Bo looked taken aback.“Sent me?N-no one.After Dad died, I… I just thought I’d find my biological family, what happened when I was five.I wanted to find out where I was from.Who… who I was.”
Grandma shook her head, seeming agitated as she signed another question that Jill had to deliver to a very shell-shocked looking Bo.
“Who helped you get here?”
“I…” Bo clenched his hands into fists, let them go, repeated the process a few times.“I had a cousin who was supportive.Mom… wasn’t.But Cody was real nice about it.He didn’t help me though.He just supported me, suggested I follow the Montana leads from when I was a kid.He helped me cover some expenses so I could come out here for a while.He didn’tsendme.Hehelpedme.”
For a few ticking minutes, the room was silent except for the sounds of breathing, some of it more labored than others.Jill felt like crying herself, and she didn’t even know Marie Bennet.
But she knew all that poor woman had left behind.
Bo got to his feet.“I think I better go.”
“Bo.”Sam made a move as if to grab him, but he didn’t stop his forward movement until he made it to the door.
He turned to face her.And Jill noted he looked atonlyher.Not his brothers.Not Grandma.
“We didn’t even eat,” Sam said, clearly trying to get him to stay, to deal with this.
“No, it’s okay, Sam.I’m just overwhelmed.I want to go back to my hotel and call my mom and just… I don’t know.Figure it out.I’ll… can I come by Honor’s Edge tomorrow?”
“Please do.Call if… if you want to talk before that.You’ve got my number.”
He nodded then was out the door.Sam stood staring at it, Aly and Landon too.Cal was looking at his hands.Nate at the floor between his feet.
But Grandma waved for attention, began frantically signing.Jill couldn’t quite make out what Grandma was signing in her agitated state, so Aly got her pen and paper, and Grandma wrote it out.Handed the paper to Sam.
*
Sam’s heart feltbruised.Par for the course, she supposed.She wasn’t surprised at a Benjamin Bennet connection.
Marie Bennet on the other hand?She didn’t know how to absorb that information.And now Glenda was shoving a piece of paper at her.
Sam sighed and read the unsteady handwriting.
Look into who helped him.And any connection they might have to Benjamin Bennet.
She looked into Glenda’s eerie light green eyes.There was worry there.Fear, maybe.Which put some added fear into Sam.She didn’t think Bo was bad news, but she thought maybe he was in danger.Somehow.
“Okay.”Sam nodded.“Yeah, okay.The cousin Cody.I’ll see if there’s a connection to Benjamin Bennet somehow.”God, what an insane mess.
But if this guy who followed her was informing Benjamin Bennet’s lawyer about Bo, then Benjamin knew about Bo—and a connection to Glenda meant he knew itwashis son, and that he was here, and… no, none of that was good or something they could pretend wasn’t a problem.
She glanced at Nate.He hadn’t spoken once.His head was bowed, his hands loosely clasped together in his lap, but his gaze was on the floor, so she couldn’t read his expression.Not that it was likely to be anything but that awful blank.
Glenda signed something to Jill, who frowned, but nodded.“Um, Grandma wants to go home.I’m sorry you went through the trouble of a meal, Aly, and…”
“Don’t be sorry.We got answers.Thank you, Glenda.For some answers.”
Sam watched Aly try to smile.Fail.But Aly ushered Jill and Glenda outside, closing the door behind them then leaning against it.
For a moment, they were all silent.A bruising, aching kind of silence.
Aly was the first to break it.“Why would Glenda have kept it a secret all these years after Marie was gone?”she said, sounding close to tears.“You guys have a brother.A full brother.I know she wanted to protect him from Benjamin, but you’ve all been adults for so long.Why hide it?”
It echoed Sam’s own thoughts.“Poor guy’s been looking for his family since hewasa kid.She could have saved him a lot of grief if she’d just…”
“She made a promise not to,” Landon pointed out, his voice gruff.
