Ties That Bind . Amy Blankenship
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Indians?” Felicia batted her eyelashes and gave him a frightened look, leaning toward her new sugar daddy for protection. She’d really lucked out when such a rich older man had taken a fancy to her. If she played her cards right, she would never want for anything.
“What are you? Five?” Tristian reached up and turned his com-link off feeling nauseated and it wasn’t from the helicopter ride.
He rubbed his temple in annoyance at the headache he felt coming on… lately he had lost all tolerance for stupid people. Reaching into his pocket, he took out the small alcohol flask, only this one didn’t have alcohol in it. It was an Indian remedy for headaches that his friend Hunter had made him and it usually worked within minutes. He just hoped it was powerful enough to get rid of one caused by this stupid chopper and his dad.
He knew what his dad was up to. Felicia was probably in her mid-twenties and looked more like his dad’s trophy slut than a girlfriend. It was moments like this that made him glad he didn’t live with his father.
The whole situation still royally pissed him off. It wasn’t Angel’s fault that their parents couldn’t get along, so why did she have to leave her home? The divorce had angered him when he’d found out that the local judge had decided one child per parent. Since Angel had been sixteen and he’d been seventeen, they’d been separated against their will.
If he had known then what he knew now… he would have never let that happen. Because he hadn’t been smart enough to stop it… he hadn’t seen Angel in almost two years and that was why he’d made the mistake of meeting her at the airport today. He had missed her way too much.
The corners of his lips hinted at a wicked smile remembering that the very stupid local judge that had split him and his sister up had been killed in a freak accident a couple days after Angel had been forced to move away. Tristian shrugged it off as he glanced back at his sister. Up until then, they had lived at Sanctuary all their life.
He and Angel were Grandma Hart’s chosen favorites out of the seven grandchildren and things at Sanctuary had gotten even better when their grandfather had fallen down the stairs and broken his neck three years ago.
Tristian’s eyes hardened at the thought. They hadn’t shed a tear when it happened because neither he nor Angel could stand the old man. John Hart had been scary-mean… always glaring at them and saying hateful things when he thought no one was listening. Growing up, he and his sister had made it a game of avoiding their grandfather at all costs.
John Hart had always been the meanest to him… treating him different from his other grandchildren. Tristian stubbornly locked the memories away deciding the old man wasn’t worth the brainpower he was giving him.
His gaze traveled from his sister to her boyfriend Ashton Fox. It was the first time he had ever known her to have a boyfriend. Tristian kept his expression hooded as he looked the college prep over. From all the information he had gathered… Ashton seemed all right, and he hated that fact because he wanted Angel to move back to Sanctuary. That wouldn’t happen if she was enjoying her life out in California.
Ashton Fox was twenty years old but would turn twenty-one sometime this week… like he cared. Maybe he would throw him a birthday bash and let him get so drunk that he puked all over Angel… maybe that would help break their ties enough to get her to come home. If not, then he was sure between him, Hunter, and Ray… they could come up with something.
Tristian kept trying to think of more reasons not to like Ashton. He had even asked his uncle Robert, who was a lawyer, to give the guy a thorough background check. Robert Hart had confirmed that Ashton came from money… just not as much money as they did. Still, Tristian had to admit that it was enough to keep him from dating his sister just for her wealth.
He did however find out that Ashton Fox had a criminal record of some kind… but it was sealed tight. Robert had said it was probably something minor like drunk driving as a teen or something. Ashton was also going to school to be a doctor, even though he looked more like a walking ad for Calvin Klein Jeans with his platinum blonde hair tied back, tanned skin, and ice blue eyes.
Tristian frowned thinking if Ashton and Angel’s ages were closer, they could almost be twins… except for the fact that Angel’s hair was longer. Even now, they were both doing that smiling thing at each other and it was really starting to grate on his nerves. Tristian slumped in his seat and decided to look out the window.
He growled silently wondering which view was worse.
*****
Isabel Hart set her teacup down as she heard her private helicopter in the distance. She wanted to rush to the window and watch them come home but she stilled herself knowing she had a part to play this week… the frail grandmother that needed her family home with her.
She’d recently had a minor heart attack and it had been enough to persuade Malcolm and Angel to come home… even if it was only for the Fourth of July vacation. It almost made the frightening experience worth it. She’d even closed the resort down to outsiders and agreed with Tristian to allow the staff to take the week off so it would seem more like home for her family.
If she had her way, she would get her missing child and grandchild to move back to Sanctuary for good… even if she had to pretend she was dying just to get them to do it.
Her children had always lived here with their families. It was a tradition that Malcolm's divorce had broken. Her oldest son Robert had become a lawyer, marrying his high school sweetheart Dianne. They’d had twin boys Devin and Damien, who were now twenty years old and worked for her as trainers in the gym that covered a huge area of the ground floor of the resort.
She had to keep her eyes on Robert because he was a lot like his father… greedy and calculating. She was aware that he was already setting it up to dispute her Last Will and Testament when she died, even though she knew he wasn’t completely sure what the Will stated.
Little did Robert know that it wouldn’t do him any good… that Will was concrete in every way. She’d also stopped him from handling the paperwork for the resort when she’d caught him cooking the books and siphoning off some of the profits into one of his own accounts. He had become quite a disappointment to her over the last couple years.
Her second oldest child, her only daughter Carley, and her three children also lived here. But Carley was nothing like Robert.
Her little family was full of spoiled brats who thought they were better than everyone else because they lived off the trust funds she had set up for them. Tiffany was seventeen, Paris twenty-two, and Jason twenty. But she couldn’t really blame the children for their lazy ways when their mother was nothing but an alcoholic. Between the four of them, they’d run Carley’s poor husband off years ago.
It had been three years since her husband John had passed away, and then she lost Malcolm and Angel only a year later. John had been an overbearing man with a heavy hand and the truth was… she didn’t miss him at all. But with everyone else in the family so busy with their own lives, it had left Isabel lonely in her old age.
The only ones who really paid her any attention were Tristian and the two Indian boys that he and his sister were so fond of… Hunter and Ray Rawlins.
She didn’t really care what the rest of the family did… it was Angel and Tristian that were important to her. It didn’t bother her that one of the siblings wasn’t true blood… it was the heart that counted. When Tristian had been adopted, she had warned the other family members that if they ever told him about the adoption, they would be cut off and kicked out of Sanctuary without a second thought. So far the threat had held.
Tristian and Angel had no way of knowing it, but Sanctuary would one day belong only to them.
Glancing up, Isabel smiled inwardly seeing Lily Hart standing stiffly out in the flower garden. She had allowed Lily to continue living here when her son Malcolm had moved across the country. The only reason she had consented to the woman staying was to keep Angel returning as much as possible, and to keep Tristian living here.
As far as Isabel was concerned…