Page 29 of Strung Along
“I blame how many hours he spent out in the barn with his grandfather and all those cows as a boy,” Grandma says.
“That’s right, I heard you were cattle ranchers! I’ve never actually seen a cow in person before,” Anna admits, confidence heavy in every line of her body. I hate the way I admire that about her.
From the way my grandmother is staring at her with hearts in her eyes, she’s obviously feeling the same way.
“You should stop by the ranch sometime. Brody can give you a proper tour,” Grandma offers, completely oblivious to my dislike of the woman she’sjustmet.
Anna looks at me, amusement making her eyes glitter. “That would be really nice of him. Maybe I’ll take you up on that offer sometime.”
“Great,” I say through my teeth.
“You’re new to town, right?” Grandma asks. Apparently, she’s either naive to my annoyance right now or just doesn’t care about it. Knowing her, it’s probably the latter. That woman never misses anything.
Anna tucks her hands into her jacket pocket and nods. “I’ve only been here for a couple weeks.”
“How are you liking it? Where are you from?”
“Let’s not give her an interrogation in the middle of the grocery store,” I interrupt.
Anna waves me off. “I don’t mind.”
I force a smile. “Great.”
“Stop being rude, Brody,” Grandma chastises me again.
I don’t think I’ve been given so much shit from her since I was a teenager.
“He’ll warm up to me,” Anna replies smoothly.
Grandma scowls at me while threatening, “If he doesn’t, you let me know.”
“Will do.” Anna smirks.
I use the break in conversation to lay a hand on my grandmother’s arm and say, “Are you done?”
“I suppose so. If we don’t hurry, I’m sure I’ll have a dozen hangry men to deal with come a couple hours.” Offering Anna a soft smile, she tunes me out completely. “It was lovely to meet you. Please take me up on the offer to come around sometime. It’s always nice to have another woman around the ranch from time to time.”
Her casual words poke at the dormant ache in my chest, and it comes slithering out of hiding. My mood plummets further, memories I’ve forced into locked boxes pounding fists against my mind, begging to be set free. I push back, shutting them up again.
Anna’s looking at me again—I can feel the sear of her eyes on my face—but I stare at the toes of my boots. I can’t seem to tangle a sentence together, so I don’t bother. Instead, I turn and leave the aisle, my heartbeat pounding in my ears and blocking the sound of the two women telling each other goodbye.
A week later,I’ve had better luck avoiding Anna than I have my grandmother. The ride home from the store was awkward, and despite how hard I tried to pretend what she said hadn’t brought back too many dark memories, she knew it did and, in typical style, wanted to dig deep into my feelings. One firm no from me, and she dropped it.
We haven’t picked up the topic since, and I doubt we will anytime soon.
There are some things we Steele men don’t talk about. Not to each other and not to anyone else. Anything that hints at my mother’s death is and always will be one of them.
Clearing my throat, I focus on the doctor in front of me as he begins to pull the endoscope back out of my nose. The numbing spray he used before shoving the fucking thing into my nostril and down my throat did its job, but the discomfort of pressure is still there. I’ve had my vocal cords checked this way twice since the day following my last show, and both times were like this. I’d love never to experience this again.
“You still don’t have any lesions, Brody. I’d say you’re healing quite well,” he says once he’s set the equipment off to the side.
Caleb speaks up from the chair beside me. “What exactly does ‘quite well’ mean?”
The best throat doctor in the province, who we drove nearly three hours this morning to see, peels his gloves off as he explains, “It means he’s on the road to recovery. I don’t want to give a concrete timeline, but I’d say he has maybe a couple more weeks of rest before he should be able to at least attempt to sing again. Speech therapy will come after in that case.”
“So, until then, he just keeps doing what he’s doing?”
Dr. T nods, sitting on his rolling stool, eyes locked on my throat as if he’s trying to look inside of it. “Yes. No yelling or shouting. You can still carry on how you normally would, still speak in small amounts. Just don’t overdo it.”