“Hopefully.”
“Okay, I guess… like you said, it couldn’t hurt.”
Sam didn’t know aboutthat.Still, Nate gave him directions up to the ranch and they finished their lunch, then Sam got out the notebook and went over everything Bo had written out in a careful, neat print.
It gave a picture of his life.Or at least, his life starting at five.Not abadlife, but there was a sense of loneliness, of knowing he didn’t belong.A gulf widened by his father’s insistence that he not look into his past at all.
Was there something there?A reason.Had his father known something?
But his father was dead, there was no asking him.Sam could poke intohisbackground though.She noted that down as a next step.
“He was a good man,” Bo said, grief there in every word.“I know he wanted to protect me.But it’s hard to accept this thing you’re being protected from when you don’t even know what it is.”
Sam thought of Glenda.Therehadto be a connection if Glenda knew about Bo’s existence, but she couldn’t find it in what Bo knew.Sam was beginning to think only Glenda could unwind this mystery.
Which left just as many questions going into tonight as there had been before.
As Nate had said,woo.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Bennet Ranch
Nate and Samarrived early and helped Aly in the kitchen while Landon and Cal finished up the chores.
Landon still wasn’t used to having Cal help, even though he had every day since that morning he’d been hugging Aly.Landon was even less used to Cal helping without commentary or complaint.
Cal was silent but worked hard.There wasn’t that… fragile quality to him since he’d gone and talked to Glenda to invite her to dinner the other day.He had more… determination.Landon didn’t know what had changed and didn’t ask.
He couldn’t decide if that was withdrawing again or just being a rational human being who didn’t need to poke intoeverything.Hehatedbeing uncertain.
Still, Cal seemed to fit right into the ranch work—quite the shock since he’d been doing his level best to avoid it most his life.Landon almost commented on it, but Cal spoke first.
“Better get back.Don’t want to be late for the explosion.”
Landon wished he could think dinner was going to be anything else, but he just couldn’t.“Yeah, nothing like adding to the casualty list.”
Cal snorted and they trudged out into the snow to walk across the yard from stables to house.
As they came up to the house, Landon heard an engine coming up the drive.Since it was coming from the road below, and Nate and Sam were already here, it had to be Bo Lake, not the Harringtons.
Cal and Landon stopped, watched the unfamiliar car crest the rise, pull to a stop next to Nate’s truck.A man got out, clearly not noticing them standing between house and stables.
Landon figured he’d rolled with a lot of damn punches, so he should know how to deal with this one.But he could only stand there and stare at the man who hesitantly began to walk up to the house.
There was no exaggeration.No reach.If Bo Lake wasn’t a Bennet, Landon would eat his hat.
Maybe he was shorter than the three of them, a little scrawnier, but the hair was the same shade, had the same wave to it.Something about the set of his shoulders.Even the way he moved felt like looking into a warped mirror.
“Christ,” Cal muttered.
“Yeah, that about sums it up.Come on.”He nudged Cal to walk with him to the back where they could shed their ranch wear before heading inside.
They were silent about it at first, but by the time they were moving from the mudroom to the kitchen, Cal pointed out something Landon hadn’t been able to fully grasp.Maybe didn’t want to.
“Nate said he looks like Dad, and he does.But he doesn’tjustlook like Dad, you know.”Landon looked at Cal, who was marching on ahead.“Something about him reminds me of Mom too.”
Landon didn’t know what the hell to do withthat, so he followed Cal into the living room, where everyone was gathered.
