One that provided her with the things he’d never had growing up. She’d never want for anything, would never have to wear someone else’s clothes or go to bed hungry.
So why the hell did he still feel so guilty?
Bree stared out the window. He might not know much about preteen girls but he knew enough about females in general to know she didn’t want to talk to him.
He turned on the radio. And kept his mouth shut for the rest of the drive.
CHAPTER FIVE
“YOU,” MADDIE SPAT, her voice quivering with what she considered the perfect mix of righteous indignation and all-out fury, “are a dead man.”
As entrances went, it was a good one. Dramatic and emphatic with just enough fury to get her point across. Definitely one of her better moments.
Or, at least, it would have been if the door she’d slapped open hadn’t hit the doorstop with a dull thud and swung back at her. She leaped to the side to save herself from a broken nose.
Okay, maybe there had been a tad too much of that fury. Something to keep in mind the next time she had a good mad on.
But that wasn’t the worst part. Oh, no. The absolute suckiest thing was that the object of her anger—anger she was extremely justified in having, by the way—didn’t quake in fear, cry remorse or beg forgiveness. No. Her brother James raised his eyebrows, glanced from her to the door then pointed to the cell phone at his ear and went back to whatever inane conversation he was having.
At her mother’s kitchen table, her brother Leo continued playing a handheld video game as if Maddie wasn’t even there.
That was it? This complete...nonreaction was all she got? She growled and opened the door just so she could slam it shut again. Neither of them so much as blinked.
The men in her life were nothing if not uncooperative.
“You’re lucky Mom’s out in the garden. She finds out you came in here slamming doors and making idle threats,” Leo said, his thumbs moving over the buttons in a blur, his attention still firmly on the toy’s screen, “and you’ll be the dead one.”
“Please.” Maddie sniffed. “I don’t make idle threats. And unlike you, I’m an adult who is no longer afraid of my mommy.” Which was such a blatant lie, she was surprised the floor didn’t open up so she could fall into the burning fires of hell.
James ended his call and immediately began typing into his phone.
He and his handy-dandy BlackBerry kept Montesano Construction running smoothly. Her brother had a knack for organization and schedules she found both utterly fascinating and terrifying.
And if he kept ignoring her, she just might take his phone and shove it down the garbage disposal.
Maddie tapped the toe of her work boot against her mother’s tile floor. She had things to do. Places to be and all that.
Another lie. Jeez, she was really racking them up this afternoon.
She sighed. Loudly. James turned his back to her and kept right on pressing buttons.
Crossing her arms, she glared at the back of his head, hoping to set his hair on fire with the force of her thoughts. Unfortunately, his dark strands—in desperate need of a trim—remained blaze-free. It was a sad, sad day when she couldn’t even muster up a tendril of smoke.
Maddie dropped her arms and stormed over to the sink, filled a glass with water and drank it while staring out the window at her own house.
Just because she lived across the street from her parents didn’t mean she wasn’t her own person, she assured herself for what had to be the billionth time since she’d bought her house eight years ago. Nor did it mean she couldn’t take care of herself and her daughter without help.
Even if she was grateful to have that help so close by.
“When a person is on the phone,” James said, his tone so superior and lecturing she had no doubt he was talking to her, “it’s considered rude to interrupt.”
“I have to interrupt because you’re always on your phone. Talking or texting or checking your schedule or the weather. Honestly, you are way too reliant on that thing. The first step in getting rid of an unhealthy addiction is to admit you have a problem.”
“I sure wish I could quit yew,” he told his phone in his best Brokeback Mountain drawl.
“You sleep with it, don’t you?” Leo piped up from the table. “I bet you put it on the pillow