Join the Club - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,46

to raise our child in a household of love, for sure.”

I wrapped my arm around Delanie’s shoulders when she neared me, squeezing her a little tighter than necessary.

“You’re really laying it on thick,” I teased, speaking so soft and low in her ear that there would be no way for David to hear.

“When are you getting married?” David asked, sounding like he was very put out that it was happening at all. “I was hoping to introduce you to a…”

“No.” Delanie’s happy-go-lucky attitude changed. “Don’t even think about it. And, while we’re on the subject of me being pissed at you, how about we talk about how you bailed out a man that tried to kill my sister. Your daughter.”

“I think we should all sit,” David suggested, gesturing to the couch.

Delanie sat, then pulled me down with her.

I landed on the couch’s arm, then pulled her in so that she was close enough to me to touch. Or to grab if she decided to launch herself at her father and strangle him.

With a deceptively calm tone, she launched right in.

“So tell me.” Delanie leaned back in her sofa cushions, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Pushing her boobs up and together, and momentarily making me lose focus. “Why did you bail a man out that tried to rape your daughter? For a second time? Did succeed in drugging me? One who caused a lot of problems where there should have never been difficulties seeing as we’re fucking family.”

David’s face went ruddy red.

He rolled his eyes. “You can barely call what happened rape.”

Delanie shot forward, her hands planted on the coffee table between the two of them.

“Oh, really?” she said. “Then, please, tell me what your definition of rape is? Because I have to tell you, I think that our understanding of the word is off.”

“This is not why I came here.” He swept his hand through the air as if he was clearing the air between them. “I’m here because I heard that you left the meetings with Governor Bryan early.”

“You’re not here to apologize for something you did wrong. You’re here to talk to me about a meeting in which you want insider information? Is that what I’m getting from this conversation?” Delanie asked.

David crossed his own arms over his chest and went into a defensive posture of his own.

“I’m running for governor,” he said.

Delanie had guessed correctly.

“And?” Delanie asked. “What do you want me to do about it? I haven’t talked to you in years. You don’t even know what your grandson looks like.”

“I know he looks like him.” David pointed at me without making eye contact at all. “I also know that your sister is giving you money to sustain that lifestyle.”

Delanie shrugged. “I haven’t taken money from her in over a year. But yes, I did. I used it and opened my business with it. I’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant making enough money to support my son.”

I pressed my hand to Delanie’s neck, my thumb absently rubbing up and down the length of her pulse.

It was racing with her anger.

I pressed my hand against her neck and slowly started to work my fingers through the tightened muscles there.

She instantly relaxed.

“I know that,” he said. “Now it’s time to pay me back.”

Delanie scoffed. “I’m not paying you back. Sorry.”

“I’m only asking that you play the devoted daughter at a few appearances,” he started, but Delanie was already shaking her head.

“No. I’m not.”

“I want to see my grandson, too,” he continued as if Delanie hadn’t just denied him. “I’d like to start visitation this weekend. I can spend some time with him from two to three-thirty Sunday afternoon. I can bring him back to you if you’ll drop…”

“The weekends belong to Booth,” Delanie interrupted. “And, sorry to say, but Booth isn’t going to give him to you just like I’m not. Asa doesn’t know you from Adam.”

“Who is Adam?” David asked.

“Exactly,” Delanie said. “I’m not going to expose him to your brand of rot. I’m sorry.”

David shook his head. “Rot. When did I ever treat you like a piece of trash?”

Delanie stood up, her anger palpable.

“How about when you used to slap us around when we were kids when we didn’t do what you wanted fast enough?” she said. “Or when our grandfather died, you refused to allow us to go home to his funeral? Or, what about when our mother died, and instead of allowing us to keep anything that belonged