Page 12 of Call Me Yours (Lodestar Ranch #4)

STEVEN

“You’re coming home for Thanksgiving, right?” Mom asked.

I scrubbed a hand over my scratchy jaw. “No, Mom. I already told you. Amy only gets a couple days off and she needs them to study for finals.”

At the sound of her name, Amy looked up from the map she was studying at the kitchen table. “Don’t throw me under the bus!” she hissed.

I rolled my eyes at her. “Plus, I can’t take the time off, either. I’ve got the farrier exam coming up.”

“Christmas, then,” Mom insisted. “You’ll be home for Christmas?”

I couldn’t bear the hopeful note in her tone.

“Christmas?” I echoed, raising my eyebrows at Amy.

She shook her head frantically. Too damn bad.

If she had answered her phone in the first place, I wouldn’t be the one having this discussion to begin with.

“Yeah, we can probably fly there for a couple days.”

I refused to call it home.

It wasn’t. Not mine, anyway. He had made that abundantly clear.

Amy glared at me. I turned away but I could still feel the burn of it on my back. “Why don’t you come to Colorado for a visit, Mom? I have a spare bedroom. You could go hiking with Amy. You should see the mountains here. They’re insane.”

“Well, of course we’d love to see your new place, Steven, but you know your dad.”

I did know my dad. He’d never put himself out for someone else. He was too busy, too important, to pause his life and visit ours.

“You could come by yourself,” I pushed, even though I knew better. “Just you. Stay for a week or two.”

Mom gave a startled laugh. “By myself? Oh, I couldn’t do that, honey. Who would make your father’s dinner?”

I ground my teeth so hard I was in danger of cracking a molar. “He’s a grown man, Mom. He can bake a frozen pizza or order takeout.”

“Now, you know I won’t stand for that ungrateful talk,” Mom said sharply. “He provides for me, and I’m happy to do my duty and provide for him.”

I thunked my head against the oak cabinet, the first time for punishment and the second to teach me a lesson I seemed slow to learn. In theory, there was nothing wrong with what she said. That kind of partnership could work just fine if both people in it respected each other.

And that was the problem.

Mom loved being a homemaker, and she valued the work.

My issue was that Dad didn’t. There wasn’t a damn thing she did that he was grateful for.

Every cent she spent, he reminded her where it came from.

But somehow when it came to what she gave him in return, he was entitled to all of it.

In his twisted mind, she owed it to him.

And it still wasn’t enough.

“All right,” I said quietly. “We miss you.”

“I miss you, too, honey. I’ll give your love to Dad,” she chirped because she liked to pretend that life was a 1950s black-and-white sitcom, when in fact, Dad hadn’t spoken a word to me since Amy moved in.

Amy shook her head at me as I hung up.

“What?” I demanded.

“I don’t know why you bother. She’s perfectly happy being his maid with sex benefits.”

“Amy, what the hell?” I nearly spewed my coffee. “Don’t say shit like that.”

She gave me an unimpressed stare. “Dude. Where do you think you came from? Our parents have sex. Mom isn’t the Virgin Mary.” She pulled a face. “I bet it’s terrible. He seems like the selfish type.”

I dragged my hands down my cheeks. “I am begging you to stop talking.”

“Yeah. I’m grossing myself out, anyway.”

I refilled my mug, then held up the pot. “Want me to top you off?”

“Yes, please.” She nudged her mug closer to the edge of the table and went back to studying her map.

I filled her cup, took note of the way the fresh coffee lightened slightly from the dregs still in her cup, and grabbed the half-and-half from the fridge. “Just cream, or do you want sugar, too?”

“Just cream.” She watched me pour. “That’s good, thanks.”

I headed back to the refrigerator with the cream. When I turned around again, I found her watching me with her chin propped on her palm. “What?” I asked.

She startled and laughed. “Just thinking, that’s all.

Dad would never in a million years have done what you just did.

He could have been standing right next to the coffee pot, and he still would have expected Mom to refill his cup for him.

” Her shoulders lifted as she hunched over her mug and took a sip.

“It’s funny, because I used to worry you’d turn out just like him. ”

I froze, my fingertips turning white from gripping my mug.

There were twelve years between us, so we had never been particularly close growing up.

Amy had been eight when I graduated from high school.

College had been like a breath of fresh air, and I spent as little time at home as I could, given that Dad still controlled my finances.

But I had always made it a point to spend time with her when I was around.

Hearing her say she thought I was like him in any way scraped me raw.

“I’m not like him,” I said, hating the uncertainty in my voice.

“That’s what I’m saying. I mean, sometimes you talked like him, and it always caught me off guard.

Remember in college how you were the second-string quarterback, and Dad was so mad because of course his son should have been the starting quarterback, and he said it was the coach playing favorites?—”

I winced. “Yeah, thanks, I remember.” I remembered breaking the news to my dad, how his anger fed mine, and said something to Julian that was so out of line I couldn’t think about it now without feeling like I was on fire.

And I remembered Julian proving me wrong every damn day. When he was one of the first draft picks in the NFL, I wasn’t surprised. But did I learn my lesson?

Not a fucking chance.

“You’re not Dad, Steven,” Amy said quietly. “Dad was mean and angry. You were angry, but you were never mean.”

She meant to make me feel better, but I only felt worse. Amy didn’t know the truth. She didn’t know what happened with James, that she had gotten hurt because of me. And I sure as shit wasn’t going to tell her.

I nodded toward the map she had spread out on the table. “Where are you headed?”

“Estes Park with my friend Lila. The aspens are all gold now and the elks are bugling.”

“You’ll be back in time for dinner? I told Terry we’d be there at six sharp,” I reminded her. Terry had invited us for Sunday dinner, and I only said yes because Chloe wouldn’t be there. He still didn’t know that I had history with his daughter, and I wanted to keep it that way.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be home in time to shower and change,” Amy said. “We’re not doing a big hike, just getting lunch and taking in the scenery. Actually, I’ve got to get going.” She scraped back her chair and pushed to her feet.

I stepped back to let her pass, but she caught me by the elbow, rolled up on her toes, and kissed my cheek. “Thanks, big brother.”

My hand flew to my face. We weren’t a touchy-feely family. We didn’t hug. We sure as hell didn’t give cheek kisses. “For what?”

“For the coffee. For…everything.”

I stayed rooted to the spot long moments after she had disappeared into her room. The way she had looked at me, with all that love and trust shining from her eyes that looked so much like our mom’s…it made my chest hurt.

I wondered how she’d look at me if she knew the truth.