Descent (Steel Brothers Saga #15) - Helen Hardt Page 0,5
like I did.
“Hey, little dove,” I said, taking him. “My goodness you’re getting heavy.”
“He’s a Steel, all right.” Mazie smiled. “Big stock. He’ll be big and broad just like his daddy.”
“Yes, he will be.” Not a doubt in my mind. Jonah would be the spitting image of the man I adored.
Brad Steel.
How I loved him.
I sighed as I walked down to the family room, sat down, and opened my blouse and bra. Jonah latched on eagerly.
If only Brad were around more often.
I was determined to be an understanding wife, not a needy one. The man I married was responsible for a multimillion-dollar ranch. A multimillion-dollar business. With the premature death of his father, the business took most of Brad’s time.
Mazie followed me down and took a seat on the leather couch. “Did I hear the doorbell ring earlier?”
I cocked my head. Sounded vaguely familiar. “Maybe. I don’t recall.”
“Didn’t you answer it?”
Had I? No. “No. Check with Belinda.”
“She’s at the grocery store.”
“Oh. Well, whoever it was must have gone away. If it was important, they’ll be back.”
“Sure enough. I’m just a little jittery about the door lately, ever since…”
Ever since we’d gotten a typewritten message in a Western Union envelope threatening the baby’s life. I was more than a little jittery myself.
Two threats had come in when he was no more than a week old, but since then, nothing.
No more threats.
It seemed to be over, thank God.
I had enough to worry about. My good friend Patty had left months ago to join the Peace Corps out of the blue, and her boyfriend, Ennis, had returned to his hometown of London to deal with his heartbreak. They were the only two friends I’d made during my short tenure at college, except for Brad’s friend Sean Murphy, who’d died at our wedding.
What a start to married life.
When I looked down at Jonah’s cherubic face, though, I knew my life was good. Yes, I’d suffered losses. So had Brad. But we had each other and our child.
We’d be okay.
Brad didn’t make it home for dinner. Belinda had prepared beef stew, one of his favorites. For a man who’d grown up with every privilege in life, Brad loved the simple things. Beef stew. A ride across the ranch on his horse. An afternoon rain shower. Picking a bouquet of wildflowers for me.
He hadn’t done the latter in a while. He hadn’t been home to do it.
It doesn’t matter, I told myself. Mazie’s greenhouse keeps us full of fresh blooms all the time.
But the wildflowers weren’t what mattered to me. The fact that Brad picked them for me was.
No reason to be unhappy, though. Not when I was nursing the most beautiful baby in the world.
Little Joe was three months old now and thriving. He was off the charts in height and weight. He was a Steel, all right.
Big and strong like his daddy.
I loved the feeling of nursing him. My nipples had long since healed from the chapped pain nursing had caused at the beginning. Now, as he tugged, I felt only the pure joy a mother can feel when she’s providing for her child.
Pure joy.
I strived to find the joy in every day—a promise I’d made to myself after my junior year of high school when I’d been hospitalized for anxiety and depression. I loved the sun, Mazie’s yellow tulips, animals of all kinds…but mostly I loved my baby. It was a new kind of love—something beautiful I’d never imagined before he was born.
I felt the most joy, of course, when Brad was here with me. Still, even though he was gone a lot of the time, I forced myself to find the joy in everything.
Every single thing.
Even the ominous note I’d gotten earlier.
Ominous note? What ominous note?
“Daphne?”
“Yeah?” I said to Mazie.
“Are you okay? You got kind of pale all of a sudden.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”
Had I lost time again? Why had I been in Brad’s office?
No.
No, no, no.
I would not allow myself to lose time again. It had happened a few times at college, a few times since then, but recently, since Joe’s birth, I could account for every second.
Until now.
Why had I been in Brad’s office?
He hadn’t said it was off limits, but I’d never gone in there before unless he was there. I must have had some reason—some reason that escaped me now.
Jonah finished eating and nodded off to sleep. I put him down in the nursery and retraced my steps to Brad’s office.