Kitabı oku: «The Men of Mayes County», sayfa 4

It was weird, how Blair thought Libby was so pretty and perfect—well, except for her crooked teeth, but even they weren’t that bad—yet Libby said she’d give anything to be tall and skinny like Blair, and to have red hair like hers, that her own was just this boring old brown.

“What happened to your real mom?” Libby now said, climbing over a post-and-rail fence to plop down in a shady area about halfway between the farm and the motel. The housekeeper had given the girls a sack filled with sandwiches and fruit. And bottles of water. Libby had said her dad didn’t want the kids drinking a lot of pop and stuff. “I mean, how’d she die?”

“Oh.” Blair followed her, clumsily, dusting off her butt before sinking onto the grass beside her, which gave her time to decide how much of the truth to reveal. “A drug overdose.”

Libby stopped rummaging in the lunch bag to look up. “No way?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Wow.” Libby pulled out an apple and swung the bag toward Blair, who shook her head. She was too hot to eat. Libby, however, took a huge bite of the green apple, chewing thoughtfully for a couple seconds. Then she said, “I knew a boy over in Pryor who died from drugs. My friend Heather’s cousin.” She crunched into the fruit again, talking around the mouthful. “I never knew a grown-up who died from them, though.”

“Rock stars and stuff die from them all the time.”

“Oh, yeah, huh?” Libby made a face at the apple. “Yuck. It’s all mushy.” When she reared back to hurl it into the cornfield, Blair could see the high, round bumps of Libby’s breasts. She didn’t care what Libby said, she wanted some of her own. Maybe if she looked more like a woman, Jenna would stop treating her like a child.

“I’m never gonna do drugs,” Libby said. “They’re stupid. Besides, I wanna live to be a hundred….” She grabbed Blair’s arm, cocking her head. “You hear that?”

“What?”

“Coming from the blackberry bushes over there…c’mon!”

Libby scrambled to her feet and took off. Blair followed, thinking Libby had gone nuts…until she, too, heard the frightened whimpering. Seconds later, they reached the wide clot of bushes strangling the fence farther down the road; Libby fell to her knees, then let out a small cry. “It’s a puppy! He’s all caught up in the bushes!”

“Where? Let me see!” Blair dropped to all fours as well, her insides pinching at the sight of the black pup, so scared you could see the whites of his eyes. His high-pitched yips made Blair feel sick.

“We’ve gotta get him out of there!” Without thinking, Blair grabbed for the branches to pull them away, only to let out a shriek of pain herself. “Ouch! Dammit!”

“We’ve gotta get help,” Libby said. “If we try to get him out ourselves, we’ll end up worse off’n him.” She sat back on her knees and squinted over her shoulder. “It’s closer to the motel than back to the farm—c’mon!”

Before Blair could protest, Libby had already taken off toward the Double Arrow, giving Blair no choice but to follow. Her feet pummeling the dirt, Libby looked over as they ran. “Your aunt know you cuss?”

“Are you kidding?” Blair said, Libby’s breathless giggles mingling with the puppy’s rapidly fading squeals of pain and fear.

Jenna had just sat down with her laptop when the girls burst into the cottage, both babbling about a puppy caught in some blackberry bushes and they couldn’t get him out and she needed to come right away and did they have anything they could cut the branches with?

Refusing to let the girls’ panic infect her, Jenna ditched her reading glasses and got up from the table, shoving her feet into her abandoned espadrilles. “I bet Mr. Logan’ll have something we can use—”

“No! Don’t ask him!”

Already at the door, Jenna frowned at Blair. Not that she didn’t see Blair’s point—she could just imagine Hank’s reaction at being asked to rescue a puppy. Still— “I don’t think we have any choice, honey. I don’t even have a pair of gardening gloves, and toenail clippers are no match for blackberry bushes.”

Several minutes later, they found Hank at one of the other cottages, replacing some rotten floorboards in the porch. This time, the girls hung back and let Jenna do the talking. Not surprisingly, Hank frowned. But not for the reasons Jenna would have expected.

“Where is it?” he asked the girls.

“Just down the road a ways,” Libby said, dancing from foot to foot. “You know, where all those bushes are?”

“Yep, sure do.” He hoisted himself to his feet, clunking his hammer back into his toolbox. “Go on back to where he is. I’ll met you there.” Then he stopped, looking directly into first one set of frightened eyes, then the other. “Hey,” he said softly, then reached out and tugged on Libby’s ponytail. “It’s gonna be all right, you hear?”

Libby nodded, then grabbed Blair’s hand—Blair was standing gawking at Hank as if he’d just admitted his Martian citizenship—and yanked her after her.

“You…rescue puppies?” Jenna said, afraid she was gawking nearly as badly as Blair had been.

“From time to time.” Hank grabbed his toolbox and lumbered down the steps. As he passed her, his mouth twitched. “They’re real tasty this time of year.”

By the time Hank got there, Jenna wasn’t sure who was more frantic, the girls or the puppy. Her knees screamed from all the little stones and things embedded in them from kneeling in front of the bushes, as she yammered in baby talk in the vain hope of keeping the poor little thing from wriggling and getting himself even more tangled up. She’d also tried prying apart the branches with a pair of sticks, but they were hopelessly entwined.

“Move over,” grunted a low voice from behind her.

Between the girl’s moans and the pup’s squeals, she hadn’t heard the truck pull up. “Be my guest.”

“Hey, little guy,” Hank said gently, pulling on a pair of thick leather workgloves, then picking up a pair of rose clippers. “How on earth did you manage to get yourself stuck in there?”

All the while he clipped, he prattled to the little dog, who finally quieted down, transfixed by the sound of Hank’s voice. At one point, Jenna glanced over at the girls, on whom that voice seemed to be having a similar effect. Blair, especially, her arms wound over her middle, shot a look at Jenna that was equal parts wonder and confusion. The last branch snipped, Hank reached in for the puppy, cradling the shaking thing in his large, gloved hand, carefully inspecting the tiny black body for injuries. And just as his harsh features softened, as his perpetual frown gave way to a genuine smile when the pup eagerly licked his scruffy chin, so did something inside Jenna.

The girls, naturally, were right there, both cooing and oohing over the little thing. “Is…he okay?” Blair asked, her voice tense with caution, her gaze flicking to Hank’s for only an instant.

“Far as I can tell. A few scratches, maybe, but nothing major. My guess is he’s been abandoned, though. There’s no collar, and he’s pretty skinny.” Cupping the dog’s butt, Hank twisted him around in his hands and looked him in the eye. “You out on your own, Bubba?”

The dog started wagging his tail so hard, he nearly wriggled right out of Hank’s hands. He laughed, then glanced over at Libby, scratching the pup’s ears. “Your daddy’s got some antiseptic we could put on him, doesn’t he?”

“Uh-huh,” Libby said. “But then what?”

Hank looked at the pup, then at the girls, before lifting up the dog and looking him straight in his big, brown eyes. A tiny pink tongue darted out, desperate to make contact with Hank’s nose. This time, Hank’s laughter sent a tingle straight through Jenna, one that settled right at the base of her heart.

“I can’t take him,” Blair said, a little wistfully. “Meringue would have a fit.”

“Not to mention I would,” Jenna thought it prudent to add.

Libby giggled as the pup tried to nibble on her finger. “I can’t take him, either. Daddy says we already have too many pets.”

After a long moment, Hank said, “Well, then. I guess that makes him mine.” He pretended to glower at the girls. “But y’all have to name him. I’m terrible at naming things.”

The girls thought that was a good idea. Then Libby remembered their lunch—apparently that’s what was in the Wal-Mart bag by the side of the road—and thought the pup might like part of her ham sandwich, which he did. Then, of course, they had to take the pup back to Libby’s to show him off and get the antiseptic put on him, even though he was going to be Hank’s dog. After they’d left, Hank offered to drive Jenna back to her cottage, since he said it seemed stupid for her to walk back when he had the truck right here.

The ride took all of two minutes, which wasn’t nearly enough time for Jenna to process even half of her thoughts about what had just happened, let alone all of them. But she did think to ask him why he’d taken the dog.

“Why not?” He scrubbed a hand across his hair, which didn’t do a thing for his coiffure. “Maybe it’s time I had something else to talk to at night besides myself, y’know?”

His words echoed painfully in her own sparsely furnished heart as they pulled up in front of the cottage. Jenna got out of the truck, then turned, her arms tightly tucked over her stomach as she peered back inside through the passenger-side window.

“Thanks,” she said.

Slouched in his seat, his right hand still loosely gripping the steering wheel, Hank looked at her, his brows knotted for a second or two. Then, with a sigh, they relaxed. “I might prefer keeping to myself most of the time, Ms. Stanton, but I’m not an ogre.” He hesitated, then added, “I’m sorry if I gave you that impression.”

After a moment, unable to think of a single, even minimally intelligent thing to say, she nodded, then ran up the porch steps to the relative safety of the cottage, away from the yearning in those dark eyes she doubted he even knew was there. But once back inside, as she stood at the front window, watching him one-handedly steer the truck back down the drive and replaying the past half hour in her head, she knew there was no reason not to tell Hank Logan he had a daughter.

Now all she had to do was figure out how.

The girls had brought the as-yet-unnamed puppy back about an hour later, then stayed to play with him out in front of the office. Which is where they still were, giggling their heads off and generally driving Hank nuts, when Cal showed up, somewhere around four. The door was open, so Hank saw his brother squat down to play with the dog—Cal had always had a way with animals, which is what made him such a damn good horse breeder, Hank supposed—exchange a few words with the girls, then stand and head for the office. Hank also saw a bunch of albums and envelopes and what-all tucked under his brother’s arm.

Oh, Lord.

“Hey.” Wearing that cocky grin of his, Cal walked into the office, plunked his load onto the counter. “You got a dog?”

“Yeah, I got a dog. So?”

“Kinda small, don’t you think?”

“It’ll grow. What’s all this?”

“Ten minutes, Hank. That’s all I’m asking. Just go through it, keep whatever you want, I’ll take back the rest.”

“I don’t want any of it.”

Cal crossed his arms, his gaze almost fierce underneath his hat brim. “This is your family history, dammit,” he said, keeping his voice low. “It’s not gonna kill you to keep a couple mementos of it. And you wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I found up in the attic. Stuff I sure don’t remember ever seeing. Take this, for instance…” He riffled through the pile and extracted a tattered brown envelope, out of which he pulled an old tinted photograph in a cardboard photographer’s frames. Cal looked at it for a moment, then turned it around so Hank could see. “You ever see this before? It’s a picture of Mama when she was fourteen. I only ever knew her with gray hair, so this was a shock….”

It was a shock, all right. But for very different reasons. While Hank stood there, paralyzed, staring at the photograph, Blair came in, hugging the pup to her chest. “Libby’s gotta go home, and I said I’d walk her, so is it okay to leave the puppy here with you? I think he’s getting pretty tired.”

Slowly, Hank forced himself to look up from the photograph…into a face uncannily like the image in his hand. As he did, he caught Cal’s frown at his obviously flummoxed expression, then saw his brother’s gaze dart to Blair. Hank finally found his voice, told Blair, sure, go ahead and leave the pup. After she left, Cal pried the photo from Hank’s grip. “Holy sh—” He looked at Hank, confusion swimming in his eyes. “That is totally weird…Hank? Hey—you okay?”

Hank grabbed the photo out of Cal’s hand. “Watch the dog,” he muttered on his way out the door.

The pounding on the cottage door sent the cat streaking into her bedroom and shaved five years off Jenna’s life. Then Hank roared her name and irritation gave way to stark terror, that Blair was hurt, that a forest fire was bearing down on the motel—

She yanked open the door, recoiling at the fury blazing in Hank’s eyes. Before she got her mouth open, he thrust a photograph into her hand.

“That’s my mother, when she was fourteen. Look like anybody you know?”

Jenna blanched: it was all there—the red hair, the freckles, even the shape of the eyelids. “Oh dear God,” she whispered. “This could be—”

“Yeah. So how about you tell me what the hell is going on here?”

Chapter 4

Jenna swore, nausea swamping her as she sank onto the edge of the sofa, staring at the photograph. Look at him, her brain directed. Her eyes refused to obey.

“This isn’t exactly playing out the way I’d hoped it would,” she said.

“And what way might that be?”

His sarcasm knifed through her. Unable to breathe, to think, she looked up into a bitter, unforgiving gaze that turned her blood to ice. And yet from somewhere came the strength to bear the brunt of his anger.

“Look, you’ve got every right to be mad. Just not at me.”

“That’s for me to decide. Well?”

“Where’s Blair? I can’t risk her hearing any of this. Not yet.”

“She’s gone back to Libby’s for a minute.” He crossed his arms. “So talk fast.”

Still hanging on to the picture, Jenna got up, telling herself in a few minutes the worst would be over, that she should be grateful the decision had been wrested from her hands. Her mouth dry as dust, she went over to the sink for a glass of water. “It’s very possible that Blair’s your daughter.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“When my sister died,” she said, filling her glass from the tap, “she left a diary. According to an entry in it dated nearly fourteen years ago, you and she had a brief affair. An affair which left her pregnant.”

“That’s nuts. I never dated anyone named Stanton.”

“Not Stanton. That’s my married name. Hollins. Sandy Hollins.” As she gulped down her water, she watched him process this information. “Ring a bell?”

“Yeah. I remember Sandy. But you’ve got no proof I’m Blair’s father.”

“No, I don’t.” She picked up the photo from where she’d set it on the counter and handed it to him. “But you do.”

His gaze shot to hers; Jenna ached for the confusion in his eyes. “So why didn’t she tell me she was pregnant?”

“Sandy didn’t tell anyone she was pregnant. Until she showed up on my parents’ doorstep in her eighth month.” She paused. “She’d been using. The baby almost didn’t make it.”

He stared at her, hard, for several seconds, then walked over to the window, staring at his mother’s photograph in the light. There were a hundred things Jenna could have said. Not a single one of them would have made a bit of sense. So she waited.

“And you didn’t know about me until you read this diary?”

“No. I swear.”

“But that was…what was it you said? A few months ago?”

She almost smiled. “You don’t miss a single detail, do you?”

He didn’t smile back. “That’s why they paid me the big bucks.”

“It took a while to locate you,” she said and left it at that.

Hank was quiet for a moment or two, although Jenna could sense the tension writhing inside him. “Thought women were real funny about diaries. Reading someone else’s, I mean.”

“I wouldn’t have touched it while Sandy was alive, even if I’d known of its existence. But my sister was an enigma, to put it mildly.” She sighed. “Look, Blair thinks Sandy died from an overdose. Which is technically true. What she doesn’t know is that it was apparently deliberate.” Hank swore; Jenna went on. “So I thought maybe the diary would give me an insight or two into who the hell she was. Why she was so obviously unhappy. The last thing I expected was to stumble across a name she refused to reveal for thirteen years.”

Hank set the photograph on the table, then dragged his hand down his face. “I’m having a little trouble here…”

“I can understand that—”

“Understand?” he roared, wheeling on her as the lid blew off his emotions. Meringue sailed out of the bedroom and up onto the back of the sofa, where she pawed at Hank’s arm, mewing in distress. He ignored her. “Like hell you understand! Can you even begin to imagine what it’s like to suddenly discover you’ve got a kid? That you’ve been a father for thirteen freakin’ years and nobody told you? Dammit to hell—” he slammed his fist into the top of the sofa, sending the cat bolting from the room again, then jabbed a pointed finger in Jenna’s direction “—I’ve never shirked a responsibility in my life and damned if I would have this one! I would’ve taken care of Sandy and the baby! I probably would’ve married her, if that’s what she’d wanted.”

Her pulse beating painfully at the base of her throat, Jenna waited a second until the dust settled, twisting her wedding rings around and around her finger. “Did you love her?”

He flinched. “Well…no. Hell, I don’t think we were together two weeks before she took off.”

“Then why would you have married her?”

“What is this, a trick question?”

Jenna had to tamp down the urge to laugh, to release the tension threatening to explode inside her skull. “She knew you were a cop?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I imagine it must’ve killed her to keep clean for two whole weeks. Or at least to have kept it from you.”

His rage spent—at least for the moment—Hank let out a huge sigh, and another curse, before dropping onto the sofa in the same spot where Jenna had been sitting minutes before.

“None of this makes a lick of sense,” he said.

“Yeah, well, making sense wasn’t Sandy’s strong suit. Nor was being tied down. Which was one of the reasons I was leery of even following through on this, once I found out.”

His eyes lifted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“My sister wasn’t exactly…discriminating. To be blunt, when Sandy refused to tell us who the father was, I assumed it was because she didn’t know. Even when I saw the name in her diary, I couldn’t be sure if she’d put it there because you really were Blair’s father, or because yours was the only name she actually remembered.”

That cold, dark gaze speared hers. “But you’re here anyway.”

“Yes.”

“Why? For money?”

“No. I do well enough to provide for Blair, and my parents set up a college fund for her when she was a baby. She can go anyplace that’ll accept her. But I’m all Blair has. If anything happens to me, there’s nobody else. And once I did know, or thought I knew, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I didn’t at least investigate the possibility of introducing the two of you to each other.” When, like a storm gathering new strength, annoyance flared in his eyes, she said, “Hey, I’ve raised Blair since she was a baby. I didn’t—don’t—know you from Adam. So what was I supposed to do—just put the two of you together and say, ‘Hey, guess what, kid—this is your father’? I’m not going to apologize for being cautious.”

His eyes narrowed. “You sicced a P.I. on me?”

“Yes. I’m not going to apologize for that, either.”

“I don’t expect you to. But if you did, you knew before you got here I was clean.”

“I knew what you were, yes. But I didn’t know who you were.”

He seemed to process that for a moment, then asked, “You were going to ask me to be tested?”

“I suppose. I hadn’t gotten that far.”

Their gazes tangled for several more seconds before Hank got up and walked over to the door, then out onto the porch, his expression shellshocked. Jenna followed him outside; from around the bend, they could hear Blair coming up the path, her sweet, light soprano giving the birdsong some stiff competition. Tears burned Jenna’s eyes, that her niece had no sooner begun to get her bearings out here than she was about to have her world turned upside down all over again.

“Now what do we do?” Hank asked, his voice strained.

“Nothing for the moment.” Jenna hesitated, then touched Hank’s arm, warm and strong and rough under her fingers, startled at the impulse that rocketed through her, to wrap her arms around him, to hug him through this as she might have a child. “Not until you’ve had some time to deal with this on your own first.”

He nodded, his focus riveted on his daughter. “Dammit, Jenna…I don’t know a blamed thing about teenaged girls.”

Jenna felt her lips curve. “Does anybody?”

Hank glanced at her, the anguish in his eyes nearly taking her under before he clomped down the steps…and past his daughter without saying a word.

Okay…what was up with Jenna touching Mr. Logan?

Just like that, Blair’s good mood disintegrated. She tucked her arms against her ribs and stamped up the porch steps. When she got close enough, she could see that Jenna’s cheeks were all pink, like she was excited or something.

“What’s going on, Jenna?”

Her aunt jerked, her cheeks getting even redder. “What are you talking about—?”

“Why was Mr. Logan here?”

“To…make sure the plumbing was working okay. Why else?”

“Then why’d you have your hand on his arm?”

Jenna laughed then, but it sounded like there was too much air in it. “Oh, for pity’s sake…so I touched him? That doesn’t mean we’re engaged, sweetie.”

Oh, Jenna was trying to stay cool, but Blair could tell something was up. It was, like, so obvious that Jenna was keeping something from her. Something big. She had the same look on her face she’d had for all those months before she’d told Blair that Uncle Phil was sick, that stupid fake-happy look grown-ups wear when they don’t think you can handle the truth.

Blair banged back the screen door and stormed inside, hauling Meringue up into her arms and carrying her into her room, where she climbed up onto her bed, her legs crossed. Meringue immediately started purring and kneading Blair’s shorts, but she only half noticed. Her eyes burned—what if Jenna did like Mr. Logan? What if he started staying over at night, like DeAnna’s mom’s boyfriends did? What if—her stomach pitched—what if Jenna fell in love with Mr. Logan and they got married? And then Blair and Jenna would have to move here permanently?

Blair started to rock, hugging Meringue to her. Oh, God. OhGodohGodohGod…

At Jenna’s knock on her partially open door, Blair swiped her hand across her nose, except then she sneezed five times in a row because like half the cat’s fur was stuck to her face.

“Here,” Jenna said, handing her a tissue box. Then she sat on the edge of her bed, her forehead all creased. “Honey…what on earth are you so upset about?”

Blair blew her nose, took a deep breath and said, “Promise me you won’t marry Mr. Logan?”

Jenna looked like she was about to choke. “You’re jumping to this conclusion because of what you just saw?”

“I never saw you touch anybody else. Not since Uncle Phil died.”

“Blair, for heaven’s sake…who would that have been? I hardly even go out, unless it’s to take you someplace.”

Blair shrugged, her chin in her hand as she dragged her fingers through Meringue’s fur, watching the way it clumped into rows.

“In any case, cutiepie,” Jenna said, hugging her with one arm, “it’s not something you need to worry your pretty little head about. I barely know the man. And, well, let’s just say he’s not the type I’ve ever been attracted to.” When Blair looked over at Jenna, she reached up and smoothed Blair’s hair away from her face. “Even if I were interested in another relationship. Which I’m not.” She leaned back, searching Blair’s face, which made Blair nervous. “And what have you got against Mr. Logan, anyway?”

Now it was Blair’s turn to choke. “Where would you like me to start?”

“Hmm. I don’t recall you thought he was so horrible a little while ago when he was rescuing the puppy.”

That tripped her up, but only for a second. “Yeah, well, you saw the way he just walked right past me a little while ago and didn’t say anything, like he couldn’t get away fast enough.”

“And maybe that didn’t have anything to do with you,” Jenna said quietly, after a second. “Maybe he was…pre-occupied.”

“And maybe he’s just rude. And what does it matter to you, anyway, what I think about him? I mean, you don’t like him, either.”

“Just because I don’t want to marry the man doesn’t mean I don’t like him. No, listen to me for a minute,” she added before Blair could say anything. “I do understand why you think what you do about Mr. Logan. But I also know it’s all too easy sometimes to base our opinions of people on misperceptions. If there’s one thing my advanced years have taught me—”

Geez, Blair thought, ducking her head to pick at the polish on her big toenail, why did grown-ups always talk about how old they were?

“—it’s that people who are rude or mean are often pretty unhappy about something. That doesn’t necessarily excuse their behavior, I’m not saying that. But it does help us to understand them. To maybe have a little compassion, you know?”

Then Jenna paused, clearly waiting for Blair to agree with her. She scratched a mosquito bite on her elbow. “Yeah. I guess.”

“Well. That’s all I’m trying to say. Now…I see there’s a grill outside—how about eggplant and peppers for dinner?”

Blair nodded.

“Good.” Jenna patted Blair’s knee, then stood up. “Come help me slice.”

“In a sec, okay?”

Her aunt watched her for a moment, then walked to the door, hugging herself the way she did when she was nervous. Then she twisted back around, the fake smile back in place. “By the way, I saw a DQ on the way into town. After dinner, how about we go get some Blizzards?”

Blair studied her aunt’s face, as if trying to suck the truth out of her. No matter what Jenna said, even if maybe she was telling the truth about Mr. Logan, Blair still felt all icky inside.

“Maybe we could get another one of those milk shakes from Ruby’s instead?”

The fake smile got more real. “You got it.”

Considering how wobbly her knees were, Jenna counted it as a miracle that she made it to the kitchen on her own steam. Aiyiyi…she’d never thought that fast on her feet in her life. Not that she’d lied about anything. Exactly. She could no more see herself seriously involved with Hank Logan than she’d expect antlers to sprout from her head. And the part about his being different from any man she’d ever been attracted to? No lie there. Jenna just hoped Blair’s ability to read between the lines wasn’t as highly developed as her math skills.

Dear Heavenly Father, Jenna thought as she dragged the veggies out of the refrigerator—however she and Hank were going to handle this, they’d better by a damn sight figure it out fast, because another session like that and she’d be toast.

She rinsed the eggplant under the faucet, allowing herself the indulgence of awareness, of the vegetable’s sponginess when she squeezed it, the smooth, cool texture and deep, rich color of its skin, the sensation of the breeze from the open window wicking the moisture from her wet hands. An odd, vaguely familiar ache spread through her bones, like what a hibernating creature must feel upon awakening in the spring—the remembrance, and maybe even the joy, of being alive.

There was a world beyond that of her own creation, she realized with a start. One she’d virtually ignored for more than three years.

One that now beckoned for her return.

Frowning, she thwonked the knife through the eggplant.

“What the hell do you mean, Blair’s my niece?”

Leaning against the hood of Cal’s truck, a Marlboro dangling from his fingers, Hank wondered if his own expression was half as flummoxed as Cal’s was right now. “Just what I said.” He took a drag of the cigarette, hissed out a stream of smoke, even as he realized there wasn’t enough nicotine in the world to ease the panic knotted in his chest. “Wasn’t a coincidence, her looking like Mama’s picture.”

Far overhead, a hawk let out its hunting cry. Cal leaned up against the truck, too, his arms crossed. “You mean to tell me you knocked up Jenna Stanton’s sister fourteen years ago and you’re just now getting wind of it?”

“Blair’s mother didn’t seem to think I’d be interested in that bit of information.” Then he filled his brother in on the rest of it. What Jenna had told him, anyway, about the diary and her not knowing, either, until that point. Under normal circumstances, Hank probably wouldn’t have told either of his brothers—or anybody, for that matter—about any of this until he’d settled it down in his own head a bit more first. But Cal had basically nagged it out of him. And now his baby brother let out a nice, juicy cuss word.

“That about covers it,” Hank said, thinking he had to admit, it eased things some, being able to tell someone else.

“This somebody you were serious about?”

Hank sucked in a sharp breath, then felt his mouth twist. “I was twenty-five, Cal. I wasn’t lookin’ to settle down at that point. Wasn’t looking for much of anything, I suppose, other than somebody to make the nights a little less lonely. To tell you the truth…I can’t even really remember what she looked like.”