Fate (Steel Brothers Saga #13) - Helen Hardt Page 0,4

reward. Now? They no longer needed me, but I continued to invest. They had a basic buy-low-in-bulk-and-sell-high thing going, and they did it with serious volume. They’d started with popular toys and made a freaking mint last year when Theo got his hands on a warehouse full of Cabbage Patch dolls at bare minimum price.

“I have a feeling you’ll get all the gorgeous ones from now on, Murph,” I said.

I wasn’t sure why I said that. I only knew that Daphne Wade was someone special, someone I wanted to know better. Something about her eyes. They hid things. Things I wanted to bring to the surface.

She was someone I already felt connected to.

Someone who might be able to help me break the toxic cycle I had with Wendy once and for all.

She didn’t say much.

Her friend Patty was a nonstop talker, though.

“Just a farm girl from Iowa,” she said. “Denver is the biggest city I’ve been to so far.”

“What kind of farming?” Murph asked.

She laughed. “You won’t believe it. My daddy raises pigs.”

“Hey, Steel,” Murph said. “You and Patty have something in common.”

Yeah. I saw what he was doing. Since I lived on a beef ranch—the biggest and most successful in Colorado, which also included an orchard and a budding vineyard—he thought Patty and I were more suited for each other.

Not happening. Daphne was still mine.

“We do? Where do you come from, Brad?” Patty batted her brown-red eyelashes at me.

She was quite striking, but not my type. I had a feeling no one else would ever be my type again.

“Ever heard of Steel Acres?”

Patty shook her head, but Daphne’s eyes widened.

“It’s my father’s ranch on the western slope. We raise prime beef, and we grow apples and peaches.”

“Biggest ranch in Colorado,” Murph said.

Nice try, Murph. Still not happening.

“Really?” Patty smiled. “Our farm is just a small operation. We raise about a thousand pigs for slaughter each year. But we eat a lot of really great pork. My dad has a smokehouse, and we smoke our own hams and bacon.”

“Interesting,” I said. “Pig farming and beef ranching are two completely different animals. No pun intended.”

“Good one, Steel,” Murph said, giving me an evil eye.

Actually, my words were true. They were very different operations, so Patty and I had nothing in common other than our families both raised animals for meat.

“I was big into 4-H in high school. Three champion sows.”

“Good for you,” I said.

“I made Daddy promise they wouldn’t ever be slaughtered,” she continued. “They’re going to live long lives and have lots of babies.”

“And the babies will be slaughtered?”

I lifted my eyebrows. The words had come from Daphne. Was she an animal activist? I might not have a chance with her after all.

“The babies?” Patty said. “Well, a lot of them will be, yeah. People have to eat.”

“I know,” Daphne said softly. “I just hate the thought of animals in pain.”

“I see you’re eating that pepperoni pizza, though,” Murph said jovially. “I’m thinking the pepperoni didn’t grow on a tree.”

Daphne blushed. “I’m no vegetarian. I just don’t like to think about where it all comes from, you know?”

I did know, actually. When I was a kid, I got too attached to a couple of calves. My father made me go with him when they went to the slaughterhouse. A lesson in manhood, he’d called it.

More like a lesson in cruelty.

I was the only child of a majorly successful beef rancher. The ranch would be mine soon, for my father’s health was failing. He still worked seven days a week, but he struggled with emphysema from all his years of smoking. He’d taught me well, and I could run it better than he could. I was learning more about the business side here in college. In a year, when I graduated, I’d be more than ready to take over.

“I know,” I said softly, replying to Daphne’s question.

I wouldn’t tell her the calf story. At least not right now in front of Murph and Patty.

I didn’t like talking about it. All these years later, it still hurt.

I never got close to another animal on the range again, though.

“These aren’t pets, son,” my father had said. “We treat them well, but they’re our livelihood. They’re meat. They’re a commodity. You want a pet? Get a dog.”

So I had. Misty had passed away a couple of years ago. I’d cried—the first time I’d succumbed to tears since the calves. Now I had Ebony and Brandy, two labs—one black and one chocolate. I missed them