Melt (Steel Brothers Saga #4)(38)

“I had no idea that Talon was even involved. I can’t believe your father covered that up. And now Larry Wade has been arrested. Just odd all around.”

His tone didn’t indicate that he thought it was odd at all. The vibes coming from him felt sinister.

“Well, Bryce is waiting for his coffee.”

“Right. Go ahead.”

Evidently he’d given up the notion of the two of us joining him in the kitchen for coffee. Just as well. I didn’t want to be in the same room with Tom Simpson a minute longer than necessary.

On the other hand, he could be a source of information. Maybe I could get him to slip up. Get him to admit something he didn’t want to admit. But as I stared into his cold blue eyes, I knew the truth. Tom Simpson would not be tripped up. Nothing fazed him.

I took the coffee back to Bryce in the nursery.

“He’s nodding off now,” Bryce said, gesturing to Henry.

Bryce sat back down in the rocking chair, and I looked at the sleeping baby for a few moments, his blond peach fuzz hair plastered to his head with sweat from his fever. Thank God he was okay. Then I sat down in another chair. I took a sip of my coffee.

“So what’s going on with you?” Bryce asked. “I need to get my mind off this crap.”

“Not much, really.” I thought about telling him about Melanie, but I wasn’t sure I could do that without telling him I was in therapy—or rather, no longer in therapy—with Talon’s therapist. I wasn’t sure Talon wanted anyone to know he was in therapy, and I was damned sure I didn’t want anyone to know I was.

“Well, something’s going on. You must be doing some research into the situation with Talon, since you were pounding on my door at midnight last night.”

He had me there. “Talon and I are working on it, but we haven’t found much.”

“What about Ryan? I haven’t seen him around town in a while.”

I swallowed the sip of coffee I had just taken. “This is Ryan’s busy time of the year. He’s harvesting the grapes and having a great time making new batches of wine. Pretty soon it’ll be bottling time for the wines that are ready.” I shook my head. “Don’t ask me to explain it to you. I have no idea what he does. Ryan’s freaking brilliant.”

“He does make a good wine,” Bryce agreed.

“Yeah, neither Tal nor I know where he got that artistic streak. We sure didn’t get any of it.”

“Maybe from your mother?”

“Maybe.”

Sadness hit me. I had been around fifteen years old when my mother committed suicide, and even though I had lots of memories of her, I still didn’t know much about her. Talon, Ryan, and I had spent most of our time with our father on the ranch when we weren’t at school. My father was a man’s man and would have been considered a sexist by today’s standards. He felt that outdoor work was men’s work, and my mom seemed fine with that. I smiled. Once Marj hit eight or nine years old, she would have none of that. She helped with the “men’s work.” Of course, Mom was gone by then.

“And speaking of moms,” Bryce said, giving me a shit-eating grin. “How’s Brooke Bailey?”

I chuckled. Sometimes I still couldn’t believe Brooke Bailey was living at the main ranch house.

Bryce continued, “Do you still have that poster? You know, the one in the blue spandex one-piece?” He grinned again. “I believe you built an altar around it.”

While I was happy Bryce was in a better mood after Henry and the virus, I didn’t really want to talk about Jade’s mother. Yeah, I had nursed a massive crush on her when I was a horny teen, but I was hardly the only one. That had been decades ago.

“You know, she’s not that much older than you, Joe.”

Okay, this had to stop. “Bryce, shut the fuck up, will you?”

He laughed. “Did you ever in your life think, while you were jacking off to that poster, that she’d be living in your house someday?”

I hadn’t given Brooke Bailey a thought in twenty years. This conversation had to end. “Bryce, that was years ago. I have no interest in Brooke Bailey.”

“Well, a forty-three-year-old supermodel probably doesn’t look the way you remember her.”

Actually, she still looked great. “The long blond hair is now cut in a pixie, and one of her eyes is a little misshapen from the accident. She has a few scars on her face, but she’s still a great-looking woman.”

“And the body?” Bryce said.

“Yeah, she still has the body. She’s not quite as tall as I expected. I thought she would be taller.”

“Well, you know, people shrink with age.”

“Not everything shrinks.”

Bryce let out another guffaw of laughter.

“Well, where do you think Jade got them from? Certainly not her dad.”

“So what’s stopping you? She’s living in one of your houses, and her boyfriend has flown the coop. Why not give it a shot?”

Because she wasn’t Melanie. But of course I couldn’t say that. Melanie Carmichael had me twisted up in so many knots, I wasn’t sure where anything began.

“Because she’s Jade’s mom, for God’s sake. And also, she’s five years older than I am, and I’m not interested.”