Chapter Seven
Pulling into Eagle Crest on his bike felt surreal. The ranch felt like another world.
One where he could roam free and sweat out his frustrations through hard work. Many a time he’d come home after running down a difficult fugitive solely to work it out of his system.
This time, he felt weighted with worry, though. He was determined get to the bottom of why his mother had run away and left him behind. This time he wasn’t buying the answer he always got—that his momma knew he’d have a solid home with them.
And it was high time to find out if he wasn’t a Roshannon in name only.
A couple dogs burst around the barn and headed for his bike as he rolled up the driveway and stopped in front of the house. He spoke a word to them and they settled at his familiar voice.
He cut the engine and pushed the kickstand into place with his heel before climbing off. The dogs leaped at him, barking with enthusiasm now. Chuckling, he bent to scratch their ears and one offered his butt.
Laughing now, Wes gave them a spot of attention before looking to the house and then the fields… He looked beyond to the cattle dotting the land and dragged in a deep breath of air. Home.
No matter where he fit in or who he actually was, Eagle Crest would always be his home. Years ago, he’d thought about giving up hunting bail-jumpers one day and taking over the ranch with Uncle Matthias.
Now, he didn’t know.
Throwing a look at the other vehicles in the drive, he stepped onto the porch. Wasn’t so rare for his cousins to be home on a weekend—they often tried to gather at least once a month. But Wes wasn’t sure he wanted them around for what he needed to say to his aunt and uncle.
When he opened the door, a baby’s wail came to him. He closed the door with a smile—Aiden was a new father. The man was born to boss people around, and now he had one of his own to boss.
Aunt Winter appeared in the mudroom, a dishtowel in hand. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. She rushed forward and threw her arms around him.
“Oh my God! Wes, we weren’t expecting you. Haven’t heard from you in too long. I’m so glad you’re here!”
He squeezed her and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Hope it’s okay I came.”
She swatted him with the towel. “Okay? You know we want you home permanently.” She stepped back to eye his attire of leather and denim and made a tsking sound. She didn’t ask him to put on his Stetson, but she didn’t need to anyway.
He wanted to. His heart was too full with the sights and smells of Eagle Crest not to truly feel he belonged here.
“What’s everyone doing?”
“They all just got here. Oh my, is your jaw bruised?” She pinched his chin as if getting ready to rub away a dirty spot with a thumb.
He pulled back. “I’m fine. Could use a drink though.”
She was set in motion with the task. Waving him along, she listed all the contents of the refrigerator. He emerged from the mudroom to see his twin cousins gathered in the living room with their pretty wives and the new baby.
“Look what the hounds dragged in. Thought I heard a bike.” Aiden stood and crossed the room in two strides to clap Wes on the back. Judd was there too, a mirror image of his brother and looking happier than he’d ever seen him.
Wes greeted his cousins with genuine affection. Then he turned to their wives. Each beautiful and smiling at him. If he ever brought a wife home, would she fit in with them? He pictured Stormy with these ladies and wasn’t sure.
“Who’s the newcomer?” He hovered over the baby in Amaryllis’s arms. To him, infants all looked like worms, but this one had the Roshannon eyes.
He smiled and was introduced to Sawyer Matthias Roshannon.
“Want to hold him? He’s not even stinky.” Amaryllis smiled down at her baby the way only a mother does.
“Later.” He straightened and met his uncle’s eyes. The same as his. And if Wes looked closer, he could pick out other features he shared with his uncle—the thick dark hair and the square jaw, though his uncle’s was getting softer with age.
“Like to talk to you and Aunt Winter alone.”
Something passed in his uncle’s eyes, but he gave a no-nonsense nod.
“What’s this? You’re conducting Roshannon business without us?” Judd asked.
“This isn’t something you should be part of. Yet.”
“Hold on.” Aunt Winter’s face paled and she twisted the dishtowel in her hands. “Wes, is this about the bikers? Are you in trouble?”
“Hell no. I am the law, Aunty. Why would I be on the wrong side of it? It’s about my mother. And father.” He swung his gaze to Matthias, though he couldn’t quite meet his stare.
“Whatever’s said should be said to all of us. Judd and I have a right to know what’s happening in our own family.”
“Do we have to do this right now, Wes honey? There’s dinner to put on and—” Aunt Winter silenced at Matthias’s touch on her shoulder. A look passed between them.
They started toward the kitchen and everybody got up to follow. Wes turned to look at his cousins. He supposed it was their business too—finally hearing whether or not the rumors they’d endured as kids and into adulthood about being brothers and not cousins were true.
* * * * *
Seated in his usual spot around the farmhouse table, about to confront his relatives about his true identity, was one of the more nerve-wracking moments of Wes’s life. He could do with a beer right now and realized with surprise how much the Bighorns had really rubbed off on him.
He wasn’t the same boy who’d left Eagle Crest. His career had taken him places and now he was coming back to find his roots.
His aunt and uncle sat at the head of the table, hands interlocked. United as always.
Wes drew a deep breath and held it till his lungs burned. When he released it, the words flowed out as if he’d rehearsed them.
“I think you know what I want to discuss.”
The barest of nods from Matthias.
“I checked some DNA a while back.”
Judd’s head snapped up. Aunt Winter’s face paled alarmingly.
“I went to the Bighorns thinking I’d find the man who fathered me there. I took a sample of his DNA and Judd ran it for me.”
Everyone looked to Judd.
“It didn’t match,” Wes continued. He eyed Matthias. “I could go deeper into my suspicions—I have all the resources at my fingertips—but I believe you kept it hidden from me and the rest of the world for a reason.”
Judd and Aiden exchanged glances. Their wives’ eyes were wide and even the baby was quiet, the pacifier bobbing in his mouth as he drifted off.
“So, I’m coming to you and Aunt Winter for the real answers about my mom and how I ended up a Roshannon—a real Roshannon by blood.” He held his breath. There—he’d said it. And nobody was arguing his point.
Yet.
Aiden made a sharp movement and Aunt Winter’s face crumpled for a split second before she regained composure and smoothed it over.
Judd spoke up. “Wes, you’re talking crazy. I never believed you were in harm’s way with the bikers, but it seems they’ve scrambled your brains.”
Wes gave a shake of his head. “Ask yourselves why I look like you—and you resemble your father more than my mother’s sister.” He nodded to his aunt.
She moved to stand and leave the table, but Matthias kept her hand in his hold and drew her back down. “Time we talk to these boys like the men they are,” he said softly.
“What the fuck is going on?” Aiden asked.
“I really am your son, aren’t I?” Wes stared into Matthias’s eyes, so like his own.
He squeezed his wife’s hand and squared his shoulders. This was where they’d all gotten their grit—from this man.
A man who was Wes’s father too. Why had he been denied all these years the right to call him Dad, Daddy, Pa, Pops?
“It’s my fault we kept this secret from you so long,” Aunt Winter blurted.
“Jesus, Mom,” Judd croaked out, and Cecily wrapped an arm around him.
“It was a decision made by both of us. It’s a difficult thing to explain to children, adults or strangers. People wouldn’t have understood, and you boys would have spent your lives explaining where you fit into a family tree.” Matthias stared into Wes’s eyes—his soul.
“I am your father, son. And I raised you with the same love as I raised the twins. I hope I did right by you in that sense.”
Wes couldn’t speak or even nod. The tears lay hot behind his eyes and he didn’t dare blink.
“Holy fuck,” Aiden breathed. “How?”
Aunt Winter issued a shaky breath. “Your father and I got together and then decided to part ways early in our relationship. It was only months we dated, but when I left the area to pursue a different life, I was pregnant and didn’t yet know it.” She twisted her hands into a knot and stared at her fingers.
“Had I known, I would have dragged your momma back immediately and married her. But she’d made it clear we were over, and well, a few months later, Winter’s sister Blanche ran into me sitting alone at a restaurant. She joined me, one thing led to another and…”
Aiden shoved away from the table and jammed his hands into his hair as he paced away. Wes ignored him. His suspicions were confirmed—Matthias had slept with both sisters and gotten them pregnant within months of each other. Now he wanted to get to the part where his mother gave him up and left for good.
His worst fear was hearing this couple had driven her off. But that went against everything he knew about his family and the morals ingrained in him from birth.
“Go on,” he managed to say, voice gritty.
“Blanche and I weren’t really a thing—just offering comfort I think. The loss of Winter was hard on both of us. Well, then Winter returned pregnant and I pretty much married her on the spot. Then Blanche came to us in the family way.”
Aiden walked back to the table and dropped into his seat. “And then what? You offered to take the baby,” he gestured at Wes, who was the six-two, two-hundred-pound version of that coupling, “and sent his momma on her way?”
“No.” Aunt Winter shook her head. “Blanche wasn’t really the motherly type and she wanted to abort.” She winced again as she settled her gaze on Wes. Her eyes flooded and tears streamed down her cheeks. “We’ve loved you like our own, Wes. We named you on the day you were born and gave you the Roshannon name, as it should be. But what we did in keeping this hidden from you all was solely to make things easier on you. To protect you from gossip.”
Judd lowered his face into his hands and made a harsh noise. Then he raised his head and stared at Wes, throat working. “I always wanted you to be a real brother, Wes. And now I’ve got it.” He shoved back from the table and Wes stood to meet him.
Judd and Aiden wrapped him in a rough hug while the ladies in the room quietly cried. Wes felt strangely elated, the relief dizzying.
When they broke apart, Matthias—his father—was there to wrap him in a stronghold. That’s when Wes’s tears flowed and he couldn’t hold back any longer, especially when his aunt joined in the embrace.
* * * * *
Saddling horses was always a soothing chore for Wes. He took pride in ensuring the mounts were comfortable and well-treated. While he tightened the strap on the big gelding for the long ride out to the mountains to drive back the herd, he double-checked the way the tack fit.
When he straightened, Aiden was swinging into his own saddle, heels to flanks.
“Get a move on, bro,” he tossed over his shoulder along with a grin.
Wes’s face split into a smile and he swung his leg up and over his mount. A click of his tongue and they were in motion. Judd was farther ahead, riding along with some of the ranch hands who helped them move the cattle on a weekly basis. His uncle—dad—always said that the secret to good cattle farming was in the grazing land and to move often.
Wes hung back to look at the scenery—fields running right up to the base of the mountains, snow-capped in the distance. The Bighorns club was right over that range… and Stormy.
He always missed her when one of them left, but this time it felt like a bone-deep ache. She was in his blood, and he didn’t exactly know what to do about it.
Aiden dropped back until he was alongside Wes. “You still thinkin’ on last night’s revelations?”
Wes shrugged. “Little bit. Hard not to wonder if anything would have been different if I’d been raised as a brother. But prob’ly not.”
“Yeah, prob’ly not.”
He considered talking to Aiden about Stormy. They’d shared a few stories of females over the years. Hell, they’d shared a woman—Aiden’s ex, but just that once. Still, that was a long time ago, and Wes wasn’t into that sort of thing anymore.
“Speak your mind, Wes. I know you’ve got something weighin’ on it. Is it a fugitive?”
“Nah, not job-related.”
“So it’s female.”
“Well, it isn’t animal, vegetable or mineral.”
Aiden grinned at the reference to the game they played as kids, trying to guess what the person was thinking of.
Wes nodded, moving with the horse’s strides. It felt good to be out in the open this way. “Yeah, a woman. She’s in the club.”
“Does that mean…?” Aiden arched a brow.
“No, not that kind of club girl. She’s different.” And I think I’m in love with her.
He didn’t say the last part.
“Well, if you’re gonna bring her home to meet the family, now’s the time to do it. Strike while they’re all sympathetic from last night’s talk.”
Wes chuckled and flicked the reins to make his lazy mount to keep pace with Aiden’s. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“What—bring her home to Eagle Crest or take advantage of the situation? You realize what my mom did to me and Judd with our wives, right?”
Wes nodded. She’d picked at her sons until they’d told her to stay out of their business, but she meant well. He wasn’t sure if she’d do that with him or not. She had said she’d felt the same love for him as the twins.
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
“How long you stayin’ this time?” Aiden looked as if he already knew the answer.
“Movin’ out tonight. I’ve got business to see to.”
“The woman.”
He rode in silence a moment. “Her dad’s trying to push me out of her life.”
“I suppose it’s not good manners to kick his ass.”
Wes grunted. “I tried.”
“Wait—tried? I’ve never seen a guy you can’t take down, Wes.” Aiden tugged his hat brim, a habit he’d had since he was a kid.
“He’s tough as nails.”
“Want me to run him? Give me his details.”
“Nah, it’s okay. Not a threat, just a hindrance. He seems to be in Stormy’s business too much.”
“Stormy.”
“Yeah.”
“My offer stands—I’ll run interference with Momma so you can bring Stormy home.”
“Well, you could tell her you’re ready to start working on Roshannon Baby Number Two. That’d keep her occupied.”
Aiden waggled his brows. “Ya never know.”