nothing that’ll last me more than a few weeks if I’m frugal and…I need some time to track down the father, so I can’t start working just yet.”
“I can give you a month before the new rotation starts. The program requires all of the women to make an effort to find employment and housing, but I can give you some work right here in my office while you’re trying to look for the man.”
I thank her and finish my tea while she teaches me how to curse like a God-fearing nun. She’s creative about it, I’ll give her that, but nothing replaces a good “Fuck you!” or my personal favorite “Go fuck yourself!”—and that’s exactly what I’m planning to say to Robert when I finally find that bastard.
Chapter Two
Cam
I’ve had about three hours’ worth of sleep in as many days, and I’m still nowhere near my goal when the jet finally touches down at the private airstrip near New York City.
I’m pissed off and ready to start nailing heads to the wall by the time I disembark and the car takes off, getting ever closer to my destination.
I don’t want to do this, not now when the pain and loss is so fresh, but I’d seen Mum crying for the umpteenth time yesterday, and it had gutted me enough that I’m willing to travel all the way across the ocean to check out this paternity issue that Shaw Mallory has brought to our attention.
I remember that conversation so clearly; I feel a vague sense of discomfited guilt before I quash it and focus instead on what I must do.
I don’t believe that Rob would have dropped his standards so low that he would consider taking Miss Mallory. My brother was a man of refined and very specific tastes, and Shaw Mallory in no way fits that image.
She’s a little on the heavy side, her hair is an unremarkable shade of brown, and if it weren’t for her unique blue-purple eyes, I myself wouldn’t give the girl a second look.
And now she wants me to believe that my playboy brother, the man who’d said the only shade worth seeing is blonde, has left her pregnant and stranded.
I refuse to believe it, but Mum is so insistent about it that I’ve finally said screw it, and I’m investigating her claims. If she’s lying, I’ll make her suffer so terribly she’ll wish she never heard the name Stone.
But what if she isn’t? What if, for some reason, God is blessing us with a final piece of the man we’d lost just last month?
I can’t risk that being the case and turning my back on her, so I’m doing my best to keep an open mind while I get at the truth. It’s hard though. With Rob’s death still so fresh, it’s bloody hard to hear these accusations and not retaliate swiftly and brutally, as I am wont to do whenever anything threatens the security and happiness of my family.
My conscience is a bloody bastard, and it keeps reminding me of the way I’d spoken to the woman when she’d finally managed to get through to my office. Helen, my secretary, had put her through after she’d gotten hysterical on the phone, and I’d answered only to hear the person capable of ruffling my usually stone-cold Helen.
“Your deadbeat brother knocked me up and left me holding the bag. I need his number please.”
To the point and matter of fact.
“I beg your pardon.”
“Look Mr. Stone. I’ve been trying to find Robert for three months now, and he’s nowhere to be found. His cell number isn’t working, and I think he’s ducking my calls. I need to tell him about the baby, and I need him to help me. I lost my job, and my mom kicked me out, and—”
I put the phone down without batting an eye and went about my day the way I always did. Focused and unruffled. Unfortunately, she managed to get hold of Mum’s home number, and I’d arrived home to find her crying hysterically while my father stood scowling.
“Do something about this. She won’t stop bloody blubbering!”
Dad loves Mum. A lot. So her tears have the nasty effect of turning him into a raging lunatic, ready
“I can give you a month before the new rotation starts. The program requires all of the women to make an effort to find employment and housing, but I can give you some work right here in my office while you’re trying to look for the man.”
I thank her and finish my tea while she teaches me how to curse like a God-fearing nun. She’s creative about it, I’ll give her that, but nothing replaces a good “Fuck you!” or my personal favorite “Go fuck yourself!”—and that’s exactly what I’m planning to say to Robert when I finally find that bastard.
Chapter Two
Cam
I’ve had about three hours’ worth of sleep in as many days, and I’m still nowhere near my goal when the jet finally touches down at the private airstrip near New York City.
I’m pissed off and ready to start nailing heads to the wall by the time I disembark and the car takes off, getting ever closer to my destination.
I don’t want to do this, not now when the pain and loss is so fresh, but I’d seen Mum crying for the umpteenth time yesterday, and it had gutted me enough that I’m willing to travel all the way across the ocean to check out this paternity issue that Shaw Mallory has brought to our attention.
I remember that conversation so clearly; I feel a vague sense of discomfited guilt before I quash it and focus instead on what I must do.
I don’t believe that Rob would have dropped his standards so low that he would consider taking Miss Mallory. My brother was a man of refined and very specific tastes, and Shaw Mallory in no way fits that image.
She’s a little on the heavy side, her hair is an unremarkable shade of brown, and if it weren’t for her unique blue-purple eyes, I myself wouldn’t give the girl a second look.
And now she wants me to believe that my playboy brother, the man who’d said the only shade worth seeing is blonde, has left her pregnant and stranded.
I refuse to believe it, but Mum is so insistent about it that I’ve finally said screw it, and I’m investigating her claims. If she’s lying, I’ll make her suffer so terribly she’ll wish she never heard the name Stone.
But what if she isn’t? What if, for some reason, God is blessing us with a final piece of the man we’d lost just last month?
I can’t risk that being the case and turning my back on her, so I’m doing my best to keep an open mind while I get at the truth. It’s hard though. With Rob’s death still so fresh, it’s bloody hard to hear these accusations and not retaliate swiftly and brutally, as I am wont to do whenever anything threatens the security and happiness of my family.
My conscience is a bloody bastard, and it keeps reminding me of the way I’d spoken to the woman when she’d finally managed to get through to my office. Helen, my secretary, had put her through after she’d gotten hysterical on the phone, and I’d answered only to hear the person capable of ruffling my usually stone-cold Helen.
“Your deadbeat brother knocked me up and left me holding the bag. I need his number please.”
To the point and matter of fact.
“I beg your pardon.”
“Look Mr. Stone. I’ve been trying to find Robert for three months now, and he’s nowhere to be found. His cell number isn’t working, and I think he’s ducking my calls. I need to tell him about the baby, and I need him to help me. I lost my job, and my mom kicked me out, and—”
I put the phone down without batting an eye and went about my day the way I always did. Focused and unruffled. Unfortunately, she managed to get hold of Mum’s home number, and I’d arrived home to find her crying hysterically while my father stood scowling.
“Do something about this. She won’t stop bloody blubbering!”
Dad loves Mum. A lot. So her tears have the nasty effect of turning him into a raging lunatic, ready
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