“By all means,” Duke said, “it’s where you all belong.” He looked at his young nephews. “You’ll like it at the ranch.”
“Mom says she’s bought a house and a clinic,” Toby said. “We get our own bedroom.”
Duke nodded. “You like to bunk together or separately?”
“We’re used to sharing,” Toby said. “One room is enough.” He looked up at Duke. “Will you have enough space for us?”
“Space is something we don’t have to worry about at the Triple F,” Duke said. “I promise you’ll be in good shape while we get your house fixed up. And anyway, the Triple F will always be your home, too. You’ve got two, now.”
Pepper felt the tears coming again and brushed them away impatiently. “Thank you.”
Zach shook his head. “No need for thanks. It’s your house just as much as ours.”
She hadn’t been sure her brothers would still want her there. Liberty and Jessie hugged her, and the tears Pepper had been determined to hold back poured from her eyes. She reached out to hug her boys to her, fiercely proud of them, glad she’d finally brought them home.
Chapter Two
The Tulips Saloon Gang watched as Pepper left with her two sons. The silence inside the place…well, Duke thought it said a whole lot. Everyone was thinking, searching their minds, trying to recover from the shock.
Duke looked at his brother. Both of their wives were seated, silently gazing up at them, as were Pansy, Helen, Hiram and Bug. Duke shook his head, completely at a loss. “We’ve been too hard on her over the years,” he told Zach.
Zach nodded. “I was thinking the same damn thing.”
Duke shoved his hands in his pockets. “Part of me is angry as hell that she never told us. The bigger part of me knows exactly why she did it.”
Zach sank into a chair and Duke did the same, though he was surprised his knees would bend. He felt more like falling over, poleaxed. “We always looked to her to be the responsible one,” Zach said.
“Because she was,” Duke said. “Obviously. She’s managed to do more with her life than I’ve done with mine.”
Zach nodded. “I was still sowing oats while she was finishing up med school. I don’t know how she did it with kids.”
“Well, clearly Aunt Jerry was a very helpful conspirator. That must be why Pepper lived up north all those years—to be close to Aunt Jerry.”
“It still couldn’t have been easy.” Zach looked at his brother. “I wish she’d felt that she could have come to us when she was in trouble.”
Duke shrugged. “I doubt Pepper ever thought she was in trouble. I think she just took care of her business, as she always has.” He glanced at Pansy and Helen and the rest of the gang. “I hope everyone will take in our new family members with open arms.”
Pansy gasped. “Why, Duke Forrester, how could you suggest that we’d do anything but?”
He put up a mollifying hand. “I didn’t mean that quite the way it sounded. I should have said, ‘Thank you for accepting our new family members with open arms.’”
Helen sniffed. “I think Pepper Forrester has more grit in her than most women I’ve met in my life, and men, too.” She glanced at Hiram and Bug. “There’s a difference between grit and being gritty.”
They nodded at the friendly teasing.
“We’re gonna have to teach those young boys a thing or two about life,” Bug said.
“Like how to lead a parade?” Pansy asked, since he was Tulips’s unofficial parade master.
“No,” Hiram said, “how to be responsible.”
“You live in a jail,” Helen pointed out, returning to Hiram’s odd propensity to reside in the one and only jail cell in Tulips. “Though you do keep your cell quite tidy.”
“Yes, but I have a room at Liberty’s when I feel like it,” Hiram said proudly, “and I’m willing to offer it up when you all figure out how you’re going to get him home.”
“Him who?” Bug asked. “All of us are here tonight, except Holt, who had an unexpected hair emergency at the salon.” He looked at Bug. “I hope your wife quits trying to color her own hair soon. This is the third time she’s gone green.”
“Him—the father of Pepper’s boys,” Hiram said, as if no one else had the sense to think clearly.
Duke sat up straight in his chair. “Father?” he repeated, his brain in a stunned fog. “There is no father.”
They all stared at him, and for a moment, Duke wondered if his shocked brain had calcified in his head. What was so obvious to them that was not obvious to him? “What?” he asked. “I don’t understand.”
“She didn’t adopt those boys, Duke,” Zach said.
“I know that, damn it!” The whole situation was making Duke grumpy. “Liberty, I think I need some tea or something, please.”
She hopped up to get it, setting a tiny floral teacup in front of him. How the hell was he supposed to loosen up with that little bit of sustentation? Asking for a shot of whiskey in it would likely get him in big trouble with the ladies, so he bit his tongue and tried to unscramble his thoughts.
Liberty patted his shoulder, smiling down at him sympathetically.
“What?” he said. “What the hell am I not getting?”
“That Pepper had a love interest, and the odds of him not knowing about his boys are probably about as good as none of us knowing. Especially since most of us thought we were pretty close to Pepper, didn’t we?” she asked, gently kneading Duke’s shoulder.
“Well, hell, yeah.” He looked at Zach. “So tell me.”
“Jeez, Duke,” his brother said, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere but four feet away from him. “Of course you know who the father of those kids is. You’re just not thinking.”
He didn’t want to think. As far as he knew, Pepper had never had a boyfriend…. Light flashed behind his eyes as he thought back to the summer she was seventeen, with a terribly immature crush on—“No,” he said. “They can’t be his. It has to be someone she met at college.”
They all stared at him, and Duke’s scalp began to crawl. “You’re not saying those boys are Luke McGarrett’s, are you?” he asked, horrified. “Why, they were never serious about each other! I don’t think they had more than one or two dates before he left town, and I don’t know if I’d even call those dates!”
Zach shrugged. “The boys are the right age.”
Helen sighed. “And, unfortunately, they are the spitting image of Luke.”
Pain crashed into Duke’s chest. “I’ll kill him!”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Helen said sternly. She stood up, glancing around the room. “Overreaction is exactly why Pepper never felt that she could come to us. Any of us. Think about the secrets we’ve kept over the years. Think about that damn box you guard so jealously in your cell, Hiram, which has every piece of information about this town in it. Everyone has something they’ve kept to themselves…. Only Pepper did it for a long time and with no one to advise her. Not from this community, anyway. She was just a girl when she left but now she’s a woman. A mother. Don’t dare think to harm someone she never felt needed harming.”
Duke