Page 21 of Forged in the Fire
Our grandmother was nearing eighty. Plump and her head barely coming up to my chest.
She might have looked frail, her gait hobbled a bit, her back slouched with her age, but she was the strongest woman I’d ever known.
She was the one who’d stepped in and cared for us when there was no one left to do it.
The one who remained at my side even after I made a choice she begged me not to make.
She set her hand on my cheek, her hazel eyes peering into mine like she was searching for someone she used to know.
“You don’t have to carry it all, Silas. I’m right here.”
She glanced at my brother and sister, who were staring back at us, before she returned her attention to me.
“We’re all right here. And we’re always going to be. I know you think everything falls on you, but it doesn’t. And we do respect you. We respect who you are and all that you’ve done for this family. But if that girl is here and doesn’t know anything like you said, then she’s probably scared and feeling alone, and she’s going to need support. It’s not right to treat her like a prisoner.”
Brinley Webber scared? Not even close.
My stomach clutched around the thought. Something about it didn’t sit right. Not when it was clear what had been in her voice when she demanded that I release her last night.
Terror.
Terror hidden behind black, viscid rage.
“She’s not going to be alone,” I forced out around the lump in my throat. “She’s going to be working at the shop.”
Elena fucking clapped, giddy as hell. “Best news ever! Guess I’m going to have to take a jaunt over there today and formally introduce myself.”
I started to tell her not a chance in hell but clipped off with a grunt of surrender when Meems sent me a warning glare.
I took a swig of my blazing hot coffee. Burning the fuck out of my tongue.
Yup.
This was a mistake.
A terrible fucking mistake.
SIX
SILAS
What in God’sname was she wearing?
I stood in the doorway that led from the shop into the dingy lobby and office area.
Three plastic chairs sat to my right under the windows that overlooked the customer parking lot.
A high counter cut the room in two and acted as reception, and two desks were situated behind it, elbowed together in an L shape. One directly under the counter and another against the far wall in front of me.
A row of old-style filing cabinets decorated the wall to my left.
Ancient calendars and fliers still tacked to it from the previous owners who’d vacated the property four years ago.
The woman was there, bent over the desk that was directly in my line of sight.
Her ass wagging in the air like a ripe piece of fruit as she punched at the keys of a dated computer, the pert, perfect globes barely covered by the satiny light blue material of her dress’s skirt that brushed up high on her thighs.
Wearing sky-high heels again. This time colored nude. Bare legs for fucking miles.
