And wait a minute.
If Tate's dad didn't really die until three years ago, then it would have been possible for him to be Tucker's dad, too.
She scanned the clippings again. Yes! Norman, Oklahoma. Blake Bravo had lived there, keeping a low profile for thirty years, and never been caught out until he died and his son went through his effects.
Molly blinked. His son. Blake Bravo had a son by his wife in Norman, Oklahoma.
A kidnapper. A bigamist. And Lord knew what-all else. From what the cuppings revealed, Blake Bravo had not, in any sense, been a nice man.
And the University of Oklahoma was in Norman. And the OU-Texas rivalry was a long-standing one. That Blake might have attended a certain OU-Texas game three decades ago wasn't all that hard to imagine. It was definitely possible that Penelope had run into her "dead" husband there.
Eager to fill in the gaps in the story, Molly picked up the journal and started to read.
It began, This book is for my sons, Tate and Tucker Bravo. It is my hope that, after reading what I write here and seeing the evidence in the envelope that accompanies it, they will understand the story of how they cante to be....
Chapter Fifteen
After a pleasant three hours of playing eight ball at the club, Tate drove out to the airfield, where he took Dusty up in the Cessna—or rather, Dusty took him.
She finally had her private license and that woman was ready to get in the pilot's seat. Altogether, it was a pretty smooth flight. As soon as the twins were born, Tate decided, he would help Dusty convince Molly to let her granny take her up.
He got back to the ranch house at a little after five and headed straight for the shower to wash off the airfield dust. Twenty minutes later, in clean cargoes and a fresh shirt, he found Miranda in the kitchen and learned that Molly had gone upstairs after lunch and •hadn't come back down yet.
So he climbed the stairs, patting himself on the back the whole way for coming up with the idea to change the rooms around. Molly had jumped on it like a duck on a June bug. It was a good sign, wasn't it, that she got right into making a place for them— together—and for their babies? She would have them moved upstairs and the nursery ready in no time— and maybe, the next time he popped the question, she would finally say yes.
He found her propped against the headboard on his mother's bed, a book open on her lap and yellowed bits of newsprint spread out beside her. She glanced up as he entered, her eyes agleam, a big smile on her mouth and a smudge of dust on her nose.
"Tate. Come here. Sit down..." She put the book on her other side and quickly scooped up the newspaper cuppings into a big envelope she grabbed from the nightstand.
He took the place she'd cleared for him. "Getting in a little reading?"
"Oh, Tate..." She looked breathless. Thrilled.
About what? A book and some old newspaper clippings?
Affectionately, he rubbed away the smudge of dirt on her nose. "I see you've made some serious progress." There were boxes stacked by the bureau and several more beside the closet door.
"Yeah. It's going great. But, Tate..." She grabbed his hand, kissed the back of it. "Oh, my golly. I just don't know where to begin."
He sat back a little. "About...?"
"This," she announced, grabbing the gold-trimmed green book and waving it at him. "And these!" She dropped the book and waved the envelope full of the clippings she'd gathered up from the bed. "These were your mother's. I found them, under the floorboards in the back of the closet."
"Okay," he said cautiously.
"Tate, she meant for you to have them, but I guess she never got around to giving them to you before she got hit by that semitruck. Or, I don't know, maybe she could never quite get up the nerve." Molly was pretty nigh on bouncing in place, her face flushed, her eyes wide with excitement. "Tate, you remember the Bravo Baby, don't you?"
He wasn't getting this. "Yeah. So?"
"Well...oh, Tate. He's...well, he would be your cousin, I think."
He sat back from her even farther. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"The Bravo Baby, he's your—" She cut herself off. "Oh, I don't think I'm going about this right. I, well, I don't even know where to start..."
"Just try the beginning," he said. "'Just start from there."
So she did, eagerly, her eyes shining, laying out an outrageous story of how his father hadn't really died thirty-five years ago, after all. Instead he'd faked his own death in an apartment fire—to escape a manslaughter conviction, Molly said. "Or at least, he was up on a manslaughter charge before he pretended to get dead. He'd beat some poor guy to death in a brawl." It went on like that, getting worse and worse. His father had kidnapped the Bravo Baby, she said— and the famous Los Angeles Bravos were Tate's own relatives. "And Tucker actually is Blake Bravo's son, just like you are," she said. "Your mother ran off with Blake for a second time, spotted him at an OU- Texas game, just like she always claimed—spotted him and ran off with him right there and then. He was her grand passion, you know? She couldn't resist him. But then he got bored with her and left her sleeping in their motel room—just vanished into the darkness. She had to come crawling back to your mean grand-daddy." She waved the book at him. "It says so right in here. And Tate, Blake Bravo was married to someone else—after your mother. And he had a son by her. You've got a half brother up there in Norman, Oklahoma. And your father told her he had sons and a wife in Nevada, too—and a couple of other states he didn't name. Your mother writes in here that she thinks your father was capable of just about anything. But, see, when she was young, she didn't even care. When he crooked his little finger, she came running. She put it down in this book that she'd figured out a lot of stuff about him after that first time he was supposed to have died. It was in all the papers and she saw the pictures of him and she knew it was the man she had married."
Why was she telling him this? Did she really believe he cared to know that his father was a crook and a thief and a murderer? Did she really imagine that it was true?
It wasn't, of course. He refused to believe it. His father had died over three decades ago. He'd been an honest man who married his mother—and only his mother.
She wasn't finished. "Tate, that first time your mother came home, before you were born, after Blake had supposedly died, she told your granddaddy everything she knew. And your granddaddy made her swear to keep her mouth shut about it, to give you your daddy's name, since she did have a marriage license, and just tell folks your daddy had died and nothing else about him. Your mother writes that she doesn't even think your granddaddy believed her about your father. Your granddaddy thought she made it all up, that she was 'sensitive' and given to 'wild imaginings' and—"
He'd heard enough. "Because she was."
Molly blinked. "Well, maybe. I don't know. But—"
"That's right. You don't know. You don't know a damn thing about my mother—or my father. You dig some newspaper clippings and a diary out of a hole in the floor and you plunk yourself down and you read it all through, even though it might be something that's none of your business."
"No. Tate. Wait a minute..." She paused, looking sheepish. "Okay, I probably shouldn't have—"
"You're right, you shouldn't have. But that's not the point, so we'll let that go." He picked up the envelope from where she'd dropped it on the bed. "And give me that damn book."
"Tate, I don't—"
"Just give it here, Molly. Give it here, now." Looking wide-eyed and worried, she handed it over. "Now. Where'd you say you found these?"
"In the closet. In the back, in a hole in the floor."
He got up and tossed both things—the damn book and the envelope—in the trash basket next to the bureau. "Well, now they're in the garbage. We don't ever have to speak of them—or even think about them—anymore."
She leapt off the bed. "What are you talking about? It's...well, it's the truth, Tate. The truth about who you are and who your family is. About your father." S
he stood in the middle of the floor and she raked her blond hair back off of her forehead and let out a small, pained kind of sound. "I don't get it. I'd give just about anything to know something about my father."
He tried to be patient with her. "It's not true. None of it. My mother lived in her own little world. She made it all up, that's all. It's not—"
She cut him off. "Look. Will you please just read it? Will you look at the clippings and—"
"Why? What will a bunch of old clippings prove? Sure, there was a Bravo Baby. Everyone knows that. But just because he had the same last name as I do doesn't make him my cousin. Just because my father's name was Blake doesn't mean he was that Blake. Can't you see? It's all just...made up."
"You don't know that. It could just as likely be true. And it wouldn't take all that much of an effort to contact the Bravo family in Los Angeles—or the half brother you very well might have in Oklahoma."
"That's about the damn dumbest idea you ever had. Why would I want to go contacting some man I don't even know to find out if he's my brother? He's not my brother."
"Marsh," she said, as if that was supposed to mean something to him. "His name is Marsh Bravo, your half brother in Oklahoma. You know he wouldn't be that hard to find." She got right up in his face about it.
He took her by the shoulders and gave her a shake. "Molly, listen. I don't want to find him. I know who I am, and I don't need to go running off half-cocked because of some crazy stuff my mother wrote in a diary."
She stared up at him, wearing a look of bewildered amazement. "But, Tate. If you'll only look at the clippings, read what she wrote..."
"No."
"But—"
"Molly, I said no. I don't care what she wrote. It doesn't matter. It's all just made up. Some kind of fantasy. That's how my mother was."
She shook off his grip. "How do you know that? I mean, did you ever eyen really know her? Did you ever even give her half a chance?" She backed away from him. "It bothers me, Tate. I have to tell you, it really does, that you could disrespect your own mother in this way."
"What's disrespectful? My mother had a tendency to live in a fantasy world. That's a fact."
"Fact? What are you talking about? It's a fact that she painted really terrible paintings. It's a fact that your granddaddy ran her and your grandmother and pretty much everything else in this town. It's a fact that he treated her like a second-class citizen, a fact that she wasn't even allowed to raise her own sons. But who says your mother lived in a fantasy world?" She put out a hand and then slapped her thigh with it. "No. No, wait. Don't tell me. I'll bet your mean old granddaddy did. And you believed him." It was an accusation.
He refused to be accused. "Damn straight, I believed him. I knew my own mother—which you did not. I believed what my grandfather said about her because it was true."
Molly was shaking her head. "Oh, Tate. How can you talk about truth when you're so busy hiding from it? You won't even give the truth half a chance. You've got it stuck in your head that you're okay and I'm not—or Tucker, either, for that matter. You got some big thing about how your mom and dad were married and he died, all innocent and simple and aboveboard, and that's the way it is, that's the way it has to be. Even though you know damn well that the story you've been living by doesn't really add up."
"What the hell? Yeah, it adds up. It adds up better than this crazy load of bull you're trying to hand me."
"No. No, it doesn't. Oh, please, won't you just read what—"
He chopped the air with a sweep of his arm. "Enough. That junk is in the trash and that is where it stays."
"Will you just listen to yourself? You know who you sound like? Like your granddaddy, that's who."
"How the hell would you know that? You didn't know my grandfather. I'll bet you never exchanged two words with the man."
"No, I didn't. I didn't need to. After all, I know you—and if you won't take a look at that book and those clippings for your own sake, then what about Tucker, huh? Doesn't he have a right to read what his own mother wrote?"
"Tucker doesn't need to—"
She didn't let him finish. "How do you know what Tucker needs? If you would just open that book and look at the beginning, you will see that your mother wrote that book for both of you, to explain how you both came to be. Maybe you don't care about the truth, but Tucker just might feel differently."
"It's not the truth. He doesn't need to know about it."
"Oh, now." She spoke through clenched teeth, shaking her head. "Now, that is crazy. Oh, what is the matter with you? You are just so...screwed up when it comes to this."
That did it. Inside Tate, something went snap. "I'm screwed up?"
Molly drew herself up and braced her hands on her hips. "Well, yeah. Yeah, you are. About this, you are."
Who the hell was she to tell him he was screwed up? "And what about you, Molly? What about you? You have been running me around for over a month now, turning me down every time I dare to ask you if, maybe, just possibly, you might be ready to consider doing me the honor of being my wife. You're willing to live here, to sleep in my bed with me. Oh, yeah. You're more than happy to play house. But the real thing? Uh-uh. You won't go there. What the hell is that all about? You like to keep a man dangling, is that it? You like to put him off and shake your head and never quite be ready to take the big step? Until you got a guy so beaten down he doesn't even remember the time when he used to be something resembling a man. Is that what you like, Molly? Is that what you're all about?"
"No," she said, her mouth suddenly slack, her brows drawn in. "No, that's not so. I only—"
He put up a hand. "You know what? I don't want to hear it. I don't want any more of your damn excuses. I don't want to be put off one more damn time. I'm asking you right now, Molly, and it's the last time I'll ever ask. So, for the moment, you'd better forget my mother and her crazy delusions. Forget the family you think I've got. Let's get down to what matters here. Let's get down to you and me and our babies that need us. Let's get down to the big question just one more time."
Now she had a look as if he'd hauled off and hit her. "Oh, Tate...don't..."
But it was too late to stop. Too late to call himself back from the brink. This thing with the diary and the envelope full of clippings had gotten to him, and gotten to him good. It had brought his frustration and simmering anger at Molly to a quick, rolling boil.
She had him tied in knots, and that was a damn fact. He'd been frustrated for too long now and his frustration kept growing. He hated not knowing— would she stay? Or would she go?
It made him feel less than a man, the way she kept him dangling. And he wasn't putting up with it any damn longer. ,"You can give me a yes, and we'll get married, like we should have done weeks ago. Or you can forget it. You can pack up your stuff and move out of my house."
She sank to the edge of his mother's bed. "Oh, Tate..."
"Damn you, Molly. Just say it. Will you marry me, or not?"
"Please don't—"
"Now, Molly. Give me an answer now."
She looked at him for the longest time. And then, very softly, she whispered, "No. I can't marry you, Tate. Not now. Not like this."
Chapter Sixteen
An hour after Tate delivered his ultimatum, Molly climbed the steps to her own little house.
When she pushed the door open, Granny gasped. "Sugar pie, what are you doing here?" Granny sat on the couch with Skinny. They had the trays set up and were eating fried chicken and biscuits as they watched some old Western on TV.
"Sorry to cramp your style, Granny, but I'm moving back in."
Granny picked up the remote and muted the sound just as Andy Devine rode in on a mule. "Aw, honey. You're leaving Tate?"
Molly gulped to keep from bursting into tears. "Traid so."
Skinny pushed his tray aside and stood. "You got more than that suitcase there to bring in?"
Molly nodded. Without another word, Skinny went out to get the rest of her things
.
"Oh, baby love..." Granny had pushed her own tray away, too. She was on her feet, skinny arms outstretched. With a cry, Molly dropped her suitcase and flung herself into her granny's embrace. Granny held her good and tight. She whispered the things a good granny always says. "Now, now. I'm here. I've got you. Nothing's ever so bad it can't be made right..."
Molly's throat closed up and her eyes started to burn. "He drew the line on me," she whispered raggedly against her granny's wrinkled neck. "He said I had to marry him, or move out."
Granny hugged her harder and clucked her tongue. "That man. What a darn fool."
"I just...I couldn't say yes, you know?"
"Well, of course you couldn't. What self-respecting woman is gonna say yes when she's forced into it?"
"No. See, what I mean is, I never could say yes. Even before—when we were getting along so well— even then, when he'd asked, I couldn't quite make myself tell him I'd marry him. Oh, Granny. I just...he's the only man I ever wanted. And still, I never could quite say yes. Something must be wrong with me, don't you think?"
"Nothing's wrong with you that's not wrong with half the people in this country," declared Granny. "You just give the both of you a little time and space. Things'll work themselves out, you watch and see."
"Oh, I don't know..."
Granny patted her back and stroked her hair. "Things'll work out, they will. You'll see." Granny took her by the shoulders and held her away enough that their eyes could meet. "It ain't over till it's over—and that will only be when the both of you are dead."
Molly sniffed. "Is that supposed to reassure me?" Granny sighed. "You listen, now. Skinny'll bring in the rest of your clothes and put them in your bedroom. You don't have to worry about a thing right this minute besides washing up and sitting yourself down for some chicken and biscuits. Nothing like a good meal in your belly to lift your spirits when you're feeling low."
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