Rough Rider (Hot Cowboy Nights, #2)(76)

*

“Mama! Where the hell are you?” Dirk opened the door with a bellow.

She was slowly descending the stairs, her hand tightly gripping the banister and her face unusually pale. He bounded up the stairs as fast as his C-Leg would allow. “Are you OK?”

“I am now. I’ve just had a bit of a shock is all.”

“What do you mean? What kind of shock?”

“I need to sit down, Dirk…and so do you.”

He led her to the sofa and lowered himself beside her. “Damn it all, Mama. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Take a look at this.” She produced a Polaroid photo. It was Dirk as a kid in hat and boots smiling at the camera from atop his favorite horse, Buckshot.

“It’s me and Buckshot. What of it?”

“Can’t you see it?” she demanded.

“See what?”

“My God! The resemblance can’t be denied. That boy out there is the spitting image of you!”

“Impossible. You’re seeing things, Mama.” His chest constricted even as he spoke the denial.

“How old is Cody?” she demanded.

“He’ll be ten soon. In March I think,” Dirk choked out his answer while counting months backward. Holy f*ck. It couldn’t be!

“Were you and Janice ever… Did you and she…”

He could barely hear her anymore over the roar in his ears. He shoved the photo into his pocket, pushed off the sofa, and banged out the door. He was halfway across the yard when he met his father and Janice hurrying toward the house.

“She’s fine,” he answered his father’s look of alarm.

“Thank you, Jesus!” Justin exhaled.

Dirk dug his keys out of his pocket and headed toward his truck. He didn’t even trust himself to look at Janice.

She trailed after him. “Where are you going?”

“Not now, Red.” He kept walking.

“Please!” She latched onto his arm. “You’ve got to tell me what’s wrong?”

He shook her off, snatched the Polaroid out of his shirt pocket, and shoved it in her face.

“I don’t understand.” Janice frowned at the picture, her forehead wrinkling. “It looks just like my son, but how could you have a picture of Cody?”

“That ain’t Cody.”

“Then who…” She looked up at him with brown eyes growing fearfully wide. “Oh my God. It can’t be…”

“You got some major explaining to do, Red, but I can’t trust myself to hear it right now.”

“Let go, Dirk,” she whispered. “You’re hurting me.”

He released the arm he hadn’t realized he’d taken hold of. “That so?” he hissed. “Well, I can barely f*cking breathe.”

*

Dirk headed straight to the Stockman, the only watering hole in Twin Bridges, settling into a corner and ordering a bottle of Pendleton. He’d knocked back several shots of the whiskey and was already halfway to shit-faced when his brother walked in. “What the hell are you doing here?” Dirk sneered over his glass.

Wade straddled a chair with a shrug. “They say misery likes company, and since you’re one miserable sonofabitch, here I am.”

“Thought you went back to Bozeman,” Dirk remarked after a time.

A pretty waitress in a low-cut top came to take Wade’s drink order. “Nothing for me, thanks.” He waved her away and then pushed back his hat. “I did for a few days, but I’ve got a court date in Virginia City tomorrow, so when Mama called to say she was making a brisket, I drove down a day early. As it turns out, most of Sunday dinner went to those ugly dogs of yours. Seems no one but them had much appetite.”

Dirk threw back another shot. “You see Janice?”

“Briefly,” Wade replied. “She left almost the minute I got there. Can’t say I blame her. She was pretty distraught.”

“She was distraught?” Dirk gave a derisive snort. “I just found out she had my kid and never even told me! How could she lie about something like that…to me…to Grady. I still can’t f*cking believe this!” Dirk shook his head.

“Do you know for sure he’s yours?” Wade asked. “You and I both know that Mama’s got a powerful yen for grandkids.”

“That may be, but she ain’t delusional, Wade. You seen the picture?” He made to refill the glass but then changed his mind and swigged straight from the bottle.

“Yeah, I saw it.”

“I have half a mind to demand a DNA test.”

“You need to think carefully about that, bro,” Wade warned. “I can understand your desire to know for certain, but think what it could do to the kid. Do you really want to go there? Besides, Janice has every right to refuse.”

“What the hell am I supposed to do then?”

“I don’t know, but seems there’s a helluva lot of unanswered questions—questions only she can answer. There’s probably nothing worse than living with the knowledge that you made bad decisions over misunderstandings—I speak from experience. You accused me of jumping to conclusions about you and Rachel. I made that mistake and have lived to regret it. Deeply. Maybe you’re doing the same thing to Janice.”