Redneck Romeo (Rough Riders #15)(102)

“Such a smart mouth,” Casper sneered. “Don’t think this scandal is gonna go away anytime soon. You really screwed the pooch on this one.”


Dalton laughed. “Thought you cut out all vulgar language.”


“What I said ain’t as vulgar as what you done.” His gaze scrutinized Dalton’s every facial injury. “See some of it’s already caught up with you.”


“Nothin’ I can’t handle.”


“I’d love to be around the next time someone knocks that smug look off your face.”


Dalton flashed his teeth. “Or you’re welcome to try and do it yourself, right now, old man.”


Casper snorted. “Says a lot about your character that you’d get off on beating me up.”


“You only have yourself to blame since that’s a trait I inherited from you.”


“You inherited nothin’ from me,” he spat. “’Bout time you knew the truth. So after this last stunt you pulled, I prayed for divine assistance, needing His direction. He gave me the sign I needed.”


“And what did God tell you to do? Ride out here and berate your son until he begged for forgiveness for adding another black mark to the McKay name?” Dalton demanded.


That malicious glint in his face showed again. “Your mama oughta be asking for forgiveness for the lies she told. Lies everyone has always believed. But I knew. The sign is as plain as the nose on your face.”


Was Casper going senile? “You ain’t makin’ a lick of sense. What’s my nose and a sign got to do with anything?”


“What’s your nose got to do with it? Look at that nose. That face of yours. Have you ever taken a good long look at yourself in the mirror, boy? When you ain’t been preening yourself like a peacock? If you ever had, you’d realize that you don’t look nothin’ like your brothers and you sure don’t look nothin’ like me.”


He had dark hair and blue eyes, just like the rest of the McKays. He was bigger than his brothers—bigger than all the McKays except for Cam. “Cam and Carter favor the West side so that don’t mean nothin’.”


“It sure does mean something. It means you ain’t my kid.”


Dalton laughed.


“I’m not joking. Your mom screwed around on me and I had to look at and deal with the ugly result of that since the day you were born.”


“Wow. So I get a two-fer? You’re showing that nasty-ass mean streak you’re so goddamned proud of while you’re telling a bald-faced lie?”


“Watch your words. God is lookin’ down on you.”


No, you’re the one who’s always looked down on me.


“This ain’t a lie. Because blood types don’t lie. And you don’t have the same blood type as Luke, Brandt and Tell.”


That didn’t prove anything…did it? Fuck, he’d slept through that part of biology. How was he supposed to remember his brothers’ blood types? When he couldn’t remember his own?


“And if you want real proof that you ain’t mine? I’d even take a paternity test.”


A niggling feeling of unease started at the back of his neck. What if he was telling the truth?


“Why do you think your mom coddled you? Protected you? She knew I knew that you weren’t my flesh and blood.”


“She didn’t coddle me and she sure as f*ck didn’t protect me from you or else I wouldn’t have been on the receiving end of your strap so many times.” Or maybe…that’s why he’d been singled out.


Don’t fall for this.


“Ask her,” Casper challenged. “Look her in the eye and demand to know what man she was with when she left me for a week. Oh, roundabout nine months before your birth.”


“I won’t because you’re a f*cking liar.”


“You won’t ask her because you know it’s the truth. Part of you has always known you don’t belong.”


There’s no way that bastard could’ve known that Dalton had always felt that way. “Why are you doin’ this?”


“It’s past time you knew the truth.”


“Just me? Or everyone? You’re gonna make an announcement to the world that your ex-wife f*cked around on you? That’ll be seen for exactly what it is: an old man’s bitterness.”


“I don’t give a hoot about sharing that info with the world at large. I just thought you oughta know.”


“Why? So you can hang this over my head? Threatening to spew this supposed secret to my brothers, thinking it’ll keep me in line?”


“Brandt and Tell won’t hear the truth from me. They’ll hate the messenger and ignore the message, as usual.” His lips twisted in a parody of a smile. “Besides, you’re still their brother even if you ain’t my kid.”


Dalton couldn’t think straight. So much of who he was, was about being a McKay—and all it meant to be part of that family.


Who was he if he didn’t have that?