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She doesn’t know about my grandfather, Bradford Steel, who wasn’t the pillar of society everyone thought he was. That we were raised to think he was.
And she sure as hell doesn’t know about the three rapists connected to our family—Theo Matthias, Larry Wade, and my own grandfather, Tom Simpson. Tom Simpson, who killed himself right in front of Uncle Joe twenty-five years ago. Took his own life rather than face the music for what he’d done. I have the blood of Larry Wade as well. He was the half brother of my maternal grandmother, Daphne Steel, who lived her own private hell inside her head because of him and the other two.
I sigh. “I pray you’re right.”
She bites her lip. “And you never know. Your uncle may just survive.”
“One percent of people, Maddie. One percent of people with this cancer survive for ten years.”
“Then there’s still hope.”
I roll over, facing away from her. “Maybe.”
“Dave, I am not going to let you go back to that place.” She grabs my shoulders and rolls me back toward her. “You know what everyone loves about you is your optimism, your jovial personality. After that plane almost crashed, I saw you lose that, and then I saw you regain it, now only to lose it again.” She places her hands on each side of my face. “You’re still you, Dave Simpson. You’re still you.”
She’s right, of course.
The family is going to need me more than ever now.
I pull her back into my arms, kiss her lips gently. “You’re something else. I think I could fall in love with you, Madeline Jolie Pike.”
I think I already have.
But she doesn’t push that subject any further, to my surprise. She simply snuggles into me, kissing my shoulder.
Chapter Eighteen
Maddie
I know better than to take Dave at his word at this moment. He’s in a weird place right now—the high of his release from the orgasm and the low of finding out his uncle is so ill have placed him in a strange emotional limbo.
I don’t know Jonah Steel well. My only connection to the Steels—before Callie, Rory, and Jesse got engaged to three of them—was the awesome foursome. All those hours I spent crying, feeling left out of their little Steel clique, and now Brianna is going to be my sister-in-law.
I never saw that one coming in a million years.
But I can’t deny how happy Jesse seems. Jesse, who has held resentment toward the Steels much longer than I have.
“No response to that?” Dave asks.
I nuzzle into his shoulder. “I’m not sure how to respond, Dave. What do you say when a man tells you he could fall in love with you? It’s not like you said you are in love with me.”
He frowns. “To be honest, Maddie, I’m not sure I’ve ever been in love before.”
His confession doesn’t surprise me. He was a womanizer, along with Donny and Brock, for so many years. I doubt he was ever looking for love, so he got what he wanted. Lots and lots of indiscriminate sex.
I try not to let that bother me. Clearly Callie and Rory got over it, because Donny and Brock were womanizers too.
It was Rory herself who coined the term the three Rake-a-teers.
“And no response to that?” Dave says.
I cock my head. “That you’ve never been in love before? Is that supposed to surprise me, Dave? You’ve never been serious about a woman in your life.”
He sighs. “You’re telling me. Then I went and watched Donny and Brock fall for your sisters. It was the craziest thing ever. Donny’s older, so maybe it was time for him to settle down, but Brock? He’s my age. I figured we’d both have lots more fun before it was time to start our families.”
“I see. And you feel differently now?”
He scratches the side of his head. “When I see Brock and Rory, I do. The two of them are perfect together, and so very much in love.”
