Hawk (A Stepbrother Romance #3)(45)

For some reason, the thought of it excites me. The nasty little smile she gave me after she bit me is etched into my memory, cut into my mind. Just thinking about it starts to get me excited again.

Deep breath, Hawk.

It’s almost time for dinner.

Alexis shuts off the shower and I hear her bedroom door close a moment later. I stand and pace the sewing room, hoping I can get down there without running into someone-Lance, Alexis’ mom, somebody who would get a whiff of her scent on me or ask why I’m all sweaty. I wait as long as I can, glancing at the clock. It’s almost four, I need to be ready.

Luckily enough there’s no one on the second floor, at least in the hallway, when I head for the bathroom. The heat scours the sweat from my skin as I stand under the scalding spray, steam swirling around me. I’m losing my mind.

I should just make her leave. Grab her and drag her out, kicking and screaming if I have to. Take May, too. Every minute I spend here is another risk. My father isn’t going to forget about me if I stay quiet. He’s already wondering why I’m here. As soon as I sit down to dinner, the wheels will start turning in his head.

After I dress I walk back down and find May and Alexis on the second floor, wearing dresses and minimal makeup, and I know the Dinner Rule is still in effect. It’s four o’ clock on Sunday, time for the happy family to have a nice sit down dinner.

I just have to make it through it without killing my father with a salad fork.

I grab Alex’s arm, and she looks at me.

“You have to act like you’re mad at me,” I tell her, and then to May. “Keep your mouth shut.”

May grins, and quickly suppresses it, lips twitching. She heads down the stairs first, Alexis follows, and I take up the rear, walking slowly down behind them.

Alexis’ mother is in the kitchen, wearing a freaking apron, a frilly one with a big bow on the back, and is currently bending over the oven, ready to lift a turkey in a roasting pan onto the counter.

I haven’t talked to Helen since I returned to Paradise Falls. I think the last time we spoke was even before the water park trip, before I left town. I walk over to her as she tugs on an oven mitt, take the other one and pull it on my own hand.

“I’ll get that.”

She stands up straight and looks at me.

Helen is taller than either of her daughters, thinner in build and her hair is a dark honey color, not jet black like Alexis and May’s; they got that from their father. I barely remember him-we didn’t talk much, but he always seemed to like me, even during that attached at the hip phase where I spent every free moment of my fourteen year old life with his daughter.

Helen never treated me with more than cool distance, and as far as I knew, my father looked down on her. She worked as a waitress when Alexis was little and took on a second job at the auto parts store after her husband died.

I wasn’t sure why she didn’t like me. I thought maybe it was because my family has money, or she was just leery of having a boy around her daughter, although in those days I didn’t think of it in those terms.

Today she’s dressed as I would expect my father’s wife to dress-a flowing, floor length floral pattern dress, frilly apron, minimal makeup and her hair loose, hanging to her shoulders, held back only by a pink barrette. She looks like someone’s idea of a fifties housewife Halloween costume.

Without a word, she slips the glove off her hand and passes it to me. I tug it on and lift the turkey onto the hot pads she left out on the counter.

“It has to rest,” she says, flatly. “Will you help me serve?”

“Sure. How have you been? We haven’t really talked.”

“No," she says, curtly. “We haven’t.”

Without further comment she muscles the big stock pot off the stove and dumps it into a colander, tosses the potatoes back in and pours in milk to mash them. I stand there with my arms folded.

“You can help with the stuffing.”

I nod and fluff the pan full of stuffing with a fork, and pour it out into a serving dish. It’s the stuff in a box, nothing fancy. Besides the potatoes, there’s some baked sweet potatoes and real cranberry sauce bubbling in a smaller saucepan. In spite of myself, my mouth starts watering at the smells. The turkey looks damned good, too. The skin is a nice crackling brown.

Looking at it, I feel my stomach sink.

There was a time when I enjoyed this. This big Sunday meal was the highlight of my week. My mom could cook; she could put a trained chef to shame and make anything, even stuff like beef wellington and soufflés and everything.

As Helen stands there mashing the potatoes in grim silence, the kitchen as it is fades from my sight and is replaced with the kitchen from my mind. Bright and airy, sunlight streaming in as Mom sweats over some part of the meal.

A twinge in my gut snaps me out of it as I realize that Alexis never ate with us before I left town. Mom said yes, Dad said no, family only. I wanted her to eat dinner with us so bad, especially after she lost her father. There was room for her, but she wasn’t invited. She never asked me about it, either.

So, when I carry the big bowl of potatoes out into the dining room, it’s a bit of a shock to see her sitting there next to her sister. Lance walks in the room just as I do and our father shoots him an annoyed look as he sits down next to May and pulls up his chair.

“You’re late.”