Page 8 of Gilded Dreams

I freeze.Oh shit!Cold dread works down my spine. I turn on my heel at the sound of the sharp voice to find familiar blue eyes locked on mine. Perfectly painted red lips are pulled into a fierce thin line and I’m hit with a wave of contempt.

“What are you doing here?”

I sense the men coming up behind me.

Fuck. Could this day get any worse?

My mom takes in my ruined lipstick, mussed hair, and wrinkled clothes. Joe, my stepdad, stands behind my mom, his expression tight and controlled.

Raging storm clouds roam over her expression and I know a fierce tongue lashing is about to rent the air. “What did you do to my daughter, Atlas?” Disgust colors her words and I almost feel bad for the instant accusations, but you know what, the jerk deserves a little verbal beat down.

“You’re thirty-one and she’s barely twenty. And she’s your damn sister! Nothing about this is right. Don’t you dare touch her again. None of you. What kind of games are you playing?” She’s across the gravel lot and poking my stepbrother in the chest.

“Mom,” I start, but rage-filled eyes turn on me.

“He’s your brother for heaven’s sake.”

I was still in so much shock I didn’t see the hand coming up until it cracked across my face.

Atlas is beside me pulling me behind him before I get out the first gasp of surprise.

“Out of respect for my elders I won’t lay a hand on you. This time. Touch her again and you and I will have a problem.”

“Son,” Joe drawls in his heavy Texan accent and I can feel the powers between son and father shift from firm land to quicksand.

Ryder and Brogan come to stand beside me as a silent force of strength. The hand across my cheek did a good job of jolting me out of my shocked state.

“Enough,” I say and move to my car. “Sorry to disgust you, Mom. It’s a good thing I’m leaving. I’m taking that job offer in New York.” I turn to Atlas. “I guess you’re getting your wish after all. I’m leaving Texas and this small fucking lakeside, backward-thinking town. Don’t expect me to ever come back.”

Atlas, Brogan, and Ryder all turn rigid. Those stone faces of theirs turning about as expressive as mud bricks.

“Kandy, damn it. We talked about this. You’re coming to work for me.” Mom grabs my arm hard, and I turn back to her, jerking myself free.

“No, Mom. That’s your dream. Not mine. I have no desire to be some politician wannabe in the middle of nowhere. Have at it. But I’m out. And Atlas is my stepbrother.Notmy brother. What do you think I am? Some pervert? Don’t try to make me feel guilty for something that’s not true. You married his dad, and Iinherited a family member that’s not blood by any stretch of the imagination.”

“Don’t you preach to me. I brought you into this world. I’d like to think I know a thing or two about the birds and the bees. What’s acceptable and what’s not.”

Saying my mother is straightlaced is an understatement. The tall, lithe woman with strawberry blonde hair and perfectly manicured nails makes a nun on her knees lost in prayer look like she’s doing the devil’s bidding. Hand to God.

I let out a ragged sigh. “I’m tired of how hard you judge me for my feelings.”

“Let’s take a minute.” Joe. Poor guy. He’s always trying to play the referee in a game I no longer want to play.

I turn at the sound of a raspy voice aged by cigars and bourbon. “Joe.” I offer a tight smile. My stepfather nods and rolls up beside my mom with an easy gait of a man full of confidence. Decades of work under the Texan sun have weathered the creases around his eyes to make him appear beyond his fifty-eight years. I often wonder if his son, Atlas—and the topic of our heated discussion—will take after his father as the years spill by. Handsome. Rough around the edges and muscles well-formed from a life-long career in construction work.

I try to get in my car and drive away but she’s not having it. “Talk to your son or I swear to God he’ll never be welcomed in this family again. Him and the boys. If this gets out what will the community think? I’ll be ruined. All my charity work...No! I won’t tolerate this.”

My stepfather crosses his arms over a broad chest. He nods a couple of times and frustration washes over his otherwiseunworried expression. You see, we’ve had this discussion before, and it always ends the same way. My mother telling me I’ll go to hell and then telling Joe to fix it.

But this time she’s gone too far.

“Don’t blame Atlas for something he had no control over.” I palm my keys.

“Donna, back the fuck up a minute and think about what you’re saying.” Joe starts rubbing at the back of his neck. If anything, the man who stepped into my life well after my fifteenth birthday is more on my side than the mother who raised me since birth.

“Don’tDonname. Fix this sickness in our family, Joe. Or else.”

My mother, Ms. Politician wannabe of Southern Texas storms back to her car and throws gravel as she speeds off to one luncheon or some church group or another. And I’m left looking at my feet feeling dirty. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I be normal and like someone normal?

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