Rock Hard: A Stepbrother Romance Page 0,9

dream. And thankfully Cora had beaten her cancer. But I wasn’t sure that I could have really ever forgiven myself if she hadn’t.

“How are things at the mill?” I asked, changing the subject.

She got up and busied herself with dinner again. “Oh you know, the usual. Management is squeezing hours as hard as they can, and the unions are pressing back. Things are hard all over.”

“How’s Dad handling it?”

“As well as he can. He’s been picking up extra shifts lately, whenever they’re around.”

“He sounded stressed on the phone a few days ago.”

“You know him. There’s always some disaster inches away.”

I laughed. My father was a good man, as far as I could tell, but he was also a paranoid one. Our garage was full of stored water and canned goods, just in case some emergency happened. He wasn’t a full-on doomsday guy, building bunkers and storing long-term food, but he did believe in being prepared.

He grew up in Ridgewood like his parents before him. The mill and the woods were the things he knew best, and he tried his best to pass some of that stuff down to me. I could light a fire and do some hunting, but I’d never be able to survive out there on my own. It just never took the way it did for him.

He never made me feel guilty, though. That was just his way.

“So, tell me more about this graduate school program,” Cora said.

“It’s at the University of Texas. I go back in the fall.”

“Are you excited?”

“Very excited. Also nervous. It’s a pretty intimidating program.”

She smiled. “You’re an intimidating girl yourself, Becca. You’ll do great.”

“I feel bad though, moving far away again.”

“Not your fault. We don’t exactly have any prestigious universities here in Ridgewood.”

“Still, I wish I could stay for more than just a summer.”

“You’re doing the right thing. Don’t let yourself worry so much.”

I knew she was right. It wasn’t my fault that Texas was the only place to take me. I just hated that I was the kind of person who left their family and never came back.

“Okay, enough moping,” she said, laughing at me. “What’s with you today?”

“I guess it’s the rain. You know it doesn’t rain all the time anywhere else, right?”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“I never thought I’d have to again. But you know what? I’m really happy I’m home.”

“That’s better! No more Debbie Downer.”

I laughed just as the front door opened. “Cora?” my dad’s voice called out.

“Kitchen,” she said.

I stood up as my dad came into the room.

“Hey, Dad,” I said.

He smiled huge. “Becca. How was your trip?”

I walked across the room and he wrapped me in a huge hug. In that moment, all of my stress about not being home enough melted away.

My dad was a tall man. He was six foot four and had a thick, bushy beard. His eyes were a bright blue color, almost the opposite of Reid’s paler blue. The two of them were the same height, though Reid didn’t have a beard.

My father was a typical outdoorsman. He loved to hunt and fish and build things. He had a machine shop in a small building out in the backyard where he liked to work on old cars. He was a manager at the local paper mill, but he was known as one of the best engineers in the whole town.

But he was a tough man. He was fast to love but long to hold a grudge. Anger came like second nature to him.

“The trip was okay, Dad,” I said, pulling away from the hug.

He took off his hat and jacket. “Feels like you haven’t been here in ages.”

“Only a year.”

“What’s for dinner?” he asked Cora, kissing her cheek.

“Chicken and baked potatoes,” she said.

“Sounds great.”

He sat down at the kitchen table and I joined him. “How was work?”

“Long and hard. The usual.”

“Cora told me about the layoffs.”

He scoffed. “It’s the same all over the country. We’ve survived this long, and we’ll keep on surviving.”

I smiled. “That’s good to hear. Build anything fun lately?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, I have.” He proceeded to explain a machine that helped dry out shoes by spinning around at high speeds. “It doesn’t really work,” he said finally, grinning.

“You’ll have to show me.”

“No,” Cora said sternly. “That thing is going to murder someone someday.”

He waved her off. “She’s a little nervous because I broke a window last week.”

“Dad!” I said, laughing.

He shrugged. “Got out of control a little bit. No big deal.”

“No big deal?” Cora said.