One Step Closer: A stepbrother, stand-alone novel. Read online

  When they’d first met, Caleb wanted nothing to do with her; she was introverted and strange, and at the time, and he had more than enough of his own problems. By the age of sixteen, he already hated his father and was consumed with doing everything he possibly could to make the man’s life a living hell. Wren and her witch-mother had been just two more knives in his back.

  He still cringed when he thought of the day that ice queen, Veronica, moved into his house; her very presence was his father’s misguided attempt to erase the memory of his mother, Celine. Caleb knew from the moment he’d laid eyes on her that she was a narcissistic money-grubber who had no interest in his father other than his success, wealth and the influence bought by both.

  The sick part was that Edison Luxon knew Veronica was a plastic bitch from the moment she’d come to work for his company, Lux Pharmaceuticals, but it didn’t seem to matter in the least. Sure, she was beautiful, in a fake, calculated, surgically enhanced sort of way.

  Caleb’s father would never pick anyone less glamorous given the cosmetic empire built on his brains and Celine’s amazing face. Caleb remembered his mother as kind and graceful; elegant even, and not just beautiful. She was a high-fashion model, and Edison met her at a company event for the launch of a new line that he helped develop, and Celine represented. As a boy, his father had told him to believe in love at first sight, because he and Celine were living proof.

  Caleb huffed at the irony. His mother had been ten times the woman Veronica would ever be. A modeling career was the only thing they had in common. She was hired to represent the Lux brand when his mother had been unable to continue. Caleb often wondered if his father was banging her even before his mother lost her battle with cancer. Edison was never around those last, hard months, and his absence had festered into a deep resentment and disdain within his son. It didn’t help that Edison basically abandoned Caleb in the process, leaving him to be the one to watch his mother wither and die, to be the strong one she leaned on. It was a lot to expect of a twelve-year-old boy. Caleb’s throat constricted as emotion tightened his chest and made his eyes burn.

  He remembered his disgust at the way his father pandered and gave Veronica everything she ever wanted. To Caleb, she was constantly screeching in that intolerable shrill, fucking voice, prancing around the house in those obnoxious hooker heels that clicked on the hardwood and marble floors. He couldn’t stand that bitch, but at least she was momentarily placated when his father threw money in her direction, which took her attention off of Caleb and Wren. Especially, Wren, Caleb thought. Money was something that Edison had plenty of, and if it bought a bit of peace for Wren, all the better.

  Life was still hell for them, but at least, it helped. He shook his head at his sad contemplation. It was good that money didn’t mean shit to Caleb since his father squandered so much of it on someone so obviously conniving.

  Caleb sighed heavily, regretting the hatred he wasted on both of them. As much as he despised Veronica, and at the time, his father for marrying her, he realized that if it weren’t for that turn of events, he would never have known Wren. That would be a tragedy; maybe the biggest tragedy of his life.

  The day he first laid eyes on Wren was still crystal clear in his mind. The day was traumatizing considering he’d felt like an orphan for the past four years. His father had just dropped the bomb that he’d married the woman whose face had replaced Celine’s in the company advertising campaigns; and done so without warning his son it was coming. Caleb had been hurt and furious; completely taken by surprise. He barely knew the woman, and was in shock.

  “You married that plastic bitch?” Caleb had rushed up and shouted in his father’s face. He’d just come home from high school and Edison was waiting with Veronica in the drawing room of the huge house, and Caleb had been hit with it square in the face.

  “What the fuck, Dad? Why did you have to marry her? Just throw cash at her if you want to fuck her! How long has this been going on?”

  Veronica, dressed in a bright red dress, at least had the grace to flush at his outburst, the shade of her face, almost matching her dress. She had nearly white, bleached blonde hair, done up as if she were Cinderella going to a ball, and her body, overly thin, even for a model, sat with perfect posture on the sofa across from the large marble fireplace in the elegant room. Caleb had balked, thinking she looked more like a doll than a person. She was boney and it was clear her face could be harsh underneath the thin veil of beauty. She’d been staring at the big oil portrait of his mother hanging over the fireplace, her eyes hard and calculating as they roamed over it. Caleb remembered hating that she had even laid eyes on it.

  Veronica had been startled by Caleb’s booming voice, but quickly regained her composure and spoke in a sickly, sweet tone. He had glared at her quickly, and then looked away to lock eyes with his father. He could see through her ploy like a freshly washed window.

  “Now, Caleb, I’m sure—” she began.

  Caleb’s head snapped around in her direction again. His overly long hair, getting in his eyes, as he impatiently pushed it off his forehead. “Was I talking to you, bitch?” he yelled, his face was red; the skin on his face felt as if it were on fire, his heart beating so fast it felt like it would fly from his chest.

  “You can be sure of nothing; other than I hate your skinny ass! This is my mother’s house! Get the fuck out!”

  “Caleb!” Edison shouted back. “Veronica is my wife! You will treat her with respect! She and—”

  It was bad enough that his father hadn’t been present in his son’s life for the two years since Celine had died, but to bring in this… whore. Caleb couldn’t take it. He felt as if his mother was dying all over again, and his father, cold as stone; didn’t give a damn. The pressure inside his chest was debilitating.

  His throat had tightened and his eyes welled with angry tears.

  “The hell I will!” Caleb’s voice cracked with emotion. “Your wife is in Lakeland Cemetery! You’re dishonoring Mom, Dad! You reduce yourself to this—? This piece of sh—!” He indicated the woman sitting on the sofa, but his father interrupted.

  “Enough!” His father bellowed, but after a beat, his demeanor had returned to the cold, dead-like lack of emotion that Caleb was used to. “I understand you’re upset, Caleb. I should have prepared you. But it is what it is, and you have to accept it. It’s good for the business and in everyone’s best interest. I’m your father, and you’ll conduct yourself in the way your family name demands. I don’t have to ask your permission and your mother would want—”

  One frustrated tear slipped from Caleb’s eye and he’d quickly wiped it away. Unwilling to show any weakness, he turned his back on his father and Veronica, the helplessness he felt nearly crushing. “Fuck you, both.”

  He’d seen Wren for the first time, then, and he’d stopped short, embarrassed to be seen crying. The small, timid girl cowering near the doorway between the drawing room and the foyer, had been dressed all in black, her unnaturally black hair cropped in a short, but shiny bob, and her eyes almost completely hidden by black eyeliner. He’d sniffed and used the back of his hand to wipe at his nose, squared his shoulders and calmed his voice.

  “You don’t give a shit about my best interest, just like you didn’t give a shit about what my mother needed! You are not my father!” he shouted and walked from the room, past the gothic-looking girl hovering uncertainly in the doorway.

  “Caleb!” His father’s voice boomed behind him, but he’d only lifted both of his hands to flip the double bird from behind.

  Not his finest moment, in retrospect. Especially considering Wren was watching everything.

  It was a few weeks later, right after he’d gotten his driver’s license with the help of the housekeeper and his father’s friend, that he’d pulled a few grand from the bank account his mother had set up for him before she died and bought a used motorcycle against Edison’s wishes. He spent hours and hours fixing it up. When it was running, he stayed out until a
ll hours, resentful that he had to go home to that God-forsaken house at all.

  He blew off all his preppy friends and started hanging out with a different crowd, picking anyone his father would consider the most undesirable, or morally repugnant. He skipped school, stole a few cars, and got arrested twice. If it annoyed Edison Luxon, cost him money, or otherwise disrupted his carefully controlled life, the better Caleb liked it. Payback was a bitch.

  Caleb met his best friend at a wrestling match and the rest was history. Caleb was into motorcycles and Dex’s dad owned a local motorcycle shop and they spent a ton of time hanging out there after school. Dex was everything Caleb wasn’t; tattooed, tough, and loyal to his dad. He was a couple years older and had taken Caleb under his wing. He helped him fix up an old beater bike, and introduced him into a regional fight club, which quickly consumed him. Soon Caleb was muscular and strong, and Dex was like the older brother Caleb never had. The fighting helped Caleb deal with all of his personal issues. Somehow beating the shit out of someone helped ease his internal turmoil and gave him an outlet for the hatred and anger that had overtaken his reason.

  The money he made when he won was a bonus, but even better, his father abhorred his fighting. Edison’s disapproval spurred Caleb on and he smugly displayed every black eye, cut lip, or set of bruised knuckles just to taunt his father. He never lost a fight and sometimes he imagined the person he was pummeling was Edison. It helped, if only for a few minutes.

  When Edison married Veronica, Caleb was well entrenched in his new life and wasn’t home much. He learned in the months following, that Veronica’s thirteen-year-old daughter Wren was a dramatically stark contrast to her mother. Veronica was loud and intrusive, beautiful and aloof, and the girl was quiet, wore dark, shapeless clothing, and always had her eyes completely camouflaged by the overabundance of black eye makeup. She kept entirely to herself, and Caleb thought her name didn’t suit her at all. She looked like a witch, not a beautiful bird.

  Wren barely spoke, and hardly ate. He barely knew she was in the house unless Veronica was shrieking at her. His mind had written her off as a freak, and he decided to stay as far away from both of the women as he possibly could. He couldn’t bear his father, he couldn’t bear his new stepmother making changes to the house as if trying to erase his mother’s memory, and he had no tolerance for the quiet girl who haunted the house like a dark ghost.

  The girl had been enrolled into the private school Caleb attended, but didn’t fit in at all. The uniform was at odds with her emo style and she didn’t make any friends. The preppy bastards there had a hay day making fun of her, but even the crowd of misfits and delinquents Caleb hung with after school, thought she was weird. But then, everything changed.

  Caleb let out a deep sigh at the sudden pain the memory caused.

  “Ugghhhh!” he muttered under his breath. “What the hell am I doing here?” Though his father had unexpectedly tried to make amends years later, their relationship was never close. Now, since the old man was dead, what the hell was the point? That house was already haunted and this new ghost was far less significant to Caleb than that of his mother, or his memories of Wren.

  Still, Caleb put one foot in front of the other and plodded forward. Everything was a blur as he made his way through Denver International Airport. The noise of planes, announcements, and the massive crowds of people rushing to get to and from their gates, all melded together in an annoying, white noise haze.

  He was tired. Exhausted. His mind flashed with memories, and his heart seized with apprehension. Would Wren come home? Would he see her? He was both anxious and terrified. Everything was so screwed up. It had been for the past five years, since the spring break before he graduated college. He’d fucked it up, huge, and then, impossibly, made it even worse. What his father started, he’d managed to finish.

  His head throbbed and his eyes burned from lack of sleep as he walked toward the exits, pulling his one small roller bag behind him. He was tall like his father, his shoulders broad and his body ripped and strong, but his eyes were like his mother’s; such a deep blue they sometimes hinted of violet. Caleb squinted in the morning sun as he left the building. The bright June weather was beautiful, the sun’s warmth kissed by a light northern breeze, and the lapis sky loaded with cottony white clouds. The Colorado climate was moderate, even in the dead of winter or the height of summer; the low humidity made the temperature feel more comfortable than the thermometer belied.

  Caleb pulled his sunglasses off the back of his head and shoved them on. He knew he looked like a slob and he didn’t care. After all, his father wouldn’t be able to ridicule his appearance this time. As morbid as that might be, it was something.

  Coming back to Colorado didn’t leave Caleb riddled with memories of his father, or even his mother, but instead, thoughts of a crying young girl, begging him not to leave her just before his nineteenth birthday. His thoughts continued to flood with images of another time when her tears ripped him to shreds when he’d said “no” to the only thing she’d ever asked of him. That girl, and the beautiful woman she’d become, was all he could think about.

  Caleb swallowed at the tightness in his throat. He’d gone from avoiding her at all costs, to having her clinging and crying when he tried to say goodbye without losing it himself… and then she was the one to leave him, once and for all. The memory still cut like a knife.

  Raising his right arm to hail one of the passing taxies, Caleb climbed inside when it stopped in front of him and let his bag land on the seat next to him. The cab reeked of cigarette smoke, but once he was securely inside he closed his eyes and leaned his head back onto the seat, forgetting to give the driver directions.

  “Where to?” The cab driver asked in a raspy voice that, along with the odor, confirmed he smoked about two packs a day. Caleb cracked the window to hopefully alleviate the stench, and looked out at the Rocky Mountains in the background. They were majestic as they rose from the western horizon, creating layers upon layers in different shades of green and brown, fading into a haze the further away they were, with the snowcapped peaks of higher elevations; like their crowning glory.

  Caleb raised his head and his eyelids fluttered open. “Um…” He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to go to the estate in Downtown Denver or the one in Evergreen. He pulled out his phone and found the text from the secretary of his father’s lawyer. Downtown, it said. “530 South University.”

  The cabby whistled. “The Polo Club area?”

  It was an affluent collection of old and new money; the houses all valued at several million dollars with substantial grounds, especially for the center of the city. It was minutes to his father’s office, which had amazing views of downtown and the Front Range. The stone house was magnificent, though it didn’t matter that it was a beautiful property. It was nothing more than a huge museum or mausoleum to Caleb; just a cold and empty shell.

  “Yes.” Caleb didn’t feel like elaborating. He was staring at the phone in his hand, his thumb automatically sifting through his contacts until Wren’s name appeared on the list. He sucked in his breath. Should he call her? The last time he’d spoken to her had been Christmas Day for ten minutes, and the conversation had been painfully stilted.

  The taxi pulled away from the curb and merged into traffic. The estate was a good thirty minutes or more from the airport, depending on traffic.

  He sighed and put his phone back on the clip on his belt.

  “Are you just visiting, or is Denver your home?” the driver asked.

  Caleb considered this. He hadn’t considered this house his home since his mother died. “Just visiting. I grew up here, though. My father died yesterday.” His response was devoid of emotion and short.

  “Oh,” the cabby paused, feeling awkward that his questions brought up such a subject. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Thank you,” Caleb’s voice showed no sorrow or regret. He was so tired, he should try to sleep on the drive but he had little trust that th
e driver would take the most efficient route, and though his father was dripping in money, he wasn’t. He had plans to start a business of his own, and he had to save every cent he could because he didn’t want to rely on his father’s last name, money or connections.

  It wasn’t that his father hadn’t tried; he sent him a check every week for five years, but Caleb never opened a single one of them. Instead, he shoved them all in the biggest drawer in the kitchen of his apartment, always meaning to burn them, but not quite getting around to it. They sat in the drawer, as if leaving them untouched would allow him to forget things he didn’t want to think about. It was just easier. But some things were harder to forget, even when he pushed them down.

  He glanced out the window, watching the industrial areas of east Denver pass as they made their way toward the city center. Denver was beautiful to the west, north, and south, but between the airport and the city, it was less appealing.

  “Where did you come in from?”

  “San Francisco.”

  “I’ve never been there.”

  “It’s really beautiful. I love the bay, but this...” Caleb watched the Rocky Mountains get closer and realized how much he missed them. When he was very young, his mom and dad would take him on camping and fishing trips in the national forest, and skiing at Breckenridge, Aspen, and Keystone. Before his mother got sick, his father had been a different person, and those were happy memories.

  “The Rockies are so magnificent. Too bad about all this industrial shit out here.” The backdrop was breathtaking, but what populated along the highway, between the airport and further into the city was dirty and unkempt; a succession of junk yards, dilapidated buildings, and litter. “Sad.”

  “Yes. I’ve lived here my entire life. I’ll never leave Colorado.”

  Caleb didn’t answer, wondering if the new law that legalized weed had anything to do with the driver’s love of the state. Coming home stirred a lot of memories and he preferred to let his thoughts drift rather than engage in superficial conversation.