by Rita Herron
“Tell me about your mother.”
His expression softened slightly. “She had a great smile. Worked hard. Did the best she could for us.”
“Jim didn’t provide financial support?”
“My mother told me once that he offered her money, but she didn’t intend to be treated like a kept woman.” He made a sarcastic sound. “I know people in Justice thought she was a home wrecker, but she loved Jim McKinney.” His hands tightened around the steering wheel. “I never understood that. How she could love him when he didn’t take care of her or his own son?”
“We don’t choose the people we fall in love with, Cole,” Joey said softly. “Sometimes it just happens.” She lay her hand over his and he stiffened. She wondered if she’d said too much. Sounded as if she might be declaring her love when he didn’t want to hear it.
She was smart enough to realize that this was the wrong time for her to get involved with anyone, too. But she couldn’t deny how drawn she felt to Cole, how much she admired him for being a self-made man.
“What happened to your mother, Cole?”
“She had a heart attack.” He sighed. “She was only forty at the time, but I guess the stress and hard work were too much for her.”
She trailed her fingers through the scruffy ends of his dark hair where it brushed his collar. Maybe his mother had died of heartache. “How old were you?”
He clenched his jaw. “Fifteen. I stayed on at the ranch where she worked as a cook. Tried the rodeo circuit but I was getting into trouble, then Clete, the owner of the ranch, set me straight. Later I joined the service and they did the rest.”
“That must have been hard, going on without your mother.”
He slanted her a sideways glance. “You didn’t exactly have a perfect childhood, Joey. Your parents’ divorce, then your brother’s kidnapping…”
He let the sentence trail off and she gulped back tears. “No, it wasn’t easy. I hated Leland for cheating on my mother. Hated him for breaking up our family and then taking me and Justin from Mother.”
“Weren’t you old enough to choose who you wanted to live with?”
She dropped her hand to her side, and he twined their fingers together. “Yes,” she said through a blur of emotions. “But I took care of Justin. He would have been lost if I hadn’t gone with him. He loved Rosa, but he hated Daddy’s housekeeper, and he cried for Mother at night.” She tried to keep the memories of the fire at bay, but they crashed into her consciousness anyway.
“You were at Donna’s the night Justin was kidnapped?”
Joey nodded, seeing her mother’s panicked look in her mind. “It was one of the rare occasions when Leland allowed it.” She hesitated. “Later, after the kidnapping and murder charges were brought up, I wondered if revenge was the reason he’d allowed us to stay there. So it would look like Donna was incompetent, and he’d have an alibi.”
“How did he react to the fire? Did he seem shocked?”
“That’s just it,” Joey said, still haunted by doubt. “He did act shocked and devastated. It was the only instance where I’d seen my father cry. And later, when Justin was deemed dead, he seemed withdrawn. Of course, just like in the divorce, they both blamed each other.” And Joey had never stopped blaming herself.
They reached a wooden cross post sign with the Lucky S painted in red and black, and Cole steered the car down the driveway. Joey glanced across the acreage noting the beef cattle and horses grazing in the pastureland. The scenery was beautiful and peaceful, although the lush green hillside and grazing cows proved it was a working cattle ranch.
Cole maneuvered down the dirt driveway, then parked at a two-story farmhouse that looked inviting. To the right, sat two barns and a stable with pen and corrals. A couple of ranch hands were training cutter horses in the corral. Another in a dusty cowboy hat groomed a beautiful smoky-colored mare.
Cole parked and cut the engine while Joey surveyed the front of the stable where a young man wearing a white Stetson and jeans cantered up on a tall black stallion. He rode with such skill and confidence that he must have grown up on horses. Just like Donna.
He noticed their car, jumped off the horse and called for one of the other hands. “Rodney, we have company. See that Dante is groomed while I find out who they are.”
Sunlight glinted off his black hat as he approached, nearly blinding Joey as she climbed from the car. The young man was probably around seventeen. His confident swagger reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint whom.
Then he removed his Stetson and her breath caught in her chest. He had Donna’s eyes. Her coloring. Her chin.
She staggered slightly and gripped the wooden pen rail to steady herself as the realization kicked in. This boy might be her missing brother, Justin.
Or was she imagining things because she desperately wanted him to be alive?
Chapter Twelve
Cole heard Joey’s gasp and frowned. She leaned against the rail, her face pale in spite of the sun blazing a fiery path across her skin.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Look at him, Cole. He…he has Donna’s eyes.”
Cole studied the young man for similarities to indicate she was right.
“I can’t believe it,” Joey said in a choked whisper. “It has to be him. Justin. He’s really alive.”
Cole placed a hand over hers as he mentally analyzed the situation. “Joey, be careful. If this is Justin, and he was abducted and adopted by strangers, he may not be aware of what happened to him.”
She pressed a hand to her mouth, but nodded in understanding. Although she gripped the rail tighter as if she had to restrain herself from leaping forward and pulling the boy into a hug.
“Howdy, folks. What can I do for you?”
“My name is Sergeant Cole McKinney, Texas Rangers.” Cole extended his hand, and the boy shook it firmly. “And this is Joey Hendricks, she’s a special investigator for the governor.”
Apparently impressed, the young man’s eyes lit up with interest. How would he feel if it turned out that Joey was his sister?
“Caleb Sangston. Pleased to meet you.”
“Caleb, is this your home?” Cole asked.
“Yeah. Well, the spread belongs to Dad.”
Joey flinched slightly, and Cole rubbed her back to calm her. “Is your father here?”
Caleb nodded. “Sure. Come on. I’ll show you in.” He kicked dirt and grass from his boots as he entered the farmhouse, and Cole and Joey followed. She was beginning to pull herself together, but excitement and other emotions glittered in her eyes.
“Dad!” Caleb shouted. “We’ve got company.”
A graying man in jeans, a Western shirt and boots stood at an old-fashioned sink with a mug of coffee in his beefy hand. When he noted Cole’s badge, he stiffened.
Caleb gestured toward them. “Dad, this is Sergeant McKinney of the Texas Rangers. And Joey Hendricks. She works for the governor’s office.”
“Walter Sangston.” The man wiped his work roughened hands on a gingham towel, then waved toward the primitive pine table nicked from use and age, and they sat down. “I know who she is.” He gave Joey a small smile. “I figured you’d show up here eventually.”
Joey curled her fingers around the table edge. “Really?”
“Yeah.” He offered them coffee but Cole declined. Joey accepted some ice water, though, and chugged it down.
“Mr. Sangston,” Cole said. “We have some questions to ask you.”
Sangston nodded warily. Caleb poured himself a glass of iced tea, then leaned against the sink, his interest obviously piqued.
“Caleb,” Sangston started. “Maybe you’d better wait outside.”
“Actually he should probably stay,” Cole suggested.
Sangston’s lips thinned, but then a resigned look fell across his craggy features. “All right.”
Once again taking the lead, Cole explained about their investigation. “We traced a bullet casing fro
m the woods where Sheriff Matheson was shot to a ranch hand who works for you.”
Sangston’s gray eyebrows shot up. “One of mine?”
“Yes, a man named Hector Elvarez.”
“Hector hasn’t worked here in a couple of months,” Sangston said quickly.
Cole glanced at Caleb.
“He’s right,” Caleb said with a quirk of his shoulders. “He left a few weeks ago without even picking up his last check.”
Cole frowned. Now to the other part. “Mr. Sangston, when and where was your son Caleb born?”
A tired but defeated look settled in the man’s weary eyes. He glanced at Caleb, then back at them. “Why do you want to know?”
Joey suddenly shifted. “Do you know Donna or Leland Hendricks?”
He ducked his head, avoided her gaze.
Joey removed a photo from her purse, one of her parents when they were younger. One where she and Justin had both been captured in the shot. “This is a photo of my parents,” Joey said. “And that’s me when I was thirteen and my little brother when he was two.”
Sangston swiped at his wrinkled forehead where sweat beaded in a pool. “I…guess I knew some day it would come to this.”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong, Dad?”
A sheen of tears clouded the old man’s eyes. “I told you that you were adopted, son, but that’s not really true.” He took the picture from Joey and handed it to Caleb, who studied it with a quiet intensity that reminded Joey of his mother, not Leland with his hotheaded ways.
“When you were two, someone left you on our doorstep,” Sangston said, emotions thick in his voice. “Your mama and I…we’d never been able to have children. We thought you were a miracle God sent to us, and we took you in.”
“Mr. Sangston,” Cole interjected, “Joey’s younger brother, Justin Hendricks, was kidnapped and thought to have been murdered at that time. It was all over the news. Didn’t you call the authorities or even consider that this boy you found might have been him?”
Sangston shook his head. “I…don’t read,” he said in a low voice. “Never learned how. Besides, we were forty miles away from where that happened.” His voice rose with conviction. “Then later, when we heard about the kidnapping and possible murder of the Hendricks child, we heard his parents were to blame. Figured the boy was better off with us.”
“Where is your wife now?” Cole asked.
“She passed on a few years back. Cancer.”
“You mean I might be the Hendricks kid?”
Cole nodded. “It’s possible.”
Caleb suddenly dropped into a chair with a thud. “Then why didn’t those people look for me?” Anger made his voice break as he turned a pained look toward Joey.
“We did.” Joey reached out a hand to cover his. “But all this time, we thought you were dead.”
Cole gritted his teeth. Joey thought he had died. But if Donna had been sending money to the ranch, then she might have known he was alive.
What about Leland?
“So you don’t know who left the baby?” Cole asked.
Sangston shook his head. “We found him wrapped in a blanket on the porch with a note that asked us to please take care of him, that he needed a loving family.”
Joey’s gaze jerked to his. “Did you keep the note and blanket?”
“The blanket, yes. Caleb loved it as a child.” He hesitated. “I’m afraid my wife threw away the note.”
“She didn’t want the baby to be found,” Cole said matter-of-factly.
The old man gave Caleb an apologetic, sad look, then gripped the table to pull himself up. He had bad knees, Joey realized, and he was aging, but he loved the boy.
The boy—her brother.
Caleb/Justin looked confused, in shock as he stared at the photo, then back to her. They were turning his world upside down.
Joey ached to say more, to hug him and tell him how sorry she was that he’d been stolen from her family’s arms. But she had to make certain he really was her brother.
Although she knew in her heart that he was. She glanced at his hand and noticed a birthmark on his wrist, and her throat convulsed. Justin had had a birthmark in that same place.
How would he feel when he learned that his parents might have been involved in his disappearance? That one or both of them conspired to fake a kidnapping/murder for insurance money?
“Here it is.” Sangston loped in, carrying a small blue blanket. It was tattered, worn and resurrected a mountain of memories that sent tears to Joey’s eyes.
She clutched the blanket in her hands, studying the frayed corner that Justin used to press against his cheek at night. “Oh, my heavens. This is it.” Tears trickled down her cheeks. “You used to carry this around all the time. You couldn’t sleep without it. You called it your binkie—”
“Binkie,” Caleb said at the same time.
Joey smiled and swiped at her eyes. “I can’t believe it. All this time I thought about you, felt guilty, prayed you were alive, and now you’re here.”
Caleb wrestled with his hands, the strain of Sangston’s declaration and her appearance evident on his face. “If you’re my sister, why did our parents give me away?”
Joey’s heart broke. “It’s a long story, Justin—”
“My name is Caleb,” he said through gritted teeth.
Joey tried not to react to his anger. For God’s sake, she understood it. Knew forging a relationship with him would take time. But at least he was alive.
“Maybe we should come back another day,” Joey said softly. “Give you and your…father time to talk. Give you time to absorb all this, Caleb.”
He sipped his tea, the ice clinking in his glass. “No. I want to know everything. I’m not a kid anymore.”
No, he wasn’t two. But he was still her baby brother. And all her protective instincts surfaced. “I realize that,” she said. “But our family…what happened, it’s complicated. Not all pleasant.”
A calm anger seemed to radiate over him, reminding her of Donna again.
Joey glanced at Sangston for a cue as to how to proceed. The man was hurting, but he seemed resigned. And he obviously adored Caleb. “He deserves to know about his real family. Then he can decide what to do with the information.”
Thankful Justin had had a loving family, she explained about her parents’ divorce, their bitter fights, Donna’s drinking, Leland’s affair then marriage to Lou Anne. Justin listened intently, his hands wiping at the water droplets on his glass as she described the horrible fire that night.
“I searched everywhere for you,” Joey said, her voice breaking. “I was so upset. And so were Mom and Rosa. Then Dad heard about the fire and rushed over. He was frantic.”
His gaze met hers, and he looked impossibly young again, the same little boy she’d rocked in her arms. “They looked for me?”
“Yes, for months. Donna kept a private investigator on retainer for a long time after that. But the police found blood and they thought you had probably died.” She hesitated, then spilled the rest of the sordid story. “After that, the police speculated that Leland, our father, might have orchestrated a fake kidnapping and murder in order to collect on an insurance policy, but there wasn’t proof. And when no ransom note came, the police believed that plan had gone awry, or that you had really been kidnapped. But there were never any real leads.”
When she finished, he looked torn between anger, shock, bewilderment and confusion. Then affection and fury mingled as he faced Sangston. “I wish you’d told me.”
“I didn’t know everything. And…your mother and I wanted you to be old enough to handle the truth.”
Cole had been quiet, intense while she’d relayed her story. He gestured toward the blanket. “I’d like to take that to the crime lab to be analyzed.” He pointed to a small dark stain in the corner. “That looks like a bloodstain. It might be too old to pick up anything, but it’s worth a try.” He paused, then stroked a finger over his badge absentmindedl
y. “And we’ll need a DNA sample to verify you really are Justin Hendricks.”
The boy and Sangston traded looks, then Sangston nodded and Caleb agreed.
Joey pinched her fingers together to keep from pulling Justin’s hand in hers and comforting him the way she had when he was two. She knew the DNA would prove he was her brother. Donna’s child.
But she didn’t think Leland was the father. The more she’d studied him, she recognized subtle nuances of another man’s face. A man she knew all too well. A man who had been in Justice the time of the alleged kidnapping and murder. A man who’d helped try to pin the case on her father and Jim McKinney. A man who’d known Lou Anne.
A man who must have also had an affair with Donna…
COLE STUDIED the boy and man, grateful for the rancher’s cooperation. He should have reported the baby’s sudden appearance on his doorstep years ago and had impeded the investigation, but on some subtle level, Cole sensed Justin—Caleb—had been just as well off growing up on the ranch.
But he had been denied the truth.
And Joey had been denied her brother, and suffered guilt from losing him that night.
He cradled her hand in his, recognizing the strength it took for her not to wrap the boy in her embrace. Joey was an amazing woman. A survivor.
They had to interview Donna again. And Leland. He’d force the truth from them this time. Joey and Justin both deserved answers.
“We should go now.” He stood, carefully assessing the situation. He didn’t think the old man would run but he wasn’t certain. “Mr. Sangston, if the DNA proves Caleb is Justin Hendricks, you’ll have to come in and make a formal statement.”
“Will he face charges?” Caleb asked, jumping to his defense. “Please say he won’t, Sergeant McKinney. I mean if my parents planned a fake kidnapping and murder, they didn’t deserve to keep me.”
Joey’s expression looked tortured. “Nothing was ever proven,” she clarified. “I know they’ve grieved for you, Justin. I mean Caleb. Just like I have.”
His young face fell. “I don’t want to lose my dad here or for him to get in trouble.”