“Oh? Who was she?”
“Jennifer Cooper. Your picture is right next to hers in the book.”
The doc’s gaze dropped to the desk, and his cheeks colored, then he met Holt’s gaze. “I knew her well. We were friends…”
“And more?” Caitlin asked.
Her directness surprised Holt, and apparently the doc as well. He waited a beat before answering.
“Yes, I suppose you could say that. Before I left for the Army, we were pretty tight. She was popular— not that way. She cared about people in general, but she only had a few really close friends. They’re all gone now. I’ve checked.”
Gone now. The phrase resonated with something Mrs. Smith had said. Her son had been killed, and he’d lived right there in the same house as Holt’s mother. What if they were wrong about Doc Coates?
“Did you know she got pregnant?” Caitlin again, bless her, determined as ever to fight his battles for him. Why had he not seen that sooner? Everything she’d done since he met her, she’d done for him.
The doc’s eyes widened, and he shook his head.
Today, it appeared, was a day for Holt’s eyes to open, or for his brain to start exploring alternatives. “She had a son,” Holt told him, his blood suddenly running with chips of ice in his veins. So much depended on how this went. “Me. My birthday is a little less than nine months after her graduation.”
Doc frowned and lowered himself to his chair, nodding for them to take the visitors’ chairs on the other side of his desk. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” He shook his head. “Stupid question. Of course you are.” He studied Holt for a moment. “You look like her, you know.”
“I’ve been told that.”
“A DNA test will prove the connection…or not. I can arrange it.”
“Good,” Caitlin interrupted. “And we’ll do another at a separate lab, just so there’s no question.”
“I think I’ve been insulted.”
Holt glanced at Caitlin. He’d said he wanted only one, but here and now, he saw the sense of what she proposed. “Not really,” Holt interjected. “There are other factors to consider. For one, I’m wealthy. Very. I have to be sure of the people around me. I’m sorry, but it’s a fact of my life.”
Doc nodded but didn’t say anything. He looked to Holt like someone trying desperately to make sense of the sudden change in his world and not having much luck.
“You never knew?” Holt asked though the answer was obvious from Doc’s demeanor.
“I spent decades away, out of touch with anyone here. But, funny thing, Jenny was what brought me back. Memories of my time in school with her. Being here with her was the happiest I’ve been in my life. Until my father made it impossible.” He shrugged. “Or so I thought. Granted, I expected to find her still in the area, married and with a houseful of kids, so I was shocked and saddened to find her gone. Her aunt told me she’d died.”
“Not then, but six years ago.”
Doc’s frown turned icy. “That old…she lied. And I believed her.” He leaned his elbows on the desk and clasped his hands together in front of his mouth. “Why would I doubt what Jenny’s family told me?” He clenched and unclenched his fists. “All that time—.” He sat back and paused again; regret written clearly in the set of his mouth. “That’s all I knew. I should have talked to others in our class. Friends of ours. Of hers. Maybe they would have told me she’d had a son. Possibly my son.” He met Holt’s gaze again. “If it’s true you’re mine, we have a lot of catching up to do.”
“I’m sorry to spring this on you so suddenly. This has to be a shock for you,” Caitlin said.
Doc’s lips pressed together, then he blew out a breath. “If it is true, I’m damn sorry to have missed so much of your life, Holt. Not to have been there for you. For Jenny, when she needed me. She took it hard when her parents were killed in that car crash. She wasn’t happy living with her aunt.”
“After she started showing, her aunt kicked her out,” Holt said as the old resentment flared anew in his gut. “She raised me alone, a single mother, denied and disinherited by the only family she had left. She told me my father died. I guess she never knew where you went, why you disappeared so suddenly. You were her friend, and maybe more. But you disappeared.”
Doc rubbed his hands over his face. “My God.” After another moment, he took a breath and spoke. “It’s a long story, but the condensed version is I left after a fight with my father, signed up at the local recruiting center, and shipped out the next day.” His fist clenched. “I could have found a way to tell her I was leaving and why. I should have. Then she would have had a chance to tell me— but I was so angry with my father, my focus was totally on packing my stuff and getting the hell out of town. I was still a kid. I wasn’t thinking about anyone but myself.” He shook his head. “If I’d had any inkling that my actions would affect two other people, ruin two other lives— I have no excuse. I only wish I could go back and make it right.”
Holt had a touch of the temper Doc Coates described, too. Caitlin shared a look with him that saidare you hearing this? He gave her a nod. From her son, Mrs. Smith had known about fights Holt had with his father. Here was another indication that the work Caitlin had done had gotten him on the right track.
He was impressed with the vet’s willingness to consider their claim, and how his story aligned with what little they knew about Holt’s mother’s history, but he wasn’t yet ready to let the man off the hook. Holt could admit that in balance, his life hadn’t been ruined. He’d made the most of the hand he’d been dealt. But his mother’s? Hers had been destroyed, first by her parents’ deaths, then by her aunt who tossed her out with the trash when she got pregnant with him. He spoke before he could let anger overtake him. “Can you take the DNA samples here?”
Doc stood and motioned toward the door. “I’ve got kits in the lab. It’ll take five minutes, and then, I hate to do this given what we’ve been talking about, but I’ve got to get back to work. I’ve got a surgery scheduled in a few minutes. The usual— a dog hit by a car. I was grabbing lunch while the techs prepped him.”
“Let’s do the kits and get out of your way,” Caitlin prompted.
“We can talk more when the results come back,” Holt agreed, hoping after the news they’d just given him, the vet’s hands would be steady enough to do the surgery the dog needed.
