Daring Devlin (Lost Boys #1) - Jessica Lemmon Page 0,47

kicker?

“How could you do that to Mom?” Cade had yelled at Paul. He’d been referring to Joyce, the woman who had raised him, the woman whose jewelry I’d swiped, who was not, in fact, his actual mother. I could also see in his eyes that he wanted to pull me into the argument, maybe accuse my mom of being a whore who slept with his dad. But he couldn’t. Because my mom was also his mom. And Joyce was just the woman who’d raised him.

I hadn’t stayed for a family powwow afterward. I had no family. My mom had split—leaving me with my dad when she was pregnant with Cade. I’d only been two at the time. My father had died years later, and now I understood why Paul took me in. So, my only living family was Cade, the spoiled-brat college kid with whom I shared a mother.

A half brother. God. I couldn’t get my head around it.

Why Joyce put up with Paul, and raised a baby that wasn’t her own as her own was anyone’s guess. I didn’t get it. I wondered if Mom and Paul had carried on behind Dad’s and Joyce’s backs after Mom dumped Cade on Paul’s doorstep.

Christ. What a mess.

I downed the final inch of bourbon, and though I was tempted to smash the empty glass on the floor just to hear the break, I refilled it instead. It wouldn’t surprise me if Cade was living in the bottle tonight—in similar fashion to me—trying to wrap his head around it, too.

A memory popped up out of nowhere—the photo album my father kept in his closet. I used to dig it out every once in a while when I was home alone and he was on a bender.

I didn’t know what had become of that album, but I could picture it now, clear as if it was opened on the bar in front of me. Cellophane-covered, yellowed, sticky pages. Photos faded from age. My father and mother smiling and hugging in some photos, and in others alone and working in Oak & Sage. In one of my favorite photos, Mom wore high-waisted jeans and was sweeping the floor of the restaurant I sat in now. Back then the fancy wooden booths hadn’t been installed yet. There were metal tables and chairs. Another of Dad made me smile sadly. He’d been washing a stockpot in the back, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

My parents had poured blood, sweat, and tears into this restaurant. This place was my only connection to my family—or was, until Cade.

The album’s photos stopped when I was a year or so old. The restaurant had opened by then and there’d been photos of the clean and tidy dining room and the facade out front. Of the parking lot and Dad’s prized Dodge Charger. There’d been few photos of my parents, and zero of them together. No one smiled. Not then. What had driven Mom to sleep with Paul, and Dad to gamble his life away—literally? Which came first—her adultery or his gambling?

I flipped a cardboard coaster corner over corner and came to a conclusion. My parents hadn’t planned on purchasing a restaurant and letting everything—including each other and me—go to shit.

Whether it was the bourbon or… no, it was definitely the bourbon, I thought as I took another swig. I became introspective. I thought of how I lived, the businesses I was involved in—one legal, one not. Did I want to continue living this way? With ties to the life-draining addiction that sent my father into an icy river and an early grave?

I deserved a shot at a life different from this one—from my father’s. A life that wouldn’t involve me in activities leading to me being beat to hell on a cold, snowy night. Maybe Sonny wasn’t as integral a part of my future as I’d assumed.

I scowled as I lifted my glass to my mouth. Those were some big fucking thoughts.

Melinda stepped up to the server’s well to collect the drink Matt had just shaken and poured into a martini glass for one of her tables.

“Hard night?” she asked, spearing a chunk of pineapple on a small plastic pick shaped like a sword. Her lips curved into a flirtatious smile. “Girl trouble?”

Seriously? She was coming on to me?

“Desperation isn’t flattering,” I grumbled against the rim of my glass.

Instead of leaving with her drink, she stepped in front of me. My eyes went to the very full glass in her