The Baby Claim. Catherine Mann
their siblings in that plane crash along with their mom...
Even when the table was full, it felt like there was an empty place without their sister Breanna there. Sometimes they even accidentally asked for six seats.
Today, though, their uncle sat with the five remaining Steele children, pulling up an additional chair as he joined them.
Uncle Conrad, their father’s brother, hadn’t been a part of building the Steele oil business. He was fifteen years younger than Jack, and had been brought into the company after finishing grad school with an engineering degree. He’d been a part of the North Dakota expansion. The Steeles had started in Alaska and moved toward the Dakotas, and the Mikkelsons had grown in the reverse direction, each trying to push out the other.
Uncle Conrad reached for the coffee carafe as he scooted his chair closer to the table. “Where’s my brother? He’s been in hiding since those rumors started flying yesterday morning. Damn rude of him to wait so long to meet with us. Marshall, Broderick? Somebody?”
“I only just got here. I was out with the seaplane, surveying,” Marshall pointed out. The family rancher, he oversaw their lands, as well as doing frequent flyovers of the pipelines.
Conrad cupped his coffee mug in his hands. “You’d think he would have returned calls from his own brother.”
The youngest Steele sibling, Aiden, reached for the pitcher of syrup. “You would think so. It sucks being discounted because you’re the last in line.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. A thick lock of hair fell over his forehead. “Right, Uncle Rad?”
“Don’t call me that, you brat. You’re as bad as your brother here.” Conrad gestured to Broderick. “You both carry that sardonic act a little far. We’re your family. Tell us, Broderick, is it true that you and Glenna Mikkelson-Powers found your dad with...”
Conrad shuddered and took a bracing swig of coffee, then refilled his mug, emptying the carafe. He held up the silver jug and smiled at the waitress as she swept it from his hand on her way to another customer.
“I couldn’t begin to say what you’re all envisioning. And it was even tougher to see...” Broderick leaned toward his youngest sister.
“Tough to comprehend,” Delaney responded, spooning wild berries onto her oatmeal.
Naomi, the wild child, older than Delaney and the boldest, most outspoken sibling of the pack, leaned her arms on the table. “Was he really going at it with Jeannie Mikkelson?”
“In the shower?”
“In her office?”
The questions from both brothers tumbled on top of each other.
Broderick forked up a bite of salmon and eggs. “Sounds like you don’t need me to tell you anything.”
Naomi slathered preserves on her toast. “What the hell is up with Dad?”
Conrad lifted his coffee mug. “Oh, I think we all know what’s up.”
Delaney snapped her napkin at him before draping it in her lap again. “Don’t be crude.”
“He’s older, as am I—” Conrad waggled his eyebrows “—but not dead.”
“Eww.” Delaney pushed her oatmeal away, her dark eyes widening and her nose scrunching. “Too much information.”
A cluster of tourists walked by the table, cruise ship name tags on lanyards around their necks. The Steeles went silent until they passed.
Naomi tapped a pack of sweetener against her finger before opening it into her coffee. “Do you think that’s all it is? An affair with a Mikkelson, the forbidden fruit?” She slanted a glance at Broderick. “I mean, you had that—”
Broderick leveled narrowed eyes at his sister and mentally cursed himself for a drunken admission in a quest for advice.
“Okay, okay.” She opened another packet of sugar into her coffee. “Damn, everyone’s testy around here.”
“Well...” Delaney admitted softly, “I did get Dad on the phone, and while he wouldn’t give me details, he admitted they’re in love.”
A series of hissed breaths and heavy exhalations sounded, along with silverware clanking.
“Broderick,” their uncle interjected, “what do you think? You actually saw them together.”
“I would say Dad’s serious about her,” he answered without hesitation.
“You don’t think this has been going on for a long time? A very long time?” Naomi’s dark brown eyebrows, already plucked to high arches, went even higher.
“Could be, but they say their feelings caught them by surprise. I choose to believe them.”
“How serious do you think this is? Like...marriage? What’s going to happen to the business?” Marshall forked a hand through his loose brown curls, his face full of questions.
Delaney stirred the berries through her oatmeal before spooning up a bite. “Were you able to get details about their plans? Do they want to make changes to the company’s safety standards?”
Broderick shook his head. “We didn’t get that deep into the discussion. Dad said he wanted to speak to all of us at the same time Jeannie Mikkelson speaks to her children, but separately.”
Aiden pulled three more pancakes from the platter in the center of the table. “I’m still stuck on the fact our families hated each other for years.”
“Maybe just the fathers?” Delaney asked quietly.
Broderick shook his head. He knew differently, firsthand. He and Glenna both did. “Jeannie Mikkelson was as much a part of that business as her husband. She’s different from Mom.”
At the mention of their mother, his siblings went silent in a new way, leaving a heavier atmosphere around the table. None of them had really come to peace with losing her or their sister Breanna in such a violent and unexpected way. A plane crash into a mountain... There hadn’t been much left in the wreckage after the flames. Their father had been allowed to view the bodies, but he’d kept his children away.
Broderick could see the memories ripple across each face at the table.
Naomi finished chewing her toast and took a swallow of her coffee. “Maybe this group meeting with Dad will be a golden opportunity to get him to see that...hell, this is a mess for the business. The board will go haywire over this. The stockholders will react violently to the uncertainty.”
Broderick scrubbed his hand along his jaw. “You’re going to tell them to break up for the sake of profit? That’s not going to float, not with our dad.”
His youngest brother’s eyes went wide with a hint of fear, giving Broderick only a moment’s notice before a familiar voice rumbled over his shoulder. “What’s not going to float with me?”
His father.
Jack Steele had arrived.
Broderick carefully set aside his coffee mug as he crafted an answer for his father that wouldn’t send the old man—and the table full of edgy people—spinning.
His family had a way of letting their tempers fly. Especially since the peacemakers had died...his mother, his sister. These days, Delaney often tried to rein in family squabbles, but she was only one soft voice against a tide of pushy personalities.
Just as he was about to opt for a Hail Mary distraction instead of a logical plea, he was saved from answering when Conrad stood and pulled up another chair.
“Have a seat, Jack. You’re the man of the hour. We’ve all been on pins and needles, waiting to hear from you about your,