Brody Read online

  Table of Contacts

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  About the Author

  Other Books by Cheryl Douglas

  Coming Soon

  Brody

  Book Four in the Steele Brothers Series

  Cheryl Douglas

  Copyright © by Cheryl Douglas

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, including photocopying, graphic, electronic, mechanical, taping, recording, sharing, or by any information retrieval system without the express written permission of the author and / or publisher. Exceptions include brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Persons, places and other entities represented in this book are deemed to be fictitious. They are not intended to represent actual places or entities currently or previously in existence or any person living or dead. This work is the product of the author’s imagination.

  Any and all inquiries to the author of this book should be directed to: [email protected]

  Brody © 2016 Cheryl Douglas

  Chapter One

  Brody

  “Some might say you’re a chip off the old block.”

  I looked up to see the man I despised staring at me, with a face that looked as I imagined mine would in thirty years. “What the hell are you doing here, old man?”

  Leaning in the doorway of the now-vacant room where I’d just won a tidy sum of money, he said, “I heard you were in town.”

  “And what made you think I’d want to see you? You didn’t even have the decency to show up for Mom’s funeral, so why’d you show your face here?” I sneered, certain my disgust was written all over my face. “Are you looking for a handout?”

  Jack stared at me a long time, challenging me to really look at him, to see him. “I came here for one reason—to see my son.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t want to see you. Get the hell out.”

  “I can’t believe how well you boys turned out,” he said, shaking his head.

  “No thanks to you. If Ryker hadn’t been old enough to take care of us when Mom died, we would have wound up in the system.”

  “When I heard about your mother’s illness from an old friend, I considered coming back, trying to help. But I knew your brother wouldn’t let you guys end up in foster care. Even at eighteen, Ryker was—”

  “More of a man than you’ll ever be? I know.”

  I wanted to hurt him the way he’d hurt all of us, especially Mom. I’d never expected to see him again, but now that he’d finally had the guts to show his face, I wanted to spew all of the rage that had been boiling inside of me for over twenty years.

  “You, Kane, and Ryker were teenagers when your mama died. You could take care of yourself.”

  “Nex, Gabe, and Seb weren’t, you selfish bastard,” I said, curling my hand into a fist. I’d sworn to myself if I ever saw him again, I’d put the fear of God into him, just as he’d done to us for all those years. “They were eight, nine, and eleven.” I slammed my fist on the desk. “They needed a parent!”

  “They didn’t need me,” he said, crossing his arms over his barrelled chest.

  My eyes traveled over his faded jeans, black T-shirt, and steel-toed black boots. I’d never forget those nasty tattoos marking his arms. He’d gotten them long before the guy on the other end of the needle could be considered an “artist,” and it showed. The patterns were dull and dark, the colors faded, the forms barely recognizable.

  “They were better off without me.”

  “I can’t argue with that. We were all better off without you.” Yet a part of me was still angry that he’d never even bothered to check on us, to see if we had enough food or a roof over our heads. He never even offered us money or a stitch of clothing.

  “A man has to come to terms with his mistakes eventually, Brody.” He glanced at the ceiling of the room reserved for gambling’s elite. The high rollers who could afford to play in the big leagues. A place he didn’t belong and probably never thought he’d be. “Thanks to the Lord, I’ve made peace with mine.”

  I gaped at him, unable to believe the garbage he was spewing. “You expect me to believe you’re not still the same dirtbag who walked out on us?”

  “You can believe what you want. I’m telling you I’ve changed.” He ran a shaky hand over his cropped salt-and-pepper hair. “I learned how to be a better husband and father through trial and error.”

  My stomach turned as I thought about the possibility of him planting his seed in another poor, unsuspecting woman. “Are you saying you have other kids?”

  “You have two half-brothers,” he said, his lips tipping up in a reluctant smile. “I have pictures, if you want to see?”

  “I don’t. I don’t give a goddamn about your life or the people in it.” I didn’t know why he was telling me this, if not to torture me. He’d married and started another family when he hadn’t even been man enough to take care of the one he had?

  “Your brothers might.”

  My brothers felt the same way I did about our old man. They hated his guts.

  “You stay the hell away from them,” I said, pointing at him. “They’re happy. They don’t need you screwing up their lives.”

  “They may be happy, but you’re not, are you?”

  I’d never been more miserable, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that. “That’s none of your business. You didn’t care about me when I was a kid. Don’t pretend to care now.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that I may have been doing the best I could?” he asked, narrowing the same blue eyes I saw in the mirror every morning. The same eyes each of my brothers had. “You think you had it bad? Your grandfather was an animal.”

  I’d never heard anything about my grandfather, nor did I care to. I thought about the questions Cole had asked me recently, about his paternal grandfather. He wanted to know about the man who’d fathered us, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. I didn’t want him to feel the same shame I’d been carrying around my entire life.

  “He beat us black and blue.” Jack stared straight ahead at the cool white wall, as though he was remembering something he’d rather forget. “There were times I just wished he’d kill us and get it over with.”

  I swallowed, warning myself not to feel an ounce of sympathy for the man. He was a master manipulator who was probably here to wear me down so he could hit me up for money. “Then you should have reported him.”

  “We did, eventually.” His strong jaw flexed. “Or I should say my mother did. She feared he was going to go too far one day.” He smirked. “I think she was just worried about how she would dispose of the body.”

  My gut churned at the picture he painted. At least our mother had always served as a buffer between us and our father’s rage. She always stepped up and defended us, claiming she wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if he laid a hand on her kids.

  “So what happened to him?” Damn it. Why was I asking questions I didn’t want the answers to? I didn’t want to hear about my messed up family tree, the reprehensible men who were a part of me.

  “He spent the rest of his life in jail,” he said, his gaze landing on his boots. “Eventually got beat to death. A just end, some might say.” He sighed before closing his eyes. “I’m supposed to forgive, to let go so the hatred doesn
’t consume me, but that’s easier said than done sometimes.”

  The irony wasn’t lost on me. My old man was trying to come to terms with his hatred toward his father while I was trying to do the same. The difference was Jack was still alive, standing before me, and I could tell him how I felt, and about all the ways he’d messed up our lives.

  “You ever get married, Brody?”

  I had a feeling he already knew my story. If he knew where to find me tonight, he had to have been following my life and career. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  I pressed my palms into my eyes, trying to block out the image of Riley. The last time I saw her, we’d been leaving the resort after Nex and Jaci’s wedding. That was three months ago, and I hadn’t returned home since. For all I knew, she could be married by now. “Look at the example I had growing up. You’re surprised I can’t trust myself to be a husband and father?”

  “Ah,” he said, rubbing his hand over the silver stubble on his chin. “You’re afraid you’ll turn out like me, huh? You think you’ll mess up your kids the way I messed up you boys?”

  “Why take that chance?” I asked, glaring at him. “Half of all marriages end in divorce, and there are enough deadbeat dads and messed-up kids out there already without me adding to the mix.”

  “I guess you’re right about that,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “But your brother Ryker didn’t think that way, did he? He has two fine boys. From what I hear, he’s a damn good father.”

  I didn’t have to ask how Jack knew about Ryker and the fact that he was a devoted family man. A quick Google search would produce dozens of articles telling him everything he wanted to know about his eldest son, assuming he hadn’t seen Ryker on TV.

  “He is a good father, no thanks to you. He had to be a figure father to us, so he had some practice before his kids came along. Plus, his father-in-law set a good example, taught him not only how to be a better man but a good dad.” I still didn’t know where Ryker would be had it not been for Mackenzie’s father.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” he said, sounding melancholy. “Everyone needs a good influence in their lives. That’s how I managed to turn things around. When I moved here, I rented a room—”

  “Why the hell are you telling me all this?” I demanded, frustrated with myself for letting him ramble on. “You think I care?”

  As though I hadn’t interrupted, he said, “My landlord at the time was a damn fine man. He rented rooms to guys like me, who were down on their luck. He was a war veteran, a recovering alcoholic. He knew about post-traumatic stress. He helped me understand that’s what I was suffering from, you know, because of my childhood.”

  “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? To take whatever you say at face value? ‘Cause I don’t believe a goddamn word you say.”

  “Fair enough.” Jack nodded. “Anyhow, Bill talked me into going to an AA meeting with him. He became my sponsor and helped me turn my life around. He even helped me get a job as a long-haul truck driver. Been doing that ever since.”

  “You expect me to believe you’ve held down a job for twenty years?” I rolled my eyes. “I’ve never known you to keep a job more than twenty days.”

  “You’re right about that.” He chuckled. “I sure had a thing against hard work. I always thought construction was beneath me.” He pointed at the table scattered with cards and poker chips. “I wanted to be somebody. I thought gambling would give me the seed money I needed for a better life.” He flashed a quick smile. “I was always chasing the next big thing. If there was a get-rich-quick scheme, I was all over it.”

  “Yet you never had more than two nickels to rub together.”

  I’d always thought taking digs at him would make me feel better. He’d made sport of us throughout our childhood, calling us stupid, weak losers who would never amount to anything. Now I wanted to laugh in his face, to tell him that we’d all made something of ourselves in spite of him.

  “No, son, I didn’t.”

  “Don’t call me that.” I clenched my teeth. “I am not your son. You’re nothing to me.”

  “Understood.” He crossed one leg over the other. “When Bill died, he left me the boarding house. I worked on it for a while, you know, to turn it back into a family home. That’s what it is now, a real family home. Sandra and I have raised two great kids there. I thought…”

  His eyes landed on mine. I knew I was glaring at him. I couldn’t help it. Hearing about the happy life he’d built, when he deserved to suffer the way he’d made us suffer, only made me hate him more.

  “Well, I thought maybe you’d want to stop by and meet Sandra and the kids while you’re in town.”

  “Are you insane?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He was inviting me to dinner at his house as if we hadn’t been estranged for twenty-plus years. “What makes you think I would want to meet your new family? I don’t even want to see you.”

  “Son—Brody, this anger’s eating you up inside. Anyone can see that. Looking at you, it’s like looking in a mirror—”

  “Don’t say that!” I shouted, swiping my arm across the table to clear it. “Don’t ever say that!” Nothing could have insulted me more than being compared to him. Mainly because I was so afraid of turning out just like him.

  He raised his hands. “Okay, okay. I didn’t mean to offend you. I just meant that I understand where you’re coming from, maybe better than anyone. I was mad at the world because of what my dad did to me, to us. I lived with that rage for a long time. I turned it inward. Took it out on you boys and your sweet mama.”

  I could have lunged across the table and leveled him for daring to mention my mother, but I knew people were still milling around outside, and I didn’t need any negative publicity. That would give my opponents the impression I was off my game, that my personal problems were consuming me. It was true. But they didn’t need to know that.

  “Don’t make excuses for yourself, old man. You were an asshole then, and I have no doubt you still are. People don’t change.”

  “You really believe that? That people can’t change?” Shaking his head and looking disappointed, he said, “Then I feel sorry for you. It’s pretty obvious you don’t like yourself very much right now. And if you don’t believe you can turn things around, you must feel pretty hopeless.”

  Stunned, I watched him walk out of the room. He didn’t know me. Even when we’d been living under the same roof, he hadn’t taken the time to get to know me, so how did he know I’d never felt more… hopeless?

  Chapter Two

  Riley

  When I woke to the sound of someone pounding on my door at two o’clock in the morning, I thought I was dreaming. I lay there, my heart thudding, as I considered my options. I lived in a secure building. Only people with an access code could get in… unless they’d snuck in behind a resident or guest.

  I swung my legs over the bed, barely breathing as I tiptoed down the short hallway to the door. I stood on my toes to peer out the peephole. Oh. My. God. Brody. What was he doing here? I hadn’t seen or heard from him in months, not since Jaci and Nex’s wedding.

  I weighed my options as I peeped through the hole again. He looked… ravaged. There was no other word to describe it. Instead of the suit I was so used to seeing, he was wearing faded jeans, an artfully torn T-shirt, and a backward baseball cap. It took me back to the old Brody… the high school and college athlete I’d fallen in love with.

  With the chain still in place, I opened the door a crack. “What the hell are you doing here?” I was suddenly aware of the fact I was wearing a thin white tank top and short black shorts.

  “Baby, please. Open the door.” His voice was raspy, and it looked as though he hadn’t shaved in days, which was unusual. Brody was always impeccably dressed and groomed.

  Baby? He had no right to call me that! “Look, if you’re here for a booty call—”

  “God, Ri. I’ve never needed you more than I do right now. Please. Don’t turn me away.”


  The last time I’d seen him look so broken was the day of his mother’s funeral, when his heart seemed irreparably shattered. With a sigh, I released the chain, knowing I would hate myself for this in the morning.

  He threw the door open before slamming it shut as he advanced on me. “Are you alone?”

  I suppressed the urge to squeak or scream… something. I’d never seen him like this, and it scared me. I didn’t know what had happened or what he expected of me. “Of course I’m alone. Why?”

  “Does that mean…?” He looked down the hall toward the bedroom. “Are you still with the doctor?”

  “No, I broke up with him when I got back from Colorado. Why?”

  He released a shaky breath as he took another step forward, forcing me to step back. My butt hit the back of an armchair in the living room. Now I had no escape, which scared me even more. Brody had never given me reason to fear him, but it was obvious he was teetering on the edge.

  “You’re not seeing anyone else?” His hands curled possessively around my hips, and in spite of my concern, a pulse of heat shot straight to my core. “Tell me you’re not.”

  “I’m not, but—”

  He silenced me with a hot, demanding kiss while thrusting his hands in my hair to hold my head immobile. My hands were pressed against his chest, but I couldn’t find the strength to push him away. It had been too long since I’d kissed him, since I’d felt his arms around me like this. I’d been dreaming about him, fantasizing about him for months. Now he was here, and I couldn’t bear to push him away.

  “What happened?” I asked finally, after stealing a much-needed breath.

  He was kissing my neck, making me forget all the reasons this was a bad idea, as he hoisted me up on the edge of the chair. Of their own volition, my legs and arms wrapped around him. His tongue trailed down my neck while he slid the shirt’s thin straps over my shoulders.

  “Answer me,” I said.

  “My old man came to see me tonight.”