The way to Steel (SAMPLE)

Chapter 1 ~ Begin Again

...Paxton...

Two failed relationships in the past ten years, one romantic and one friendship. A proposal, a miscarriage, the funerals of five friends, a runaway cat, fired from my job and the sale of a house I never got to live in. This is what my life had ended up as, driving back home to my Daddy and Mammas in Gatwick County. The home of the world's biggest haystack, smallest minds and religious homemakers. Ten years since I had sworn to myself, I would never come back here and yet, here I was.

I'd just hit twenty-eight, and had lost the strength to start again.

Evan, the last ass that I was unfortunate enough to cross paths with, had stripped me of all ability to rise up from the ashes of my melted, disfigured and emotionally maimed life. Not just that, Nadia, my ex-boss and ex-friend, chose to vandalise my career for informing her about her husband propositioning me on her birthday - at their house - so now no publishing company will touch me with a ten-foot pole. I had lost it all, even the damn cat decided to skedaddle and abort this sinking ship.

"You're here; finally my baby is home, lord knows I missed you baby girl." My mother, the epitome of a country, god fearing, duck shooting, quilt making and apple pie baking dames. Her light brown tresses pinned back in a high ponytail with her soft brown eyes and her pink pouty lips. Even at her age, she was still stunning. She and my father married young - straight out of high school. She swears it wasn't because she was pregnant with me but the six and a half months later that I was born proves otherwise.

"Hey Mumma," my unenthusiastic and thickly unimpressed tone slithered out without filter or restraint.

"Baby, I can hear that tone, now you best remove that attitude before your father hears it." I stand there in the driveway blinking up at her, fantastic five fucking seconds and I'm in trouble.

"Mum, I'm twenty-eight."

"Hush, you will always be my baby." I can't help the images that swirl across my mind that resemble something of a very warped horror movie, consisting of me blowing my head apart with a handgun. Unfortunately, I never sought to obtain my gun licence, so there goes that idea.

"I just drove for thirty-six hours, across this damn country, and you're already on my case?" I loved my Mumma, I honestly did, but we had always had a somewhat 'undernourished' relationship. My Daddy, however, he and I used to see eye to eye on almost everything - used too.

I walked into the old colonial house at the top of the green grassy hill - once a place I loved, now a place I loathed. It had not changed since my days of running around and skinning knees. The same antique plates stacked on their stands in the china display cabinets the moment you enter the door. The hardwood floating floors looked freshly mopped, and the plush antique furniture sat unused in marked off sections of the house. After all these years, we still had to remain behind the rope, so as not to disturb the 'living areas' in case company showed up. Let's ignore the fact they are called 'living areas' for a reason, but in this house, 'living areas' were not to be lived in.

"Mumma, where's Daddy?"

"Where do you think, baby? In his study. Now, drop those bags off in your room before you say hi, okay?" She headed back to the kitchen in her pretty white, knee-length dress and flowery cooking apron.

I trudged upstairs, my pulse pumping and my heart rapidly beating in my chest. The last time I saw my father, the words 'I will never be back here again' graced my lips and ten years on - look where I am? I inwardly groaned at my 18-year-old self, god, was I delusional. I thought I had all the answers, I thought I was a big city fish, and this town was my restrictor. God was I wrong.