“So, where are we going?”

Cal glanced over at Jesse. “Did you get enough to eat?”

“Um, I’ll go with no.” She seemed to consider this question. “But that could be because Aria was eating all of my gelatin and carrots.”

“Gelatin and carrots?” The thought actually turned his stomach. “Sweetheart, those two things do not go together.”

“It was slim pickings in the cafeteria.” She sounded defensive. “I took what was available. I mostly ate pie.”

He looked over at her slightly disgruntled expression. Had any woman ever been more dear or more adorable to him? Sometimes he could not help but feel that there was no need for a paternity test. This woman could not be related to him by blood. Surely his heart would know. Surely there would be no doubt in his mind that he shouldn’t love her the way that he did. Would fate be that cruel? It seemed preposterous.

“How about,” Cal began slowly, “we grab something on the way. I know a little café on the way to my brother’s place.”

“Your brother’s place?” Her smile faded. “What are you talking about?”

He realized that he’d forgotten to mention where they were actually going. “Laredo offered us the use of his empty house for tonight. It’s a whole lot shorter than heading back to the ranch.”

“But what about my stock?” She was sounding panicky.

Cal glanced over and tried to give her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry about it. My hands are going to take care of your stock. You’re so organized that there’s no way they can miss what feed goes to what horse. You’ve probably got it labeled to death.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t need to be there.” Her voice began to rise and she sounded almost panicky. “I want to go home, Cal.”

“Can’t you just stay here for a few more hours?” Cal sighed. If she really wanted to, he would drive her home. “I have to be back first thing in the morning to meet with the pathologist at the hospital and also with the funeral home.”

“Can’t your brothers do that stuff?” she demanded. “Why should you have to hang around? You’re the only one who doesn’t live in town.”

“Hence the offer of accommodations.”

“I need a shower,” she moaned.

Cal could not help it. He laughed. “I feel pretty certain that there is a shower in my brother’s million dollar mansion. You can use it. I’ll even turn my back and pretend I don’t have any interest in watching.”

The really bad thing about the doubts that his family had about paternity, and everything else regarding Jesse’s origins, was the slightly negative and almost creepy vibe it threw on everything he said to her that might be construed as romantic.

“I’m sorry,” Cal said quietly.

She sighed and looked sad. “Don’t be. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve dreamed of hearing you say something like that for years. I’ve had a crush on you my whole life. I would argue that sexual tension has always existed in one way or another between us. It’s just that we have something right now sitting between us like a bomb and I don’t know what to do about it.”

He pulled the truck into a tiny parking lot squeezed between two old brick buildings. The neighborhood was old and very traditional with restored homes and old-style streetlamps that looked as though they’d come from a bygone era. It was quaint, and he wished that there was some way to carry that feeling of simplicity deep inside him.

Shutting off the engine, Cal got out of the vehicle and ran around to the passenger side to help Jesse down. Of course, she wasn’t the kind of woman to just sit there and wait. She was already sliding to the ground by the time he got there. He suddenly found himself standing so very close to her. He could smell the light floral feminine fragrance that had always been such a part of his memories of her.

“You always smell good,” Cal murmured.

She looked bemused as she stared up into his face. “I smell good? I can tell you that I think you’re crazy. It’s been since yesterday that I showered, and I’m pretty sure I smell like horse.”

“No horse has ever smelled this good,” Cal teased. “If they did, I might be in danger of falling in love with one.”

“That would certainly make your mother reconsider me as a possible match,” Jesse quipped. She wrinkled her nose and made a face. “Surely she would consider me a step up from a farm animal.”

“It’s never easy to tell with my mother.”

He cupped her cheeks. They were cool against the warmth of his palms. She sighed. The breath easing from her lungs whispered over his hands and wrists. He felt a tingle shoot down his spine. The pleasure from that simple thing left him feeling giddy and light-headed.

“Should we go inside now?” she whispered. “I’m getting really hungry. If you keep me out here too much longer, I might be in danger of trying to cannibalize you.”

“I could live with that,” he told her wryly. “But yes. Let’s go inside.”

He took her hand firmly in his and headed into the restaurant. The old-style diner was clean and busy. There were booths lining the front walls and old-school tables with four padded chairs scattered throughout the rest of the restaurant. The walls were painted white with black trim. The floor was black-and-white tile, and the red padding on the chairs and barstools gave everything that malt shop look and feel.

Cal chose a table instead of a barstool. He wanted to sit closer to Jesse than being across the table would allow. He wanted to feel her leg pressing against his beneath the table. He wanted to see her smile and smell her scent just to know that she was there with him.

“I’ve never been here before,” she told him. “But I guess that’s not surprising. I’ve not spent much time in Denver.”

Cal shrugged and pulled out a menu to hand to her. “I think the fact that this place is pretty close to Laredo’s house has made it familiar. I don’t spend much time in Denver either, and I’m certainly in no hurry to change that.”

“Are you ever tempted to change your mind about that?” she asked suddenly. “All of your brothers are here in the city. Don’t you feel like it’s unfair that they’ve left you out there to do all the heavy lifting?”

“No.” Cal gave his head an adamant shake. “I prefer it like that. Can you imagine Laredo living out there?”

“No. But then I could never imagine him living out at Clouds End Farm with Aria either, and he seems to fit in just fine there.” She opened the menu and perused it with the typical thoroughness that she did everything else in life.

A waitress appeared by their table. “What can I get for you?”

She was dressed in a white blouse and a black skirt, and she looked as though she could have been wearing roller skates, but thankfully wasn’t. Cal smiled up at her. “I’ll just have a tea. No sweetener.”

“Double that,” Jesse murmured. “And please bring me a double cheeseburger with everything and a big plate of fries.”

“Double that,” Cal said with a laugh. “And bring a bigger bottle of ketchup. Otherwise the lady won’t get any.”

The waitress chortled a laugh and promised to bring it right out. Then she disappeared, and Cal was left once again with the comfortable silence that seemed such a part of Jesse’s personality.

They were both lost in their own thoughts. That much was apparent. But Cal could not help but stare at Jesse and try to imagine how anyone could possibly think that she was Joe Hernandez’s child. She looked nothing like him. In fact, Cal could well remember Jesse’s father, Rawling Collins. Rawling and Joe had been best friends. At least that had been the public story. The truth was more complicated. And now that Joe was dead, Cal suspected that the real truth would never be understood.

“What are you thinking?” Jesse whispered. “You’ve got the strangest look on your face.”

“Just nonsense,” he murmured. He didn’t want to bring up that topic anymore. He was tired of it and suspected that she was too. “I was remembering what you were like when you were younger.”

“When I was younger?” She put her hands over her face. “Don’t! I was such a little mouse. I swear I looked silly all the time with my hair always messy and my clothes covered in barn dirt.”

“I think you always looked real.” He wondered if it was possible to make her understand how much that really meant to him. “You were honest. I could tell from the time you were very young that you weren’t the type of person to let anyone tell you who to be or what to think. That is a rare and valuable trait, Jesse.”

“And now it’s made me a pain in everyone’s ass,” she groaned.

The waitress arrived with a big tray with their orders balanced on top. She set everything down and then plopped down two bottles of ketchup. “Now the lady gets her own,” the woman joked. “And don’t you let me see you stealing any from her bottle, you hear?”

Cal could not help but chuckle at the woman’s fun-loving personality. Sometimes it was such a relief to have very real evidence that laughter and happiness and teasing still existed even when things seemed like they were going to hell.

Jesse didn’t waste time. She dug into her burger as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks. Which, all things considered, might actually be true. She relished each and every fry and every bite of that burger. Cal settled in to eat his own food and enjoyed the companionable silence.

“This whole day has been fucked up,” Jesse finally observed. “You know that? I mean, really. Think about it. How could we have possibly expected to begin the day with deputies on the doorstep and dead animals all over the ranch? Then your father passed away. Then your mother decided I’m the devil. It’s been a long day, Cal.”

“A really long day,” he agreed. “But we’re still breathing, right?”

“Is that honestly worth bragging about?” She dragged a fry through her ketchup and lifted it to her mouth. Then she picked up another fry and waved it at him like a pointer. “I feel like that’s just a side effect of the situation itself. Like I’m still alive just because your mother feels such a strong sense of entitlement about being angry with me.”

Something had been bothering him about the animosity between his mother and Jesse. After an entire day of bullshit, he finally thought to address it. “Something happened while you were with her in that family waiting room. What was it?” Cal wanted to know. “It was sudden and very strange.”

“I called her on the fact that she stole my mother’s embroidered handkerchiefs from my home when she packed everything up after my parents’ deaths.”

“What?” Cal was having difficulty wrapping his mind around that accusation. “Did you say that my mother has handkerchiefs in her possession right now that belonged to your mother before her death?”

“Yes.” How could Jesse be so calm about this? It was preposterous! It was—Cal didn’t know what it was, but it was just wrong. “How can that have happened?”

“I would imagine that your mother either had suspicions or something about your father and my mother’s involvement.” Jesse waved her hand. “Mind you this is all speculation at this point. But I bet your mother went over there and saw those handkerchiefs when she was packing up. They were in my mother’s bureau. I know because I used to play with them and get in trouble. Mrs. Farrell embroidered them for my parents’ wedding. They were a gift.”

Cal was still trying to picture Avery Hernandez stealing from a dead woman. “And she just took them?”

“I imagine she felt angry at my mother.” Then Jesse sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “But it makes me believe that your mother is the one who has the missing journals.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, that crossed my mind too.”

Cal shoved his fingers through his hair. He missed his cowboy hat. It was in the holder in the truck because that’s where it belonged when he was in the city going in and out of places like hospitals and restaurants. Now he missed it. He missed being home and he missed feeling normal.

“How are we supposed to get those back?” Cal demanded. “She’s not going to volunteer them!”

Jesse shrugged. “One step at a time. That’s all I’ve got time for right now, Cal. One step at a time. I’ll look for those journals, but I’m going to do it methodically. So, I’ll ask around. I’m going to talk to your brothers. But before any of that, I’m getting that paternity test.”

“Right.” Cal realized that she was far cleverer than anyone ever gave her credit for. “Because when we find out that Joe was not your father”—there was absolutely no harm in being positive, and that’s exactly how he thought it would turn out—“then there’s a chance my mother will just hand them over without a fuss.”

“Or at least let their location slip.” Jesse twirled a fry between her fingers before dipping it in ketchup. Her expression was thoughtful. “I keep hoping that she’ll say something that would be completely impossible for her to know without those journals. You know?”

“Right.” Cal nodded. “That’s good. That’s really good!”

“There’s nothing more to do about it right now though. The only thing we can do is go get some sleep and wait for morning. If you’re meeting with the pathologist, I’m going with you. I want to make arrangements for the guy to do that paternity test.” Jesse looked grim. “No doubt you’re going to have to help me with that because there’s probably no chance your mother will sign off on it.”

“We’ll get it done,” Cal promised her. It was the least they could do for this poor woman after their family had utterly destroyed her life in so many unintentional and intentional ways. “I promise you that, Jesse. I promise.”

She reached over and lightly touched his hand. The contact seared him all the way to his soul. Then she smiled. “I believe you, Cal. I trust that you will.”

Which meant he could not fail. He couldn’t.