about Colt being a vegetarian. “Darn. I was thinking about changing our diets.”

“To hell with that. I’d rather starve. My kids are eatin’ good food, not this imitation shit.”

I helped put the non-perishables away and sat down at the table. Colt put a plate with a tuna sandwich down in front of me. Then he sat down across from me with his plate and a bag of chips. “I talked to Miranda today about what was going on.”

“What did she say?” He popped a chip in his mouth.

I took a bite and waited until I swallowed to answer. “She thought it was cool, at first.”

“It ain’t cool. I just want this visit to be done and over with. When Zeke leaves, we need to sit Noah down and let him know that we are not okay with him growin’ up and wantin’ that kind of lifestyle.”

Colt took a huge bite of his sandwich and just stared at me. What he was doing was thinking about something. I’d seen him do it a million times. “I love you.”

“Your lunch is that good, huh?”

We both laughed. “The house is really quiet.” It usually was when the two oldest were at school. It wasn’t until they all got home that it got chaotic. “We could go upstairs.”

He dropped his sandwich down on his plate and brushed off his hands. “We could?”

I bit down on my lip and gave him that look. “Uh huh.”

He stood up and reached over the table to grab my hand. I sat my sandwich down and let him lead me up the stairs to our room.

This was exactly the distraction that we both needed in order to go through with our day. I wanted my son to know his family. I just didn’t want him being corrupted by him.



It was going to be a long night.





Chapter 4


Colt


My wife didn’t have much faith in people. I couldn’t blame her. She’d been through a lot, and even though she was fully recovered, that kind of traumatic event changes a person. She had lost her ability to see the positive in things, which left her dwelling on all of the negatives.

I felt that it was important for me to keep her as distracted as physically possible, so when she offered a quickie, I was all over it.