Catherine Mann - The Baby Claim

“I only just got here. I was out with the seaplane, surveying,” Marshall pointed out. The family rancher, he oversaw their lands, as well as doing frequent flyovers of the pipelines.

Conrad cupped his coffee mug in his hands. “You’d think he would have returned calls from his own brother.”

The youngest Steele sibling, Aiden, reached for the pitcher of syrup. “You would think so. It sucks being discounted because you’re the last in line.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. A thick lock of hair fell over his forehead. “Right, Uncle Rad?”

“Don’t call me that, you brat. You’re as bad as your brother here.” Conrad gestured to Broderick. “You both carry that sardonic act a little far. We’re your family. Tell us, Broderick, is it true that you and Glenna Mikkelson-Powers found your dad with...”

Conrad shuddered and took a bracing swig of coffee, then refilled his mug, emptying the carafe. He held up the silver jug and smiled at the waitress as she swept it from his hand on her way to another customer.

“I couldn’t begin to say what you’re all envisioning. And it was even tougher to see...” Broderick leaned toward his youngest sister.

“Tough to comprehend,” Delaney responded, spooning wild berries onto her oatmeal.

Naomi, the wild child, older than Delaney and the boldest, most outspoken sibling of the pack, leaned her arms on the table. “Was he really going at it with Jeannie Mikkelson?”

“In the shower?”

“In her office?”

The questions from both brothers tumbled on top of each other.

Broderick forked up a bite of salmon and eggs. “Sounds like you don’t need me to tell you anything.”

Naomi slathered preserves on her toast. “What the hell is up with Dad?”

Conrad lifted his coffee mug. “Oh, I think we all know what’s up.”

Delaney snapped her napkin at him before draping it in her lap again. “Don’t be crude.”

“He’s older, as am I—” Conrad waggled his eyebrows “—but not dead.”

“Eww.” Delaney pushed her oatmeal away, her dark eyes widening and her nose scrunching. “Too much information.”

A cluster of tourists walked by the table, cruise ship name tags on lanyards around their necks. The Steeles went silent until they passed.

Naomi tapped a pack of sweetener against her finger before opening it into her coffee. “Do you think that’s all it is? An affair with a Mikkelson, the forbidden fruit?” She slanted a glance at Broderick. “I mean, you had that—”

Broderick leveled narrowed eyes at his sister and mentally cursed himself for a drunken admission in a quest for advice.

“Okay, okay.” She opened another packet of sugar into her coffee. “Damn, everyone’s testy around here.”

“Well...” Delaney admitted softly, “I did get Dad on the phone, and while he wouldn’t give me details, he admitted they’re in love.”

A series of hissed breaths and heavy exhalations sounded, along with silverware clanking.

“Broderick,” their uncle interjected, “what do you think? You actually saw them together.”

“I would say Dad’s serious about her,” he answered without hesitation.

“You don’t think this has been going on for a long time? A very long time?” Naomi’s dark brown eyebrows, already plucked to high arches, went even higher.

“Could be, but they say their feelings caught them by surprise. I choose to believe them.”

“How serious do you think this is? Like...marriage? What’s going to happen to the business?” Marshall forked a hand through his loose brown curls, his face full of questions.

Delaney stirred the berries through her oatmeal before spooning up a bite. “Were you able to get details about their plans? Do they want to make changes to the company’s safety standards?”

Broderick shook his head. “We didn’t get that deep into the discussion. Dad said he wanted to speak to all of us at the same time Jeannie Mikkelson speaks to her children, but separately.”

Aiden pulled three more pancakes from the platter in the center of the table. “I’m still stuck on the fact our families hated each other for years.”

“Maybe just the fathers?” Delaney asked quietly.

Broderick shook his head. He knew differently, firsthand. He and Glenna both did. “Jeannie Mikkelson was as much a part of that business as her husband. She’s different from Mom.”

At the mention of their mother, his siblings went silent in a new way, leaving a heavier atmosphere around the table. None of them had really come to peace with losing her or their sister Breanna in such a violent and unexpected way. A plane crash into a mountain... There hadn’t been much left in the wreckage after the flames. Their father had been allowed to view the bodies, but he’d kept his children away.

Broderick could see the memories ripple across each face at the table.

Naomi finished chewing her toast and took a swallow of her coffee. “Maybe this group meeting with Dad will be a golden opportunity to get him to see that...hell, this is a mess for the business. The board will go haywire over this. The stockholders will react violently to the uncertainty.”

Broderick scrubbed his hand along his jaw. “You’re going to tell them to break up for the sake of profit? That’s not going to float, not with our dad.”

His youngest brother’s eyes went wide with a hint of fear, giving Broderick only a moment’s notice before a familiar voice rumbled over his shoulder. “What’s not going to float with me?”

His father.

Jack Steele had arrived.

Three

Broderick carefully set aside his coffee mug as he crafted an answer for his father that wouldn’t send the old man—and the table full of edgy people—spinning.

His family had a way of letting their tempers fly. Especially since the peacemakers had died...his mother, his sister. These days, Delaney often tried to rein in family squabbles, but she was only one soft voice against a tide of pushy personalities.

Just as he was about to opt for a Hail Mary distraction instead of a logical plea, he was saved from answering when Conrad stood and pulled up another chair.

“Have a seat, Jack. You’re the man of the hour. We’ve all been on pins and needles, waiting to hear from you about your, uh, news.” Conrad clapped his brother on the back.

“Thank you for meeting me here on such short notice.” Jack waved to the waitress as he took his seat. “The usual order for me, please,” he called, requesting sourdough waffles, as he had for decades. The only difference lately? These days he topped the waffles with fruit rather than syrup.

They’d gathered at this table more times than Broderick could count, until it had become a de facto family dinner table. One his father loomed large over when sitting at the head.

Being Jack’s oldest son hadn’t been easy. Broderick’s father’s boot prints in the snow were large to fill and he cast a long shadow in the business world.

But damn it all, Broderick wouldn’t stand idly by and watch the Steele business be placed at risk. He knew Glenna felt the same about her family’s legacy.

Strange to be on the same side with her.

Broderick watched his father with analytical eyes. He wasn’t going to weigh in recklessly. He needed to wait for the right opportunity and choose his words wisely. The stakes were too high for misplaced speech. The fate of his company—and his place within the family business—depended on rationality, not impulse.

Conrad took his seat again. “Thank you for putting your clothes on for us. Poor Broderick here still looks like he needs a bracing drink.”

Jack scowled, his lips so tight his mustache all but hid them. “You can zip your mouth, brother.”