On the main street there was a garage with rusty old heaps parked around it, a drugstore that sold more ice cream than prescriptions, and a general store. The saloon with a tattered banner that announced “Good Eats” was the only place that ever drew a crowd, except for the nearby church.
Crime wasn’t a big issue in the community. A few Saturday-night drunks to fill his two jail cells now and then. Traffic accidents on the highway that called for him to respond. Occasional reports of cattle rustling or adolescent vandalism. A safe place to live.
And to raise kids, he thought as a lump formed in his throat. He’d always wanted children. A family of his own.
He turned back to his brother. “Some woman called a couple of minutes ago, a Laura somebody from Helena. She says my mother had another baby after she abandoned me.” It was no big deal to tell Rory he’d been dumped by his mom. Rory’s mother had done the same thing to him. That’s how they’d both ended up at the Double O Ranch as foster kids to Oliver Oakes, who’d eventually adopted them and another kid, their brother, Walker—nicknamed Sharpy because he’d once shot himself in the leg. Walker was running the ranch nowadays.
“According to this woman, my sister’s name was Amy Thorne, and she had twins a couple of months ago. Then she died.” Still incredulous about the phone call, he shook his head. “She wanted me to have the babies. Be their dad. Apparently I’m their only living relative.”
“Somebody’s putting you on.”
“I don’t know. This Laura person sounded pretty legit.” Except she’d been nervous, stuttering and stammering as she tried to tell her story.
“No, it’s got to be some kind of scam. Did she ask for money? Child support?” Rory hooked his hip over the corner of Eric’s desk and crossed his arms. His Native American heritage sometimes gave him a brooding look, but since discovering that he had a son and his recent marriage to the boy’s mother, Kristi Kerrigan, Rory had been all smiles. Until now.
“The whole phone call kind of caught me off guard,” Eric said. He was still shaken, half disbelieving the news yet wanting it to be true. “But no, she didn’t say anything about money.” Not that he could remember, at any rate. “She’s going to bring the twins up here tomorrow.”
“And just hand them off to you?”
“I don’t know. She said something about interviewing me.” Which didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Either he was the twins’ uncle or he wasn’t. And if he wasn’t, that woman wouldn’t have bothered to call and make him identify himself by his birth name, Eric Johnson. A name he hadn’t used since he was fifteen and Oliver Oakes adopted him. Eric had celebrated his thirty-second birthday last fall out at the ranch. Walker’s wife, Lizzie, had baked the most lopsided cake he’d ever seen—not that he or anyone else had cared. Devil’s food with chocolate frosting was hard to beat whatever the shape.
He shoved his fingers through his hair, shorter than Rory’s, more brown than black and several shades lighter. Now that he was trying to explain this baby situation to his brother, it sounded pretty damn crazy. Maybe it was a hoax. One of those adolescent games when a kid calls someone and asks if their refrigerator is running. When the victim says yes, the kids giggle and say you’d better catch it before it runs out the door. A silly, harmless prank.
But his caller hadn’t sounded like a kid. More like a woman with a sultry voice who hadn’t wanted to call him at all.
And the story of his mother, who had run through boyfriends like water through a sieve, sounded legit, too. She could have gotten pregnant again.
God, could it be that all these years he’d had a sister who he didn’t even know existed and now she was dead? He’d never have a chance to meet her. Or talk to her. Why hadn’t she come looking for him sooner?
Or could that call have been nothing more than a cruel trick? The woman the same kind of person who would abandon her own kid?
Tears stung at the backs of his eyes as memories assailed him. He’d been ten years old and standing in the parking lot of a fast-food hamburger joint. Looking for his mother and her current boyfriend. Looking for their car. He knew where it had been parked. It wasn’t there anymore. He’d had to go to the john. They’d left without him. God, he’d felt so alone. So hurt.
How could any mother do that to a kid?
He hadn’t had a sister then. He’d been an only child, crowded into the back seat of the car along with everything they owned, and making it a point to stay out of reach of his mom’s boyfriend. The guy had big meaty fists, Eric remembered that. And he knew how to use them.
A sob rose in his throat.
The office door opened to admit a current of fresh spring air along with Rory’s wife, Kristi, and their son, Adam.
Swiping the back of his hand across his face, Eric struggled to pull his emotions back under control.
“Hi, Uncle Eric.” The dark-haired five-year-old made a beeline for the nearest jail cell and began to swing on the door, peering out through the bars.
“Where did I put that key?” he asked, playing the game he and the boy had started recently. “I’ve caught me a monkey and I need to lock him up.”
The youngster giggled and made scratching gestures under his arm pits. “Hoot-hoot-hoot.”
Kristi stood on tiptoe to brush a kiss to her husband’s cheek. “Ted Pomperan is at the clinic with a dog that cut its foot.”
“Okay, I’ll be right there. Eric’s been telling me he’s going to be a daddy. Twins, he says.”
“Girls,” Eric added. If the tale was true.
“You’re kidding!” Kristi whirled toward him, her eyes widening. “I certainly hope you plan to marry the woman.”
“Well, no. I mean, I don’t even know the woman. She just called a couple of minutes—”
“I’d say you know her plenty well enough if she’s going to have your babies,” Kristi insisted.
Adam piped up. “Does that mean I’m gonna get some more cousins?”
“She’s not going to have my babies. They’re already three months old. And they might not even be—”
“So she hadn’t told you she was—”
“Rory!” Eric came around the desk, caught Rory and Kristi by their respective elbows, ushering them toward the door. “Go take care of your canine patient, and in the meantime will you please explain the situation to your wife so she doesn’t think I’ve committed some mortal sin.”
“I’m not sure I get the picture myself,” Rory complained.
“Neither do I. With luck, when the woman shows up tomorrow with the twins, I’ll be able to figure out what’s going on.” Assuming she comes at all.
Rory opened the door for his wife.
“You be nice to the woman, Eric Oakes,” Kristi admonished him. “If she’s had your babies, she’ll be feeling very vulnerable and unsure of herself. I know that’s how I felt when I came back to Grass Valley and had to face Rory and tell him about Adam.”
Exasperated, Eric said, “Talk to her, bro.” He eased them out the door, closing it behind them and drew a deep breath.
Incredible. Was he really about to become a father of two baby girls?
Which reminded him that he didn’t know squat about babies and diapers and bottles or any of that stuff. How the hell was he going to manage if it came to that?
Turning around, his gaze landed on Adam, who was still behind bars.
“Your folks just left.”