“We need to talk about what’s going to happen next.”
“Nothing is going to happen.”
“That’s not really the case, is it? Once the test determines that Grace is Jake’s daughter then I have the same obligation to her as you do.”
“Obligation?” Did he seriously think what she felt for Skye and Grace was born of responsibility? She loved her sister and would do everything in her power to take care of Grace. “You think it’s your duty to step up because your brother is nowhere to be found.” Lark’s earlier compassion was trampled beneath an onslaught of annoyance. “You needn’t bother. I have matters well in hand.”
“I don’t think of it as a duty, but I do feel responsible because Jake isn’t here.”
“And why isn’t he?”
“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know what’s going on.” Keaton set his hand on his hip and gazed beyond her shoulder. “If he did, he’d be at her side.”
Lark wasn’t at all convinced. “What makes you think they’re even still together?”
“My brother loves Skye. Grace is his daughter.” Keaton’s thick brows drew together. “That’s all the proof I need.”
Having had no way to reach her sister these last four years, Lark understood his frustration, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of admitting it. “Did you let him know Skye was hurt?”
Keaton’s expression shifted into stoic lines. “I’ve spoken with his assistant, but she’s refusing to forward any messages.”
“That’s quite an excuse.” Lark blew out a breath. “If he and Skye were still together I believe he’d have moved heaven and earth to be here for her and Grace. I don’t think he’s her father.”
But she wasn’t as convinced as she pretended to be. Grace had Holt eyes and bone structure. That was why Lark had resisted the DNA test for so long. Her instincts told her Grace was Jake’s daughter, but the feud that existed between the Taylors and Holts made it so hard for Lark to do the right thing. In the end Keaton’s determination and threats of legal action had worn her down.
“Then who is Grace’s father and where is he?” Keaton demanded.
Lark had no more idea what had been going on between Skye and Jake than Keaton did, and she wasn’t going to pretend any different. “I don’t have a clue. We haven’t spoken since she left Royal.” Seeing Keaton’s surprise, Lark continued. “I didn’t think running away with your brother was a good idea and told her so.”
“Because you didn’t think a Holt was good enough for her?” Keaton’s neutral tone kept his comment from sounding bitter.
Lark didn’t want to fight with Keaton. She was sick of their families being at war. “I knew my father would disown her if she left.”
Skye had always been her parents’ favorite. They understood her. Unlike Lark, she’d been pretty and popular in school. She didn’t lock herself away in books. Their parents didn’t care that Skye’s grades were good enough to keep her in the top twenty-five percent of her class; they loved the fact that she was a cheerleader and voted prom queen her senior year.
“I guess we have more in common than either of us knew.”
“Seems we do.” Tightness eased in Lark’s chest. Regret had been her constant companion for four years. It had been a lonely time. Her parents refused to talk about Skye, and Lark had been too ashamed at how she’d treated her sister to confide in any of her friends.
“Thank you for letting me do the test.” Keaton’s voice softened. “My mother desperately wants to visit her granddaughter.”
Regret swamped her at his words. Lark wished her parents had similar desires. “My parents haven’t seen Grace.” The words spilled out of her with more bitterness than she’d intended.
“But once she leaves the hospital, they can see her as much as they want.” Keaton had misinterpreted Lark’s meaning.
“The problem is they don’t want to see her.”
Despite the harm that had befallen their daughter, Tyrone and Vera Taylor hadn’t set aside their resentment over Skye’s choosing to run off with a hated Holt. Oh, they’d visited her in the beginning when she was first brought in and they acted genuinely concerned, but as the months passed and Skye didn’t wake after the medical treatment that induced her coma ceased, they’d retreated into bitterness.
“I don’t understand.”
“They still can’t forgive Skye for running off with your brother.”
“Don’t you think this thing between our families has gone on too long?”
“Maybe.” Everything she’d ever been told by her parents made her want to keep Keaton and his family as far from Grace and Skye as possible, but deep in her heart she knew that if Keaton was right and Jake was Grace’s father, the Holts deserved equal time with her. “But you can’t expect decades of mistrust to evaporate overnight.”
“Jake and Skye got the ball rolling. The rest of us have had four years to adjust.”
His challenge settled a huge weight on her shoulders. She was supposed to mistrust him, dislike him even. Since the late 1800s their families had been fighting over the ownership of two thousand acres dotted with several lakes, owned by Lark’s family, that bordered the Holts’ ranch. She’d grown up listening to her grandfather and father rant about what liars and cheats the Holts were. Never to be trusted. How they were willing to do whatever it took to take what didn’t belong to them.
Lark was sick of the feud. It had started with a bill of sale that had gone missing back in 1898. Edwin Holt claimed Titus McMann had sold him the two thousand acres in order to fund his trip to Alaska where gold had been drawing prospectors since the 1880s.
Unfortunately, Titus had died before he could leave town and when Holt’s bill of sale couldn’t be found in the town records, his brother subsequently sold the land to John Taylor. Although there was nothing overtly suspicious about Titus’s death, the fact that both the money he’d received from Edwin Holt and the bill of sale had mysteriously disappeared caused Holt to insinuate John Taylor had been up to no good.
A hard headed, unforgiving man, John Taylor hadn’t appreciated the trouble Holt’s allegations caused his family and did everything in his power to ruin his neighbor’s business and reputation.
Lark hated that her parents continued to be obsessed with the ancient land dispute. They couldn’t just let it go. It would be one thing if they’d been the ones who’d lost the land, but they’d won and couldn’t rise above their hostility. And she was ashamed that she’d let their spiteful rhetoric poison her against her own sister, something she’d give anything to fix. If only Skye would wake up.
“I heard they’re going to release Grace in the next few days,” he continued.
“I know.” The news that her niece was healthy enough to leave the hospital brought with it both excitement and panic.
“Are you planning on taking her home?”
Something about the intensity in Keaton’s manner warned Lark that this wasn’t just an innocent question. “Yes.”
“She’s just as much my responsibility as yours.”
“You don’t know that. If you did, you wouldn’t have asked for a DNA test to prove she’s your brother’s daughter.”
“The test isn’t for me,” Keaton assured her. “I trust that Jake and Skye