Sapphire Nights (Crystal Magic Book 1)(44)

“It’s really dry, so it may be an acquired taste. You don’t have to drink it if you don’t like it.” It was the hundred-dollar a bottle stuff, but as he’d said, it was worth celebrating this temporary reprieve from real life. Tomorrow, they’d head back up the mountain to lunacy.

One day at a time was all he was doing these days.

“I probably shouldn’t acquire the taste, but I’m willing to try anything once.” She sipped some more before returning to his question. “Cass kept things from me. I remember getting frustrated when I asked who my mother was and why she gave me up for adoption. She told me Zack died the same way his mother had, by overdose. But she didn’t say my mother was dead too. And she didn’t mention what happened to Zach’s father, my real grandfather.”

He seated her on the couch so she didn’t wobble—and so he could sit beside her and drink in her scent as he opened up his laptop. “Let’s see what Sofia turned up.”

“Do you think any of this affects your father’s death?” she asked, watching over his shoulder.

“We already know Cass is related to the Kennedys, who own half the town. My father was researching some kind of fraud case when he went up there. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be looking into drug addicts. His business was more corporate than that.” He connected with his personal hotspot instead of the hotel Wi-Fi. “If you’re what. . . twenty-four?”

She nodded.

“Then chances are good that if your birth father lived with Cass, he was connected to people who were still living in Hillvale a few years after you were born—when my father arrived. If Cass is a Kennedy. . .” He scrolled through the family tree file Sofia had created on Cass. “Bingo.” He turned the screen around where she could see it.

She studied all the crisscrossing lines. “Complicated family. My heroine-addict grandmother doesn’t seem to be related to Cass. She put no father’s name on Zach’s birth certificate. So why did Cass and her husband adopt him?”

Walker clicked a link so she could read the data easier. “Sofia has access to databases your genealogist doesn’t. Geoffrey Kennedy ran a DNA test on Zach before he set up the trust fund.”

She clicked back to trace the family line. “Geoffrey Kennedy was my grandfather? I went on a date with my uncle?”





Chapter 15





Sam took the laptop away to study the screen. Her head spun from the champagne, but she could comprehend the lines well enough. Geoffrey Kennedy, late husband of Carmel, father of Montague, Hillvale mayor, and Kurt Kennedy, lodge owner, was her grandfather?

“Or are Montgomery and Kurt Kennedy my half-uncles? Do they know that?” she asked tentatively. “I’ve never had family. I don’t know how the relationships work.”

“Looks like Zachary would have been their older half-brother, so yeah, I guess you can go with half-uncle,” he acknowledged, still studying the screen. “Looks like your grandfather had Kurt and Monty late in life. It’s possible they know nothing about Zach.”

Sam shuddered, realizing her uncles ran the town—and may never have known about her existence. She stared wordlessly at the screen, trying to absorb the hot mess that was her real, very mixed-up birth family. Jade and Wolf were much easier to handle in comparison. She had a longing for the sanity of the university and the office waiting for her back there.

Walker took the laptop back and scrolled around. “Even better, Cass and Geoffrey seem to be half-siblings, so I guess Cass is. . .” He scrunched up his nose to figure it out. “She’d be Zach’s half-aunt and your great-aunt. She essentially raised her nephew because Geoffrey wouldn’t claim him.”

“I remember her telling me that she was like a grandmother to me. I guess, since she raised my father, that was truth of a sort too.” She curled up against his side to study the screen, but her head couldn’t take in much more.

“Cass sent you up to Hillvale for a reason. And given your relationship to Kurt and Monty, I’m guessing it’s not one Carmel will be happy about.”

“I still can’t recall how Cass sent me up there. If I’m remembering right, I think I refused to go. I didn’t want any part of a family that didn’t want me.” That hurt as much now as it had since she was a kid and learned what adopted meant. “Geoffrey Kennedy or my birth parents essentially paid Wolf and Jade to keep me away.”

“Don’t be so hasty to jump to conclusions. We still don’t have all the data on your mother. Where did she hook up with Zack? In Hillvale? Frisco? Did she know the Lucys? The Kennedys? Did they pay her to leave too?”

“Is she even alive?” Forgetting about Walker’s search for people who might have met his father, she spun the laptop screen again. “Susannah Ingersson Kennedy. Zack married my mother.”

“He also used his birth father’s name and not Tolliver, which is why your genealogist was running into difficulty,” Walker pointed out, as if that might be significant.

“That’s rude. I’m Samantha Moon because my parents adopted me. I don’t want to be a Kennedy or whatever. My birth parents gave me up. Why would my father cut out Cass’s married name if she raised him as a Tolliver?”

“To taunt his father and his father’s new family would be my guess. Looks like he wasn’t more than twenty when he married. That’s not always a real bright age, especially for a troubled addict. Since Cass was a Kennedy before she married, he wasn’t completely disrespecting her.”