by Jane Porter
Jet’s heart was hammering as they entered the house. Shane wrapped an arm around her just inside the entrance. “Don’t worry,” he said, kissing her. “Everything will be fine.”
If only she could believe him. Her head tipped and she looked up into his eyes. “Will it?”
“Yes. Regardless of the outcome, it will be fine.”
“That’s not really what I wanted to hear.”
His mouth quirked. “I know. But I learned early that you don’t always get what you want.”
His mocking tone made her feel a little pang. “But you might just find you get what you need?”
He kissed her again, ignoring the Sheenans surrounding them. “I love a little Rolling Stones,” he replied before letting her go.
With an easy smile, he turned away and followed Brock down the hall.
Shane wasn’t nervous as he headed down the hall to Brock’s study, but he wasn’t quite as calm as he appeared, either.
He’d waited years for this moment and now that it’d come, he wasn’t sure he was ready for it. But then, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready for it. Perhaps it was a good thing Jet had forced the issue.
Once they were all in the study, the door closed behind Trey. For a moment no one said anything, they just took positions, conscious of the space around them.
Shane had now met them all, except for Brock, and it was Brock who was staring at him, his hard features shuttered even as his narrowed gaze studied Shane intently.
Shane would have known Brock was a Sheenan anywhere. He was big like the others, and solid. In his early forties now, he exuded strength and a quiet, no-nonsense confidence.
“You were at the cabin at Cherry Lake.” Cormac broke the silence, his tone more challenging then aggressive. “Why?”
“I wasn’t sure if it was the place I remembered. I hoped it was.”
“And?” It was Brock who asked the question.
Brock was definitely the big brother here, and had become the head of the Sheenan clan in the absence of their father.
“It was,” Shane answered, meeting Brock’s dark intense gaze. “And then I went to the cemetery and found her grave and Grandmother’s, too.”
The silence was deafening. No one said anything for an endless span of time. They all just looked at him.
Shane opened the Bible and flipped to the page he’d shown Jet last night. “This.” He put his finger on the blank space. “This is me.” And then he handed the book to Brock.
Brock didn’t even look down. He just gave the Bible to Troy who was standing on his right and then the Bible was passed to the other two.
Shane just waited. This was no longer his big revelation. This was theirs. He would let them control the conversation, and the questions.
“I don’t understand why you’d rent the cabin. Why the Cray cabin?” Trey asked.
“Because it’s the only memory I had. Or thought I had. The only time I could see her was when she was at Cherry Lake, with you all.”
Cormac frowned. “According to this, we were born less than a year apart. So where have you been?”
“At Flathead Lake with Grandmother until I was four, and then she died and I went into foster care.” Shane was careful to keep his tone neutral. He wasn’t here to be accusatory. They were in no way to blame and they deserved to know the facts.
It crossed Shane’s mind that they either didn’t believe him, or didn’t want to believe him.
“We didn’t even see Grandmother,” Cormac said eventually.
“That’s not true,” Troy answered. “We’d go to the cabin at least once a year and I’m sure she came to see us.”
Brock’s deep voice added, “We went to see you.”
Every head turned towards him.
“Mom called you a cousin. She’d say, ‘your cousin Sean Cray is here to play,’ and Gram would sometimes bring other Cray cousins, or Finley cousins, and we’d swim in the lake and Mom would sit in a chair near the water’s edge and just drink you in.”
“I don’t remember that,” Cormac said.
Trey’s forehead furrowed. “I remember swimming in the lake with other kids. There were girls and a boy. Two or three years old, but he could swim better than the girls.”
Brock nodded. “That was Shane.” He looked to Shane. “You have two names because Mom and Gram wanted to protect you. They couldn’t use your birth name because Dad didn’t know that it was Gram who adopted you. He was told you were with a family in Sheriden, Wyoming. But Gram took you and raised you, and then she had a heart attack and there was no way Mom could bring you home. And she was never the same after that.”
Cormac crossed his arms over his chest. “We haven’t run a DNA test. We haven’t seen the results. This could be just another one of his stories. We don’t know that he really is related to us—”
“I’m sure,” Brock said flatly.
“How can you be sure?” Cormac retorted. “You were seven when he was born!”
“And eleven the last time I saw him, and I know him. I would know him anywhere—”
“But there was a DNA test,” Shane interrupted. “I hired a PI. We used a paper cup Troy discarded to test. Troy came back a ninety-nine percent match. I can’t speak for everyone, but Troy and Trey are both full-blood brothers.”
“I don’t need a DNA test,” Brock said impatiently. “I know him. I know those eyes. And that scar, the one on his chin. I was there when he got it. He was playing with a sharp stick at the lake and he fell and it went through the inside of his lip and out his chin. I held him in the car while Mom raced him to the hospital—”
“Mom couldn’t drive,” Troy said.
“Yes, she could. She always drove when we went to Cherry Lake. Dad just didn’t let her drive often here.”
“Why?” Trey demanded.
“Control.” Brock’s expression was hard. “That way she couldn’t know too much about his business. Or where he went.”
“Like meet with Bev,” Troy said bitterly.
Brock nodded. “It’s why I left. Why I moved out. I hated how he treated Mom. We’d come to blows over it. Mom couldn’t stand him it so I left, hoping things would get better, but they didn’t.”
Shane had been listening to this but there was another memory whispering. He remembered pain and blood, tasting blood and someone running with him, a boy, a big boy, and the boy kept telling him it would be okay, he was getting Mom…
Shane drew a sharp breath and looked away. The boy was Brock. Brock running with him, and Mom was his mom….
“I remember,” he said quietly. “I remember falling, and crying, and blood was everywhere and you ran with me. You had to run a long way, and you kept telling me it would be okay.”
Brock’s jaw worked. Shadows filled his dark eyes. “You tried hard to be brave.” His rough, low voice deepened. “You clutched my thumb and looked up at me the entire time, and I—” He broke off, voice hoarse and then he walked out.
For a long moment no one said anything and then Cormac turned to face Shane, and he stared searchingly into Shane’s face. “I’ve heard that story, of how Brock helped one of our cousins from the reservation. I had no idea—” He stopped, frowned. “I still can’t believe—” He broke off again, clearly uncomfortable.
“It’s taken me years to come to terms with all this,” Shane said, trying to ease some of the awkwardness. “And I’m still trying to make sense of it. I don’t expect you to open your arms and welcome me in as some lost brother. I’m too old for that. We are all too old for that—”
“I’m not.” Trey looked grim. “If DNA tests say you’re a Sheenan, you’re a Sheenan.”
Shane made a rough sound. “And what will you do with another Sheenan now?”
Troy shrugged. “Same thing we’re doing with our two half-sisters. Get to know them better. Figure out how to be a family with them. We’ve only known that they are Dad’s daughters for the past year and a half. It’s still an adjustment. Not seamless.
But we’re trying.”
Trey nodded. “What’s another adjustment?”
Shane glanced from Trey to Troy to Cormac and then nodded briefly before heading out to look for Brock.
Shane found Brock in the barn, feeding his horses. “I’m sorry,” Shane said. “Sorry to just roll up like this and drop a bombshell—”
“Don’t say that again. Don’t be sorry.” Brock’s voice was hard, strained. “I’m sorry. I knew you were out there somewhere and I tried to help Mom find you. In high school I helped her do this search—you’ll find her efforts in the attic in one of those boxes with her name on it—but you’d bounced around so much and the records weren’t well maintained and she couldn’t find you and then they told her you’d been adopted and were happy—”
“It wasn’t true.”
“She said as much. She told me that she felt you, and she felt your unhappiness, and it crushed her.”
Shane held the stall door for Brock as he entered with fresh feed. “Her death…” Shane didn’t know what he was trying to say. He struggled with the words. “Tell me it wasn’t because of me.”
“She grieved for you. I can’t deny that. But there were other things. Dad. His relationship with Bev. That minister fellow, from the traveling church.”
“Did they have a relationship?”
“I don’t know if it was ever consummated, but she carried a torch for him, for years. I think that’s what drew her to the revivals every summer. I think she had this fantasy that he’d take her away and give her a better life.” Brock returned the bucket to the corner. “Dad figured out something was going on, and put two and two together and created nine.” He exhaled and shoved a hand through dark thick hair. “I think you were sent away because Dad thought you might have been the minister’s.”
“So there must have been a physical relationship between Mom and Pastor Newsome.”
Brock shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. There are boxes in the attic. All of Mom’s personal things. Dad had us box everything up after she died. It was that, or burn them. You might be interested in those boxes, but the rest of us, we don’t look at them. We don’t want to look at them. She didn’t have an easy life. It’s hard enough living with the memories without reading about it in her diaries and letters.”
The dinner bell rang from the house. Brock straightened. “One last thing,” he added. “You’re part of this family, Sheenan. You have always been part of this family and I’m not going to tell you what to do with the book you’re writing, because that’s your job. That’s what you do. But I will ask that you show McKenna the book before it’s published. Show her brothers, Rory and Quinn, too. That way they’re prepared. Understand?”
Surprised, Shane hesitated and then nodded. “More than fair.”
And then Brock surprised him again, by giving him a swift, hard hug. “Welcome home, Shane. I’ve missed you.”
Chapter Thirteen
After dinner, Shane went to the ranch where all of his things were packed in boxes and suitcases and sitting on the front porch. The Sheenans had said he could stay after all, but Shane had spent enough time on the ranch. He was ready to move on and after loading the back of his Range Rover with his things, he drove into Marietta and checked into the Graff.
He slept deeply that night, grateful for the quiet, and relieved to be free of the ghosts.
In the morning he called Mark, his agent. “I’m going to be disappointing you,” Shane said bluntly. “This isn’t going to go the way you want, but this isn’t the story I can tell. I’m sorry.”
Mark was silent so long Shane thought he’d maybe hung up. “This isn’t you. What’s happened?”
“The story is changing.”
“What is the story?”
“A riches to rags love story.”
“You don’t write love stories.”
“Maybe I should. She was young and beautiful, highly educated, and she thought she could have it all, and so she reached for the stars and in reaching, lost it all.”
“Why would anyone want to read that story?”
“She was once one of America’s sweethearts.”
“When?”
“1887.”
“You’ve lost your mind. I’m sending help. Stay put—”
“McKenna Frasier was the heiress to one of the vast Copper Kings’ fortunes and she ended up penniless, forced to take a teaching job in a one room schoolhouse in Paradise Valley.”
“What’s your point?”
“There are stories everywhere. I can write another story. It might take a year, might take two, but I’m a writer and I have a lot to say, but I’ve nothing to say about what happened on the Douglas ranch that August in 1996.”
“Dammit, Shane.”
“I was wrong to think I could write that one.”
“You’re killing me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry.” And Mark hung up swiftly.
Shane followed the phone call with an email to Mark and Saul, his editor, letting them know in writing there would be no book on the Douglas massacre.
I have theories about who might have done it but no definitive proof, and because there is nothing definitive, the suspects are many and the motivations unclear. This is not the book my readers want, nor is this the book you want. It would disappoint and destroy whatever integrity we possess as author and publisher. I will be returning the advance and plan on covering whatever publicity and marketing expenses have been incurred.
Yours,
Sean/Shane S. Finley
After hitting send, Shane left his room and took the elevator to the lobby. Leaving the hotel, he stepped out into the cold winter air. Gray clouds were collecting over the mountains. Snow had been predicted for tomorrow.
He drew a deep breath, and then another, trying to decide if he felt regret or relief. Maybe it was a combination of the two.
Had he failed, or had he quit? And did it matter?
What mattered was that he’d decided the book couldn’t be written, and it was the right decision, even if there was backlash. He was prepared for backlash. It was inevitable. He was ambitious. He’d spent the past year working hard. Trying to be more. Trying to be someone significant.
But as he faced the Gallatin Mountains with impressive Copper Mountain in the foreground, it struck him that no matter what he achieved in the scope of history, he was just a blip…he had to have perspective. A year from now he’d have an entirely different set of problems. A year from now there’d be a new story. Stories were everywhere. Life was nothing but a story. There would always be more. More mysteries, more curiosities, more tragedies, more hope, more love, more pain.
Which was good to remember when one was walking away from a huge deal.
If he lost this publisher, he’d find another.
If this career ended, he’d rebound somehow.
He wasn’t afraid. He welcomed challenge. He’d known real hardship. This was not hardship.
This was just change.
And if there was one thing Shane Sean Swan Finley understood was that life was full of change. He couldn’t fight it or hide from it. He had to give himself over to it and embrace it and let it take him on to the next adventure.
Like Jet.
She was his center and his future, and life with her would be a great adventure.
It was time she knew it.
That evening Shane took Jet to a romantic dinner at the Graff. They dined by candlelight and they agreed at the beginning of dinner to not talk about the Sheenans or his book but it was impossible to avoid the topics, especially when they were still in the middle of coming to terms with everything.
So he told her how he was pulling the book, and would be returning the advance, and paying for any money the publisher had spent on publicity. He was also going to have to cover costs related to his agent, but he didn’t mind, he assured her. It was better to lose money than lose self-respect.
“Will you e
ver write the book?” she asked quietly, her blue gaze troubled.
“I doubt it. It’s not my story to tell.”
“Because you didn’t solve it?”
“I actually think I know who might have done it. There were some other assaults in communities that hosted the New Awakening Revival.”
“You think the pastor…?”
He shook his head. “He had a follower named Jeffrey Abbot-Simms. Abbot-Simms was something of a fanatic. The church, and Sawyer Newsome, was his family. He was quite protective of both, and seemed to have taken it upon himself to protect the reputation of them, even if it meant getting his hands dirty.” Shane hesitated. “The pastor had a fondness for pretty women. He had a relationship with a number of them. From what I’ve learned, Abbot-Simms did not approve of these relationships. He did what he could to…eliminate them.”
“You think Mrs. Douglas had an affair with the pastor?”
“I think the pastor wanted an affair with Mrs. Douglas. And I think Mrs. Douglas possibly felt threatened and Abbot-Simms…” He shrugged. “It’s a theory.”
“You don’t have theories without some evidence.”
“There were other assaults in other communities. Women being raped. One woman was left for dead. She survived and was able to identify her assailant as Abbot-Simms. But before he could be arrested, he was in a car accident and died.” Shane looked at Jet. “I’m putting all this together, and I’m going to type it up and hand over my conclusions to McKenna and her brothers. I hope it might give them some closure.”
“Wow.”
“I have no hard evidence. It could be pure speculation and wrong.”
“Could be, but it’s something, and I think they’d appreciate that.”
“Maybe.”
She smiled at him. “You, Shane Sean Swan Finley, are extraordinary.”
He reached across and took her hands and lifted them to his mouth, kissing the back of one hand and then the other. His head dipped and he covered her hands with his. “You’re extraordinary. You’re changing me…changing my story.”
