The Maverick’s Surprise Family (The Malones of Grand, Montana Book 3) by Roxanne Snopek

Author:Roxanne Snopek [Snopek, Roxanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tule Publishing
Published: 2024-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

The next evening, Lucas sat at the small breakfast nook in Sawyer and Leila’s house. Piper was in bed and Leila handed around mugs of tea and plates with apple pie she’d bought from the local bakery.

“At least I don’t have to worry about breaking this,” he said, lifting his mug. “Kendall’s teacups are as thin as eggshells.”

Leila laughed. “Lucas met Diana over tea at Kendall and Brade’s new place a couple of days ago.”

“Ah,” Sawyer said. “How’d that go?”

Whatever tension Lucas had sensed last night at the pub was gone. Sawyer, he guessed, wasn’t a man who held grudges.

Lucas nodded. “Good, I think. She was mad that she had to wait to meet me. I guess she feels like a second-rate sibling or something. We sorted it out.”

“Did she talk about her mother?” Leila asked.

Lucas shook his head. “We didn’t get that far.”

Leila sipped her tea. “She’s got a lot of anger there. We were abandoned at birth but she was a toddler when Heather Hudson left. That’s got to be more traumatic. Which brings me to what I want to talk to you about.”

Lucas looked at her warily. “Uh-oh. Not just tea and pie, then.”

“This is Leila you’re talking to,” Sawyer said. “She’s always got an agenda.”

“You make me sound so manipulative. I’m not. I’m just . . .” She pursed her lips. “I get stuff done.”

“Whatever you want to call it.” Sawyer got to his feet and gathered his dishes. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Once he’d left the room, Lucas turned to his sister. “What’s going on?”

“It’s about our birth mother.” Leila ran her thumb up and down the side of her mug. “Remember how I told you I’ve tracked her down?”

“Through a painting. You can’t get past the agency.”

It was an unlikely theory that was probably going to leave her disappointed, but then again, he’d never been interested in meeting the woman who’d abandoned them. He didn’t understand Leila’s need to find her.

Her expression grew stony. “I’m right about this. Heather Hudson is Mel Brezo. I just have to prove it.”

“Where is this person supposedly located?”

“Chinook,” she said with satisfaction.

“Chinook, Montana? She’s been within a few hours’ drive of you, all this time?”

It was weird thinking that the woman who’d given birth to them, and then disappeared from their lives, had been living in the same state their entire lives, without contacting them. He’d been to Chinook once. Maybe he’d passed her on the street, or in a grocery store or at a gas station. Would she have recognized him? Would he have recognized her? Surely there would be some resemblance. But they were strangers.

Diana’s anger seemed entirely reasonable, suddenly.

“Have you explained that you’re looking for your mother?”

Leila nodded. “Her agent, Malcolm Black, says I’ve got the wrong person.”

“How certain are you?”

She hesitated. “Ninety-nine percent.”

“Not completely, then.”

“It’s her, Lucas. We just have to get close enough to see her, talk to her, and then we’ll know.”

“What if there’s some reason she doesn’t want to talk to us? Have you thought about that?”

He could barely think about the ugliest possibility.

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