LITMIR.BIZ

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he returned her searching expression with a slight shake of his head. If she wanted answers, she was looking in the wrong direction. He didn’t have a clue and he didn’t want to know, either.

      “How about a cup of coffee?” Rue asked Hannah. She picked up her own mug from the table and smiled. “Fresh pot.”

      “May I please have a glass of water?” Hannah asked.

      “Certainly. We’ve got chocolate muffins in the break room. Our Emma is quite the baker.” She cocked her head toward Clementine. “Would that be okay for...?”

      “Yes. Thank you very much,” Hannah returned.

      “Come help me, Tripp,” Rue said.

      He narrowed his eyes at the good doctor, but she ignored him and started down the hall. When they entered the kitchenette, Tripp released a breath. “I smell a scam.”

      “Oh, don’t be so cynical.” She paused. “Colorado is where their parents died, and where the kids went into foster care.”

      “Okay, so why didn’t she call and schedule an appointment? Why surprise them on a Friday afternoon?” he asked.

      “I have no idea.”

      “I’ve known the Maxwells for eight years. I was their first employee. If they had family, I would have heard about it by now.” Tripp began to pace back and forth across the tiled floor as he continued to mull the situation.

      Rue shrugged and reached for two glasses from the cupboard. “They’ll be here shortly, and I guess we’ll find out.”

      Find out? He didn’t want to find out. This entire situation made him uneasy. Tripp pulled off his cowboy hat and ran a hand through his short hair. All he wanted to do was go back to the stables and be left alone.

      He froze at the sound of the big glass door of the admin building opening and then closing with a whoosh and a dull thud. Boots echoed on the tile floor, along with soft murmuring. The Maxwells had arrived.

      It was like the still before a tornado, and after thirty-four years in Oklahoma, he knew better than to stand in the path of a storm minutes before everything was getting ready to break loose.

      * * *

      Hannah swallowed hard as she faced the Maxwell siblings seated across the conference table from her.

      Lucy, Travis and Emma in person. All dark-haired with dark eyes and generous mouths accustomed to smiling. And they were smiling now, which was a good sign. The Maxwells were accompanied by their spouses.

      Jack Harris, Lucy’s husband, was an attorney. Emma Maxwell Norman’s husband, Zach, a former navy SEAL, sat next to his wife. The man looked like he could break her in two with his pinky.

      Travis sat holding hands with his wife, AJ, a pretty blonde in a denim jacket who’d entered the room with a straw cowboy hat on her head. She was clearly very pregnant.

      Though Rue was entertaining Clementine in another room, they’d asked Tripp Walker to stay. The man was just like family, Lucy Maxwell Harris, the oldest, had said. Pretty scary family, in her opinion. He wasn’t smiling and hadn’t since she’d met him, except when he was speaking to Clementine.

      The man baffled her. He’d been nothing but a gentleman when he had rescued them. And when she’d struggled to climb into the cab of his truck, the cowboy had held her arm and easily helped her. His touch was surprisingly gentle for such a big and disapproving man.

      Right now, the cowboy’s cool blue eyes were nearly ice as they pinned her. Hannah tugged her sweater close against the chill in the room and looked away.

      A tiny niggle of excitement churned inside of her. Excitement even Tripp Walker’s less than warm welcome couldn’t dispel.

      She’d started over many times in the last seven years, but this was different. For once, she wasn’t hiding or running away from something. No, for the first time in her life she was slipping from the shadows into the light and searching for her future.

      And maybe she had found it.

      This could very well be her family sitting around the table. Except they all sat on one side while she sat on the other.

      She silently prayed for help and grasped for a scripture to cling to. Her grandmother may have been misguided in many ways, but when Hannah was growing up she’d made certain they both were in the pew every Sunday.

       Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you.

      Yes. That would work.

      Lucy cleared her throat and smiled. “I have to admit we’re all shocked to find out we have a relative. Travis, Emma and I went into foster care after our parents died because we were told we had no family.” She pushed her short dark cap of hair back and folded her hands on the table.

      “Are you related to our mom’s cousin? She’s the one who adopted us,” Emma, the youngest Maxwell, asked.

      “I believe I’m related to your father. Jake Maxwell.”

      Travis grinned and leaned forward in his chair. “You’re related to Dad? Really? How?”

      Hannah hesitated, then met his gaze. “I think Jake Maxwell was my father.”

      Travis’s grin faded away at the same instant that Lucy’s jaw sagged. She turned to Emma, whose eyes were round with shock.

      The silence in the room was even louder than Hannah expected. She let her gaze slide to Tripp. Stormy blue eyes met hers before he looked away.

      Hannah held her hands tightly in her lap and willed her heart to slow down. She tried to relax her clenched jaw. In the last ten minutes, she’d destroyed years of orthodontic alignment.

      “Do you have proof? A birth certificate maybe?” Lucy asked.

      “My birth certificate says my mother is Anne Bryant and the name of my father is noted as declined.”

      The siblings looked at each other. Hannah could practically read their minds. They were doing the math. But she had already done that in Colorado and knew only too well that she was a year younger than Emma.

      “I’m confused,” Lucy said.

      “Believe me, I am, as well,” Hannah said. “I was born twenty-nine years ago last month. My mother died when I was too young to ask who declined was, and my grandmother wouldn’t discuss my father.” Hannah took a deep breath. “Clementine and I were in Denver for my grandmother’s funeral. Until the reading of the will, I thought she was my only living relative.”

      “We’re so sorry for your loss,” Lucy said gently. “We know what it’s like to lose everything. But what led you to think...” She gestured with a hand.

      “I inherited a chest of my mother’s things after she passed.” Hannah paused for a calming breath. Again, she reminded herself that she hadn’t done anything wrong. “There was a Bible with photos of my mother and Jake Maxwell tucked inside.”

      “Surely there’s more than one Jake Maxwell in all the world,” Lucy said.

      “I compared the photos to the Denver Public Library microfiche files with your father’s obituary photo. That’s also what led me to Big Heart Ranch.”

      Lucy grimaced and nodded.

      “Could we see the photos you have?” Travis asked.

      “Yes. Of course. They’re in the trunk of my car.”

      The eldest Maxwell’s gaze moved out the window to the pasture of tall grass in the distance. Then she slowly turned back to face Hannah. “I want to be sensitive to you, but this still doesn’t prove that he’s your father.”

      Hannah stared down at her tightly clasped hands for moments, recalling the letters she’d read over and over again.

      

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