"I don't know. Winston barely acknowledges my existence most of the time. Finding out I might be his half-brother?" Gabe laughed bitterly. "That would probably make him hate me even more."
"Or it might not be you at all," Bryson pointed out. "You're spiraling based on a photograph and circumstantial timing. Your parents could have a perfectly innocent explanation.”
"Then why did my mom keep the photo? Why hide it away in a box in the attic?" Gabe's hands were shaking now. "People don't hold onto pictures like this unless they mean something."
Devon reached over and gripped Gabe's shoulder. "Listen to me. Whatever the truth is, it doesn't change the fact that you're our brother. Not by blood, maybe, but by choice. You've been part of the Stone Bridge family for eight years. That doesn't go away."
"Devon's right," Bryson added. "Whatever you find out, whatever happens with this inheritance situation, you're not alone in it.”
Gabe's eyes were wet. "I don't even know if I want to know the truth. Some questions are better left unasked, right?"
"That depends," Mason said. "Can you live with not knowing? Because that photo in your wallet suggests you've been carrying this question for years already."
"I thought I could ignore it. Convince myself it didn't matter." Gabe carefully returned the photo to his wallet. "But then David died and left me those guns and mentioned a third child in his will, and suddenly I can't stop thinking about it."
"Have you talked to Olivia about any of this?" Devon asked.
"How can I? She's still devastated about the miscarriage. She’s been trying to pull herself out of it and she’s been doing better. The last thing she needs is me having an identity crisis on top of everything else." Gabe rubbed his face. "She thinks I'm upset about the guns. Which I am, but not for the reasons she believes.”
"You need to tell her," Bryson said gently. "Keeping this from her isn't protecting her. It's isolating both of you. And maybe call your folks. They’re good people.”
"I know. I just..." Gabe's voice broke. "What if I'm not who she married? What if finding out I'm David Callaway's son changes everything?"
"It won't change the fact that she loves you," Devon said.
"You don't know that."
"I do. Because love isn't about DNA or family trees or any of that. It's about who you are, the life you've built together, the person you choose to be every day." Devon squeezed Gabe's shoulder again. "You're a good man. That doesn't change regardless of who your biological father is. You should talk to Emery. Being adopted has never defined her family.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the noise of the bar washing over them. Finally, Gabe spoke again. "I keep thinking about what David wrote in the will. About wanting this third child to be found and given their inheritance. What if that's me? What if he knew all along and this was his way of trying to make it right?"
"Or what if it's not you," Mason said. "What if David had another relationship entirely, another child you don't know about?"
"Then why leave me the guns? Why that specific gesture?" Gabe sighed.
"Because your grandfather worked for his father," Bryson said. "Because David was a decent man who probably felt guilty about what happened to your family when everything collapsed. The guns could be exactly what they seem—a gesture of closure, nothing more."
"But what if they're not?" Gabe looked around the table, his expression desperate. "What if I'm supposed to figure this out and I'm too scared to ask the questions that need asking?"
Devon didn't have an answer for that. None of them did.
"All I know," Devon said, "is that you don't have to figure it out alone. Whatever you decide—whether to investigate this or let it lie, whether to keep the guns or get rid of them, whether to ask your parents or not—we're here. The whole family. You understand that, right?"
Gabe nodded, though tears were streaming down his face now. “I’m sorry. I shouldn't be falling apart like this."
"You're human," Mason said. "And you've been hit with a lot all at once. Give yourself permission to feel."
"I don't even know what I'm feeling," Gabe admitted. "Scared? Curious? Angry? All of it at once?"
"That sounds about right for this situation," Bryson said.
They ordered another round, the conversation shifting to lighter topics as Gabe slowly pulled himself together. But Devon couldn't stop thinking about that photograph, about the way young David Callaway had held Gabe's mother, about the timing and the will and the guns.
If Gabe were David's son, it would explain so much. But it would also complicate everything—for Gabe, for Winston and Callie, for the entire valley.
And somewhere in the back of Devon's mind, a small voice wondered, if Gabe wasn't the third child, then who was?
Five
