Chapter Fourteen
This can’t be happening. This is not happening. This is a dream. A nightmare. This isn’t real.
Cait swatted at the dogs licking her face and the hands helping her to sit up. Somehow, she’d fallen off the chair at the diner.
“I’m okay. Please, let me go. I’m fine. Thanks,” she reassured the people gathered around.
Brian picked her up and held her, his eyes full of concern. “We have to check your head. You hit your head.”
“I’m sure it’s just a bump. We need to get home, right now.” Cait gritted her teeth and gave Brian a direct order.
They’d drawn too much attention in this small town, and with the way gossip got around, it would only be a matter of time before word got back to the senator that Brian was claiming to be Glen’s father.
“Okay, I’ll take you to the cabin, but we don’t have internet there.” Brian stroked her hair and felt for a bump.
“We need to leave, now,” Cait said. She peeled Brian’s hands off her and grabbed the leashes.
“I can help,” Linx said. “Do you want to go to my place to rest? I have internet.”
“That’s awfully nice of you, but Brian and I need to be alone.” Cait could be firm when she wanted, and right now, the most important thing was to leave the town behind.
Maybe people thought Brian was a raving lunatic, maybe not. But she had to get them out of here before the news media caught the story. Without looking left or right, Cait marched to their car and put the dogs in the back.
Brian gathered his laptop and paid the bill. He still wore a maniacal glaze on his face, and the people gathered around stepped aside to let him pass through.
Linx followed them to the car. “At least let me know how to get in touch with you.”
“I’m sorry, but we do have to leave,” Cait answered. She wasn’t used to small towns and people’s nosiness. Who knew why Linx was so eager to insert herself into their lives?
“Okay, you know where to find me. I’m at the Mountain Dogs Rescue Center.” She gave Cait’s arm a squeeze. “Ask for Linx Colson.”
Cait thanked Linx and waved goodbye to her as Brian started the car and backed out of the parking spot. She didn’t dare look back, because they’d attracted a small crowd.
“We have to find a way to help Glen,” Brian said. “I know where the military academy is.”
“That doesn’t mean you should go there. Do you have any idea how much trouble you just got us in?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Brian said.
“You told everyone you’re Glen’s father. Are you sure that’s the truth?” Cait pinned Brian with her most focused glare.
“It is.”
“I’ve been married to you all these years and you never said a word?”
“I couldn’t, because Alana made me promise. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“Well, it’s kind of a big thing, don’t you think?” Cait put her head in her hands. She was still dizzy and the winding road didn’t help.
“It is,” Brian admitted. “I’m sorry.”
Cait’s head reeled at the magnitude of what Brian had blurted out. If Glen was truly Brian’s son, then he had to have fathered him when he was seventeen, which made him a minor and Mrs. Thornton a child molester.
If Brian was mentally disabled with autism or Asperger’s syndrome, it made her crime even more heinous. She’d taken advantage of him and used him for her own pleasure.
A creepy shudder vibrated through Cait. She, too, had taken advantage of Brian by marrying him. There he was, recently orphaned with an expensive house north of Golden Gate Park, needing a wife.
And she’d convinced him she was the one for him when he could have chosen any other woman, or maybe he misunderstood the will and didn’t have to marry anyone.
