“No offense taken,” he said warmly. He clearly cared a great deal about his grandmother. He’d lost a wife. It hadn’t dawned on Carys to ask if he had any other children.
Kit motioned for help with the baby. Blaize was by her side, helping her place Rue in the carrier. For a man of his size, he was surprisingly gentle with his grandmother and the baby.
For a split second, Carys was sure she saw something in his eyes that looked a lot like longing when he looked down at Rue. Had to be a mistake on her part.
When Kit left the room, Carys figured it was a good time to ask the questions on her mind. She remembered how much her father drank on certain days that she would later realize was her mother’s birthday and their wedding anniversary. Forget major holidays. Those were never the same.
“I wouldn’t be doing my job properly if I didn’t ask a couple of questions,” she said, wincing. They’d extended hospitality to her and Rue. The last thing she wanted to do was slap them in the face with rude questions.
“Okay-y-y.”
“It’s just…the thing is…”
Wow, she was really winning with words, wasn’t she?
“Were you serious about going out drinking this time last year?”
“Yes,” he said. It dawned on him where she was going with this. “I can admit that I drank too much when I was swimming in loss and self-pity.”
“Where did you hang out?”
“Austin bars mostly,” he said.
“Do you mind making a list?”
“What good would that do?” His right eyebrow hiked up.
“I need to track down information about Stephanie and—”
“You think it’s possible I was so drunk that I don’t remember having sex with her.” The disappointment in his voice stabbed her.
“It’s nothing personal,” she said, hearing the defensiveness in her own voice. “If she listed you on the birth certificate, you must have had some contact with her.”
He exhaled a slow breath. His eyebrows pinched together as he pursed thick, kissable lips. “That’s a reasonable guess.”
Carys cleared the sudden dryness in her throat. “I’m at a loss as to figuring out who her relatives are. I’ll take any thread I can get no matter how loose it might be.”
“What are you saying?” he asked. “Stephanie Cross might be a cover?”
“It could be that or someone who wanted to disappear,” she said. “It’s not impossible to create an identity. Forgers are amazing with identification nowadays.”
“Is that what you really think?”
“I have no list of next of kin and a name on a birth certificate for a father who swears he’s never heard of this person,” she said. “I don’t know what to think but Rue deserves for me to do everything I can to make sure her mother isn’t alive somewhere, hiding.”
“What do you make of the person you said was trying to get inside your vehicle?” he asked.
Carys was just now letting herself begin to think about the possibilities there. “Could have been someone stranded in the storm and panicking.”
He nodded. Then he stared out the window. “It’s possible. I didn’t see a vehicle anywhere near.”
“I don’t remember passing a stranded car, either.”
“Someone is out there and could be watching the house,” he said.
Creepy crawlies ran wild up and down her spine at the thought.
“It’s time to make that call to the sheriff,” he said.
