Chapter 31
Juniper
June looked between Beck and Alison, nerves suddenly jumping through her like grasshoppers in tall grass.
What might her ulterior motive be? Random thoughts, each more outlandish than the previous one, raced through her mind in
the few seconds it took her to marshal a response.
Maybe she had brought Juniper here to this remote Wyoming ranch so they could harvest her organs or something. Too bad, since
she had a wonky heart.
“What ulterior motive?” she finally asked when the silence dragged out.
“You had better sit down,” Alison said.
June sank down onto a kitchen chair. “What are you talking about? What possible ulterior motive might have compelled you to
invite me here?”
“It actually goes back longer than that,” Alison admitted, shifting in her own chair. “I had an ulterior motive before I ever
applied for the internship at Move Inc.”
Those nerves jumped even harder. What was this all about?
Beck eased toward the door. “This is between the two of you. I’ll get out of your way and head back to my place.”
June speared him in place with a look. “Do you know what this is all about?”
When he didn’t answer, she knew he must. He had been keeping secrets from her. She shouldn’t feel this sense of betrayal,
but she couldn’t seem to help it.
“Stay,” she said. “I have a feeling you’re part of this.”
Alison nodded. “Stay, Beck. Please.”
With clear reluctance etched on his features, he returned to the table and sat down.
Ali folded her hands together so tightly, June could see veins in her knuckles. “It’s a really long story. I’m not quite sure
where to start.”
June’s sense of foreboding only increased. “Why don’t you start by telling me why you applied for an internship with me?”
Ali hesitated then met her gaze. “You know my dad died in December. I was home from school on break when it happened. We had
just shoveled after a snowstorm and we were both changing into dry clothes. Grandma had already gone into the bookstore since
they were extra busy in the weeks leading up to the holidays.”
She fell silent and Beckett reached out and squeezed her clasped hands. She sent him a grateful look before returning her
attention to June.
“His cardiac arrest came on fast. The widow-maker, a blockage in the left anterior descending artery, which supplies fifty
percent of the heart’s blood supply. I heard him collapse from my room and ran in to find him on the floor.”
“That must have been terrifying.”
How astonishing that Ali had experienced a similar medical emergency twice in a matter of months.
“I didn’t remember how to do CPR at the time. I had been trained when I was younger as part of a babysitting class I took
in Girl Scouts, but I had never refreshed my skills or anything. As I remember, they mostly talked about doing the Heimlich
on a choking kid and stuff like that. Not on a fully grown adult man who weighs twice as much as you do. I didn’t know what
to do for him.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Beckett said gently. “We’ve talked about this, Al. You know he was gone before he even hit the
floor.”
Her chin trembled slightly and she took a few breaths to compose herself before she continued.
“It still doesn’t change the fact that I should have at least been able to try helping him. You never know. It worked with June.”
“You obviously had some training between December and a few weeks ago.” June could only be grateful, though she found it bittersweet
that she had only been saved because a brilliant writer had been lost.
“I enrolled in a CPR class the day after the funeral so it would never happen again.”
“And that’s why you were able to help me.”
Alison nodded.
“I’m sorry you went through that. I’m still not sure what any of it has to do with me.”
Alison looked at Beck then back at June. “A few weeks before my dad died, we had both sent in one of those online DNA tests
to find out more about our heritage. My grandma Loretta was adopted and she doesn’t know much about where she came from, and
my dad was curious about what we could find out.”
“I did the same thing a few years ago, since both of my parents’ ethnicity was a mystery to me.”
“I know you did.”
She frowned at the odd response. “How would you know that? Did we talk about it when you were my intern?”
Alison released a heavy breath. “I don’t know if you remember this from when you took the test, but one of the things you
can find out is whether you are connected to anyone else who has done a DNA test through the same company.”
She had found a few distant relatives, but had forgotten all about it until right this moment. Was that why Alison had connected
with her? Because they were distant cousins or something?
“Yes. I remember being surprised that I had some Native American heritage. I had no idea before then. I think it came down
on my father’s side.”
“A few weeks after my father’s death, I received an email that my results were in. I was numb at the time. Still reeling and trying to catch up with my classwork for my final semester. I had wanted to drop out completely after Dad died and stay here, but Grandma and Beck wouldn’t let me.”
“I was afraid if you left, you would have a hard time going back. You were one semester away from your law degree,” he said,
his voice mild. “Too close to give it up after all your hard work.”
Alison didn’t look convinced, and June had the thought again that she wasn’t completely sure the other woman even wanted to
be an attorney.
“When I received the email about the results, I cried right there at my laptop because it was one more thing I could never
talk to my dad about.”
Beck squeezed her hands again as June experienced a quick flashback to after her mother had died, when she had walked around
in a daze, wondering when she would wake up from the bad dream and her mom would walk through her bedroom door to greet her
with a smile and hug.
“Losing a parent is tough no matter how old you are,” she said.
“After a good cry,” Ali continued, “I went to their website to look at my results. There was nothing too earthshattering,
other than that I also have some Native American heritage, also from my father’s side.”
She faced her with an intensity in her expression that June found unsettling. That sense of foreboding crawled down her spine
again.
“Way down at the bottom, after I had been through pages and pages of info, was a small mention that the test had detected
several relatives who had also submitted their DNA. Including one mystery connection that shared a substantial number of DNA
markers with me. So many, it meant that connection was either a parent or a half sibling.”
“Right. Because your dad had submitted his DNA, as well.” What did any of this have to do with her ?
“Yes. This wasn’t my dad, though. I saw his, as well. This was someone else. A female contributor.”
She gave a significance to the words, as if she expected everything to make sense to June.
“I was completely baffled and couldn’t figure out who it might be, but the test gave me a username and email that had been
used to submit the test. After a bit of basic internet sleuthing, I traced the username to one person. You.”
June suddenly felt like she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“The test said clearly and unmistakably that I had a close relative I knew nothing about. Most probably a half sibling. A
woman who shared half of my DNA on my father’s side.”
She was going to pass out. She literally felt the blood rush from her face. This time, Beck reached out to put a hand on her arm.
“Here. Drink some water.” He handed her glass to her, and she grasped it with fingers that trembled and lifted it to her mouth,
trying to make sense of all of this.
“I don’t understand. Did your mother know my father somehow? That’s impossible, though. He died long before you were born.”
“I think the question you need to ask is not if, but how did your mother know my father? Our father.”
She stared at the stack of notebooks on the table, unable to process the shocking suggestion.
“Carson?”
Alison nodded. “The mystery person also shared a substantial amount of DNA with the account I already knew belonged to my
dad. And also to the account of my grandmother Loretta.”
“You’re... you’re trying to tell me that Carson Wells is my father ? That’s impossible. My father was Jimmy Connelly, a soldier who was killed while fighting for his country. He was a hero!”
She had carried around a picture of him after her mother died, when she moved to Cape Sanctuary to her foster home with Stella.
None of this made any sense. She remembered again how much her mother had loved to read all of Carson’s books and had a signed
copy of his first one.
“I’m very sorry to break it to you like this,” Ali said, her voice low. “But I don’t know how else I could have told you.
I... I wanted to find the right time and nothing ever felt ideal. I applied for an internship with Move Inc in hopes of
maybe getting to know you a little before springing the news on you completely out of the blue. That obviously didn’t work
out well.”
“Except it did put you in the right place at the right time to save June’s life,” Beckett pointed out.
June stared at both of them, struck by the weird confluence of events that had brought Alison to her office at exactly the
right moment.
“This can’t be happening. I... If Carson was my father, why wouldn’t my mother tell me?”
“I don’t know,” Ali admitted. “How long had she and your... Jimmy Connelly been married when your mother had you?”
“Three years. They married when she was eighteen and she had me when she was twenty-one. Only a few years younger than Carson
would have been.”
“Adult relationships are messy,” Beck said. “Maybe it was simply easier to explain to a child that her husband was your father
and that he died.”
“Maybe she had planned to tell you at some point, but she died before she had the chance,” Ali suggested.
She couldn’t contemplate Elizabeth Connelly keeping this vast of a secret from her. They had been so close, sharing everything.
“This is... This is all too much.”
“I know,” Ali whispered, her chin wobbling again with her distress. “I’m sorry. It was a huge shock to me, too, believe me.
I have wanted to tell you for a long time. I was going to tell you the day you terminated my internship but...”
“But then I had a cardiac arrest.”
“Yes. And you’ve been recovering from it since then and it never seemed like the right time to spring something so major and
earthshaking on you.”
She didn’t know how to process everything. She couldn’t believe it. Not without proof. She couldn’t imagine any reason Ali
might lie about something as serious and life-changing as her paternity, but June didn’t accept anything, in business or in
life, without some kind of verification.
“I’m sorry. I do believe you received the test results you say you did. But that’s not enough for me. I will need more evidence.”
“I assumed as much. I have a couple of DNA tests ready to submit to an independent lab. I almost took a swab from you while
you were still out of it in the hospital, but that didn’t seem right.”
“It wouldn’t have been,” Beck said, his voice stern.
“I didn’t do it,” Alison protested. “I only thought about doing it. But by then I had worked with you long enough to know you would insist on being involved every step of the
way in obtaining further proof.”
She looked across the table at this woman who claimed to be her half sister. A half sister! She couldn’t take it in.
For some strange reason, she felt the sting of tears.
Since coming to Wyoming, June had come to consider Ali a dear friend. Yet somehow, she had been keeping this monumental secret
from her this entire time.
“Are you saying you think I’m a control freak?”
“Not at all. But I have watched you analyze every decision. You prefer verifiable facts.”
“Anyone would,” Beck said.
“I can bring the tests over tomorrow if you want and you can be the one to send them in, either to the lab I contacted or
to any other one you want.”
“You don’t think it’s necessary, though.”
Alison shrugged. “I’ve seen all the DNA results I need to see. I know you’re my half sister. Somehow in the past, our parents
connected. We know they did because your mother had a signed copy of Dad’s first book. He must have given it to her.”
“If what you’re saying is true, apparently that wasn’t the only thing he gave her,” June muttered.
Beck made a sound that might have been a surprised laugh. He quickly masked it by sipping at the wine he had carried inside.
“I’m sorry to hit you with this,” Ali said again. “Believe me, it was all a huge shock to me, too, but I’ve had several months
to come to terms with it.”
“For what it’s worth,” Beckett offered in a calm voice, “I don’t believe Carson knew you existed.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Not for certain. But I knew the man. At his core, Carson was one of the most honorable people I ever met. If he had known
about you, I believe he would have done everything possible to fight for a role in your life. He certainly would never have
let you go into the foster care system after your mother died.”
Oh, how she had longed for family after Elizabeth’s death. Stella had been wonderful and kind and loving and she felt extraordinarily
fortunate to have found a safe home with her. Still, June had always known her time in Cape Sanctuary was temporary.
“It’s also possible your mother didn’t know you were Carson’s child, either,” he went on, his voice gentle now.
“My mother was not the sort of woman to sleep around,” she said sharply.
“I didn’t say she was. But she was married to another man at the time you were conceived. Wouldn’t it have been natural for
her to assume you were her husband’s child?”
Possibly. Did that explain why she hadn’t told Carson she was pregnant?
She felt as if she were caught in a hurricane, being buffeted around and around. Her mother had been the foundation of her
life, her rock. If all of this was true, how could Elizabeth have kept something so huge from her?
“That’s the reason you brought me here to recover. So you could find a way to tell me you think we’re... we’re half sisters?”
Ali gave a rueful nod. “Partly, I guess. Your doctor said you needed peace and quiet during your recovery. The ranch has acres
and acres where you can have all the peace and quiet anyone might need. I was coming home, anyway, and inviting you here seemed
like the right thing to do.”
She reached for June’s hand, her fingers warm against June’s colder one. “Plus, I thought Dad would have wanted you to stay
here in his writing cabin. He didn’t know about you while he was alive. But if he had known, I know he would have wanted to
help you.”
She felt lightheaded from the wild tumult of emotions crowding through her. Carson Wells might be her father. This ranch she
had come to love might be part of her heritage. She couldn’t soak it all in.
“Obviously, you will need some time to process everything.” Ali released her hand and stood.
“It’s a lot.”
“I know. I’m sorry. And I’m leaving tomorrow with Xander. The timing is terrible, I know. As soon as we’re back in town, I’ll
come over with the new DNA tests, if that’s okay.”
When June didn’t answer, Ali looked uncertain. “Unless you would rather I not go,” she said. “I can reschedule this trip with Xander.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know. I feel weird about dumping this on you and then taking off. I can stay so we can talk more about it, if you
want.”
“What else is there to say? You think I’m your sister. I won’t be convinced until I can see the results myself.”
Ali touched her shoulder. “I know this has been a shock to you and probably changes everything you thought you knew about
yourself. I’m sorry for that, but you should also know that I already love having you for a sister.”
A sister. She blinked, suddenly feeling the burn of tears again. She had longed for a sister most of her life, had been so
envious of all her friends who had siblings.
“Do you want to ride with me, Beck?”
“I’ll walk,” he answered with a careful look at June.
“Okay. Thanks for the tent, then.”
He stood and hugged her. “You’re welcome. Have fun. Be safe.”
Ali smiled at both of them, warm to Beck and more tentative to June, then she slipped out the door.