Spark, p.1
Spark, page 1
Spark
Steel Brothers Saga: Book Nineteen
HELEN HARDT
This book is an original publication of Waterhouse Press.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
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Copyright © 2021 Waterhouse Press, LLC
Cover Design by Waterhouse Press, LLC
Cover Photographs: Shutterstock
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All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Continue reading the Steel Brothers Saga with Book Twenty
Message from Helen Hardt
Also By Helen Hardt
Acknowledgments
About Helen Hardt
In memory of everyone who lost their lives during the COVID pandemic.
Prologue
Dale
Freed.
Finally.
Ashley is home, and we’re going to make this work. Yes, it will take work. My past won’t disappear. Not ever. Like Dad said, I have to live with it. That’s not part of the choice. The choice is how I live with it—which road I choose to take.
I’m seeing Aunt Mel again to help sort everything out. The big question is whether I need to tell Donny what happened those last few days of our captivity. I waver on that. I want to tell him, to be honest with him, but he’s happy. I don’t want to destroy that.
Ashley made arrangements to finish her coursework online. By May, she’ll be a true doctor of wine! Where she goes from there is up to her. She has my full support, whether she wants to use her knowledge at the Steel Winery or live her dream to become a sommelier at a fine restaurant in Grand Junction.
Willow is moving to Colorado. She’ll be here by Thanksgiving for the big party for Uncle Ryan and Aunt Ruby. She’ll stay with us until she finds a place of her own. Ashley has already found a place in town for her to open a salon. She’s starting over in a new place, and Ashley couldn’t be happier.
And Donny…
Donny’s moving back home.
He accepted Mom’s offer to become the assistant city attorney for Snow Creek. Yes, my little brother gave up a partnership track at a top Denver firm to come home. I can’t help wondering if Callie Pike had anything to do with that decision. They were cozy the night of the reception.
The old-vine Syrah has finished fermenting. Now the aging begins. It’s going to be an amazing vintage, and even though it should have been twice the amount, I’m living with it and my part in the tragedy. There’s no way to know if my campfire truly started the fire. I’ve accepted that it most likely didn’t, as I’m always very careful, and I remember being extra careful both mornings.
But I’ll never know for sure, and I have to accept that.
Part of being free means I have to accept those things in my life that I can’t change. It’s not easy, but it’s doable.
I’m doing it.
I’m at my office now, answering a few emails before I head to the winery to check on the Syrah and other wines, when my phone dings with a text.
Brendan Murphy?
Why is he texting me?
Dale, we need to talk. Important.
Tonight at my place. Bring Donny.
Chapter One
Donny
Moving back to the ranch isn’t a huge issue. Sure, I was on a partnership track with a global firm in Denver, but my mother needs me.
I’ll do anything for my mother. She raised me, took Dale and me in when she had no obligation to, gave us a life neither of us could have dreamed of—especially after what we’d been through at the hands of our captors. She was only twenty-five years old. Twenty-five and pregnant with Diana.
And she took on a troubled ten-year-old and seven-year-old. She’s an amazing woman.
I love my dad, but I’m especially close to my mom. Dale is the opposite—really close to Dad, but he and Mom don’t have the rapport that she and I do.
My place is packed up already. I don’t have much here in the city, and I’m going to rent out my downtown loft. Tomorrow, I drive home. I’ll be staying with Mom and Dad in the main house until Dale and Ashley’s place is completed. Then I’ll move into the guesthouse.
Home. To the ranch.
To Mom and Dad.
To my new position as assistant city attorney for the town of Snow Creek. An enormous pay cut and the only room for advancement is when Mom retires. She’s only fifty, and I can’t see her retiring anytime soon.
Mom has been the city attorney for decades, and her assistant, Mary, is retiring. Enter Donovan Steel, Esquire. Will it be the most challenging position? No. But like I said, my mother needs me.
And…
Callie Pike is on the slope. The Pikes own the vineyards to the north of our property. Callie’s their third child. She’s my cousin Henry’s age, twenty-six. Yeah, a difference of seven years, but Dale and his new wife, Ashley, are ten years apart, so what the heck?
I love living in the city. Denver has so much culture and a great nightlife.
But Mom needs me.
Dale tried to talk me out of taking the job. He warned me the offer was coming. Unlike my big brother, though, I have a sense of family he doesn’t share. He loves his family, just in a different way. I have more loyalty to the woman who raised me as her own son, who loves me as much as her biological children. She loves my brother too, but the two of them are like oil and water. Now that Dale’s found happiness with Ashley, I hope he can heal his relationship with our mother.
That would make her ecstatic, and I think it would be good for him too.
I grab my laptop and connect to my phone’s hotspot. Everything else is packed up, and I’m camping out in a sleeping bag for my last night here. Sure, I could have gone to the finest hotel, but for some silly sentimental reason I want to sleep here one last time. Time for some serious Netflix—
My phone buzzes. My brother.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey, yourself. You still driving home tomorrow?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Good. I just got a weird-ass text from Brendan Murphy.”
“Gingers are always a little weird,” I laugh. Brendan’s a good guy, but Dale and I have been making fun of his Irish red hair for years. He takes it in good humor.
“He says he needs to see both of us right away.”
“What for?”
“I don’t have a clue. I didn’t ask.”
Classic Dale. Asking would require that he text back or call Brendan. As an introvert, he doesn’t think in those terms. I’m really hoping marriage will bring him out of his shell. If it doesn’t? I’ll settle for him being happy. Ashley sure seems to do that for him.
“Well, find out what he wants, and let him know I’ll be in tomorrow. We can meet him at the bar for a drink or something after dinner.”
“Good enough. I’ll text him.”
“While you’re at it, ask him what he wants.”
“Yeah, yeah. Okay.”
A pause. Such a long pause that I know Dale’s considering his next words carefully. That’s what he does.
Then, “You sure you want to do this?”
“Do what? Return to the ranch?”
“Yeah. I mean, you’re leaving Diana in the city all by herself.”
“Our sister is a grown woman, Dale.”
“I know, but…”
“You don’t get it. I know. Why would I leave a huge op portunity at my firm to return to Snow Creek in a dead-end job?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“First, it’s not a dead-end job. Mom will retire, and then I’ll be the city attorney.”
He scoffs. “You and I both know that Mom won’t retire until she’s six feet underground, and that won’t be for decades yet.”
I suppress a shudder. I don’t like thinking about Mom’s or Dad’s eventual deaths. Another way Dale and I are different. He doesn’t shy away from dark thoughts.
“Then I’ll be assistant city attorney for a while. Not an issue.”
“I guess not. I just thought you had bigger aspirations.”
I sigh into the phone, exasperated. “You think it’s unfair of Mom to ask me to do this.”
“Well…yeah. I kind of do.”
“Let me ask you something, then.”
“Shoot.”
“What about your wife? Ashley will be a doctor of oenology soon enough, but you’ve asked her to stay with you on the ranch. Working at the winery. What about her aspirations to be a sommelier at a Michelin restaurant?”
“She can still do that if she wants. Grand Junction has some—”
“Grand Junction is Grand Junction. It’s not New York, LA, or Chicago. It’s not even Denver.”
“It’s different. She’s my wife, for God’s sake. The person I’m spending my life with. She’s not my mommy.”
“You don’t get it,” I say, “and you never will. That’s okay, Dale. I don’t need you to understand. I just need you to support me.”
“You know I always support you, Don.”
Yeah, I know. Dale will always have my back. He’s proved that tenfold. “Then we don’t have an issue.”
“I guess not.”
“So I’ll see you tomorrow. Find out what Murphy wants. We can catch him at the bar after supper.”
“Sounds good. And Donny?”
“Yeah?”
“Drive safe, please.”
“I always do.”
Chapter Two
Callie
Plans change.
My mom’s sage words, only they’re not sage to me.
I was supposed to begin law school in Chicago this winter. Now my law school money will go to help rebuild what was lost in the fire.
Our vines.
Three-quarters of our vines were destroyed through no fault of our own. We prepared. We used firebreaks.
They failed.
They all failed.
It’s no one’s fault. I know that. But I was so looking forward to getting off the ranch and out of Colorado.
I’m trying very hard to be understanding because I do understand. The money is needed for other things right now. In fact, I offered. If I’d insisted on going to school, Mom and Dad would have most likely relented. Deadlines for scholarships and grants have long passed, so no matter what happens at this point, I’ll have to wait another year.
Another year to pursue my dream.
At the very least, another semester.
I love my parents, and I love our ranch.
But part of me is damned tired of putting my life on hold because of it. I’ve waited five years since I completed undergrad, living at home and helping with the ranch because I was needed. In exchange, Mom and Dad put away money for my law school.
Money that’s now needed elsewhere.
I’ll do what I must, because I love my family and I always do what’s best for the whole, not for myself.
That’s how I was raised, and I have no problem with it.
Still, though…I’m pissed.
Pissed at the fire that ravaged our property even when we did everything right.
Pissed that it took from us instead of the Steels who can well afford it.
Where is the fairness in any of that?
I don’t blame the Steels, of course. They’re not at fault, and they’re helping us rebuild through grants and loans from their foundation, which they certainly have no obligation to do. They offered more, but Mom and Dad turned them down. They don’t want any more charity.
Ugh.
I’m not a spoiled brat. I’ll do what I must for my family.
Doesn’t mean I have to like it.
“Callie?” Mom knocks on my door.
“Yeah? Come in.”
Mom peeks into my bedroom. “I just got off the phone with Jade Steel. Donny’s coming home.”
I perk up. Never mind that Donny Steel is living his big city lawyer dream that I want more than anything. Never mind that he’s also gorgeous and rich. “For a visit?”
Mom shakes her head. “He’s moving back to the ranch.”
“What for?” Not that I’m upset by the news, but why would he give up the big city life as a rising legal star? I certainly wouldn’t.
“He’s going to be the assistant city attorney, working with his mother.”
I widen my eyes. “Instead of doing corporate law in Denver?”
“Apparently so. I’m as surprised as you are.”
“I guess it’ll be nice to have him back.” I work hard to sound nonchalant. In reality, Donny Steel is a major babe who tried to get me in the sack the night of his brother’s wedding reception. I probably would have succumbed, except for the tragedy that followed. A man collapsed and later died at the hospital. Dennis James, Dale’s new stepfather-in-law.
The last month brought more tragedy than I ever care to repeat.
The fire. Then the death of a seemingly healthy thirty-three-year-old man.
What’s next?
I don’t want to consider the possibilities.
“He’s coming in tonight,” Mom continued. “The Steels are having a big welcome home party tomorrow night.”
The Steels and a party. Those people celebrate every time one of them takes a good shit, I swear. Donny’s mom, Jade, and her sister-in-law Marjorie are the sweethearts of the western slope. Between Marj’s culinary skills and Jade’s knack for event planning, their parties are legendary, and the Pikes never miss one. I certainly don’t plan to miss this one.
“We’re all invited,” Mom says.
“Okay.” Still trying for nonchalant. No need for Mom to know I’m feeling giddy at seeing Donny Steel.
Maybe Donny and I can continue where we left off.
Funny. I had a mega-crush on his older brother, Dale, growing up. Total puppy love, as I’m nine years younger than Dale, but he was such a conundrum. So quiet and withdrawn and magnificently good-looking with that long blond hair and those piercing green eyes.
I got over that years ago, and then I never gave Donny Steel a thought.
Until last week at their party.
His eyes are hazel, a warm brownish green, so much nicer than Dale’s. He doesn’t have that flowing mane of blond hair. His slightly darker tresses are cut in a lawyerly style, except for that thick lock that swoops over his forehead. Really sexy.
He’s tall, about six-three, and like all the Steels, built to the nines.
Good genes plus the ranch work they all do when they’re home make for amazing bodies, even for the ones who don’t share their gene pool, like Dale and Donny.
Plus those good looks…
It should be illegal to look as good as every Steel does.
My brother, Jesse, calls them our western slope royalty. He’s joking. Most of the time. He was in Donny’s class at school, and they still have a good-natured rivalry today.
