Fortunately, Holly Jo had taken to the horses—at first planning to run away once she’d learned to ride. But later his son Cooper and friend and ranch hand Pickett Hanson had introduced her to trick riding, something even he could see she was excelling in. He hoped her wanting to redecorate her room was an indication that she was here to stay.
Elaine looked at the pile of mail he hadn’t gotten through. “Is everything all right?”
“Just got caught up woolgathering,” he said, not about to admit that he’d been thinking about Lottie. She was seldom far from his thoughts, but this morning more than ever.
“Uh-huh,” Elaine said. Unfortunately, she knew him too well, so she’d probably guessed the path his thoughts had taken. She’d always encouraged him to try to mend his relationship with Lottie. He had tried over the years but to no avail. If Charlotte Stafford was anything, it was stubborn to a fault.
What he hated most was that because of him, his Lottie had become bitter, resentful and outright vindictive—not just about him but his entire family. Recently his son Cooper had fallen in love and married Lottie’s eldest daughter, Tilly, throwing even more fuel on the fire.
Still standing in the doorway, Elaine looked worried about leaving him. “If you’re sure you’ll be all right without us.”
“I’ll be fine. It isn’t like I’m here alone.” The house was bursting at the seams right now. Cooper and Tilly were living in the huge, sprawling house while their home on the ranch was being finished. His sons Treyton and Duffy and daughter Bailey also lived in the house—though he hardly ever saw them—along with himself, Holly Jo and Elaine. As his children had grown, he’d added on, giving them all room to grow. The ranch manager had his own place closer to the stables and shop. The half-dozen ranch hands also living on the spread had a series of bunkhouses and cabins even farther from the house.
“We’ll be back Sunday evening. You can call if you need me,” Elaine said.
He would always need her. He’d often gone to her for advice as well as a good chewing out for something he’d done wrong. He loved Elaine in his way and suspected she did him as well. But for him, there had only been Lottie. There was only one woman he wanted. The one he might never have again.
“Go, have fun. And do your best to guide her choices,” he said.
Elaine laughed at that. “Have you met this young woman?” Her expression turned serious again, as if still hesitant about leaving him, before she said, “Okay. See you Sunday, then.”
Over the years, he’d given Elaine and his family cause for concern, he thought as he heard her drive away. He’d brought Holly Jo into their home with no real explanation, causing his eldest son, Treyton, to resent the girl and Bailey to simply ignore her. He’d done so many things wrong in his life, handled things poorly, and continued to make mistakes.
Glancing out the window at the beautiful early summer day, he felt a little of his hope slip away as he felt a chill. Like someone was walking across a grave? His second wife, Lulabelle, would have said it was an omen. But then again, if Lulabelle really could see the future like she claimed, then she would have never married him.
Still, he was eerily aware of how quiet this side of the big house was with his family all busy living their own lives. With a sigh, he returned to the envelope in his hand.
His thoughts scattered, he absently withdrew a sheet of paper. Unfolding it, he felt a jolt as he saw what was on it. For a moment, he could only stare in confusion. The words had been made from letters cut from a magazine and were all different sizes, shapes and colors.
Was this some kind of joke?
He struggled to read what it said. Then, in horror, he read it again. His hands trembled, the words blurring as his heart pounded, his mouth gone dry.
I Have Holly Jo
Will Contact
With Demands
CHAPTER TWO
BRAND STAFFORD STEPPED out of the shower and reached for a towel. His head swam, making him regret last night. How much had he drunk? He couldn’t remember. Judging by how hungover and sick to his stomach he was, way too much.
What had possessed him? Oh, that’s right, he thought, giving himself a mental forehead slap. I found out that my whole life has been a lie.
Not that he hadn’t suspected as much. Little had he realized, though, that knowing the truth was so much worse than speculating. His own fault, he thought with a curse. If he’d never sent his DNA to be tested... It had been impulsive, something so not like him. He was the rational, calm, sensible, unemotional Stafford among a houseful of the opposite, he told himself.
Then, like kicking off an avalanche, he’d initiated something that he couldn’t stop. Once he’d seen the results, he’d been determined to find out if his suspicions were true. The moment he did that, he opened a Pandora’s box of secrets that could destroy his life and ruin others as well.
He swore as he wrapped a towel around his waist and stepped deeper into his bedroom suite. Like a lot of ranch homes, this house had been added on to as the family had grown. He had his own wing in the back of the house with a view of the mountains in the distance. Not that he noticed the view today. He was too busy mentally kicking himself for what he’d done.
For way too long, he’d pretended that he didn’t want to know why he was so different from his siblings. Not only did he not want to buy into his suspicions, he definitely did not want to prove them. Then his sister Oakley, the rebel of the family, had gotten her DNA tested through one of the online labs. She’d gone on about how easy it was. “Just mail in a sample and the results are emailed to you.”
When Oakley had mentioned what she’d done to their mother, Charlotte Stafford had thrown a fit. “Why would you do such a thing?” she’d demanded.
“I wanted to know who I am,” Oakley had said, brushing it off as nothing. “DNA’s amazing. Like if CJ, Brand, Ryder and Tilly all had theirs tested, even though we’re siblings, the results would be different because we only share fifty percent of the same genes. Only identical twins share a hundred percent. Don’t you find that interesting?”
Brand had. And he’d found their mother’s overreaction even more curious. She’d been furious—and something even more telling. She’d been terrified. He’d seen it in her emerald green eyes and the way she wouldn’t meet his blue-eyed gaze—the only blue eyes in the family.
He’d known right then that he had to have his DNA tested. He couldn’t keep pretending. He had to know the truth. He’d sent for the kit, followed the instructions and mailed it in. Unlike Oakley, he’d had no intention of telling their mother. Even then, he was still hoping he was wrong.
But when it came back, he had proof that he wasn’t Rake Stafford’s son, because his results were nothing like the ones Oakley had left lying around in her room.
For years he’d heard the rumors about his mother and their ranch neighbor, Holden McKenna. His sister Tilly had married Cooper McKenna, so he figured he should be able to get a hair sample from Cooper’s comb. It would be nice to cross off at least one suspect from his list—his main suspect.
With the DNA obtained from Cooper McKenna, he’d had another test done to compare with his own. That was when he’d confirmed it. He was the son of Charlotte Stafford and Holden McKenna—and he had a DNA report to prove it.
His mother and Holden—both married to others at the time—had gotten together and he was the result. He had the goods on both of them, which raised the question: Now what? He had proof, but what was he going to do with it? Confront his mother? Confront Holden? Did he want his father to admit it? His mother? Or should he bury what he’d learned and live with it just as he had for all these years?
Yesterday, after getting the results, he’d done what any red-blooded American cowboy would do—he’d gone drinking with friends in town. Something else he seldom did. He hadn’t told anyone why he was drinking so much. But he’d consumed enough alcohol that one friend had insisted on driving him home while another friend followed in his pickup.
While he had a copy of the results in his jacket pocket, he hadn’t even told his best friends.
They were worried about him before he’d done something even more out of character. On impulse, he’d had his friend stop at Holden McKenna’s mailbox out on the county road. He’d scribbled Holden’s name on the outside of the sheet of paper and dropped off the copy of the DNA report he’d been carrying around all night.
When he’d awakened just before noon today, he’d realized with a sickening roll of his stomach that there was no way to retrieve the report from the mailbox. By now, the mail would have been delivered, and someone from the McKenna Ranch would have taken it up to the house.
The thought of what he’d done made him more physically ill than the hangover. His timing couldn’t have been worse. His mother’s second husband’s remains had recently been found in a well not that far from the ranch. It was no secret in the county that she was the number one suspect—if not the only one—because of her tumultuous relationship with her second husband, Dixon Malone, who had mysteriously disappeared years ago.
