Beneath a Texas Star by TORI SCOTT

Author:TORI SCOTT
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, texas, dogs, horses, family, domestic violence, series, western, rodeo, adoption, cowboys, hippotherapy, foster care, lone star cowboys
Publisher: Tori Scott

EIGHT

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Nick asked as he stowed Jean's luggage in the trunk of her car.

"I'm sure. Besides, it's my car."

"We could take my truck." Nick held the driver's door until Jean was seated, and then went around to climb into the passenger side.

"No, I'd rather do most of the driving since you're still recovering. I'm more comfortable in my car."

"You're the boss." He flipped through her CD's and picked out a few, inserted them into the CD changer, and settled back in the seat. "You know how to get to Tyler?"

"I think I can manage. My grandparents lived in Lindale, so I'm pretty familiar with the area." Jean turned south on US 82 and set the cruise control. "Do you have any idea where you want to start looking?"

"I thought I'd start at the last foster home I was in and work my way backwards." He pulled out Cooper's tablet and did a Google search. "I've been searching birth records, but without my real last name, it's pretty hopeless. I don't even know if my birthday is real."

"Didn't you have a birth certificate? I'd think you would have needed one to get into school, get a social security number, stuff like that."

"When my mother abandoned me, I was only three. All I could tell social services was my first name. I don't know the legalities of what they did, but they gave me a last name and got me the records I needed." He was silent for a long time, lost in thought.

"So where did they come up with Jackson for your last name?"

"Huh? Oh, that was the street I was on when the cops found me. My birth date, I'm assuming, is the date I was found. God only knows how long I'd been there. I remember one foster mother telling me I was cold, half-starved, and huddled under a tree. There wasn't much on that street except a few old houses. I drove through there a few years ago. Pretty sad-looking neighborhood."

"And they had no idea how you'd gotten there?"

Nick shook his head. "The cops went to every house in the area, asking questions, but no one had seen me before. Or they wouldn't admit to seeing me."

"Do you think something might have happened to your mother? That she didn't mean to abandon you? Maybe she was sick, or in an accident. Maybe she got kidnapped or something."

Nick chuckled, the sound hollow and without humor. "Believe me, I've run through all possible scenarios. When I was six, I thought she'd suddenly wake up from a coma, panicked with worry about what happened to me. At twelve, I convinced myself she was in jail somewhere, afraid to tell anyone about me in case some imaginary bad guy would try to find me and kill me. By sixteen I decided she'd died of an overdose."

"And what do you think now?"

"Now, I realize it doesn't matter what I think. The only way to know the truth is to find her, or find out what happened to her.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.