Broken Wings (A Romantic Suspense)(7)

“There’s beautiful for you. Take a good long stare.”

I do. I look. I don’t waver or flinch. I look.

“I’m so sorry, Ellie.”

She laughs, thin and raspy. “I’ll bet you are. Satisfied?”

I step closer and stare right into her face.

She starts to quiver a little.

“Does it hurt?” I ask, very softly.

“It… It itches,” she says, blinking as she lets her hair fall from her fingers. “I can’t scratch it, it’s too deep.”

“I’m sorry.”

I reach for her but she steps back.

“Stop it. Stop it, Jack. You’re not going to just sweep me up in your arms. I won’t let you.”

I don’t know what to say except to take a step closer.

Then Frank steps out on the terrace.

“Jack. Your dad wants to talk. Miss Ellie, you okay?”

She turns away from him and cocks her head down to stare at the streets below.

“I’m fine, Frank. Thank you.”

“Come on, Jack. I gotta bring you, one way or the other.”

Ellie looks over for a moment, confusion flickering briefly on her face.

I stand up from the railing and walk back to the door. “I’m coming, I’m coming, you big lummox.”

Frank sighs in relief. “Let’s go. I could give you another minute if you… If you want…” he says, struggling with the words.

“That won’t be necessary,” Ellie snaps.

I step inside with him and the door closes behind me.

We walk around the perimeter of the ballroom then through a door beside the bride and groom’s long table. Behind the stage at the end of the ballroom, the air smells like grease and rope.

My father stands by a set of folded-up tables, sipping champagne from a flute, holding his coat swept open with one hand like a general in an old painting.

“Jack,” he says jovially. “What the f*ck are you doing here?”

I take a long, slow breath and force myself steady.

I’m not scared of you anymore, old man.

“Well, see, you’re getting married and I think my invitation got lost in the mail, because I never got it.”

He sets the glass down and turns to face me, his eyes hard. “I never sent it. You weren’t invited. I made myself clear. I had plans for you.”

“Did you, now?”

“I’m told you resigned your commission.”

“That’s right. There was no poetry in it.”

“What?”

I shrug. “Being some general’s gopher for the rest of my life didn’t have all that much appeal.”

“General’s gopher? Boy, I pulled so many strings to get you that position. You’d have made major by the time I was ready for you to retire and take the position I’m preparing for you with the company.”

He sounds almost wistful. “I was thinking you could run for Congress, but twenty-five is too young. You’d never get it out of your system by then. Senator is better. By the time you hit thirty, you’ll get all these silly ideas out of your system. Like this crazy idea that you’re going to f*ck your stepsister.”

“Is she my stepsister?” I say, shrugging. “I mean you married her stepmom, I’m not sure that means she’s really…”

“Shut up.” He cuts me off, snarling. “You’re just like your mother, always interrupting me in the middle of a thought. You saw where she ended up. In a trailer park in Arizona.”

“It’s not a trailer park, it’s manufactured homes. I called her yesterday. She’s doing fine. She’s a lot happier.”

“Happier,” he snorts. “She would be happier. No drive, no ambition, no understanding of what it means to be a man. If she can suck some accountant’s limp cock and get three meals a day out of it, she’s fine.”

“She has a job. She teaches kindergarten.”

It’s hard to keep my voice even. My hands tense into fists in my pockets.

“We’ve never really discussed Neil’s cock, her being my mom and all, but he seems to get the job done. I have two half sisters I’ve never met.”

My father snorts.

“Besides, you know what they say about guys that talk about their dicks all the time.”

He glares at me. Hard.

“Watch your f*cking cracks. You’re valuable to me, or I’d have Frank toss you off the roof for that.”

Frank shifts uncomfortably on his feet.

“I had big plans for you. Big plans.”

“Not my plans.”

“Don’t you want your life to mean something?”

“I do. I want it to mean something to me.”

He glares at me, and I return his gaze evenly. If he wanted me to cower in front of him, he shouldn’t have forced me into the f*cking Army.

“You can’t go back into the service.”

“No, they frown on that.”

“So I have to figure out something to do with you. At least you did well in the Army.”

“I practically got medals for wiping my ass. Somebody was pulling strings for me.”

“Time to plan our next move,” he says, and rolls his shoulders. “There’s been a lot of upheaval in local politics since you left.”