Chapter Eighteen
L ucas and Leila returned to Malcolm Black’s office the next morning, armed with coffee, pastries, and documents. This time, Malcolm met them at the door.
“She’s scared,” he said warningly. “Go easy on her, okay?”
“We will,” Leila promised, shooting Lucas a filthy glare.
Lucas didn’t argue. They’d left yesterday before Hetty’s daughter arrived, at Malcolm’s insistence. Before storming off to her own room, Leila had read Lucas the riot act about his attitude. They wouldn’t get any information from Heather if they came at her from a place of anger and blame. Leila wanted to know their mother. She wanted to hear the story behind their conception, their birth, their separation. And now, Emmet.
Lucas wasn’t sure what he wanted.
He wasn’t here for an apology from his birth mother. He didn’t need to hear her cry and grovel. He had good parents, who’d raised him well. He hadn’t suffered. Heather Hudson’s decision to give him up had not hurt him. Hadn’t hurt any of them, for that matter. Brade and Leila also grew up in loving homes.
But then she’d abandoned Diana, created a new identity, lied about who she was... and then had yet another child.
That required an explanation. And yeah, maybe an apology. If not to him, then to Diana.
His protective instincts were surprisingly strong for a guy who’d grown up as an only child. He barely knew Diana, or Leila, or Brade, for that matter. They were the ones who’d insisted on this hunt, not him. They were the ones who stood to be hurt, not him.
He didn’t care.
But this Emmet person stuck in his craw.
What was so special about her? Why keep her and not them?
If only he could talk to Bayleigh about all this. He needed someone who could help him make sense of this, not in a therapist way—she’d never treated him like that—but as a friend.
Yes, he missed her in his bed. But even more than that, he missed her voice, her laughter, her straight talk, her thoughtful questions, the way she tilted her head when she listened. Her text yesterday made him wish he’d seen her, no matter how briefly, while he’d been in town. He hadn’t responded yet; he didn’t know what to say. There was so much. Too much, between all this and the lawsuit looming over him. How do you casually drop that into conversation? Hey, I enjoyed our fling. My life is falling apart, got a few minutes to listen to me vent?
So, he was on his best behavior as he followed Leila and Malcolm Black down the hallway a second time. Today, Malcolm directed them past his office to another area of the house. He’d repurposed the cracker-box building to accommodate a staging area for artwork he was preparing for exhibitions, storage for pieces not currently in circulation, as well as an area for display for prospective purchasers.
There was also a comfortable viewing area complete with luxurious couches, sleek Scandinavian-style tables, and an area for refreshments.
“Malcolm, you don’t need to stay,” Heather said.
The big man looked at her carefully for a second, then exited the room. He left the door open, Lucas noted.
He put the bag of pastries down next to the cardboard flat of special coffees.
Then he faced the woman who’d given birth to him. He took the crutch off his arm and extended his hand to her.
“Good morning, Heather,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry for the subterfuge. This is difficult for all of us.”
The shell-shocked woman of yesterday was gone, but her expression remained guarded. How had she managed to shift her demeanor so dramatically from one day to the next? Then again, she’d hidden a wallop of a secret for a lot of years; she must have had a lot of practice in becoming who she needed to be in any given situation.
She looked at his hand for a moment before taking it. “I’m not who you think I am. And I’m unclear who you are.”
Leila pulled her folder of documents out of her bag and set it on the table. “This should explain a lot.”
“Let’s sit down.” Heather gestured to the buttery leather sofas, ignoring the folder. “First things first. Leila, you mentioned Diana. You said she’s your sister. If we’re talking about the same person, then you’re wrong. Diana has no sisters.”
“She’s my half sister,” Leila said.
Heather blinked as if struck.
“Mine, too.” Lucas cited their May birthday. “You had triplets that day, right? That’s us. Me, Leila, and our brother, Brade.”
Leila smiled crookedly. “Surprise.”
The sun slanted through the side window and for a moment, the only movement in the room was the dust motes dancing in the light. Lucas had heard of people aging rapidly from shock or trauma, but he hadn’t seen it happen before. He didn’t think a face could go so white, so fast. No, not white but gray, a sickly color that did not seem compatible with life.
“Triplets.” Heather said the word as if she’d never heard it before. Even her voice sounded older. She started shaking her head. “No. It can’t be.”
“It is.” Leila spread her and Lucas’s DNA reports, birth certificates, and adoption papers onto the low table between them. “You hid your tracks well. Heather Honey, right?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” More dying rabbit protestations. “I didn’t hide anything.”
Lucas leaned forward. “Are you saying you did not give birth to triplets? That you did not give them up for adoption? That you did not ensure that they could never find you?”
“What?” Heather looked mystified. “No. I mean, yes. Wait. I need to think.”
“Come up with another story, you mean?” Lucas said. “Just tell us the truth, okay? You created a public persona called Mel Brezo, so nobody would ever connect you to the woman who abandoned her babies.”
Part of him wanted to pound the table. She wasn’t going to make this easy for them. Thank goodness that Leila had recovered enough composure to drive the conversation.
“I didn’t...” Heather winced and bowed her head.
“We’re not going to blow your cover,” Leila said quickly. “You can paint under whatever name you like. Mel Brezo is clever, actually. If I hadn’t been studying Spanish at the time, I might not have figured it out. But we knew Diana’s mother’s name was Heather and that sometimes she’d been called Honey. Mel ...honey... brezo ...heather... It couldn’t be a coincidence.”
A phone rang in the other room and they all jumped.
Heather’s eyes darted to the documents, then slid away. She folded her arms over her chest and took a breath. “How did you meet... Diana?”
No questions about him or Leila.
“She’s one of my best friends,” Leila said. “To find out she’s also my half sister was amazing.”
“I’m still confused.” Heather blinked, shook her head, and looked between them. “You’re the triplets?”
Leila nodded. “Two of them, anyway.”
Heather’s gaze landed on Lucas, soft and frightened and disbelieving. “I looked for you. Or maybe it was your brother. I looked and looked...” She took in a shuddering breath. “You were just... gone. They told me you were... in a better place. Oh, dear.”
Lucas got up and poured a glass of water for her from the pitcher Malcolm Black had left sitting beside the uneaten pastries.
“Thank you.” She took a sip and cleared her throat. “Your parents raised you well.”
“How about we tell you what we know?” Leila suggested, handing Heather the birth certificates. “The three of us were all adopted separately, with no knowledge of each other, records sealed. Lucas and I always knew we were adopted but Brade only found out when his father passed away. He started searching for genetic relatives and that led him to Diana.”
Heather glanced briefly at the documents, then set the glass carefully back onto the table. She swallowed hard and closed her eyes. “Diana. She must hate me.”
Lucas looked at Leila.
“She grew up thinking you were...” Leila hesitated “...dead. I’m sorry. That’s what everyone thought, apparently.”
Heather nodded. “That was our agreement. Weldon—” she looked up “—that’s my ex-husband but I expect you already know that?”
They nodded.
“After I’d been gone for about two years, I asked for a divorce.” She recounted the events in a robotic voice. “Diana’s father told me I was dead to him and our daughter and everyone else I might have known. He would grant me the divorce, but I was never to return to Grand. And never to contact Diana again. So, yes, I had to recreate myself.”
“And forgetting about us was part of that?” Lucas asked, unable to stop himself.
“Lucas.” Leila gave him a warning look.
“It’s okay,” Heather said. “None of this paints me in a good light. Please understand that this happened a long time ago and even I have only got partial knowledge.”
“You have another daughter,” Lucas said. “Perhaps we could start there.”
“No.” Heather looked at him impassively. “I’ll give you information about your origin. I understand you needing to know that. Anything more is at my discretion.”
“Who is our birth father?” Leila asked.
Heather swallowed. “Your birth father was a man named JP Malone.”
Lucas noted the past tense.
“He disappeared from my world before you were born,” Heather said. “He never knew that I was pregnant. But we loved each other. That’s why when I needed... to start over... I took his name.”
The color had returned to her face. The years were still etched on her skin but now the lines fell in easy places. These were good memories. They’d been created in love.
A weight he didn’t know he’d been carrying dropped away. He’d been prepared for a much worse story, prepared to hear it for the long-ago story it was and not let it touch him. He wasn’t prepared to be touched.
“He’s dead?” Lucas needed to be sure.
“He must be,” Heather said. “If he’d have known what happened to me, he would have returned. He would have helped us.”
That’s the story she told herself in order to live with it. But that wasn’t enough for Lucas. Who was JP Malone and what had happened to him? They had tools now that they didn’t have thirty years ago. Perhaps he could find answers for Heather. And for himself.
“What did happen to you, Heather?” Leila asked.
Heather lifted her coffee mug, then set it back down without tasting it. “Perhaps I need to start earlier. Oh, where to begin?”
She sighed, her smile slight and aimed at a much younger version of herself.
“I wasn’t a bad kid but I was naive. Restless. My mother—your grandmother—died when I was a teenager.”
“Mine too!” Leila reached out.
Heather’s face contorted and she gripped Leila’s hand. “Oh, my dear. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Lucas watched the tableau with bemusement. His life had been so ordinary, by comparison. At least, until lately. But that had nothing to do with the part of his life that intersected with Heather Hudson.
“My father was named Ernst Hudson. He’d had a hard life. He was a strict man, very religious and after Mom died, he became worse. He was grieving and out of his depth in raising a sad, lonely teenage girl. I’m sure he did his best.”
Sorrier words Lucas had never heard.
“JP and I met at a rodeo. I liked him immediately but he was a gentleman.” A soft smile lit her face. “I was desperately looking for love in all the wrong places, as they say, but he refused to take advantage of me. We became pen pals if you can believe it.”
Leila laughed. “Seriously?”
Heather nodded. “I know. A lost art. I still have his letters. I’ll show you, later. I got to know him through those letters. That’s how I fell in love with him. That’s how, I believe, he fell in love with me, too.”
That’s not how you got pregnant.
“We met when we could,” Heather continued, “but it wasn’t often. And we didn’t... sleep together... until our last meeting. Of course, I didn’t know it would be our last meeting. He told me not to rely on any man. He never led me to believe there would be more than there was.”
Heather’s words echoed his conversation with Bayleigh. Had he unwittingly repeated his birth father’s actions? Were text strings the modern equivalent of letters?
“I knew he cared though.” She touched the chain around her neck. “I knew from the words he’d written to me. But then, they just... stopped.”
“Why?” Leila asked. “Where was he?”
“His letters were always sporadic. He’d be out on the range for weeks at a time, unable to get anything out to me. Then I’d get two or three in a row. So, I wasn’t worried right away. But once I realized I was pregnant, I had to find him.”
She got up, went to the counter, poured herself another glass of water and straightened the spoons. Maybe she didn’t want them looking at her when she told this part of the story.
Leila exchanged a glance with Lucas. She was impatient too.
“You didn’t find him,” she said.
“No,” Heather said with a wry smile. “I did not. And eventually, my father found out about my condition. He didn’t know about JP. He would have been furious if he’d have known I was involved with someone but now I wonder. If I’d have told him, maybe he’d have been able to find him. I’ll never know.” She looked up. “Your grandfather passed away a dozen years ago.”
She didn’t look broken up about it.
“His beliefs were very rigid. He was particularly uncomfortable with women who didn’t accept the traditional role of wife and mother. He was threatened by them, I think.” She gave her head a shake. “But I’m getting ahead of myself.”
She returned to the couch but left the glass of water on the counter.
“He wanted to send me away so no one would know I was pregnant. He intended for me to have the baby and give it up for adoption, and then come home as if nothing ever happened.”
She knitted her fingers together, then unknit them. Her thumbnails were both surrounded by raw, red flesh, though the nails themselves were perfectly manicured.
“I ran away.”
Malcolm, who must have been hovering outside the door, came in to stand behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. She patted it gratefully, then continued with her story. Whatever their relationship, they clearly had a lot of trust between them.
“I was sure I’d hear from JP sooner or later, and no way was I going to tell him I’d let our baby be taken away. I knew he’d want it, that he’d want us. Maybe that was youthful optimism, I don’t know. But I got on a bus, went as far as I could, and ended up in Grand, Montana.” She tipped her head. “And you ended up adopted by someone in Grand, didn’t you, Leila?”
“I did,” Leila said.
Coincidence?
“I got a job in a diner,” Heather went on, “found a couple who let me pay cash to rent the room above their garage. I was living day to day, panicking a little more every morning. I got big so fast but what did I know? I was nineteen, a kid having a kid.”
Lucas thought of Bayleigh, pregnant at a similar age. Had she felt the same kind of panic? What would have happened to her if her boyfriend hadn’t stepped up? Had she been that in love, too, that stupidly optimistic?
“I was desperate for my father not to find me, so I didn’t talk to anyone or go anywhere. Don’t forget, this was a different time. No cell phones, no internet, or social media. Whether that made it easier to hide or harder, I’m not sure. I was on my dad’s health insurance, so I was afraid that if I saw a doctor, I’d be found. I didn’t know if the police were looking for me. I certainly felt like a criminal. I couldn’t go back home. Anyway, I had no idea I was carrying more than one. When I went into preterm labor, I was completely unprepared.”
Malcolm handed her the glass of water and she took a deep drink.
Lucas wished he had something stronger than coffee.
“I’d been feeling awful, bad headache, swollen ankles, all symptoms of preeclampsia but I didn’t know that then. I guess I collapsed at work.” She swallowed. “This is where it gets really foggy. I went into shock and apparently nearly died. I was taken to a hospital in Billings. I guess that’s where you all were born but I don’t remember. I had an emergency Caesarean section, I know that.” She paused again. “It was a week before I was out of critical care and I was hospitalized for quite a while after that. By the time I was able to make my way to the nursery, there was no baby there connected to me.”
She shook her head as if still unable to believe it. “No one even knew who I was. My aunt Susan is the only kind person I remember during that time. She told me something about some babies who weren’t expected to live. She was telling me about the Denver neonatal intensive care, and all I thought was, ‘Who cares about those babies? I want my baby.’ Finally, a nurse told me about some triplets, my babies, she said. I didn’t believe her. She was mad, I remember that, though she tried to hide it. She acted as if what happened was all my fault and I can’t exactly argue with that. Anyway, she told me—” She paused, cleared her throat, and swallowed. “She told me that my babies had gone to a better place.”
“Oh, Hetty,” Malcolm said. “I’m so sorry.”
She waved away his concern but accepted the tissue he offered and dabbed her eyes. “It’s a long time ago.”
“It was the worst time of your life,” Leila said softly.
“Yes. It was.” Heather nodded. “Thank you, dear.”
“You believed we all died?” Lucas said.
“I barely believed you’d been born,” Heather replied. “I thought I had one baby, a boy. I couldn’t believe he was dead.” She made a motion in the air with her hands. “I had this visceral sense of warmth or weight or something. I can’t describe it. I remembered feeling you leaving my body. I knew you’d been real, even though my father, everyone around me acted as if nothing happened. No one would talk about it or tell me what they knew. I went a little crazy, I think.”
She got up again and this time, went to stand by the window. It overlooked a pretty little park where children were playing on a wooden climbing structure. She smiled and gave a little wave.
“After a few months at home, I stole money from my dad’s wallet and got on a bus to Denver. I believed my baby was still alive and Denver was the only clue I had. I’d looked up which hospitals were equipped to care for very premature babies and knew it was likely that that’s where they would have shipped him.” She looked at Lucas. “Maybe it was you I was searching for. Maybe it was your brother. I don’t know.” Her gaze shifted to Leila. “I’m so sorry, Leila.”
Leila shook her head. “Go on.”
“Of course, I got no answers in Denver. I managed to get into the NICU but again, I couldn’t find any baby with Hudson or Malone or even Doe as a last name. Security found me and next thing I knew, I was on a stretcher again, with my father staring down at me. He got me back home and that’s when things started to get really bad. I just couldn’t let it go. I was beside myself. Finally, he threatened that if I didn’t pull myself together, get a job, get on with my life, he’d kick me out. I didn’t care. But I got a job. I took my medication. I tried to move on.”
She stopped. Her hands were shaking. “If you don’t mind, I need to take a break.”
Instantly, Malcolm was at her side. He held her elbow and led her out of the room. Over his shoulder, he said, “We’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”
Lucas got up. His leg needed movement and he was also feeling that he needed to get out of the room. Maybe out of the house, out of Chinook, out of this crazy tragic story.
“Are you still happy we came?” he asked Leila.
When she didn’t answer, he looked over at her. She was crying.
He made his way to the couch and sat down next to her. “Hey, sis. It’s going to be okay. This doesn’t change anything about our lives. We are who we are. This is ancient history.”
“Yes, but she went through so much, Lucas. It’s so awful. How could people treat her like that? I can’t believe this was allowed. For a young mother to have her children taken away from her like that? As if she didn’t matter? Who does that?”
When Heather returned, she sketched a brief outline of the next few years. At her father’s urging, she married Weldon Scott and had Diana but couldn’t forget about the son she believed was still alive. As Heather described her experiences, it sounded to Lucas like she had been deeply depressed and horribly lonely. She had no one in her corner. Even her husband simply wanted her to move on from her inconvenient grief.
She was crying again by the time she told them about leaving her family.
“I couldn’t do it. I loved Diana more than she’ll ever know. I wanted a better life for her than I could give her. I thought Weldon would marry again, someone not ruined by past mistakes, someone who could love them both the way they deserved.”
Malcolm touched her shoulder “You thought that wasn’t you?”
“It wasn’t me.” She took another shaky breath and then looked at Lucas and Leila with greedy, desperate eyes. “Can you... tell me about Diana? How is she?”
Leila’s eyes were shining, too. “She’s great. Amazing. Happily married, with three kids. Your grandchildren.”
“Oh!” Heather pressed a hand to her chest.
By the time they left, even Lucas had to wipe his eyes. He couldn’t deny that the story his birth mother told was one of tragedy, but not malice.
Only one thing kept him from letting Heather into his heart completely:
Emmet.