a text or a call from Silver. As the days went by, and she didn’t contact him, he only felt more anxious about her. Had she seen the news stories? To his relief, they’d only lasted a day or so before some other fool had captured the media’s obsessive attention. He wondered whether Phil Meadows had anything to do with that, and wouldn’t have been surprised. Despite everything, Ben truly did believe that Phil would do anything for his children.
His dad had welcomed him back with his usual lack of enthusiasm and a to-do list as long as his arm. Ben sometimes wondered whether his father was using his old trick of making him so exhausted that he fell into bed every night and slept like the dead. He had no time to check up on social media, and he guessed his father had told his siblings not to ask him anything because they’d all remained unusually quiet.
Ben put his cell away and went into the kitchen. He was ravenous because he’d been out at five and hadn’t had much time to eat with his father shouting at him to get a move on. It was now noon, and Jeff had reluctantly allowed him to go back to the ranch for an hour to pick up fresh fencing supplies and check that his mother had arrived for her visit.
“Ben! Darling!” Leanne came over and gave him a hug. She was the only one in the family who had as much red in her hair as he did. She was petite like Daisy, but her father had been very tall, which was where all her sons got their height from, much to his dad’s annoyance. “I hear you’ve been to L.A.!”
“Yeah.” He hugged her awkwardly back. She didn’t seem at all surprised to see him and he wondered if his dad had set him up. “How was your trip?”
“It was great!” She went over to the refrigerator and looked at him expectantly. “What can I get you to eat?”
He followed her over. “It’s okay, I can feed myself. Why don’t you sit down and relax?”
“Because I’ve been sitting down for eight hours?” She smiled up at him. “And I missed out on taking care of you for twenty years so let me coddle you just a little bit?”
He sat down at the table and scrubbed a hand over his hat-flattened hair. Everyone else was still out, which meant it was just him and his mom, which was kind of weird.
“There are some hamburgers, or I can make you a sandwich?” Leanne looked back at him inquiringly.
“A sandwich sounds good. I don’t care what you put in it.”
“As long as it’s not pickles, right? You always hated those.”
She poured him a glass of milk like he was five, set out a bowl of chips, and eventually handed him three rounds of sandwiches.
“Thanks.”
“I know how hard you work, and how hungry you get.” Leanne sat opposite him, a cup of coffee in her hand and her own small sandwich on a plate in front of her. “Jeff said he was keeping you real busy.”
“He’s trying to get his money’s worth out of me before I go off and work for Pablo.” Ben bit into his first sandwich and devoured it in three bites. “This is great. Thanks.”
“He thinks it will be good for you.” Leanne sipped her coffee. “He says it’s time for you to step out from Adam’s shadow and make your own life.”
Ben stopped chewing. “Dad said that?”
“He might be difficult sometimes, Ben, but he is very aware with what’s going on with all you kids.” She sighed. “After I left, he had no choice but to be involved, whether he wanted to or not. He told me about what’s been happening with Silver Meadows.”
Ben just stared at her. She was the first member of his family to mention Silver’s name since he’d got back a week ago.
“I saw the press conference you did with her.” Leanne continued as if unaware that she was treading on dangerous ground. “She really likes you.”
“She did.” Ben drank some milk.
“Did she read all that crap about you and Cassie Walker and believe it?” Leanne shook her head. “Well, if she did, she wasn’t the right woman for you anyway.”
“I’d forgotten you knew about that,” Ben confessed as he wiped away his milk moustache.
“How could I forget?” She shuddered. “You and that ... girl in that awful, squalid hotel. You were so afraid. I’m so