Hawk (A Stepbrother Romance #3)(37)

“Who are we meeting?”

“An old friend. We need to talk, Alexis.”

I try not to react to that.

As he pulls out onto the road he says, “You need to understand I’ve essentially been tapped on the shoulder. There’s been a lot of commotion lately in our political landscape. Someone has to step up. Mayor of this town is only the first step on a path that’s going to lead to high office.”

“High office?”

“State level, such as governor, possibly senator.”

“Because the Katzenbergs went to prison?”

“Partly, yes. The interim mayor serving now isn’t quite right for the role.”

“You sound very confident.”

He smiles at that, and glances at me. “Aren’t you hot, buttoned up to the neck like that?”

“I’m fine.”

He turns the air conditioning all the way up. With it blasting on my bare legs, I start to shiver.

“Cold?”

“I’m all right.”

He drives, humming to himself. Then he says,

“You realize this represents an opportunity for you.”

“Me?”

“Politics is often a family affair, Alexis, and I’ll be blunt: My youngest son is a jackass, the best I can manage for him is damage control. My eldest is a walking PR nightmare and has no sense of well, anything. You, though, you’ve been the daughter I never had. I can’t tell you how proud I am of how you’ve come around.”

Just the idea makes me sick. I glance in the rearview mirror to make sure I haven’t turned green.

“When I move up, it’ll open spaces below me. I think we’ll start you off with an appointed position first. I’ll have you working in my office in some capacity. Something important, so you’ll look qualified later on to run for mayor yourself.”

“Me?” I squeak out.

“You. I’ll need someone I can trust here if we’re going to establish ourselves as a proper political family. That’s what my grandfather always wanted, you see. Back when there was coal and logging, he saw that politics was the proper avenue for people like us.”

“Oh.”

“Of course, you’re not of my family, but that doesn’t matter. I’ve been trying with your mother. She’s still young enough, but it doesn’t seem to be working.”

Oh God, I didn’t need to hear that. I took health, I know what he means by trying.

“So I’m putting all my hopes on you.”

I swallow.

“That means a lot to me.”

I look over at him and feel like someone slipped an ice cube down my top. This man killed his own wife, horrifically, for some reason. Was it because he wanted my mother? I thought he hated us. I never even knew they were involved.

“Ah,” he says, “We’re here.”

He turns off the road into the parking lot of one of the restaurants on the east side of the river. This one has a big open porch that overlooks the water. I think Tom owns a stake in it; he’s tied up in half the real estate in Paradise Falls.

“Let’s go inside and meet them. Be on your best behavior, sweetheart. These men are going to make you mayor one day, or better. All you have to do is keep being my good girl.”

He tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear and it’s everything I have not to bite his finger off.

Then he steps out of the car, and I follow him inside.





Hawk





Now





I take it slow getting home. Home. It still feels weird to call that house home. It feels like a museum now, a foreign place. The whole town feels artificial to me, like I’m walking through a studio backlot, plodding past movie sets. The facades are empty, there’s nothing behind them. Fury burns in my veins, and my nails dig into my palm.

As I walk, it hits me that the only reason I’m not going to kill my father today is because Alexis begged me not to.

At first I thought she was just angry with me, but it’s more than that. She’s changed. Haunted. The sound of her voice as she told me what they did to her is like a knife sliding along my bone and I hear another quiet voice whisper in my ear: Because of you.

I will never leave her again. I swear.

By the time I get back to the house, I feel like I’ve run for ten miles. It’s not the walk that did it, it’s the weight. Like a dead elephant on my back. I step inside and find my brother standing in the kitchen, eating a sandwich, chewing it loudly and sloppily, holding a beer in his other hand.

“Bro,” he says through his sandwich.

“Lance.”

“We haven’t had much of a chance to talk.”

“Nope.”

I start to walk past him and he grabs my arm. I look at his hand, and then at him, and a bit of color drains from his face. He chokes down his sandwich. His hand falls away.

We have never been the best of friends, my brother and I. He’s only two years younger than I am, but we might as well be from different planets. Sometimes I can’t believe we’re related. Oh, we look like brothers-though he’s shorter and narrower in his build, tending towards wiry. It’s everything else that makes us different.

“I keep wondering where you’ve been all this time,” he says in his sly voice. “Funny we haven’t heard from you for what, four years?”