The soft knockechoed through the room like a gunshot because the silence after Cal had delivered that bomb was so total.
Landon looked around the room.He couldn’t fathom who’d be knocking when they were all… here.A ranch hand would have texted.He hoped to God it wasn’t that detective, or a lawyer, or any other fucking Bennet disaster.
Landon moved to the door before Aly or anyone else could.When he opened the door to a man with a very similar face, he could hardly be surprised.
“Bo.”
“Um.Hi.Sam… called and…”
“Yeah, come in.”Landon moved out of the way, but Bo still stood on the porch, hesitating.
He looked into the living room, where all eyes were on him.Landon didn’t think he missed the flash of regret cross Bo’s expression.He didn’t want to be here.
Landon didn’t really want him to be here either, fair feeling or not.
But he’d give the guy credit.He straightened his shoulders a little and stepped forward.Landon closed the door behind him.
Bo still held back, but he was at least in the living room now.
“Sorry, Sam.I… I thought if I called first, I’d talk myself out of coming and you made it sound… important.So I wanted to…” He trailed off.Never finished.
“You don’t have to be sorry, Bo.”Sam had stood on his arrival, now she was moving toward him.“Sit.Eat some pizza.There’s plenty.”She started maneuvering him into the empty spot on the couch.Next to where Landon had been sitting.
Landon didn’t retake that seat.He stayed standing while Bo sat, and Sam shoved some pizza at him.
Bo took it, looked at it, but didn’t eat it.He cleared his throat.He looked to Sam, kind of helplessly.“I don’t know how I could help with any of this stuff.I’m more in the dark than anybody.”
“Maybe you can’t help, but we don’t know that unless you’re here,” Sam said.She took Landon’s vacated seat.Landon flicked a glance at Nate to see what his reaction to that was.
If there was one, Landon couldn’t read it.
“Bo, I think the defense is going to use you to try to prove something,” Cal said.Cal wasn’t looking at Bo though, he was looking at his hands.
“What could I prove?”Bo asked.He sounded a little panicked.“I’ve never met the guy.I never even met the… dead woman.I don’t know any of you.Even if we are…” He flicked a glance at Glenda, then quickly away.“Related.”
Landon didn’t want to feel sorry for that guy, but that last sentence snuck under his defenses.He couldn’t imagine trying to make sense of any of this on his own.Even if his relationship with his brothers was rocky, still being healed, he had them.
He had Aly, and that was everything.
Everyone in this room knew enough to just… understand.Bo had been thrust into something unfathomable.
“I only came to Sam because…”
“Because what?”Sam asked.She was gentle with this guy in a way Landon had never really seen her be.He couldn’t say helikedit.
“I had Montana ties, according to that old DNA test,” Bo said, looking down at his hands.“It made sense to come here.I… I thought of it on my own.I’m sure of it.”
“Okay, but I’m not the only PI in Montana, Bo.”
He looked pained.He closed his eyes.“I know.I know it.It was Cody.My cousin Cody gave me your name.Claimed he’d seen some story about some old case you’d solved.He thought you’d be a good fit.That’s what he told me.”
Sam’s expression went flat.“I don’t think we can write that off as a coincidence.Someone wanted you here.Someone wants to use you.”
And it was no secret as to who.Somehow Dad wanted to use Bo, and somehow Dad—or his lawyer—had the contacts to make it happen.
“There’s more, I guess,” Bo said uneasily.“I don’t know if it means… but… I just thought… you mentioned the trial and…”
“Bo, just tell us,” Sam encouraged.
