Stepbrother At Last

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  1

  2

  3

  More Stories by Stephanie

  Excerpt from Stepbrother Secret Billionaire

  Stepbrother Secret Billionaire

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  1

  2

  3

  More Stories by Stephanie

  Excerpt from Stepbrother Secret Billionaire

  Stepbrother

  At Last

  STEPHANIE BROTHER

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  Copyright

  Stepbrother At Last

  © 2015 by Stephanie Brother

  First E-book Publication March 2015

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.

  Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.

  Cover image by Jacqueline Sweet

  Kindle Edition

  CHAPTER ONE

  1

  Nick

  The three of us sat at one end of the long, shiny conference table. I didn’t know why the hospital administrator had chosen this big room for a meeting with only four people. My sister Julia was a little late—perfectly understandable for someone in a wheelchair. The administrator and the Chief of the ICU were both staring at their phones. Very important, busy men, waiting for my sister.

  I say sister, she’s my stepsister, actually. I hadn’t seen her for almost three years, and honestly? I was terrified. I kept drinking coffee, like more caffeine was what I needed to calm down. I didn’t know what Julia would do. Would she accuse me, make a big scene? God help me, would she cry? I’d been gone since before she started life in a wheelchair, and I didn’t even know how she was handling it. Dad and Lucy, her mom, wouldn’t tell me anything about her, at her insistence, they both said. Jesus, she must have wanted to kill me. I had to be out of my mind to be setting all this up.

  “Does Julia have an aide or a nurse helping her?” I asked.

  “Oh, no, nothing like that,” the doctor said. He gave me kind of a weird look. “She hasn’t needed that level of care for quite a while.”

  “Well, good,” I said. I mean, what do you say? I’m so glad she can drag her useless legs through life without help?

  This meeting was happening because I was donating a new ICU to Greenwood Hospital, the hospital that saved Julia’s life. I wanted to dedicate it to her, name it after her, put her beautiful face on all the publicity for it. It was almost ready to be opened for business and this was the point where Julia’s part would start. It was the least I could do.

  “I think your sister’s involvement—” the administrator said.

  “Step. She’s my stepsister.”

  “Okay. I think she is just what the project needs,” he finished.

  “Yes, I’m hoping it will be inspirational for the public,” I said. “To see how well she’s doing, even with the limitations she has, thanks to the care she received here.” I know I sounded like an ass, but I couldn’t help myself. The doctor was giving me that funny look again, so I went on, “It’s so brave of her to be willing to do this.”

  A young woman in nurse’s scrubs walked into the room and sat down at the table across from me. I had taken the breath to ask her who she was when she looked into my eyes.

  It was Julia.

  The other two men, the hospital administrator and the doctor, had risen to their feet to shake Julia’s hand and greet her. I could only sit there and stare.

  That face. That thick honey-colored hair. That little mole at the corner of her mouth that I couldn’t look at without wanting to touch. Julia. The last time I saw her face, it was twisted in pain, barely conscious, in this hospital. How could I let years go by without a glimpse of that face?

  She had walked into this room. Walked! I felt like I’d fallen asleep in the middle of a movie and woken to realize I didn’t know what was going on. What the hell was going on?

  She had politely greeted the other men, now she was looking at me. Not smiling. “Nick?” she finally said.

  I couldn’t think. I said the words that were flashing red in my mind: “I thought you were in a wheelchair!”

  “I was in a wheelchair,” she said. “Now I’m not. Can we get started?”

  The hospital administrator took control of the meeting. The sound of his voice floated around the room. My part—the money part—was really already done. It’s a good thing, too, because I could not concentrate on anything. Except Julia, and she didn’t say much. She didn’t look at me at all, but I could not stop staring at her. Her face had changed a bit. It was thinner, more angular. She was only twenty-one years old, but the soft roundness of her teens was gone. Her eyes seemed larger, the hollows of her cheeks more noticeable. And there was something else. Before the accident, I used to love to watch that little mole dip and dance as emotions crossed her face, as she laughed, even at things that weren’t very funny. Now, the mole was still. Her face was like a mask. A beautiful mask. Had I done this to her, too?

  She glanced at me, tightened her lips, and said, “I’m not sure why I have to be involved in this at all. I don’t object to the hospital using my name if you want to. But won’t people come to the ICU when they need it no matter what it’s called? I don’t see what my picture will do.”

  “Julia, your brother—”

  “Stepbrother,” she said, glancing at me again.

  “Okay, stepbrother. He planned this project from the beginning to be centered around you, around your story of survival and healing in this hospital.”

  “He can un-plan it, can’t he?” she said.

  Oh no. Why was she doing this?

  “Julia, the whole thing is for you,” I said. God, my voice sounded bad. Strangled.

  The administrator smoothly explained, “When a donor makes such a generous gift, it’s important that the hospital publicizes it by telling a compelling story. It encourages more giving. People from all walks of life, from the simplest right up to philanthropists like your brother will be inspired to help the hospital.”

  “Oh, right. I forgot for a minute that I’m inspirational.” The bitterness in her voice was a surprise. She looked out the window. The hospital was surrounded by acres of parking lots, and the cars glittered in the sun. “Fine,” she sighed. “What do I have to do?”

  The administrator and the doctor jumped in to tell her all the parts of the project that needed her participation. Photo shoots, making a commercial, that kind of stuff.

  I didn’t need to say anything, thank god. I still felt like I’d been pole-axed. How did it happen that she was walking again, and why didn’t anyone tell me? I couldn’t get over it. The relief. And the hope. This one little seed of hope had always been planted in my heart, and it was like someone just watered it.

  And her physical presence kept knocking me on my ass. Her golden skin, the flash of her green eyes, the swell of her breasts under the loose scrubs. It took me this long to wonder why she was wearing scrubs. She had one of those plastic name tags on a ribbon around her neck, and under her name it said in big red letters, “Student Nurse.”

  She was in nursing school, apparently. I was impressed. Befo
re, she was the most squeamish person you’ve ever met. Even the red juice in a package of steak would make her queasy. I guess she got over that.

  The administrator was gathering up his papers, and the doctor whipped out his phone. The meeting was over.

  Julia looked my way, and her eyes met mine for a fraction of a second before her lips twisted and she looked away. “Nick,” she said, dismissing me.

  She got out of her chair in one smooth motion and headed for the door.

  “Julia, wait!” I called out.

  She didn’t.

  I left my papers and my briefcase behind and followed her into the hall. “Julia, please. I want to talk to you.”

  She turned on me, her face as ferocious as a wild cat’s for a second, and then blank. A mask. “I’m afraid I don’t have time right now,” she said. “I’m due back on the surgical floor.”

  “Can I take to you dinner then?”

  “No, thank you,” she said. Cold as ice.

  “I just need to talk to you.”

  “What is it exactly you need to say?”

  When she asked me flat out like that I could barely think. “Just…. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

  Her smooth blank mask said, “No apology needed. I’m fine now.”

  “I see that, but I still need to tell you. We need to talk about the accident, about—”

  “I have talked about the accident, Nick, and I don’t need to talk about it any more. It was years ago. You’re fine. Everything’s fine. And I have to go.” She turned and walked away, her steps going faster and faster until she hit the stairwell door almost at a run.

  I followed. When I opened the door, I expected to hear her footsteps pounding down the stairs below, but she was right there. She had her back against the cement-block wall, hands to her face, shoulders shaking. As soon as she knew I was there, she took her hands down and straightened up, looking away from me so I couldn’t see her face.

  She was so close to me. After years of only having memories of her face, her presence, it was almost unreal to be standing right in front of her. I could smell her, the same Julia-smell she’d always had, and the past washed over me in a wave of scent. I don’t know if it was perfume or shampoo, but it was kind of flowery with some vanilla-smell in there too. She smelled like a big bouquet of candy, and I just wanted to bury my nose in it. A lock of her honey hair was stuck to her cheek. She still wouldn’t look at me.

  I reached out to smooth that piece of hair back, and touched her face. She finally met my eyes. My thumb found that tiny mole beside her mouth and I stroked her sweet face with just the tips of my fingers. For one instant, one split second, she leaned her face into my hand.

  “Oh, Nick,” she said, her voice thick with tears.

  And then I could almost see the door slamming shut in her brain.

  She jerked her head back and that cool mask slid down over her features. “I don’t know what you want, but I can’t help you. I really need to go.”

  “Julia, please! Just…have dinner with me. Coffee? I want to spend time with you, get to know you again—”

  “I think I know you just about as well as I want to. Goodbye, Nick.”

  “Are you just going to walk away?”

  She looked right at me then and her eyes were blazing. “It must be a family trait.”

  And then she was off, running down the stairs, and this time, I couldn’t bring myself to follow.

  But I had to know. How much did she remember from the day of the accident?

  ~ <> ~

  Do you ever look back at one day in your past and know that if you changed just one thing on that one day, your whole life would be different now? Do you bargain with God or the universe or whatever, and think about what it would be like to have the chance to get that one day back? I do.

  It was almost three years ago now. I was home from college for the summer, and Julia had just graduated high school, getting ready to go off to college in about a month. Our parents had married during my senior year of high school, so we hadn’t spent much time living under the same roof.

  But I’d spent a lot of that time getting to know her. Looking at her. Listening to her laugh. Trying to make her laugh, and honestly, trying to get her attention any way I could. The thing that worked best was to flirt with another girl when Julia was around. I’m not exactly proud to admit it, but there were plenty of times I did it. Like this one day.

  Julia and I had a lot of friends in common, and on that day a bunch of us had driven out to the lake. It was a gorgeous day, too, maybe the best weather of any day of my life. We’d been swimming, most of us, and then we were all lying on blankets in the sand, while a breeze blew the smell of the pine trees across the lake to us.

  I was lying on a blanket with this girl, Suzanne, and Julia was right nearby. I’d been flirting with this girl, and Julia kept looking over and I could see she wanted to say something, but so far, she hadn’t.

  Suzanne traced her finger down my nose and said, “You have a broken nose. There’s a bump right here, and then it’s crooked.”

  “Gee, thanks a lot,” I said, but I was laughing.

  “How’d you break it?” she said.

  “Oh, I don’t like to talk about it.” I could see that Julia had turned on her side to listen to us.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Suzanne said.

  “Well, it’s just…it seems like bragging.”

  “Come on!” Suzanne smacked my arm. “How’d it happen?”

  “Well. There was this old lady crossing the street. A huge Harley was coming right towards her, and she didn’t even see it, so I ran over and pushed her out of the way at the last second. The motorcycle knocked me down and it ended up breaking my nose. Don’t tell anybody, though, okay Suzanne?”

  “Wow! Why can’t I—”

  “Oh my god!” Julia yelled. “That is such bullshit! You broke it falling out of a tree when you were ten years old!”

  I laughed. “So? Maybe the old lady was standing under the tree, and I knocked her to safety as I fell.”

  “You are so full of shit, Nick!”

  “Are you gonna tattle on me to my dad?”

  “No!” She got up. I could see by her face that she wasn’t really having fun joking around.

  I got up too, and followed her down to the water. “What’s up, Julia?” I said.

  “Nothing’s up. I just…don’t think you should lie.” Her voice was tight, strained.

  “Aw, come on. I was just bullshitting. I don’t care what that girl thinks.”

  “If you tell anything to that bitch Suzanne, she’ll spread it all over town.” She kicked the water, splashing me a little.

  “Hey!” I said. “You’ll pay for that!” I knew if I could make Julia laugh, she’d get back in a good mood.

  She was wading into the water quickly now. “Oh yeah? You’ll have to catch me first.”

  “Are we racing? Are you challenging me?” I had to laugh at this, because I’d been on the swim team and Julia hated swimming.

  She didn’t answer, but just started swimming away from me. I followed, keeping pace right behind her, grabbing her feet once in a while. But she wasn’t laughing—I could see by her face that she was still pretty pissed at me. I didn’t feel like bugging her any more, so I just started swimming. I knew her well enough to know that she’d get over it faster if I left her alone. We were both going parallel to the shoreline, and I figured she would swim enough to get over being mad, and then we could go back to hanging out. I wished I could take her in my arms.

  So I just focused on the feeling of slicing through the water, and pulled ahead of Julia easily. I swam until I was starting to get tired, and then stopped to let Julia catch up. I scanned the water. Very few people were swimming. I didn’t see her among them. I started to swim back the way I had come, thinking I’d just missed seeing her—she looked a lot different with wet hair.

  But she was nowhere.

  Julia was gone.


  Julia

  “Seriously, Mom?”

  “Yes, seriously, Julia. I was perfectly serious when I invited Nick to dinner, and he sounded perfectly serious on the phone when he said he would come.” My mom is kind of a smart-ass, but I wasn’t in the mood for it.

  “I thought you knew I didn’t want to see him.” I rubbed the handle of a silver fork with the felt polishing cloth to avoid making eye contact with her.

  My mom sighed. She sighed her way through my teen years, and here she was sighing again. She had also been through a lot after the car accident, and when I was in the wheelchair, she quit her job to take care of me. So I hated to give her a hard time, but this mattered to me.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I said.

  “I’m not doing anything to you,” Mom said, rubbing the bowl of a tablespoon. “ He’s my son—”

  “Stepson. Step!”

  “Good lord. Okay, stepson. I don’t know what difference it makes. ‘Stepson’ sounds so cold. And we all know how everyone feels about stepmothers.” She made a goofy face then, trying to get me to smile, but I just couldn’t.

  “It’s just more accurate. He’s not your real son.”

  “He may not be my biological son, but I can still care about him, can’t I?” I made an annoyed sound, but my mom kept going. “And your father misses him, Julia. Even though he knows Nick was wrong, he still loves him.” I didn’t mind her calling Joe my dad—I called him Dad half the time myself. But that was different!

  “Well, fine. I was planning to go to the library tonight anyway. I can just leave early and grab dinner in the cafeteria,” I said.

  “Julia, I want you to be here.”

  “Even knowing how I feel? Why?”

  “Because it’s time you forgave him. Look how he’s making amends! Not every brother would give that kind of money to the hospital that saved his sister’s life.”

  “Step! Step! Why can’t you say step!”

  She sighed again. “It’s time to let this go. More than two years have gone by. And look at you! You’re fine now! Accidents happen. I don’t understand why you can’t just forgive and move on.”