Stone Cold Charade (A Stone Family Novel) by Kathleen Royce Page B

suspected.
    Alex didn’t want to be just another page
in Ty’s history of women he’d slept with. If she worked with him, she would
make it perfectly clear that being in his bed was the last place she wanted to
find herself. This was about her getting back to her vacation, nothing more.
    Trying to calm her sister, Sam chose a
safer topic. “When is the band arriving? Maybe you should call Steven and give
him the heads up regarding our new house guests?” she said, jerking her blond
head toward the right, indicating the general direction of the barn. “Oh, from
the conversation earlier, I gather Ty doesn’t know anything about Fire, which
is good, but why does he believe you flew in from L.A.?”
    “Because of Max I suppose. He told him
that’s where I live,” Alex said, shrugging her shoulders. “Maybe it’s because I
do spend about a month out of the year there when I'm cutting an album, and
five minutes everywhere else. I have no home except where my suitcase is. I own
houses, three to be exact, but I’m never in residence. I’m always on the road
somewhere or in some hotel suite,” she said flippantly.
    “Maybe you should slow down. You do look
like you could use a break. You do have more awards then even the Smithsonian!
You could make a car out of them, if you ever got desperate. Just melt them
down. You even have an Academy Award for that song you did for that big
blockbuster last year,” she said, laughing.
    Sam was joking, but she was also very
serious. Alex had been working sixteen-hour days, almost from the very
beginning of her lustrous career. She refused to slow down. It was as if she
was chasing some imaginary demon. The last time Alex slowed down was last year
when she came to the ranch for her yearly vacation, which consisted of writing
her last album. But, at least on the ranch Alex could be herself. She suspected
Alex had the same plan in mind for this vacation, work.
    “I can’t slow down. If I did, Max would
have nothing to complain about. I have to deposit at least a couple million in
the bank every year or Max would be greatly disappointed. He’d miss his annual
ambulance ride to the hospital! The doctors and nurses just love it so when he
arrives complaining of chest pains. Besides, I think the heart doctor is trying
to paying off his brand new Jaguar with the extra money he makes from all of
Max’s supposed heart attacks! We wouldn’t want to let him get backed up on
payments!”
    Sam tried not to laugh at her
grandfather’s expense, but oh, the man deserved it! Sam knew, like Alex, that
Max was the one in the family that should have considered becoming the performer.
Max had a way of over stating his point to the very extreme.
    “Alex, I know you have issues with Ty,
but I think you’re being selfish,” Sam lectured in all seriousness.
    “I am not. I never said you couldn’t
hate him too,” Alex replied, deadpan.
    Trying not to laugh, and continuing as
though she hadn’t been interrupted, “Ty is the closest thing I have to a
brother. I’ve regretted not having him in my life, and this is my chance to
make amends for the past. And, I still think you should reconsider your relationship,
the sparks were definitely flying between the two of you at dinner,” she said
knowingly. “He cared about you very much at one time, more than he did about
any of us.” Sam stated in earnest.
    “Oh, I know he cared, just not in the
way you think. I was just a joke to him. Just a child he had to deal with and
humor so he could get a pay check,” she said with conviction.
    “If you believe that, then you never
really knew Ty. Alex you were special to him, we all saw it. Just like we all
saw how in love you were with him. As for money, he never took a penny from us
that he didn’t earn. Trust me, I know. Emma tried to give Ty some money once,
to pay for Jenny’s school clothes. He refused vehemently.” Sam knew she needed
the brutal truth.
    Ty refusing money he didn’t earn