Step-Lover

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STEP-LOVER is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and events portrayed in this book either are from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, establishments, events, or location is purely coincidental, and not intended by the author.

PROLOGUE

Raindrops keep falling on my head . . .

There’s no reason why a song should play over and over in your head when something horrific is happening to you. No reason, yet they do. Songs from your life, songs about the moment, songs that are there for no reason at all, except to torture you. From that moment on for the rest of your life, every time you hear the song that plagued you in your time of terror, you will always be taken right back, as if you never left. Forced to relive it all over again.

I don’t know why it was that particular song. Maybe it was the beat of the rain falling outside. Maybe it was the timing of the blood dripping onto my face. Maybe it was playing on the radio. I didn’t know. I knew I was in a car—that’s what I knew. A car that was twisted so badly I could no longer see my parents in the front.

I was
so
terrified. My mother was screaming. The rain was pounding down on the roof, making a horrible roaring sound that blended with her deafening yells to create a noise I’ll never forget.

I remember my body being squashed in an angry position, my legs twisted, my head tilted back, my arms stuck between pieces of bent metal. My sister, who was beside me, seconds before, laughing and giggling over a silly joke my father had made, was suddenly dead quiet. I cried out, so many times, but whatever voice I had was stuck in my throat. Even when desperation took over, and I became frantic, the silence remained.

“Please, wake up.” I’ll never forget my mother screaming. “Jayden! Milly! Aria! Please.”

There was so much blood. It was on my face, on my body, sticking my fingers together when I tried to move them. Panic was something I became all too familiar with in those terrifying moments. Then there was my sister. What I saw will forever be implanted into my memory for every day to come. It will never leave. She was twisted,
so twisted
—I knew there was no way it was natural. Her head was turned to the side, facing me, and her eyes were wide and open, lifeless.

I screamed for her, but once again my voice let me down. Instead I was left staring at the life that was no longer present in the blue eyes I adored so much. My sister was dead. It didn’t matter that I was young and shouldn’t have known.
It didn’t matter
.
I
knew
.

Flashing lights and sounds pierced the air, but it was too late. My mother stopped screaming, I stopped fighting and outside, through the rain and terror, I heard them speak. “The father has been thrown from the car, it’s a mess. He’s gone. We’ve gotten the mother out, but there are two kids in the back still. One is dead, God, it’s such a mess. I haven’t seen something so gruesome in my life.”

Gruesome.

Gruesome doesn’t happen to us
. Not us.
Not this family. We’re happy. We’re loved. Things like this don’t happen to happy families.

I was wrong.

It does happen, and it
did
.

CHAPTER ONE

NOW

Raindrops keep falling on my head…

I jerk up in bed, arms dashing out in front of me as if to stop an invisible force that’s never there. It takes me a moment to calm my breathing, control my jerky movements and realize I’m in the now,
not the then
. I reach up with shaky hands and rub my eyes. I have the same nightmare every night; I have since I was eight and my father and sister were taken from me.

That night lives in my dreams, it haunts my days, and it’s a never-ending spiral of agony. Every time I close my eyes I see my sister’s lifeless ones, staring back at me. Even after all these years, I can still see the image in my head as if I were there only yesterday. My heart aches every morning, because I’m forced to wake up the same way with each rising of the sun.

It’s been eleven years, but time doesn’t heal everything. That night changed not only my life, but also my mom’s life. We went from having everything, to having nothing. My parents didn’t have life insurance. They never thought it would happen to them. I think that happens to a lot of people. When we lost my father and sister, we had to sell our home and move to something a great deal smaller. We’ve been here ever since.

That was the smallest part of our difficult journey. How do you support someone who is grieving as much as you? My mom was so strong; she held it together when I needed her, but I heard her sobbing at night, alone. She and my dad, they had
that
relationship. You know the one. The one that’s rare, beautiful, and once-in-a-lifetime. They were happy. They were normal.

There was nothing ugly with our life.

He wasn’t drunk driving. They weren’t fighting. No one came onto our side of the road. My father didn’t have a heart attack. No, it was a tire blowout. That’s it. That’s what took away my beautiful life. A tire.
One simple tire
. It blew, and when I say it blew, I mean it
blew
. Then the car skidded, Dad tried to correct it but we went off the road and flipped before the car twisted around a tree.

A tire ended it all.

“Aria?” My mother’s soft voice calls from down the hall.

“I’m up,” I yell back, running my fingers through my hair.

“Honey, I’m late for work. Do you need a ride to school?”

I groan. I want to stay in bed. I don’t want to go to school. It’s always hard to go for that last week before summer starts. It’s my first year in college, and so far it’s going as planned. When I finished high school, I knew what I wanted to do. I had the grades. I had a plan. I joined a Pre-Med program to start the journey into medicine. The school has Pre-Med students, as well as students studying medicine and starting internships.

The school is just around the corner from where I live, so I’m able to come home to Mom every day. This isn’t always what I’d prefer, but for the moment it works. I’m nineteen; there are times I’ve wanted my own space more than air, so lately I’ve been working on trying to change it. Especially now Mom’s newly married. It’s taken her eleven years to find him, but now she has I’m finally seeing a smile that’s not pretend.

I don’t think she loves him like she loved Dad, but she definitely adores him.

Jack Hutchens is a handsome, rugged, burly man. She’s been dating him for more than a year, and they tied the knot only last week. I like Jack; he’s a good, loving man. He’s handsome as all hell, too—tall, dark, and rugged. He has three sons, all of whom I’ve not met because they live in California with their mom. And apparently they don’t visit their dad.

I figure I’ll meet them eventually. I don’t mind when that happens. I don’t need replacement siblings. I don’t
want
a new family. I want my mom to be happy, but that’s where it ends. I don’t need a new dad. I don’t need new brothers and I don’t need to substitute something that will never go back to the way it was. However, for my mom I’ll do just about anything, so if this makes her happy, I’ll deal.

“Ari! Hurry! I want to talk to you.”

I sigh and throw my legs out of bed. I plod down the hall, one of my socks hanging off my foot. I round the corner into the lounge and see Mom and Jack standing in the kitchen. She’s scurrying about, grabbing her keys and muttering about something. Jack is leaning against the counter, grinning, arms crossed over his broad chest.

“Morning honey,” he says when I enter the kitchen.

I flash him a tired smile. “Hey Jack, how’s it going?”

“Good. You ready for school?”

I scrunch up my nose. “No. I wish I could just start summer vacation early.”

He grins, showing two perfect dimples. My dad had dimples too, but that’s the only thing he and Jack have in common. Dad was blond-haired, blue-eyed, and had a smile that melted my heart. My sister, Milly, looked exactly like him. I take after Mom, which is hard sometimes because we have no piece of them left. She always called Milly and I chalk and cheese. She was so fair and I’m so dark. My hair is black, my eyes emerald green, my skin a light olive.

“You’re goin’ to do fine,” Jack says, pushing off the desk. “Did your momma tell you my boys are moving down?”

My brows shoot up. “They are?”

“Yeah. Blade got a mechanic job here, and Brody and Lee decided to follow. Had enough of it over there.”

I can’t help but smile. The boys have the strangest names. Blade is short for Bladen, and he’s twenty-four and the oldest of the three boys. Brody is short for Broderick, and he’s twenty-two. Lee is short for Ripley and he’s turning eighteen this year. I’ve never met any of them, but I have spoken to Ripley over Facebook. Go figure. I chat to my step-brother on Facebook, yet we’ve never met.

“I’m happy for you, Jack.” I smile warmly. “I know you’ve missed them.”

Jack’s smile becomes full throttle, and that makes me happy. “They’re finally fed up with California. It’ll be good to have them home.”

Mom rushes back in, tying her hair as she goes.

“So will Ripley go to school here?”

Jack nods. “Yeah, he isn’t happy about changing high schools but he wants to live with me for a while and their mother has a new flame, so she’s happy to let them go.”

I nod. “Fair enough.”

“Honey,” Mom says, stopping in front of me. “I want to ask you something and would have liked to sit and chat about it, but I just don’t have time.”

I narrow my eyes, and then slide my bottom up onto the counter. “What’s going on?”

She smiles, her cheeks pink, her face happy and glowing.

“Jesus, Mom, are you pregnant?”

Jack snorts his coffee and starts coughing, and Mom laughs, shaking her head and waving her arms around. “Gosh no! I’m far too old for that.”

I frown. “Then what?”

“It’s nothing major, calm down.” She laughs softly, and turns to Jake. “Tell her?”

Jake grins. “Got a lake house, big, beautiful, and empty. Had it for about ten years. Going up for part of the summer—the boys agreed to come. It’s massive, loads of bedrooms, heaps of privacy. I thought it’d be a good idea for us all to get to know one another. What do you think?”

A lake house for part of the summer with three men I don’t know . . .
God
. I’m not sure that’s the best idea I’ve ever heard. Don’t get me wrong, I want to meet them, but being secluded somewhere like that if we don’t all get along could be disastrous.

“It sounds . . .” I look at their happy faces. “Ah . . .”

“Don’t be worried,” Mom pipes up. “The boys will love you and you can bring Melanie if you like.”

I stare at them. Gosh, they look so excited. I don’t have anything planned for the summer and I know Melanie will jump at the chance. “It sounds great.” I smile.

Jack grins and reaches out, squeezing my shoulder. “It’ll be a good way for us to bond. The boys will love you. They always wanted a sister.”

I laugh nervously.

Mom comes over and kisses my cheek. “It’ll be great!”

“So,” I say, jumping off the counter, “when do we leave?”

~*~*~*~

“So we’re going to your step-dad’s fancy-ass lake house for the summer?” Melanie cries, rushing after me as I run towards Biology, which I’m late for.

I’ve been friends with Melanie Reynolds for six years now. She’s a crazy, hotheaded girl who clashes with me more than she gets me, yet it works for us. She’s gorgeous, with long raven hair and dark brown eyes. She’s got a killer bod and some serious ’tude to go with it.

“Yeah,” I yell over my shoulder. “My three,
ah
, step-brothers will be there too.”

She claps her hands. “Are they hot?”

I snort. “Stop it, gross.”

“Hey, my mom isn’t married to their dad, I can look.”

“Melanie,” I warn, stopping and spinning around to glare at her.

She scoffs and waves a hand casually. “Oh come on, it’ll be awesome fun. Just think, there might be some hot, rich men holidaying for us to crack on to. It’s time you got over what’s-his-face.”

What’s-his-face
is a man I met a month or so before Mom met Jack. I don’t know his name. I don’t know where he lives. All I know is I met him during a difficult time in my life, and we had the best weekend together. He made me feels things I have never felt up until that moment, and have never felt again. I’ve not forgotten him; there’s a good chance I had insta-love for the guy. Until he upped and left me and I never saw him again.

It hurt. I won’t lie. I’d thought there was something between us. I’d thought he felt it too, but he was no more than a player. I was naïve. The end. I’ve dated since, but none of it felt right. I don’t know what it was about him, but he changed something inside me. Helped me grow up. Helped me understand there is life after pain.

“I am over him,” I mutter, turning and rushing off again.

“Then let’s get excited about this summer.”

“I’m excited,” I yell over my shoulder as I reach the door to my classroom.

“I’ll call you later,” she cries as I slip inside.

“Miss Beladone, thank you for making the effort to show up,” Mr. Scotland mutters.

He’s old, balding and angry. I grit my teeth and take my seat, not bothering to answer. He’ll only make my life a living hell and shoot back every excuse I give.

“Not even an apology for disrupting the class?”

“Sorry,” I mumble.

Bring on summer.