Blindsided - A Stepbrother Romance Novel by Kylie Walker Read Free Book Online Page B

to say the least.”
    He cringed slightly and said, “She had every right to be. I felt trapped in a marriage that I was miserable in. I’m telling you this by way of explanation, not as an excuse, okay?” Sam nodded and he went on. “Your mother was very needy and very jealous. She drank even back then, way too much. What I should have done was to try and get her some help, but I was young and immature…I failed her. I cheated on her and then I finally admitted it six months after you were born because the guilt was killing me. She told me she could forgive me, but she didn’t trust me after that…with good reason. It was constant fighting and phone calls at work and accusations. Her drinking got worse since she wasn’t pregnant. I filed for divorce when you were a year old and I told her I wanted joint custody. Before we went to court she took off with you and for the next two years I followed her around trying to see you. Since there was no court order in place she wasn’t technically kidnapping you. The ball was in my court to do something at that point.”
    “And then she married Darren,” Sam said.
    “Yeah, and for a while they completely disappeared off the grid. I lost track of all of you for a few years. I finally found you again but Lacey wouldn’t let me see you.”
    “All that time I thought it was you.”
    “Well, technically it was. I could have filed for custody with the court at that point, but I just couldn’t stand the thought of taking you from your mother. I swear to you I didn’t know Darren was such a monster. I knew he was an asshole, but if I had suspected he was mistreating you or laying a hand on you…”
    “He used Aaron as his punching bag. I never had it as hard as he did…or Mom.”
    “What about that scar over your eye?”
    Sam automatically reached up and pulled her long bangs down over her right eye. She kept her almost jet black hair cut in a long shaggy bob around her face with her bangs almost completely covering her right eye for that reason. She hadn’t realized she’d brushed them aside somewhere along the way from Arizona. She had a big, ugly scar that ran from the top of her forehead through her eyebrow and to the top of her eyelid. “He tried to rape me,” she said. Luke closed his eyes for a second and when he opened them he had tears in them.
    “I’m so sorry.”
    “It’s okay; it’s not your fault. Mom knew that he was a monster. She should have left, or told you. Besides, I broke a glass vase over his head that day. The scar on my eyebrow is minor compared to the ones on his skull underneath his hair line.”
    Luke shook his head but he looked like he was trying not to smile. “You turned out damned good for a girl who raised herself.”
    “I get by,” she said. “So, are you going to help me fix my engine?”
    He laughed and pulled open his door. “I just might be willing to do that. Are you going to race if I do?”
    She smiled. “I’m going to race whether you do or not.”
    Luke laughed again. “Let’s get this car unloaded and then we’ll see if we can wake that brother of yours up. We need to sit down and lay out some house rules.”
    **
    Two hours later they all sat around the dining room table. The house was big and roomy and Luke had shown both her and Aaron to their own rooms. The rooms were huge and furnished nicely. None of it was fancy, it was just warm and homey, but if you looked closely at the labels you could see that it was done with money. “Did you decorate this house yourself?” Sam asked Luke when he sat down at the table.
    He smiled. “No, decorating isn’t in my repertoire. I was married and my wife had an eye for decorating. She did a great job, so I haven’t changed anything.”
    “You were married? That means you’re divorced?”
    “After your mother and I split up I married the woman I was cheating with. She was younger than me and it took living together for me to realize we didn’t have a lot in common.