Page 76 of Steel

Steel waved at yet another onlooker, who’d honked their horn. Everything about the car screamed of celebrity, including the Hugger Orange color.

“My uncle. I was the only kid in the family who appreciated cars. I spent more time with him than I did my dad. When he died, he left it to me. Much to the chagrin of my brothers.” His smile immediately faded.

“You seem close to Axe. Am I wrong?”

I could tell he didn’t want to answer, not only by the look on his face but also how tight his hold on the steering wheel had suddenly become. “For a little brother, he’s alright.”

“Well, older brothers are supposed to be the model for all the others.” Instantly, I knew I hadn’t said the right thing. Now his lips were pursed. “I didn’t mean to pry, Steel.”

He made a turn, still completely shut down. “Sorry I cursed, buddy. It’s a bad habit.”

“My mom said that every time I cursed, I had to pay her a dollar.”

Damon’s voice could still be heard loud and clear with the windows rolled all the way down.

“So how much have you needed to pay her?” Steel glanced into the rearview mirror and I was curious what Damon would say.

“I think I should have paid her a thousand dollars, but she said I’d need to borrow the money since my allowance wasn’t that much. And Mom said she didn’t have the money. So she says I owe her and might for the rest of my life.”

I chuckled so forcefully I snorted and suddenly, all three of us were laughing, my son’s laugh everything I’d thought I’d never hear.

“I tell you what. I’ll make a downpayment to your mom for you. It’s a guy thing to do. Then maybe you can help me finish cleaning up my yard to make us square. Sound like a deal?”

“Yeah. I can do that. As long as Zorro can come.”

Steel lifted his eyebrows as he looked at me, permission after the fact. “Sure. That’s fine.” I sat back, wondering what he was keeping so private. It was none of my business, yet whatever it was continued to shape his personality.

Maybe like Kenny had done with mine.

While my sweet son jabbered on about something, the two of us remained quiet, perhaps uncertain what to say to each other as we’d experienced several times before. When anything got too personal, we shut down. We both obviously had our reasons and my mind was vacillating back and forth between why Kenneth would make any attempt to contact me and how I could just drop the news about the calendar.

“You weren’t prying,” he said so quietly I had to look at him to affirm he’d said a word.

“I have a tendency to do that. I push until I get what I want.”

“Well, then we have that in common. I had an older brother. I mean Axe and I did.”

“Did?” My fingers tightened around my purse in my lap.

“Yeah. He died in a tragic helicopter accident. An unexpected wind shear tossed the bird like a kite. It exploded and Will was killed.”

“Oh, my God. I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up the past.”

“It’s okay. He was a good man, an incredible smokejumper. You remember the way I reacted in hearing your name? Well, he named his bird Violet. You know like fighter pilots sometimes do. And no, it wasn’t his bird, but he always flew the same one.”

“Ugh. Well, you’re not using my middle name. Forget about it.” I tried to lighten the mood, but I could tell how bothered he was about his brother’s death.

He made another turn, pulling into the parking lot of a towing company. From where I sat, I could see my burned-out shell of a vehicle. Strangely enough, from the side I could see, it almost appeared as if there hadn’t been a fire.

There was no reason to have a moment of fear settling in, but with Kenneth trying to get ahold of me and knowing what kind of man he was, I had every right to be nervous.

“I can’t even imagine.”

He eased the gear into park. “The worst part was that Axe still to this day blames himself. What Axe doesn’t realize is that I was supposed to be on that chopper with Will as a spotter. That’s someone who helps with the mission, including to identify a drop site for either fire-retardant chemicals or for the crew. A few of us were pulling double duty until we hired some folks.However, I’d called into work sick and because we were short of staff by a number of men, the captain couldn’t arrange another man to take my place.”

“And you blame yourself?”

He didn’t look at me right away, keeping his one hand on the steering wheel and twisting his fingers with enough pressure the leather creaked. “Sure, I did. I still do. Axe thinks he wasn’t paying attention because of an argument they had. If I’d been there, I would have likely warned him to watch the damn weather more closely than he had.”