Melt (Steel Brothers Saga #4)(56)

“Talon has his own reasons for keeping quiet.”

“Yeah, and they’re not too hard to figure out, I don’t think. What happened to him was probably very humiliating. He tried to block it from his mind. I’m sure I would’ve done the same.”

“People deal with things in different ways.” Melanie sighed. “The way Talon was feeling afterward contributed to that, and add to that the fact that your parents were complicit in keeping the whole thing under wraps. It’s amazing that he got the help he needed. But I’m so glad he did.”

“I’m so glad too.”

“You know, Jonah, what happened to Talon didn’t just happen to Talon. It happened to you, too. And your brother. And your mother and father. I don’t particularly condone how your parents handled it, but I do feel confident in saying that they thought it was best at the time, and they felt they had their reasons.”

“I just wish I knew what those reasons were.”

“You may never know, and you will have to eventually find peace with that.”

I wasn’t sure I’d ever find true peace, at least not on land. In water, I got close. I still hadn’t told Melanie about what I used to do in those dark alleys on skid row. Or rather, what I used to have done to me. “I do want to find peace with that. But since my parents aren’t here to give us any answers, I don’t particularly have a choice in the matter.”

“That’s not true. You have a choice whether to make peace with the fact that you’ll never know their reasons.”

Melanie raised a good point, but I wasn’t quite ready to give up the fight. I was pretty sure Wendy Madigan, a former news correspondent, had more information than she had told Jade. I intended to converse with her at some point. I just wasn’t sure when. I was trying to work through my own guilt and Bryce’s father’s potential involvement, and when I had a spare moment to think, a certain blond therapist popped into my mind—the same blond therapist who stood next to me now in the shallower end of my pool, her peachy breasts bobbing on the surface of the water.

“I’m not sure that’s true,” I said.

“Jonah,” she said, “there are so many things in this life that we have no control over. Take the control where you have it. The one thing you can control is the way you feel about something. Accepting that you may never know the truth of why your parents did what they did is a choice you can make.”

I gave a small smile. “You know, I think you’re the most intelligent, insightful, beautiful woman I’ve ever had the privilege to meet.”

Her beautiful cheeks turned raspberry.

“Oh, come on, don’t be embarrassed.”

“It’s just… No one has ever said anything like that to me before.”

“Are you kidding me? Not even loverboy Oliver Nichols?”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t lying to you. I didn’t ask for that kiss. As far as I’m concerned, he’s just a friend.”

It hadn’t looked like friendship to me, but fine. I’d let it go. After all, she had gone to dinner with me, not him.

“If no one has ever said anything like that to you before, everyone who’s met you is either blind or stupid. Or both.”

She laughed softly. “Of course they’re not, but thank you for saying it to me, Jonah. It means more than you know. On today of all days.”

Right, she had come to me because she had been distraught. Something had happened to Melanie earlier today, and like a completely selfish bastard, I had forgotten to ask her about it. Then, instead of making the day about fun as I’d originally hoped to, we’d begun talking about my own issues.

“Tell me what’s bothering you today. What brought you to me?” Anything that brought her to me worked in my favor, but I did not want her suffering.

“Oh, nothing really.”

I cupped her cheek. “It’s not nothing. You don’t strike me as the kind of woman who goes running to a man’s house unless something is truly wrong.”

She visibly swallowed. Then she hoisted herself up so she was sitting on the concrete ledge of the pool, her legs dangling in the water.

I spread her legs and stood between them, rubbing up and down her arms. “You can tell me. I will help if I can.”

“I wish you could help. The truth of the matter is, no one can.”

“That doesn’t sound like the insightful therapist I know.”

She let out a sarcastic chuckle and sniffled. “I don’t have any insight for myself, I’m afraid.”

“Maybe I’ll have some,” I said. “We Steels have brains, you know.”

She smiled. “Oh, I know. A lot of brainpower had to go into making your ranch the empire it has become.”

“That was a few generations before me, I’m afraid,” I said. “But we do need a substantial amount of brainpower to keep it going. That’s for sure.”

She nodded, saying nothing.

“Come on, Melanie. Let me help you.”

She sniffled again. “I’m going to be taking a little…vacation.”

My heart raced. I hoped she wouldn’t be gone long. “A vacation? That’s nothing to be so sad about. Where are you going?”

“I don’t know yet, and I don’t really want to take a vacation.”