Blindsided - A Stepbrother Romance Novel Read online

  Blindsided

  By:

  KYLIE WALKER

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Copyright © 2016 By: Kylie Walker

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Kylie Walker holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

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  CHAPTER 1

  “Sammy you have to come home!” That’s what Samantha heard when she picked up her little brother Aaron’s call. He sounded like he was hyperventilating.

  “What did that bastard do now?”

  “It’s not dad, Sammy, it’s Mom! Come home, she won’t wake up! I think she’s dead…”

  “Dead?” Sam stood there in shock. Everything inside of her was numb and she wasn’t sure if she could move even if she tried. My mother is dead? Suddenly the last conversation Samantha had with her mother consumed her. She’d said horrible things. Sam told her that she hated her and that everything bad that happened to her or Aaron was her fault…

  “Sam!” Sam was in her bedroom. Darren, her step-father that she couldn’t stand and did her best to avoid was due home from work soon and she didn’t want to be in his path. With Darren you never know what you were going to get. Some days he’d come home and grab a beer and ignore them all as he stared at the television and smoked his weed all night. Other times the smallest thing would piss him off and he’d want to use Aaron as a punching bag. Or he’d be in an amorous mood and try to put his hands all over Sam. He disgusted her and if it wasn’t for Aaron she would have been long gone as soon as she turned eighteen.

  She tried to ignore her mother. Sam knew she’d been drinking for several hours already and she could tell by the sound of her voice she was in the mood for one of her drunken rants about something stupid. Samantha wasn’t in the mood for it. She just finished changing out of the greasy t-shirt she was wearing and into her lucky racing shirt and jeans. She had a race tonight and she needed to get to the track early so that Troy could take a look at her intake manifold before the race began.

  “Samantha!” Damn it!”

  “What?”

  “Come here!”

  Samantha grabbed her keys and stuck them in her pocket before reluctantly going out to the kitchen to see what her mother wanted. Sam found her mother sitting at the scarred up kitchen table with an empty bottle of Absolut Vodka in front of her. “What is it, Mom?”

  “Aaron’s probation ends tomorrow but the P.O. just called and said that he needs a copy of his birth certificate for the file before he can close it.”

  “And?”

  “And, I can’t find it. You’re always cleaning things up and putting them where I can’t find them.”

  “Then maybe you should try cleaning things up yourself every once in a while.”

  “Don’t get smart with me, young lady. Hand me that other bottle out of the freezer and find the birth certificate. He can’t go back to school next week unless that file is closed.”

  “You don’t need another bottle, Mom. That one was full this morning.”

  “You’re measuring how much I drink now?”

  “You make it easy when you have every bottle in the house empty by the end of the day. Where is Aaron?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well you should, it’s dinner time and you’re his mother.”

  “Is it dinner time already?”

  “Yes, already. I’m going to make you some coffee and then I’ll look for the birth certificate while you make some dinner.”

  “You act like you think you’re the mother.”

  “You act like a child so I have no choice. I don’t have time for this tonight though. I’m going to quickly look for that birth certificate for Aaron’s sake but then I’m out of here, I have things to do.” Samantha took the empty bottle off the table and tossed it in the trash before putting on a pot of coffee. Once it started dripping into the pot she told her mother, “Go wash your face and run a brush through your hair, you look like hell. There’s chicken thawed in the refrigerator. Put it on a pan and throw some barbecue sauce on it and get it in the oven.” Lacey Stern was looking at her daughter with a blank look that pissed Samantha off. She knew that her mother was an intelligent woman…at least she used to be before she started pickling her brain with vodka and weed. It annoyed the hell out of her when her mother was so wasted that she acted like she didn’t have a brain at all. “Mom…”

  “What?”

  “Dinner!” Lacey got up and went over to the refrigerator. Samantha knew the first thing her step-father would do when he came home was tell her mother that she looked like shit. Lacey was too out of it today for Samantha to pull her together before he got home though, so her mother would just have to deal with it. With a heavy sigh Sam headed down the hall to start looking for Aaron’s birth certificate.

  She stopped at the desk in the hallway and shuffled through it. She had no memory of putting it anywhere but her mother was right about one thing, Sam was the only one who ever put anything away or cleaned anything up. Aaron is rarely home even though he’s been on probation for trying to steal a car last year. He’s only sixteen but he’d started experimenting with drugs and running with a rough crowd. Sam worries constantly that he’ll end up in prison one day soon. Years of being used as a punching bag by his father and watching his mother drown in a bottle of Absolut had taken his toll on her little brother. Samantha did what she could to save him, but somedays she was sure it wasn’t going to be enough.

  She didn’t find the certificate in the desk so went into her mom’s bedroom. Lacey has an old filing cabinet in her closet where Sam sticks things sometimes. She pulled it open and all sorts of paperwork and envelopes spilled out. With a curse she bent down and started picking it all up and as she stood up she glanced down at one of the envelopes in her hand. All she saw was the return address that said, “Luke Glass” and had an address in Pasadena. Samantha suddenly felt a knot begin to form in her stomach as she looked at the postmark. It was mailed a little over two months ago. Like a woman possessed she forgot all about what she’d gone looking for in the first place and started pulling everything out of the drawers. Once it was scattered all over the floor she sat down and started sifting through it. She lost track of time as she sat there with shock filling her veins. Luke Glass left his wife and daughter Sam eighteen years ago when Sam was just one years old. She’d on
ly seen him once since then and that was when she was sixteen and he showed up in town and convinced her to have lunch with him. Samantha went with a chip on her shoulder and as far as she was concerned everything he said to her was a line of bullshit. He told her that he’d tried to stay in contact but her mother hadn’t allowed it. He said he sent letters and gifts and even money. Sam had always been protective of her mother and hearing him say that her mother was the one that had done something wrong pissed her off even more. She felt like he was only looking for someone to blame and she told that he was a liar and she hated him and never wanted to see him again…She left him in the café that day and called a guy that had been bugging her about hooking up. She spent the rest of that afternoon doing one of the things she does to escape, having sex with a virtual stranger. She loves them and leaves them and never goes back. It’s her release, that and racing. Those are the only two things she really has. But now she stands holding evidence in her hand that her father was telling the truth and she’d been the one to turn her back on him when he tried. Her mother had been keeping all of this from her all along and that hurt worse than anything else. No matter what her mother had done all of these years, Samantha had stuck by her. This made Sam wonder if she deserved it.

  With heavy limbs and a lump in her throat she finally pulled herself up and with letters in hand she stormed back into the kitchen. Darren was home now and he was standing behind her mother who was at the sink. He had his hands on her butt and it made Samantha sick. “Mom!” They both turned and looked at Sam and she held out the letters, “What the hell are these?”

  Her mom looked at them with glassy eyes at first. When she focused in on what Samantha was holding in her hand a look of terror suddenly crossed her face. “What were you doing going through my things?”

  “Your things? Are you freaking kidding me? These are letters from my father. He’s been trying to reach me all this time and you’ve been hiding these from me! Where are the gifts and the money he sent? Did you use it to support your habits?”

  “You don’t understand. He doesn’t care about you, Sam, he left us.”

  “Really, or is that just the story you gave me? He tried to tell me he was sending me things and trying to reach me and you wouldn’t let him. I called him a liar. I told him I hated him. Now I find out it’s been you all along.”

  “You need to watch your tone,” Darren said, calmly. He actually looked amused and it made Samantha want to sock him in the face.

  “Screw you! Did you know too? I spent the past sixteen years getting treated like shit by you when the whole time I’ve had a father I could have turned to. You both make me sick!”

  “Sam…” my mother began.

  “No! I don’t want to hear your excuses and lies. You’ve ruined my life and you’re ruining Aaron’s. You’re a horrible person and an even worse mother. I’m out of here.” She turned to go and then stopped and did something that will probably haunt her forever now. She got right into her mother’s face and said, “I hate you and I wish you were dead!” She ran out then and went to the garage where she keeps her ’66 Mustang…the only thing she’d thought all of these years that she’d ever gotten from her father. Now, she doesn’t know what to think. She can’t believe that all of these years her mother let her think he didn’t want anything to do with her. She couldn’t even imagine what the hell kind of person would do that…much less what kind of mother.

  Samantha was leaning into the car with her head spinning. She was trying to catch her breath and calm herself down when she felt the hand on her shoulder. Darren’s sour breath was suddenly against her cheek as he whispered, “I’ve got the cure for that filthy mouth of yours little girl.”

  His free hand was on her waist and she felt him slide it up toward her breasts. This wasn’t the first time he’d tried to molest her but at that moment Samantha was determined that it was going to be the last. She quickly reached out and grabbed a crow bar off the bench next to the car, swinging her body around at the same time. Darren saw it coming and ducked, but it still clipped him on the side of the head.

  “You bitch!” A spray of blood covered the hood of the car from the gash in his temple. Sam was already on the move. She jumped into the Mustang and fired it up. Darren pressed his palms into the hood and glared at her through the windshield. He had murder in his eyes and she knew she would pay for what she’d done sooner or later. She seriously considered running him down. He must have seen it in her eyes and he stepped aside just before she tamped down on the accelerator and spun out the wheels on the classic car before hauling ass out of the driveway.

  “Sammy! Are you there?” She’d been at the “track” for about an hour before she got the call from Aaron. It was almost time for her race and now as she held the phone to her ear and listened to the sounds of his frantic voice telling her that their mother was dead she wished she could just get into the car and drive as fast and far away from this life as she could get. Once again, if not for Aaron, she probably would.

  “Yes, I’m here, Aaron. Where’s Darren?”

  “He’s not here. I don’t know. When I got home I thought no one was here. I walked by and saw Mom on the couch. She has foamy stuff around her mouth Sammy! She’s not breathing! She’s got a needle in her arm.”

  “Shit! Don’t touch anything. Call 911 Aaron, I’m on my way, okay?”

  “It’s not okay, Sammy! She’s dead!”

  “Aaron, listen to me! Call 911, I’ll be right there.”

  She could hear her brother breathing heavily. He sounded like he was about to hyperventilate. Finally he said, “Hurry,” and then the line went dead.

  CHAPTER 2

  Samantha couldn’t help but think that the preacher standing in front of her mother’s coffin spoke like he was being paid by the hour. He seemed to be dragging out every word. She couldn’t believe that she was even thinking that phrase…standing in front of her mother’s coffin. Less than two weeks ago she had a mother and so did Aaron. Now all they have is each other…and the monster that still lives in their home. She glanced over at Aaron and her heart lurched. He’s only sixteen and he’s had nothing but shit for a life and it just kept getting worse. Mothers are not supposed to die at forty-four. She looked at Darren who stood next to him trying to look as bereaved as everyone else. He’d worn a big bandage over the gash she’d put in the side of his head with the tire iron right up until the funeral. The police had asked him what happened and he’d made up a story about falling off the ladder in the garage. It was in no way to protect her and she knew it. He was afraid if he told them she did it, she’d tell them why. So far he’d gotten lucky and the only time she’d called the cops on him was when he was taking it way too far with her mother or Aaron and she couldn’t stop him. She didn’t need police to handle things between him and her, she would handle that herself. Samantha knew that Darren wasn’t going to just let her off the hook for what happened that night. With her mother’s death they just hadn’t had time to visit whatever wrath he had in store for her, but she knew him well enough to know it was coming.

  Sam wondered if he ever really loved her mother. Was he at all sad that she was dead? She doubted it, but if he had loved her it wasn’t the kind of love that saved your soul. His brand of love was what had put her mother in an early grave. Sam knew her mother loved him and the pressure of living with an abusive drunk was what had sent Lacey into her own downward spiral with drugs and alcohol. Sam felt like Darren was as much to blame for her mother’s death as if he’d put that needle in her arm.

  She stood underneath the blaring Arizona sun and wondered if her life would have been different had she known sooner that her biological father wanted to reach her. Would she have responded to him, or would she have hung onto the anger towards him that ate away at her very soul? She realized she was still looking at Darren and the sight of him suddenly made her sick. She looked back at her brother, anything to keep from staring at the box in front of them that held h
er mother’s lifeless body. She could tell that Aaron was trying hard not to cry. Her chest ached again and she knew at once no matter how things had gone between her and her father she couldn’t have ever left her brother. Aaron was the reason she put up with her mother’s addictions, Darren’s abuse and constant advances and her overall miserable life. Aaron had one person in this world that he could depend on and that person was Samantha. Until he was eighteen and no longer subjected to Darren’s anger and hateful whims, Samantha would be there to protect him.

  The preacher finally stopped talking and Darren, Aaron and Samantha each walked up and laid the rose they carried on top of the coffin. They stood there awkwardly, none of them really knowing what to do next before the coffin was lowered into the baked earth. There were only a handful of people at the service. Lacey didn’t have very many friends mostly thanks to Darren. He went out of his way to isolate her and the kids. It was a classic abuser move. A few of Darren’s co-workers and some of their neighbors showed up, and way in the back stood the two detectives that came and interviewed them all the day that Lacey died. As the group began disbursing and walking toward their cars, the detectives approached Darren.

  “Mr. Stern?”

  “Yeah?” Darren acted like he didn’t know who they were. He acted like such a disrespectful pig that sometimes it was all Sam could do to keep from socking him in his arrogant face.

  “I’m Detective Brandt and this is Detective Lamont,” the detectives introduced themselves as if they’d never met before. Sam supposed they were used to dealing with creeps like Darren. “We were wondering if you might be able to join us down at the station. We have a few questions for you regarding your wife’s death.”

  Darren scowled. “What’s to question? She overdosed. She was a drunk and an addict so it’s no big surprise to anyone.”