Ominous silence swept over the room, except for Matthews and his awful snoring. Ryder braced for the bomb about to be dropped on everyone. He couldn’t stop it if he tried.
“What are you talking about?” Melba snapped, but her tone didn’t hold its usual bite.
With two deliberate strides, Fiona stood in Melba’s face, towering a couple of inches over her, even in Melba’s heels. “Why didyouhave it?”
“Mom?” Lee asked, his voice softer than Ryder had ever heard it. Judging by the pained expression, the pieces were falling into place for him. “You care to explain this?”
“She’ll probably keep lying to you, so I’ll just come out and say it,” Kinley said. “You’re my dad, Lee. I’m as shocked as you are, believe me.” She leaned her head against the bars. “But it is what it is.”
“You can’t prove that,” Melba growled in warning.
“If someone’ll take these stupid cuffs off me, I’ll show you.” Murph worked the key through the bars, re-holstering her set of cuffs as Kinley rubbed at her wrists. “I havemybirth certificate right here.” She pulled it free of an inside jacket pocket. Melba reached for it, but Kinley yanked it back. Ryder placed himself between Kinley and Melba to prevent it from happening again.
“How? I don’t . . .” Lee looked at Melba. “Start talking, Mom.”
“Let’s go into your office, dear.”
“No,” Fiona said firmly as Ava blocked the doorway. “Wealldeserve to hear this. She was my sister. Kinley is my niece. You’re done pushing my family around.”
“Fine.” Melba dropped onto a bench and leaned against the wall, more defeat in her eyes than Ryder thought possible for a woman most joked was carved from glacier ice. “You all might as well get comfortable. It’s not a quick story.”
* * *
Kinley
Kinley still hadn’t wrapped her head around Lee being her father. She kept stealing glances at him as she waited for everyone to settle. Searching for physical similarities between them. She had her mom’s eyes, but maybe Lee’s slightly upturned nose? Or was she trying too hard to see what might not even be there?
“I knew about your secret affair with Cassidy James,” Melba directed at Lee.
“It wasn’t anaffair,” Lee corrected. “Just secret. Because you didn’t approve.”
Melba let out a pompous laugh. “Of course, I didn’t. She didn’t deserve you, Lee. She was only after your money.”
“You’re wrong,” Fiona lashed. “You didn’tknowher. Cassidy never cared about money or material possessions. My sister only cared about people. If she was with Lee, she loved him. Make no mistake about that.”
Melba waved the declaration away, as if it were an annoying interruption. “Imagine my surprise when it turns out Cassidy is pregnant. She came to tell you,” she said again to her son. “But luckily you weren’t home.”
“Why would she ever tellyou?” Kinley asked.
“She didn’t mean to. But the doctor’s note slipped out of her purse.” Melba huffed out a sigh. “It didn’t take me much to put two and two together. I wasn’t going to have her trap you, Lee. You had so much potential. A scholarship. A future. A baby when you were just nineteen?” Melba shook her head. “I threatened her.”
“Mom—”
“Oh, don’t look so surprised.”
“That’s why she went away for a year,” Fiona said. “Yousenther away.”
“She told me the baby wasn’t mine,” Lee said. “She swore up and down that her pregnancy was the product of a one-night stand.”
Kinley remembered the letter, wishing for once she had that stupid purse with her. “She said in her letter she’d only ever been with one man her whole life. I guess it was supposed to be a clue or something.” She looked to Lee, touched when he flashed a weak smile. For the first time, Kinley saw more than a man who went out of his way to make her teenage years painful. She saw a man who once loved her mom very much. A man who thought the woman he loved betrayed him, and Kinley was the reminder.
“I blackmailed her,” Melba finally said. “Promised that if she didn’t take the job I found her in Fairbanks for at least a year, I’d make sure the bank foreclosed on the cabin.”
“You’re leaving something out, Melba,” Fiona interjected. “She never would’ve gone for that without talking to me.”
“Who do you think paid her hospital bills? Did you really think a little bed and breakfast offered health insurance, much less enough money to bring the mortgage payment of your shack current? I paid foreverythingthat year.”
Ryder had to intervene when Fiona leapt at Melba. “Ladies, please.”
