Page 17 of Frosted Hearts

"Very well," he answers, sitting back down. "Please remind her that behavior like that is inexcusable, and she's grounded for two weeks upon your return."

"I will," I nod, turning my attention to Steel who has been sitting here watching our family drama for the past few minutes. "Is there anything in particular that we should pack?"

"Pack for the cold," he answers. "Oh," he calls out as I turn away. "If you forget anything, we can make a stop, but I'll come check your bags before we leave just in case."

"I highly doubt that is necessary," I retort tightly, trying to keep my temper under control. "Thank you for dinner, Father.Steel." I nod to both of them and make my escape before anything else can happen. I can hear them already beginning to talk as I make my way down the hall.

By the time I make it to the top of the stairs, my anger has reached a new level. I'm used to my father bossing me around. That's nothing new. What I'm not used to is having someone else be involved in planning and discussing my life the way Steel has. And I really don't need him to check my packing. I'm an adult and know how to pack a suitcase. Even Grace is old enough to know what to pack for the most part, although she always asks what the activities will be so she can pack appropriately.

Despite being pissed, I stop at the top of the stairs outside Grace's room, take a deep breath, and knock on her open door. "Can I come in?" I question, not wanting to intrude. Her life is already being thrown upside down and she's decided I'm the reason for it. I don't need to piss her off more.

"If you have to," she snarks as she pulls her suitcase out of her closet.

Carefully, I move into her room and take a seat on the edge of her bed as I watch her walk back into her walk-in closet. "I'm sorry that you're being dragged into this. You know I would argue against it if I could."

"You didn't even try. You just let Dad walk all over both of us. It's like you don't even care!" she shouts at me.

"That's not true, Grace," I counter, my voice raising slightly. I have to force myself to take a deep breath before I continue. Taking my anger out on her won't help anything. "Sure, he wasn't happy I went out last night and reporters caught wind of it. However, it was obvious he already made up his mind, and arguing would make it worse."

"Just for once, could you take my side and stand up for me?" she shouts as she haphazardly tosses a handful of clothes in her open suitcase.

"I take your side more than you know," I sigh, seeing that she isn't in the mood to listen to me. "Steel said to pack warm clothes," I tell her as I rise to my feet. "He's going to check our bags before we leave."

"Are you kidding me?" she groans as she comes to a stop and places both hands on her hips. "That's it! I'm going to talk to Dad!"

"I wouldn't if I were you. He already said you're grounded for two weeks when we return due to your outburst at dinner. Don't make it worse," I add before moving to her bedroom door and out of range of her anger. "I'll check your packing once I finish mine and before you ask, I have no idea where we’re going or what we will be doing. Hopefully, that will be enough for Steel."

I don't wait for an answer before walking out the door completely and heading to my room. We weren't told when we were leaving, so I'd rather be prepared instead of rushing around. I am thankful that I have a closet full of clothes here. I would have been pissed that I wasn't told before we left campus that something like this would be happening, so I could have packed and prepared for it.

Thirty minutes later, a hard knock sounds against my open door, startling me and causing me to jump. Turning to look, I see Steel standing in my doorway, his eyes taking in my room before coming back to me. "Can I help you?" I snark, annoyed he is just looking at me and not saying anything.

"I didn't take you to be a white and pink girl," he jokes, moving a couple of steps into my room. "It took me by surprise."

"Well, you don't know everything about me," I answer with a huff. Who does he think he is? I mean, he isn't wrong; my mom picked everything out when I was younger, and I haven't had the heart to change it. Pink isn't really my color, but oh well, I don't spend enough time here as it is. Ever since we arrived at myhouse, it feels like he has been judging everything about me, and it is starting to get on my nerves.

Steel mumbles something that sounds a lot like "I'd like to" but I don't ask him to repeat because I'm not ready to open that can of worms tonight, if ever.

"Did you come to check my bag?" I ask, waving my hand to where it is still sitting open on my bed. I got a week's worth of warm clothes packed into a large duffle bag. The only thing that didn't fit was my toiletries bag.

"I came to let you know that we will be leaving by six a.m. I want to get an early start on the road as it looks like there is a snowstorm moving in," he answers while moving to the edge of my bed next to my duffle bag. He doesn't say anything else as he begins to push items in my bag aside to take a quick look. It doesn't even look like he is thoroughly looking at what I packed, more just moving things around to make it look like he is. "Everything looks good here. We will stop and pick up a few more items, but this will work. I assume you can check your sister's bag? I don't think she will take too kindly to me asking to do that after her outburst earlier."

"Not unless you want to get your head chopped off and a million questions," I chuckle. "Though I would pay to see that."

"I'm sure I probably deserve it for something I've done in my life. If it will make you feel better, I'll go brave her," he answers with a smirk. I'm almost positive he meant it if it wasn't for the small sparkle I caught in his eyes.

"No, I'll brave her ire. She's already yelled at me. I don't think it will get any worse." I shrug. "We will meet you downstairs at the god-awful hour of six in the morning. You better have coffee waiting for me because that's the only way I will be functioning."

"I think that can be arranged," he smiles before turning to walk to my door. "Have a good night's sleep, Illeana. I promise where we are headed isn't terrible."

"Good night, Steel," I answer softly. I'm glad he has some faith that wherever he is taking us isn't going to be terrible, but I'm not getting my hopes up at all. His version of terrible and mine are most likely completely different.

"We're going to be stopping soon for lunch. Do you want to wake her?" I ask, nodding my head to Grace, passed out in the back seat.

As soon as I saw her this morning, I knew that she was going to pass back out when we got on the road. I also had the SUV already warming up and a steaming cup of coffee waiting for Illeana, just like she asked. It may have been a touch overboard, but I was trying to put in an effort to at least be friends during this time. Emma, Trevor's wife, texted to yell at me yesterday for how I was behaving with Illeana after the girls had their chat. Consider me officially scolded and trying to change my ways because she told me if I wasn't nice then I wasn't getting any more baked goods and those were something I didn't want to miss out on.

"How far away are we? I don't want to wake her and deal with the crankiness," Illeana answers, turning in her seat to take a peek at her sister. I had thought that she would have gone back to sleep in the car as well, but I was wrong. Illeana had stayed up and was quietly reading on her Kindle all morning.

"We're about fifteen minutes outside of town. We'll stop to eat and buy some essentials before continuing on," I respond. It feels like I just made this trek recently, but I know it's been longer than that. In another mile or two, we will pass the sign welcoming us to Aragon, a small town in the mountains of New Mexico.

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