“I’ve been your mother’s lawyer for years. Little surprises me anymore.”
With that, he started to leave, and would have except for the sheriff coming in to tell Brand that he was being released—at least temporarily. “Don’t leave the river basin,” the sheriff said.
CHAPTER NINE
HOLDEN COULDN’T STAND the waiting. It gave him too much time to think, to worry, to mull over everything that he’d done in his life to bring it to this point. His fear for Holly Jo was a physical ache in his chest, as if his ruthless heart were attacking him.
Was it possible Brand had taken her? He picked up the sheet of paper with the DNA results that had been left in his mailbox. DNA didn’t lie. He knew that much. But Charlotte had. She must have known or at least suspected, and yet she’d never said a word.
More than thirty-some years ago. He’d never forgotten the times they’d made love. But had that been the last time? Or had there been another time? He tried to recall in the months after if Charlotte had tried to reach out to him.
He scoffed at the idea. She had gone back to hating him. But why wouldn’t she have used the pregnancy to destroy his marriage to Margie? As vindictive as she’d been over the years, why not use the son they’d made together against him?
“Are you all right?” Elaine touched his arm.
He flinched, then shook his head. “Sorry.”
“Still no word from the kidnapper?” she asked. He knew she’d been in the kitchen making food and drinks for the extra law officers monitoring the calls as well as keeping online surveillance on the mailbox at the end of the long drive.
“What is he waiting for?” Holden demanded.
Elaine shook her head. “Can I get you something to eat, to drink?”
He shook off her concern. “I’m fine.” He hadn’t meant to sound so terse, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m here if you need anything.”
He nodded and smiled, and the moment she left, he began to pace his office. He let his thoughts go back to Charlotte and his son. As upsetting as it was, it was far better than thinking about what might be happening to Holly Jo at this moment.
For the life of him, he still couldn’t get his head around the fact that he had another son. More than thirty-two years ago, Charlotte “Lottie” Stafford had been pregnant with a son—his son. He had proof, in black and white. Brand Stafford was his flesh and blood.
The truth was staring him in the face. Lottie had kept it from him. Worse, how could he not have noticed that Brand didn’t even resemble his brothers and sisters? The Stafford offspring were all blond with different shapes of green eyes.
Brand was dark blond with blue eyes. Holden’s own blue eyes.
He swore, wadding up the DNA results and throwing them across the room. He tried to remember when Brand might have been conceived. Clearly, they had both sneaked away and made love in secret. What had transpired after that? He couldn’t recall. It had been too many years ago. One thing he did remember, though. He and Lottie had both been married to someone else. Her to Rake Stafford, a man seventeen years her senior. Him to Margie. Lottie had a son, CJ, who was a toddler. He had a son as well, Treyton, who was about the same age.
Wasn’t that the time that he’d been ready to walk away from his marriage because he couldn’t live without Lottie? If so, why hadn’t he?
What had happened? Had he changed his mind? Or had Lottie? There’d been so many times when they’d both fought their feelings, their desires, their love, and pushed the other away. What was clear was that she’d lied to him. She’d become pregnant with his son and never told him. He frowned. Was that the time she told him that she never wanted to see him again?
His head ached as he tried to remember. She had to have known that if he had left Margie back then, he would have had to walk away from the ranch since his father was still alive and in charge of the place. He would have left destitute. His father would have disowned him. True, he and Lottie would have still had her ranch—if her husband, who’d been growing the place, didn’t fight her for it in court. The scandal would have rocked the community, and there were their young sons to think about.
Holden frowned as he realized that Lottie might have found out something he himself hadn’t known until later. His wife Margie was pregnant with their second son, Cooper. Was that why Lottie never told him that the child she was carrying was his?
He’d always thought that she’d never wanted to see him again because she could never forgive him for buckling under the demands of his father. Through marrying Margie Smith, Holden had been given part of the Smith Ranch, which quickly was added to the McKennas’ holdings. He’d never forgiven his father for forcing him to make that choice, a choice he had regretted—but then, he wouldn’t have his children.
As much as he’d loved Lottie, his marriage to Margie had been happy enough. She’d given him three sons and a daughter. She’d been a good, loving wife, even though she’d known that his heart had been elsewhere. Charlotte had gone on to have two daughters and three sons and had hated him ever since—with good reason. He’d been young and foolish. They both had, he realized now, and they’d hurt people they loved with their selfishness.
Had Charlotte planned to take this secret to her grave?
You have your own secrets, he reminded himself. Still, he couldn’t help being shocked and disillusioned as well as angry.
Brand Stafford was his son. What was he going to do about it? How could he not confront Charlotte? He rubbed a hand over his face. He still thought of her as his Lottie, but now he wondered what other secrets she’d kept from him. Was it possible she was behind Holly Jo’s kidnapping?
The sheriff had told him to sit tight, but Holden knew he had to see her. He had to hear why she never told him about Brand. He had to look into her eyes and ask her about Holly Jo. Only then would he know the truth.
CHAPTER TEN
“YOU BETTER HAVE gotten Brand released from jail,” Charlotte said after opening her ranch house door to find her lawyer standing there. With a sigh, she led him into the living room. It was never any good when Ian Drake showed up at her door. “It’s ludicrous that the sheriff thought he would kidnap that girl.”
Drake wiped his feet and stepped into the house with his usual solemn air. He’d been the family’s legal counsel for years. Tall, gray and dressed immaculately, he had an unmemorable face with an expression that seldom changed. She noticed with concern that he seemed uneasy.
“Brand’s been released, yes, but he’s still a suspect.”
“That makes no sense. If he was released—”
“A young woman named Birdie Malone provided him with an alibi,” Drake said. “The sheriff couldn’t hold him.”
For a moment, the name meant nothing to her since she knew no one by that name. Chest tightening, she remembered the private investigator who’d come to her house demanding information about Dixon Malone, the man she’d thought of as her ex-husband, although they’d never divorced. Dixon had disappeared years ago. She’d long since put him out of her mind. But the PI had mentioned that Dixon’s daughter had hired him. Had Charlotte even known he had a daughter?
When his body was found in the well near the ranch, the sheriff had questioned why she’d never bothered to try to find her second husband or have him declared dead after all these years—which made her look guilty of his murder. According to the coroner, Dixon had probably been at the bottom of that well since his disappearance that night so many years ago.
Vaguely, she now remembered her husband telling her that he had a daughter he wanted her to meet. Could this Birdie Malone be the daughter? “Who is this woman?” she demanded of Drake, hoping she was wrong.
“A child your second husband had out of wedlock a little over thirty-two years ago,” he said.
She closed her eyes and tried to breathe. Dixon’s daughter, just as she’d feared. “Why would this woman give Brand an alibi?” When Drake didn’t answer, she opened her eyes to look at him.
