“I’m going to read this aloud.” She sank into a cross-legged position and leaned over the letter.
Dear Mattie, if you’re reading this it’s because I’m dead and never had a chance to tell you the truth about your father. I promised Hawksley I would keep this secret as long as he was alive. It was one of the conditions of our very complicated marriage, a marriage that suited the old adage, marry in haste, repent in leisure.
I was very young when I started seeing Hawksley. I’d just broken off with a man I was crazy about—and I was also pregnant with this other man’s baby. I told Hawksley the truth, and he offered to marry me. He’d been in love with me for a long time, and I think he saw this as his golden opportunity to have me. But in the end, I wasn’t the right wife for him. I wasn’t strong or tough enough.
But my life had its rewards, and you were the first, Mattie. Your biological father, Bill Sheenan, never knew you were his. Or at least he may have suspected, but I never confirmed it out of loyalty to Hawksley.
I’m so sorry for this deception, my girl. I hope I loved you enough to make up for the hurt of being denied your true father.
All my love, your Mother.
Stunned silence followed Mattie’s reading of the closing line. Callan had been nursing a suspicion about her own parenthood. But Mattie’s? Never. Was this what her father had been referring to when he’d uttered that last word in the ambulance? Maybe he’d thought she was Mattie. Everyone said they looked alike, and by then he would have been very lightheaded and confused.
“This is crazy,” Mattie said slowly. “And yet...something about it feels right. At least it makes me feel less guilty about the lack of connection I had with Hawksley.”
“I never would have guessed,” Dani said. “Too bad we didn’t find this out before Bill Sheenan passed away.”
“The timing is interesting,” Mattie said. “Both men dying within a year of each other. You realize if Mom hadn’t been killed by that stupid cow she would be sitting here right now, telling us this news in person.”
“Don’t you wish she’d told you from the beginning?” Sage asked.
“I’m not sure,” Mattie said softly. “My relationship with Hawksley would have been even more tense. But I do wonder if Bill Sheenan knew the truth. I can remember him singling me out a few times at various community events. He’d ask how I was doing, and seemed really interested.”
“I wonder what’s in the other letters?” Callan’s eyes were on the one meant for her. She rubbed her fingers together, resisting the urge to grab for it.
“I’m not sure I want to read mine,” Dani said. “I’m still reeling from Mattie’s.”
“Same here,” Sage agreed.
“Then I’ll go next.” Before anyone could argue, Callan snatched hers and pulled out the letter.
Dear Callan, you were a handful from the start. My most challenging delivery, a colicky baby and a temperamental toddler. But you adored Hawksley from the beginning, would follow him every chance you got.
I wish I had been able to share those feelings. But a few years before you were born, I’d become deeply unhappy with my marriage. I made the mistake of inviting Bill Sheenan in one night when your father was camping out in the mountains, during the fall round-up. I’d dated Bill when I was younger and he had a sensitive side that I could never see in Hawksley.
I do believe you were conceived that evening, Callan. I pray this doesn’t hurt you too much. If I had been a stronger person, I would have left Hawksley. But I didn’t, and my relationship with Bill helped me get through some of the tougher times.
It also gave me you. Please know that you are loved, Callan. Certainly by me, and even by Hawksley, though he isn’t one to show such things. You are the only one of my children he ever carried on his shoulders or invited to sit on his lap when he was watching television. Believe in that bond. And forgive me if you can.
All my love, your mother.
When she reached the end, Callan turned the page over, hoping for more. But that was all her mother had written, a handful of paragraphs that changed who Callan thought she was, and how she fit into this world.
“So I am a bastard after all.”
Sage wrapped her in a hug. “Don’t. That’s such an ugly, old-fashioned word.”
“I think Mom was right,” Mattie added. “You were Hawksley’s favorite. Always.”
“Really?” Callan said sarcastically. Then she blinked, as the significance of her father’s will clicked into place for her. “This is why he left the ranch to Court. Because we aren’t really his children. Court is related to him by blood. Not us.”
Her words stunned them.
Dani was the first to recover. “But Sage and me. We must be Hawksley’s children...?”
They all stared at the two remaining letters. Then at each other.
Sage shrank back. “You first, Dani.”
Solemnly Dani took the penultimate envelope and slid out the letter. She took a big breath, then began:
Dear Dani,
I hope that I am able to deliver this news to you in person one day, after Hawksley has had a long, long life. But in the event that doesn’t happen, it’s only fair that you know you are not Hawksley’s biological daughter.
For years after Mattie was born, I prayed for a second child. Being a rancher’s wife—especially a rancher as taciturn and somewhat cold as Hawksley—was hard on me. I coped by pouring love into my garden in the summer, quilting in the winter, and always and most importantly, my baby.
But I wanted more than one child, and so did Hawksley. Finally he agreed to come with me for medical testing. That was when we discovered that for unknown reasons—perhaps a childhood illness, or one of his many tumbles on the ranch—Hawksley’s sperm count was too low for us to have another child.
He was devastated by this news—and so was I. It took me another year to convince him to let me try artificial insemination. I went all the way to Seattle, since Hawksley didn’t want the biological father to be from Montana.
The profile we chose was from a man who worked as a professor. He had great health, a high IQ, was tall and handsome. As you grew older and it became clear just how intelligent youwere, yourself, I was often tempted to tell you the truth.
But I had a pact with Hawksley. I wouldn’t tell our children that he wasn’t their biological father as long as he lived. And, in turn, if something happened to me, he would raise you as if you were his own flesh and blood.
All my love, your Mother.
As with the other letters, none of them could speak until they’d taken some time to digest their mother’s words. Callan was the first to recover.
“This is weird. The way you ended up a professor, living in Seattle.”
“Yeah,” Sage agreed. “It’s like your genes predisposed you to that career and that location.”
“That I’d be drawn to a similar profession as my biological father isn’t a surprise,” Dani said. “But the location. That is a little...amazing.”
“Read that part about the pact again, would you?” Callan asked. After Dani complied, she nodded her head. “Think about what our father promised Mom. That he would raise us as if we were his own flesh and blood. He made no promise about what would happen later—after we were ‘raised.’”
“That’s a good point,” Dani said. “So he can keep his promise to Mom and still bequeath the ranch to someone who’s related to him by blood.”
“And now we know what he meant when he said that thing about keeping his word,” Callan added. These letters were devastating but they explained so much.
“I guess I wasn’t his biological daughter, either,” Sage said. “Not if his sperm count was too low.” She took the last letter, the one with her name.
Dear Sage,
Like your sister, Dani, I conceived you by artificial insemination, choosing a father this time with Scottish heritage and thick auburn hair. He was a medical student and—most importantly—extremely healthy.
You were a delightful child from conception to present day. My pregnancy and labor with you were relatively painless. And you were a sweet natured child from the start. You also surprised your father by being a natural on the back of a horse. Hawksley was the first to notice, and he got a lot of pleasure out of training you to ride.
My life’s biggest joy has been my four beautiful daughters. I pray you’ll be happy and find love in your lives.
All my love, your mother.
“Well, that seals it,” Sage said, carefully refolding the letter and replacing it in the envelope. “None of us were Hawksley’s.”
“That’s bullshit,” Dani said. “His name is on our birth certificates, right? We carry his last name. Whether you have a child by birth or adoption, it’s still yours.”
“That’s the modern view,” Mattie said. “But Hawksley was a traditionalist. That must be why he was so close to his family in Minnesota. To him, they were his real family.”
Callan scrambled to her feet, and went to the window, opening it a crack. She needed fresh air. She needed to think. She wanted to hate her mother for cheating on her father, but she couldn’t get past the fact that if Beverly Carrigan hadn’t slept with Bill Sheenan, she, herself, would not exist.
But how it must have hurt their father to be forced to raise two children whose biological father was his old rival, Bill Sheenan. Had he thought of his wife’s betrayal every time he looked at her face?
“I’m just realizing why so many people comment on the resemblance between Mattie and me. It’s because we’re full-blooded sisters.” As soon as Callan made the comment, she regretted it. Because it made it sound as if she and Mattie were somehow closer, or loved each other more.
But it was too late to retract the words. Already her sisters were looking at each other differently, adjusting to the fact that Dani and Sage were biologically half-sisters to all of them.
“Stop.” Mattie clasped her palms together, as if she was praying. “We can’t let what was in these letters change anything between the four of us. We are all sisters. Period. I love you all too much to care about any of this other crap.”
“Me, too.” Callan was on the verge of tears again, and she allowed herself to be enfolded in a four-way hug. And then she wasn’t on the verge, she was crying, sobbing.
They all were.
After reading their letters, Callan and her sisters were mentally exhausted. Mattie made a pot of tea, and Sage dug out bars of the single origin chocolate she was so proud of. They sat around the island in the kitchen, first in stunned silence as they absorbed the huge news.
There was just so much to process.
“I wonder if Court McAllister knows we aren’t Hawksley’s biological daughters?” Dani was the first to break the silence with her question.
Callan had been thinking about the same thing. There’d been a look in Court’s eyes that made her suspect he did. “If Hawksley told the McAllister side of the family, that might be why he kept us apart all his life, never inviting the McAllisters to the Circle C, and never taking us with him when he went to St. Paul.”
“Heck,” Mattie said. “It’s like he’s been living a double life all these years.”
“And what about the Sheenans?” Dani asked. “Could they know that Mattie and Callan are their half-sisters?”
“Oh, hell, we are, aren’t we?” Callan hung out with Dillon at Grey’s Saloon all the time. Thankfully they’d never had a shred of attraction between them. On a subconscious level had they been aware of their shared DNA?
“I don’t think they do,” Sage said. “They only found out about the affair last year, after I told all of you. Funny how none of us even wondered if they might have conceived a child.”
“That’s because we didn’t know Mom dated Bill Sheenan before she married Hawksley,” Dani pointed out. “So how could we have guessed?”
“There must have been quite the connection between our mom and Dillon’s father, for their on-again, off-again affair to have lasted so long.” Mattie sighed and topped up her tea.
“Remember at the rodeo last year,” Sage said, “When Bill Sheenan took a pot shot at Dad? He said something about Mom when he did it. So even after all these years, there was still bad blood about it.”
“I can see why Hawksley would be mad at Bill,” Callan said. “But why was Bill the one to throw the punch?”
“My impression was he blamed Hawksley for making Mom unhappy. Something Dad said to me once was along the same lines. He pretty much admitted their marriage had been a mistake.”
No doubt Hawksley thought the four of them were even bigger mistakes. Callan wished she could get on her horse, start riding and never come back. But where would she go? All this land she’d once thought of as belonging to her was now Court McAllister’s. She had never felt so trapped in her life.
“We haven’t finished looking through Mom’s trunk,” Dani reminded them. “Bev will be awake any minute. Mind if we go back and see what else is in there?”
If she couldn’t go riding, Callan’s second choice was to crawl into her bed and hide from the world that way. But she wasn’t a kid. She had to face this. “Better not be any more big surprises in there.”
Mattie slung an arm over her shoulders. “If there are, we’ll tackle them together.”
It didn’t take long to check out the rest of the items in the trunk. They found four hand-made quilts, one for each of them, and also several volumes comprising Beverly’s diaries from the age of ten until the day before she died.
“Eliza Bramble would love to get her hands on these for that Bramble family history she’s writing,” Sage said.
“I want to read them first,” Mattie said. “Do you mind if I take them back with me when we leave?”
They conferred, and agreed that as the eldest it should be Mattie’s prerogative to read the diaries first.
“If you find out any other bombshells, you’ll phone us right away?” Dani asked.
“I promise.”
Shortly after that, baby Bev woke from her nap. The sisters took turns holding her while they sat in the family room drinking tea and trying to process all they’d learned that morning.
Around four o’clock the riders returned home and Mattie sat them down to break the big news. Everyone was shocked. How could they not be?
“Does this mean he wasn’t our grandfather?” Portia wondered.
“Nothing of the kind,” her mother reassured her. “We were his adopted daughters, but we were still his daughters. And you, Wren, Savannah and Bev were all his granddaughters.”
Even in the second generation, Callan reflected, her father had been blessed with only female babies. Would his will have been different if Mattie had given birth to twin sons instead?
“Hell of a day,” Dawson commented, after giving Sage a hug. “Anyone want a beer?”
All the adults except Sage said yes, and once that was finished it was time to begin preparations for dinner. Callan did her best to smile and help, all the while longing to be alone. To think.
Just one more day, and then she’d have all the time in the world to herself. Tomorrow morning they would inter half of Hawksley’s ashes, and after that she would spread the rest of them up in the foothills.
With Court.
She dreaded seeing him again now that she knew the truth. She hated the fact that he had known more about her life than she had. It was so unfair. What had her parents been thinking when they made that stupid pact?
She made it through the meal, barely, and the clean-up, too. But when the family decided to sit around the table and play a game called Things, she couldn’t take it.
“I have to go into town,” she told Sage quietly, before slipping out the door with the keys to her truck, her wallet and her phone.
Grey’s Saloon was calling.
The next morning at Hawksley’s interment, Callan stood graveside, shivering with cold, while enduring her second hangover in as many days.
Fresh snow coated the Gallatins and she couldn’t help worrying about the cattle. Now that the fences had been fixed, they should be brought down to lower elevation soon.
She shifted her gaze to her mother’s gravestone, and the date of death that marked Beverly Carrigan’s shortened lifespan. Callan had been only eight when she lost her mother. How different her life, and that of her sisters, would have been if their Mom hadn’t gone out to the barn to help Hawksley deliver that calf eighteen years ago. Had Hawksley blamed himself for her death?
Probably. That would help explain why he’d felt compelled to keep looking after the children he’d never wanted and never loved.
The service was short, only a few prayers. In attendance were her sisters, their spouses and children. Dani had bundled her baby warmly and held her close to her chest to keep out the frigid air. Eliot had his arm protectively over Dani’s shoulders and she was leaning in to him.
Over the course of the past few days, Callan had almost been won over by the divorce attorney. According to Nat, Eliot hadn’t been afraid to get his hands and boots dirty in the barn. So he couldn’t be all bad.
On Callan’s other side, Sage and Dawson stood arm-in-arm, Dawson in his deputy uniform since he had to work the afternoon shift. They’d decided not to bring Savannah, instead leaving her at a friend’s house for the day.
Mattie, Nat, Portia and Wren stood in another grouping at the far side of the grave. Nat had a hand on Mattie’s shoulder, while Mattie was holding each of her daughters’ hands.
And that was it. They hadn’t invited great aunt Mabel, or Eliza, since they were Brambles from their mother’s side of the family. And Court, thankfully, hadn’t been heard from since the reading of the will. Or, more accurately, the night he’d accosted her in the bar.
It still made her burn to recall the way he’d disarmed her, as if he was some sort of protector or guardian. And not one of her cowboy buddies had stepped in to help. What kind of loyalty was that?
After the interment everyone headed inside, gathering around the dining room table for sandwiches and tea. Sage recounted the time she had the bad fall that ended her barrel-racing career. “Less than twenty-four hours after the accident, Dad was in Casper, Wyoming, standing by my hospital bed.”
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