Sam's eyes sharpened. "We need to set a few things straight. First off, Uncle Jack and your mother never slept together. Your mother got pregnant through artificial insemination when she was unable to get pregnant by me."
"Well that really makes a whole lot of sense," Rick said. "Why would she want to get pregnant at all? She didn't even want me!"
"Hold it right there," Sam said. "Maybe she didn't want you initially, but she loved you enough to get pregnant by Uncle Jack because she wanted to save your life. You should thank her for that, not hold it against her."
"Then Marc is a half-brother to both Adam and me," Rick said.
"Actually no," Sam replied. "He's the son of Aunt Grace's dead husband. It happened because of a mix up at the fertility clinic. Your mom went in to be inseminated with Uncle Jack's sperm, because we were hoping to create a baby who'd be a cord blood match for you, but two vials of sperm were accidentally switched, so Aunt Grace got Uncle Jack's sperm instead of the sperm of her dead husband, and her dead husband's sperm went to your mom. Your mother and Aunt Grace were both almost eight months pregnant when the clinic notified us. Your mother was so upset she threatened to abort Marc, but Aunt Grace wanted Marc from the start since he was the son of her husband, who died of cancer two years before. They stored his sperm before he had chemo, not expecting him to die."
"Then that means Marc and Adam aren't even related," Rick surmised.
Sam nodded. "Adam is Aunt Grace and Uncle Jack's biological son through the artificial insemination mix up, and Marc is Mom and Aunt Grace's dead husband's son the same way—another reason why Aunt Grace wanted Marc to be raised as Adam's twin, so he'd be one of us."
"Except he doesn't look like any of us and has all his life wondered why," Rick pointed out.
"He's said that to you?" Sam asked, as if he'd never considered that.
"Sure he's said it. It's bothered him all his life. He's never understood how a couple of fraternal twins could be so different in every way, but mainly he's never understood why he looks so different from his parents and his brothers, and even Maddy. I only figured it out a week ago when I realized he and Mom had the same odd color eyes."
"Marc's a Hansen and every bit as much a member of this family as the rest of us," Sam said.
"Except he isn't related by blood to anyone except Mom, and she's dead," Rick pointed out. "So Marc's an orphan."
"No, Marc is Uncle Jack and Aunt Grace's legal son. They adopted him at birth."
"Why?" Rick asked. "You and Mom could have kept him and explained to him what happened. Why was he pawned off on Uncle Jack and Aunt Grace?"
Sam said, in a weary voice, "Because your mom and I had to stay with you in New Jersey at the hospital while you had treatments. It was two months before we got home. By then, Aunt Grace didn't want to give Marc up. Your mom and I knew you'd need a lot of special care and follow up treatments after we returned to the ranch, so we agreed to the adoption. You have to try to understand how it was back then. Your mother and I were upset and concerned about you, and after what happened to Uncle Jack's son, we were all afraid your mother could do the same with Marc, and none of us wanted to take that chance, least of all Aunt Grace, who wanted her dead husband's son."
"I have a question," Sophie interjected. "If Marc isn't related by blood to any of you, how did he end up being the cord blood match for Rick, when Adam, who's got Rick's DNA, wasn't?"
"That's another part of the complex story." Sam said. "The chances of Marc being a match were one in ten thousand. He wasn't a complete match, but they were able to restore bone marrow function using a new process that expands cord blood cells. There was nothing in Adam's cord blood that would enable them to do it, so it was a miracle they could with Marc's. So now you should understand why Aunt Grace and Uncle Jack don't want Marc to know he's not their biological son."
Rick waved the note. "He will know soon. If Mom acknowledged him in her suicide note, she'll acknowledge him in her will."
Sophie glanced beyond Sam and Rick, and to her shock, saw Marc, Jack and Adam standing in the doorway to the barn, Marc’s face a mask of disbelief. By the time Rick turned to see what had startled Sophie, Marc closed the gap between them.
Grabbing the note from Rick, he started reading. As he did, the expression on his face gradually changed from doubt to uncertainty to awareness. When he finished reading, he stood in silence for a few moments. Then his eyes sharpened, taking on shades of grays and greens, and he said, with venom, "This pretty much answers all the questions I've had from the time I first realized I was a misfit in this family."
Jack quickly joined the circle and took the note from Marc. As he read, his face darkened with realization. He returned the note to Rick and said to Marc, "This changes nothing. You're as much a part of this family as your brothers and Maddy, and just because you're not—"
"Stop right there," Marc said. "I have a mother who killed herself because she thought she let her sons down, and because of the whole damn lot of you, I never had a chance to know her, except through the hateful remarks everyone dropped from time to time, so don't give me crap about being as much a part of the family as the rest of you. Who's my real father?"
Sam eyed him guardedly. "Then you didn't hear what I just told Rick?"
"All I heard was what I already suspected from the time I first looked in a mirror, that I'm not a biological son, but no one said who my father was. Is that a carefully guarded secret too?"
Jack went to take Marc's arm, but Marc jerked it away and stepped back. Jack sighed heavily and said, "This is the way it was..."
After he'd explained the sperm switch, and the circumstances leading up to the artificial insemination procedures, Marc's eyes shifted between Sam and Jack, and he said, with bitterness, "I've spent my whole life wondering who the hell I am, and now I learn I'm the son of a dead man. But at least that explains why you never accepted me—"
"Hold it," Jack said. "There has never been a moment in your life I didn't consider you my true son and you and Adam full brothers."
"Wrong," Marc said. "I'm the one you were stuck with. Adam's the one who gets whatever he wants. Adam wants a champion roping horse, he gets it. But me... When did you ever take an interest in anything I liked? You've never excavated with me at the mound or helped catalog my findings, or even took the slightest interest in archeology or any of the other things I do. It's all about you and your real sons going off to rodeos and bronc and bull-riding competitions."
"Wait a minute," Adam said, walking over to where they stood. "Not only have you never been interested in any part of this ranch except the Indian mound, about every time you sneezed Mom was there to wipe your nose."
"Like hell she was!" Marc balled his fists.
Before Marc could throw a punch, Jack stepped between Adam and Marc and shoved them apart. "Both of you back off!" he shouted.
From the direction of the lodge, Grace started toward them. Jack met her half way, and as he walked and talked and gestured, the expression on Grace's face changed from curious concern, to gradual awareness, to the stunned realization that a twenty-one-year falsehood, no matter how righteous, had been uncovered. Stepping around Jack, she quickened her pace and walked up to Marc, and said, "Honey, we didn't tell you for your own good. We wanted you to know you were as much a part of this family as your brothers and Maddy."
"Only because my father was dead and my mother didn't want me," Marc said, eyes darkened with suppressed rage.
"That's not so," Grace replied in a contrite voice. "Well yes, your biological father was dead, but I wanted you from the start, which is why I got pregnant in the first place. The sperm switch changed nothing. You're still the son of a man I once loved."
"Which is another thing," Marc clipped. "You wiped my real father off the face of the earth. I know nothing about him. It's like he never existed and no one cared."
"I cared a lot," Grace countered, "but he was dead and your father, the one who raised you, and I made
the decision to raise you as Adam's brother."
Marc eyed Adam with enmity. "That pretty much fell flat. Adam's been more like a brother to Rick than me." He glared at Rick then, and his look said it all.
You're here because I'm here, and you never gave a shit for me because it's always been about you and Adam...
Rick immediately stepped forward, and said, "Slow down some, Marc. Hardly a day goes by that I don't think how lucky I am because of you. I owe you my life and you're my brother."
"Look, don't try to backpedal here," Marc said. "Yeah, I suppose you owe me your life, but only because of a mix-up at a fertility clinic and some high-tech blood work."
"Son, you've twisted things," Jack said, while reaching out for Marc, but Marc backed away, then turned and headed for his truck. Grace started after him, but Jack grabbed her arm, and said, "Let him go. He needs to sort through this in his own way."
Which Sophie realized was Jack's way of dealing with things when life turned on him. Go off on your own and sort it all out, and everything would fall into place again. But this time, Sophie had the gut feeling that Marc would not come to terms with this, and before it was over, he'd leave the ranch, and the Hansen family, for good.
***
Two days later, Rick and Marc headed back to the ranch after the reading of their mother's will. Her estate was to be divided equally between the two of them. However, by the time the bills would be paid and the fitness center sold for market value, there would be less than forty thousand dollars, which Rick signed over to Marc. With the settlement from the fertility clinic, Rick was comfortably set.
They'd taken Marc's truck, and Marc was silent the entire drive home, but after Marc pulled to a halt in the parking area alongside Grace and Jack's house and got out, Sophie came over to see how things had gone. Rick explained the outcome to her, and when he was finished, Marc, who’d been silent during the ride home and obviously in deep thought, looked at him, brows drawn, and said in all sincerity, "What was my mother like?"
The question took Rick by surprise. Trying to paint a rosy picture of their mother was in the very least a challenge. Even he used the word shrew when talking about her to Sophie. Other words surfaced that he shoved back because his mother killed herself because of them, and that part of her life he'd never pass on to Marc.
When he didn't respond, because he was struggling to find words that would put his mother in an acceptable light in Marc's eyes, Marc said, "Why didn't she want us?"
When Rick still said nothing, because he was again struggling to answer a question he hadn’t understood himself, Marc said, "You've got to give me something here. When you were growing up you spent every other weekend with her."
Rick drew in a long breath, mainly to bide a little more time while searching for something about his mother he could admire, but before he was forced to fabricate a whole bunch of crap, Sophie said, "She was sweet and sensitive and easy to talk to, and she took me out for a pedicure and we had facials, and I think you would have enjoyed knowing her. I know in the short time I spent with her, I did."
"Then why did everyone around here hate her?" Marc asked.
Sophie shot Rick a glare that demanded he speak up in his mother's defense, so he said the only thing that came to mind, "She could be difficult at times. She was a troubled woman."
"Troubled how? Depressed? Alcoholic?" Marc looked from Rick to Sophie, and when no one responded, he said to Rick, "Look, I'm trying like hell to understand a woman I never knew, who took her own life because she felt guilty, and who everyone at this ranch hated, and I'm getting a big zero. If you don't want to answer that, then give me a reason why she didn't want either of us." Again, he waited.
Rick wasn't ready for all these questions about his mother, most of which had troubled him all his life, so he shrugged, which he realized too late was like shrugging off Marc's question, and answered as honestly as he could, by saying, "I don't know. I guess some women aren't cut out to be mothers. She admitted it last week when she was asking me about..." He stopped short and glanced at Sophie, who had a curious look on her face while waiting for him to finish his sentence, which he had no intention of doing, since Sophie was what triggered his mother's comment. "When she was asking about my plans after I graduate from vet school," he replied.
From the skeptical look on Marc's face, Rick knew his cursory explanation only served to raise more questions. Which Marc fired away by asking, "What was with all the men? From what I picked up over the years she was never without a live-in boyfriend."
Rick shrugged and said, "I've tried all my life to figure her out and came to the conclusion that she was always searching for something she never found."
"Then what happened between her and your dad?" Marc asked.
Rick knew Marc wouldn't stop questioning until he got some logical answers. Deciding to be straight with this one, he replied, "She had an affair with her fitness instructor and left my dad and me. Like I said, some women aren't cut out to be mothers."
Marc looked at him, baffled. "Then why would she kill herself because of that? Her note said she'd failed too many people, especially her sons, yet she never once tried to make contact with me. Even if I wasn't supposed to know she was my mother, she could have tried to get to know me, so she couldn't have cared too damn much."
Rick caught Sophie's dark look, and held it long enough to get her reproof.
You're going to send this entire family into chaos...
Then the expression on her face tempered and became thoughtful, and she said, in a concerned voice, "Maybe when your parents adopted you it was with the understanding that your mother would stay out of your life, since it was their wish to raise you as Adam's twin so you wouldn't feel like an outsider, but that wouldn't mean your mother didn't love you."
Those last words fell flat, and Rick knew it was because Sophie didn't believe them herself. And from the look on Marc's face, he knew. And the truth was, there had been no place in their mother's life for a couple of kids.
"What about my other grandparents?" Marc asked. "Do they know about me?"
"I'd assume not," Rick replied, "or they would've wanted to be connected with you."
Marc glared at his house, the expression on his face a mixture of anger and bitterness. A feeling Sophie knew well. She also understood the urge for a person to act impulsively and do something rash to get back at people who'd wronged them, even if what they'd done was justified. Placing her hand on Marc's arm, she said, "You need to square things away with your parents because they did what they thought was right for you."
Eyeing the house with steely resolve, Marc said, "No, I don't need to do a damn thing." Yanking open the door to his truck, he climbed in and started the engine, then swung the truck around and headed back to town.
"He's going to leave here," Sophie said, as she and Rick stood watching the dust billowing up behind Marc's truck as it sped away.
"He'll get over it in a few days," Rick replied. "It's new and he needs a period of adjustment. You seem to have come to terms with things with your mother."
"That's different," Sophie said. "No one hid anything about my biological mother from me, so I always had a sense of who I was, even though my mother was dead, but Marc has nothing. He knows nothing about his biological father because Aunt Grace buried that when she adopted Marc, and he knows nothing about your mother because no one around here will talk about her, even you, and he's never felt like he belongs here."
"Just because he doesn't like ranch life doesn't mean he feels like an outsider," Rick said. "This is new to him now, but he'll get over it."
"You're wrong," Sophie countered. "I don't live here, but it's been obvious for years that he feels like he doesn't belong. He and Adam have never been close, and he and his dad are like aliens from different planets, and Adam was right when he said, every time Marc sneezed, Aunt Grace was there to wipe his nose. There's no question she caters to him. She always has, and I never knew why until now. She's t
rying to make up for denying Marc the right to know about his father and his other family, and Marc's going to leave here because he has no idea who he is, and finding out is foremost on his mind right now. You need to spend time with him when he comes back, if he comes back. Not only do you owe him your life, but you owe him big for opening up a can of worms and letting them slither into his life."
Her words, and the tone of her voice, reminded Rick of the Sophie she'd been all his life, the one holding up a hoop for him to jump through, which didn't sit well with him right now. "Look," he said, "I don't need you micromanaging things between me and Marc. Besides, it would have come out with the reading of my mother's will, so don't get on your high horse like I'm the cause of this." Turning abruptly, he went to the stable to saddle up. He needed to be alone to think about Sophie and Marc, and how they fit into his life, and where he'd go from here.
CHAPTER 9
While standing at the check-in desk at the entrance to the lodge, Jayne went over with Sophie, for the third time, the list of things for Sophie to take care of in preparation for Adam and Emily's wedding. "Honey," Jayne said, "if you want, I can have Grandma Hansen address the invitations and you can do something else. You seem very preoccupied today, and the invitations need to be mailed."
Sophie blinked several times to get back on track, and said, "I'm fine, just a little distracted. This thing with Marc was such a surprise I can't stop thinking about him and what he must be going through. Has anyone heard from him?"
"He's okay," Jayne replied. "Jack called around to some of his friends and he's staying with one of them. Jack thinks it's best to leave him alone right now and let him adjust. He's certain he'll be back to work things out."
"Both Uncle Jack and Rick think that if you go off somewhere and shut out the world, everything will work out, but I don't agree. Marc obviously doesn't want to be alone because he's with friends right now, but friends could give him all kinds of bad advice. They're hearing one side of the story, and that's the side of an angry, disillusioned, bitter guy who feels like he's been deceived by his parents, actually by all the adults in this family."
Uncertain Loyalties (Dancing Moon Ranch Book 4) Page 11