“I didn’t tell her,” Ned admitted, adding, “I couldn’t see any reason to upset her more than she already is.”
“Good idea,” Mel said. He leaned forward and looked up at the darkening sky. “Snow’s starting again. The radio said there’s going to be at least three inches.”
“Snow,” Linc groaned.
“Snow,” Ned repeated excitedly. “That’ll make a lot of little kids happy.”
Mel agreed quickly. “Yeah, we’ll have a white Christmas.”
“Are either of you little kids?” Linc snapped. His nerves were frayed and he’d appreciate it if his brothers took a more mature outlook.
“I guess I’m still a kid at heart,” Ned said, exhaling a sigh.
Considering Linc’s current frame of mind, it was a brave admission. With a slow breath, Linc made a concerted effort to relax. He was worried about Mary Jo; he couldn’t help it. He’d wanted the best for her and felt that he’d failed both his sister and his parents.
To some extent he blamed himself for what had happened. Maybe he’d been too strict with her after she turned eighteen. But to his way of thinking, she was under his protection as long as she lived in the family home.
Not once had she introduced him to David Rhodes. Linc was convinced that if he’d met the other man, it would’ve taken him all of two seconds to peg David for a phony.
“What are you gonna say when we find her?” Ned asked.
Linc hadn’t worked out the specifics. “Let’s not worry about that now. Main thing is, we’re going to put her in the truck and bring her home.”
“What if she doesn’t want to come with us?”
“Why wouldn’t she? We’re her family and it’s Christmas Eve. Mary Jo belongs with us. Besides, that baby could show up anytime.”
Mel seemed distinctly queasy at the prospect.
Thinking back, Linc knew he should have realized she was pregnant a lot earlier than he had. In fact, he hadn’t recognized the signs at all; she’d told him and after that, of course, they were easy to see.
Not until the day Mary Jo rushed past him in the hallway and practically shoved him into the wall so she could get to the toilet in time to throw up did he have the slightest suspicion that anything was wrong. Even then he’d assumed she had a bad case of the flu.
Boy, had he been wrong. She had the flu, all right, only it was the nine-month variety.
It just hadn’t occurred to him that she’d do something so dumb. An affair with the guy was bad enough, but to take that kind of chance…
Frowning, Linc glanced in his rearview mirror at his youngest brother. He was beginning to wonder about Ned. He’d never seemed as shocked as he or Mel had, and Mary Jo had always confided in him.
“How long have you known?” he asked casually.
Ned met Linc’s gaze in the rearview mirror, his expression trapped. “Known what?”
“That Mary Jo was going to have a baby.”
Ned looked away quickly and shrugged.
“She told you as soon as she found out, didn’t she?”
Ned cleared his throat. “She might have.”
“How early was that?” Linc asked, unwilling to let his brother sidestep the question.
“Early,” Ned admitted. “I knew before David.”
“You knew that early?” Mel shouted. “Why’d she tell you and not me?”
“Because you’d tell Linc,” Ned told him. “She wanted to keep the baby a secret as long as she could.”
Linc couldn’t figure that one out. It wasn’t like she’d be able to hide the pregnancy forever. And why hadn’t she trusted him the way she did Ned? Although he prided himself on being stoic, that hurt.
Mel tapped his fingertips against the console. “Did she tell you how David Rhodes reacted to the news?”
Ned nodded. “She said he seemed pleased.”
“Sure, why not?” Linc said, rolling his eyes. “The pregnancy wasn’t going to inconvenience him any.”
“I think that’s why he could string Mary Jo along all this time,” Ned suggested.
“You’re probably right.”
“I warned her, you know.” Ned’s look was thoughtful.
“When?”
“When she first started seeing him.”
“You knew about David even before Mary Jo got pregnant?” Linc couldn’t believe his ears. Apparently Mary Jo had shared all this information with Ned, who’d remained tight-lipped about most of it. If he wasn’t so curious to uncover what his brother had learned, Linc might’ve been downright angry.
“So?” Mel said. “How’d she meet him?”
Ned leaned toward the front seat. “Rhodes works for the same insurance company. He’s at corporate headquarters in San Francisco. Something to do with finances.”
His sister worked in the accounting department, so that explained it, he supposed. “She should’ve come to work at our office the way I wanted,” Linc said, and not for the first time. That was what he’d suggested when, against his wishes, Mary Jo had dropped out of college.
From her reaction, one would think he’d proposed slave labor. He never had understood her objections. He’d been willing to pay her top wages, as well as vacation and sick leave, and the work wasn’t exactly strenuous.
She’d turned him down flat. Mary Jo wouldn’t even consider working for Three Wyse Men Automotive. Linc regretted not being more forceful in light of what had happened. She might be almost twenty-four, but she needed his protection.
As they approached the Narrows Bridge, Linc’s mood began to lighten somewhat. Yeah, Mary Jo needed him, and he assumed she’d be willing to admit that now. Not just him, either. She needed all three of her brothers.
Ned’s idea that they bring gifts had been smart, a good way to placate her and prove how much she meant to them. Women, in his experience anyway, responded well to gifts.
Except that was probably the same technique David Rhodes had used.
“Did he buy her gifts?” Linc asked, frowning.
Ned understood his question, because he answered right away. “If you mean Rhodes, then yes, he got her a few.”
“Such as?”
“Flowers a couple of times.”
“Flowers!” Mel said.
“In the beginning, at any rate, and then after she was pregnant he bought her earrings.”
Linc sat up straighter. “What kind?”
Ned snickered. “He said they were diamonds but one of them came loose so I dropped it off at Fred’s for her. While he had it, I asked him to check it out.”
Fred’s was a local jewelry store the Wyse family had used for years. “Fake, right?”
“As phony as David Rhodes himself.”
Mel twisted around and looked at Ned. “You didn’t tell Mary Jo, did you?”
Ned shook his head. “I didn’t want to add to her heartache.”
“Maybe she already knows.” His sister might be gullible but