Uncertain Loyalties (Dancing Moon Ranch Book 4)

by Patricia Watters

  ***

  The following morning, when Sophie returned from the outhouse, Rick was exactly as he'd been when she crept through the room on her way out, with his sleeping bag open to just below his waist, his head thrown back, and soft burrs rumbling with his breathing. The room was warm, so he'd gotten up during the night and banked the fire then later unzipped his sleeping bag because he was too hot. She suspected, from the depth of his breathing, that it had been the early hours of the morning before he finally fell asleep.

  As she stared at him, she was tempted to close the sleeping bag, but she knew it would wake him up. She also wanted to look at him a little longer. With his two-day-old beard, his dark wavy hair mussed and standing in all directions, his lips parted slightly, and the sleeping bag open to reveal a solid chest and lean hard abdomen, she wanted to do all kinds of things—comb her fingers through his hair to straighten it, run her palm across the stubble on his chin because it looked so incredibly male, kiss him on the lips instead of the temple, open the sleeping bag wide and crawl in on top of him.

  Instead, she went into the bedroom and dressed. But before returning to boil water for coffee and instant oatmeal, she made a point of rattling around in the bedroom to give Rick a chance to either pull the sleeping bag around him, or get up and get dressed. After a few minutes she heard him moving around and poked her head out the door to find him in his jeans and boots. He shrugged into his tank top and left the cabin, and she imagined he was heading for the outhouse.

  While he was gone, she made a fire in the firebox of the wood stove, and set on top of it a big pot of water for cooking and making coffee, and a bucket of water for washing. Rick was gone longer than she expected, and by the time she saw him heading across the clearing toward the cabin, the oatmeal was ready and the coffee in the French press was brewed. She had just set the bowls of oatmeal and mugs of coffee on the table when Rick walked in.

  Rubbing the stubble on his chin, he mumbled, "I feel like a grunge. I didn't bring a razor."

  Sophie eyed the grizzle on his chin and scanned the rest of him, and said, "Some women would find you irresistible. You could pass for a celebrity on the covers of scandal sheets at check-out counters." She hoped her attempt at humor would help lift his dour mood.

  Instead of smiling, he looked at her moodily, and said, "I saddled your horse. You can start back after we eat."

  "I guess I have no choice," Sophie replied, "but why are you so anxious for me to leave?"

  "Like I said before, things are complicated." He washed his hands at the hand pump on the sink and sat at the table.

  Sophie sat across from him, and when he didn't start eating right away, she realized he was waiting for her to say grace, which surprised her. Although she knew he was doing it as a courtesy, she bowed her head. But before she started, Rick said, "You need to include your folks this time." She looked across the table at him, but by then his face was tipped down, and although his eyes were open, he looked as if her prayer was important to him.

  After again asking God to look after Rick and help him come to terms with things, she ended the prayer with, "And make me worthy of my mother and father's efforts. Amen."

  When she looked up, one corner of Rick's mouth was tipped in a slight smile, and that barely discernible smile was like the dawn of a new day.

  Resigned to returning to the ranch, she said, "When do you think you'll be coming back?"

  Rick shrugged. "I don't know, tomorrow maybe."

  "There’ll be a funeral sometime soon, and you'll need to get back for that." When Rick said nothing, Sophie said, "You do plan to go to your mother's funeral, don’t you?"

  Rick responded by taking a long sip of coffee and saying nothing.

  While she was deliberating whether to insist he attend his mother funeral, the sound of horses hooves caught their attention. She went to the window, and announced, "Adam's here and he looks like he's in a hurry."

  A few moments later Adam swept open the door. Spotting Rick, he said in an anxious voice, "Someone from your mother's family called to say your mother's funeral's scheduled this morning at eleven at the funeral home in McMinnville. If you start back now you can make it."

  When Rick made no move, Sophie said, "You need to go. If you don't, you'll regret it later."

  Rick sucked in a long breath, and said while exhaling, "Yeah, I suppose."

  "I'll get my things together," Sophie said, relieved that Rick's sleeping bag was still on the couch, and her things were in the bedroom, so there was no question in Adam's mind as to what did not take place in the cabin.

  An hour later they were back at the ranch. Adam took care of the horses while she and Rick headed for the house. Sam was in the living room when they arrived. He immediately walked up to Rick, clapped him on the shoulder, and said, "You doing okay, son?"

  Rick nodded, and asked, "Did you go to the police to see what Mom wrote?"

  "Yes," Sam replied, "but they'll only release it to you since you're next of kin. We can go tomorrow if you want. I'd go with you after the service, but I have inspectors coming to the winery so I have to be here."

  "That's okay. I'll go today," Rick said. "And you don't need to go to the service. It would be awkward."

  "I'm going," Sam replied. "In spite of everything, I was married to your mother and I want to pay my last respects."

  Rick gave an apathetic shrug. "Do it if you want, but you don't need to do it for me." He turned and went into the bathroom to clean up.

  While he was gone, Sophie said to Sam, "I want to go too. Rick acts indifferent, but he's pretty broken up, mainly with conflicting feelings he can't reconcile. You might feel a little of the same. I know I do." Sam nodded and said nothing, effectively shutting her out. And it came to her that, after knowing the Hansens for eighteen years, and being treated like one of the family, for the first time in her life she felt like an outsider.

  ***

  On the drive to the police station, Rick seemed in deep thought. Sophie couldn't decide whether he was silent because they'd just come from his mother's funeral, or because he was apprehensive about what they'd find in her suicide note. She suspected it was the funeral. Everything about it had been awkward. Rick sat with Susan's family, leaving her alone with Sam, the only member of the Hansen family to attend, which wasn't surprising. The family had had no connection with Susan for years, and with her continued friendship with Jack's ex-wife, the only reason any of them would have attended would be to support Rick, who made it clear he wanted to go alone. But she and his father didn't give him that option, and Rick just shrugged and said, "Come if you want. I'm going to the police station afterwards."

  What did surprise Sophie was when Rick stood up in front of everyone and said his peace.

  That was right after the pastor had recited a lot of boilerplate funeral jargon, then followed with a poem intended to be appropriate for someone who'd committed suicide.

  Seeming to take offense to what the pastor said, Rick stood, walked to the front of the chapel and said, "Poems are nice. They make us feel better. But no poem has been written that's suitable for the eulogy of someone who took her own life. For years I've known my mother was troubled, but I also remember a time when I was sick and she sat by my bed day and night. Sometimes, when I was hanging between life and death, I'd see her face and wonder if an angel had come to get me, and that made me feel peaceful, knowing I'd be taken away by a beautiful angel..."

  Sophie couldn't remember what Rick said next, but when he was done, there were a lot of teary eyes, including her own, because in spite of who or what Susan Hansen had been, Rick had loved his mother unconditionally. But Sophie couldn't imagine Rick being any other way because that's who he was. A man who loved deeply, and unconditionally.

  At the police station they were summoned to the police chief's office where the chief unlocked a door labeled Police Property Room, removed a file folder, took from it an envelope and handed it to Rick. "The note's inside," he said. "You can
take it with you when you leave. The Medical Examiner has a copy. He questioned the man who was living with your mother and has determined that she took her own life. The case is now closed."

  "Except the guy's still there," Rick said.

  "Actually he'd already moved out when the detectives went back to check the place."

  Sophie saw the relief on Rick's face. One less problem for him to deal with. She'd also seen Don at the funeral, and of everyone there he actually looked broken up, and she wondered if maybe he'd had feelings for Susan that went beyond the sex he was getting from her. Rick wouldn’t have seen him because the man sat in the last row in the chapel and left right after Rick paid tribute to his mother.

  "I'll leave you to this," the chief of police commented. He locked the property room and left the office, pulling the door shut behind him."

  "I guess I'd better get this over with," Rick said, while opening the envelope.

  Sophie saw his hand shaking as he slipped out the note. Placing her palm on his arm, she said, "Do you want me to read it first?"

  "I'm okay," Rick replied, "just surprised she left a note. Read it with me if you want."

  Sophie took Rick's comment as reaching out to her for the first time since he'd learned of his mother's death. Moving beside him, she slipped her hand into the crook of his arm and waited as he unfolded the note. To her surprise, she saw that it was very short, and meticulously written. For some reason she'd expected to see something long and hastily scrawled, but each letter was put down carefully. But after she read the note, she read it again to make sure she'd read it right.

  I've failed too many people, especially my sons, the note read, and the letters were clear.

  "I don't understand," she said, while looking at the note. "There's an 's' on the word son. Your mother must have had a child before she met your dad."

  "It's Marc," Rick replied. "I figured it out a few days ago, but I don't know who his father is. It's not my dad because he's been sterile from chemo since right after I was born."

  "Why did your dad have chemo?" Sophie asked.

  "Testicular cancer," Rick replied. "Chemo made him sterile. He's also going to have some explaining to do when I get back to the ranch. He knew all along that Marc was my brother and kept it from me, but my mother also had Marc the same time Aunt Grace had Adam, and at the same hospital in New Jersey because that's where the cord blood transplant took place, and since it was Marc's cord blood I got for a match, he has to be related to someone close to Dad."

  And then reality dawned.

  "Shit!" he said. "My mother must have had sex with Uncle Jack too." Folding the note and shoving it into his pocket, he stormed out of the room, Sophie close behind, and headed for his truck and the ranch, and a confrontation that was about to open a Pandora's Box and let out a whole lot of sleazy slimy lies.

  CHAPTER 8

  By the time they turned off the highway onto the county road leading to the ranch, Rick had still not said a word and Sophie didn’t try to draw him out. She knew he was deeply troubled, which was understandable. Learning that Jack fathered Marc was almost too much. Over the years she'd assumed Jack had been devoted to his family and faithful to Grace, and would never stray, but whatever the marital problem might have been at the time, apparently they'd resolved it, and maybe that's where things should stay.

  She eyed Rick's firm profile and the hard line of his mouth, and said, "I don't think you should tell anyone about this, not even Marc."

  "That's pretty ironic coming from someone who drove six hundred miles because your mother withheld a past she wanted buried," Rick said.

  "This is different..." Sophie paused, because she realized it wasn't all that different. Lying to prevent someone from being hurt seemed a noble thing, like her mother had done.

  She felt another little stab of guilt.

  She couldn't remember all the hateful things she'd said before she left California, but she would contact her mother as soon as they got back to the ranch.

  The muscles in Rick's jaw bunched. "Then I'm supposed to say nothing, knowing I have a brother, and that Uncle Jack was screwing my mother while Aunt Grace was fawning all over him the way she's always done with Uncle Jack."

  "It's not like that with them and you know it," Sophie said. "Uncle Jack's as attentive to Aunt Grace as she is to him. Besides, Marc doesn't look anything like Uncle Jack, and all of Uncle Jack's kids do. It's got to be someone else."

  "Uncle Jack's the only one with my DNA," Rick pointed out. "So if Uncle Jack was screwing my mother, he's probably been screwing other women over the years, and now it all falls in place. I once overheard Dad and Jayne talking about how Uncle Jack slept with Lauren the first day they met. So yeah, I can see him getting it on with other women. And all these years I looked up to him like he was the greatest man on the face of the planet next to my dad. But my dad also has some explaining to do, since all my life he's known I wanted a brother like all my cousins have, and all the time I had one living across the road from me."

  "What about Marc?" Sophie asked. "If you say anything, he'll know neither of your parents wanted him, even after he was a cord blood match for you. That could be pretty devastating."

  "Marc needs to know," Rick said in a firm voice.

  "No, he doesn't," Sophie insisted. "I wish I'd never learned about Mom's background with men. I'm adjusting to it, but I'll never look at her the same. I can't. She was the person I admired most. I even vowed long ago to be a virgin when I married because it seemed so important to her, and from the way she talked, I assumed she'd been one when she married my dad. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss. You need to put yourself in Marc's place. How would you feel if all of a sudden you learned that Uncle Jack and Aunt Grace were your parents and neither of them wanted you, so your father, who was actually your uncle, took you on?"

  "That's not the way it was," Rick replied. "I owe Marc my life and I want him to know."

  "You've always owed your life to Marc, and you both knew it," Sophie said, "yet you've always been close to Adam, and as far as I can tell, spent very little time with Marc."

  "That's because Adam and I have common interests and Marc stays to himself."

  "Maybe that's because Marc's never felt like he belonged," Sophie said, "and with good reason. He doesn't look like any of you. But now that I think about it, I can see his resemblance with your mother. Not only does he have her eyes, but he has her hair with the gold highlights, which I assumed your mother did with hair highlighters. And Marc's features are your mother's in a masculine way. I don't know why no one's figured it out before."

  "Yeah, well it's been a carefully guarded secret that's about to be uncovered."

  "Can you at least wait a few days until you've had a chance for this to settle in?" Sophie asked. "You're doing exactly what I did when I learned about my mother, acting out of anger and ready to say and do things you'll later regret."

  When Rick gave no response, Sophie made one last effort to defuse things. "This will devastate the entire family. Not only will Aunt Grace and Uncle Jack be furious that you've told all, they'll have to explain to a whole pack of kids, who idolize their parents, that their father slept with his brother's wife and after he got her pregnant neither she nor your dad wanted Marc, like he was something dirty. A reminder of an infidelity in the Hansen family."

  "Then Uncle Jack and Aunt Grace will have to deal with it the best they can, but first, my dad has some serious explaining to do." Rick pulled the truck to a halt in front of his house, and catching sight of his father heading from the winery to the stable, started towards him.

  Sophie threw open the truck door and rushed after Rick. Grabbing his arm, she said, "What you're about to do is dead wrong. You're going to send this family into chaos."

  Rick snatched his arm from her hand. "I'm going to do what should have been done years ago." He lengthened his strides.

  Sophie stepped up her pace, and said, while struggling to keep up with him, "This i
s not like you to do anything rash, Rick. You really, really need to think this through."

  Sam caught sight of Rick and Sophie, just outside the barn. Looking at Rick in concern, he said, "What's the problem?"

  Rick reached in his pocket and pulled out the suicide note and waved it in front of him. "This is the problem," he said, his words sharp, and with venom.

  Sam took the note and began to read. When he was done, he returned the note to Rick and said nothing. Rick held the note with both hands, raised it in front of Sam's face, and said, "You do notice there's an 's' on the word son, don't you?"

  Sam drew in an extended breath, let it out slowly, and said, "It's a long story."

  "It's Marc, isn't it," Rick challenged. A statement, not a question.

  The look on Sam's face said it all. Trapped. No way out. Nothing to say but the truth.

  "Well?" Rick pressed.

  Sam nodded slowly. "Yes, it's Marc."

  Rick threw his arms up in disgust. "All the time I was growing up and wanting a brother, like the other Hansens, I had one and you never said a damn thing, even when I was eighteen and old enough to be told everything. And just last week you looked me in the eye and said you wish you and Jayne could have given me a brother. What in hell do you think Marc is?"

  "It's the way Jack and Grace wanted it," Sam said.

  "Yeah, I don't suppose Uncle Jack would want it known that he was screwing his brother's wife. But even if Marc is Uncle Jack's son, he's legally yours since you were married to Mom when she had him, and you could have kept him, even if Mom didn't want him."

  "It wasn't like that," Sam said. "It's a long complicated story."

  "Yeah, well, I'm listening. But when you're done telling all, don't expect me to pat you on the back and say it's okay that I had a brother all these years who nobody gave a damn about except maybe me, if I'd known, but nobody gave me that choice. So go ahead. Start explaining." Rick folded his arms and waited.