Made in Texas!

The last thing Donna wanted was for this to disintegrate into a Sam versus William match. All of them were getting along way too well for that to happen.

“The bottom line is,” she said, “we’re going to have to make a decision. It doesn’t have to be tonight, but Roland said he can track James down if we want to meet him.”

The boys chuffed.

Jenna rose from the rocking chair. “He’s our brother… or cousin. Any way you put it, James is one of us.”

Aidan stopped laughing. “That’s another thing. I’d like to know just why it is he needs to be tracked down. Roland found Savannah already. Why isn’t James easier to find?”

Donna automatically walked toward her sister, whom she had supported during the family’s first vote, when they had debated whether to hire a P.I. to investigate Savannah in the first place. She’d had mixed feelings about locating Savannah then, too, but she had wanted to turn over a new leaf and support Jenna and her desire to find Savannah more than anything else.

“Roland told me,” Donna said, “that James and Savannah are estranged.”

“Seems like she has somewhat of a pattern,” Aidan muttered.

Tammy elbowed him in the ribs and he gritted his jaw.

“Why’re they estranged?” she asked.

Donna shook her head. “Roland doesn’t have that information right now, but we could ask him to find out.”

Now Nathan was on his feet. “This is how I see it—we’ve already had any curiosity about Savannah appeased.” He shot a look to Tammy, making sure everyone knew that she had been working overtime to assuage his feelings about that family decision. “But do we really want to take this further?”

Aidan stood, too, and although Nathan was a big man, his older brother was even larger. “Right now, we don’t know who fathered James. I’m fine with keeping it that way.”

“Why?” Tammy asked from her seat on the sofa.

“Because knowing the answer is going to put a real wedge between all of us,” Aidan said. “Can you imagine trying to work together on the Flying B after we know the truth? Tex didn’t bequeath his properties to us in order to tear us apart—he wanted us to stay together.”

Nathan raised a finger. “We haven’t even talked about what kind of canyon this is going to put between our dads. They’re off traipsing around the wilderness right now on some male twin bonding ritual that I hope will finally do the trick and bring them together again, and here we are, debating about ruining that. They both have egos, and…”

Donna had gone pricklier than ever. “You mean my dad has the ego, don’t you?”

Jenna came closer to her as the boys, and even Tammy, got an I’m-not-saying-another-word-about-that look on their faces.

Donna sighed. “It’s true that our dads have mended a lot of old wounds lately. But part of me wonders if putting this information in a proverbial closet will do more damage than ever.”

Then again, no one was talking about how James might feel about a decision that was really his.

“I agree about ignoring the truth,” Tammy said. “We should just lay everything to rest now. It could be that the revelation of whose son James really is will heal us altogether since not knowing would eat away at us and make things much worse.”

Silence bit the room until Jenna took a breath, then spoke.

“We should get in touch with our dads to see what they think.”

When Donna glanced at Jenna, she knew that her sister would take it upon herself to contact their father since she had already reconciled with him. Donna sent her a smile of thanks, even while she ached to talk to him, too.

But how, after everything he’d done to let her down?

Tammy fetched a phone from a holster on her jeans. “I’m calling Dad now. I talked to him last night, so I’ll bet they’re within service range.”

“We really want to ruin their idyllic nature walk?” Nathan asked.

Tammy moved her thumb over her smart phone screen. “I don’t see that there’s a choice. They can hash this out together in the boonies.”

“My vote’s still a big no about having our P.I. find the kid,” Aidan said.

Nathan chuffed. “That ‘kid’ is just a little bit older than Donna.”

This seemed to bug him, too, since it was obvious that his uncle Sam had gone straight into the arms of another woman—Donna and Jenna’s mom—after his affair with Savannah. Honestly, Donna didn’t like the thought of this, either, because it made it seem as if love was cheap to Dad. She’d never known that about him. Never even expected that he could be so loose with his affections, and it made her feel protective for Mom, even if she’d been gone a long time.

“All the same,” Nathan added, “I vote no on this situation, too.”

“It’s a yes for me,” Jenna said, “and I’m guessing Tammy, as well.”

As Tammy nodded, she glanced at Donna, and no one had to tell her that she just might be the tiebreaker, depending on what their dads said.

Jenna jerked her chin toward the room’s exit, and it was apparent that she wanted a private word with Donna.

As they left the room, Jenna addressed Tammy. “Can you give us a few minutes before you call Uncle William? I’d like to reach Dad at the same time, if possible.”

“Sure.”

And, while they exited, Tammy launched into every argument she could probably think of to sway her brothers.

After a little walking down the hall, Jenna pulled Donna into the dining room, the dark wood and stag horns above the long table looking more imposing than usual.

Jenna shut the double doors behind her. “You don’t seem convinced, Donna.”

Was it that obvious? “I’m sorry. But the ramifications of this decision could be…”

“A real challenge? We’re up to it.”

For the first time in Donna’s life, she actually felt as if she was close enough to her sister so that she could confide in her. The realization tightened her throat, and she had a hard time getting the words out.

“It’s just that we were about to mend all of our own fences because of our dads, and then Tammy found that clue about Savannah’s baby. We were doing so well for a while.”

“You’re still mad at Dad for being with Savannah, aren’t you? He didn’t try to fall in love with her, Donna.”

“He didn’t try to stop having sex with his brother’s girlfriend, either.” Harsh. But this wasn’t the man Donna had grown up idolizing.

She calmed down. “I just remember how he used to tell us to go after everything we wanted, Jen. It looks like he really practiced what he preached, and the fallout isn’t pretty.”

Jenna laid a hand on Donna’s arm. She was getting used to the contact. Donna’s friends didn’t even show this kind of sympathy, but since coming to the Flying B, Donna had begun to wonder if she’d actually had friends or just people she went out with after work at night to blow off steam.

“After I finally talked to Dad about this,” Jenna said, “I found out that he was inconsolable when Savannah left the ranch and disappeared afterward. He got hurt in this, too, and I only came to understand that after I fell in love myself.”

Was she saying that Donna didn’t have a chance in hell of understanding since she had no one?

An image of dimples flashed into her mind. Pale blue eyes sparkling with humor and lightness.

Caleb.

She shook him off. “Yeah, Dad was so inconsolable that he married Mom on the rebound. No wonder they split up.”

“Donna, you really should talk to him. We can call, right now.”

Her stomach turned with nerves. “No. I don’t want to say to him what I have to say over the phone.”

“Then when will you do it?”

“Soon.” She walked to the doors, paused. “Thanks for taking care of this, though. It means a lot.”

Jenna merely nodded as Donna opened the doors, closing them behind her, yet hardly shutting out her sister’s voice as she said, “Hey, Dad, it’s Jenna.”

As Donna walked away, her footsteps echoed off the walls, the sound mocking the dull thud of every isolated heartbeat.

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