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So, even though this is the last conversation in the world I want to have right now, I finish drying off and join him in the study.
“Hey,” I have to duck to avoid hitting my head on the low-slung door frame. The small, cramped room is barely big enough for the desk, chairs, and bookshelves stuffed into it. My father nods at the empty seat on the other side of the desk from him.
“I’ve been calling you for hours.”
I grimace with feigned remorse. “Yeah, sorry. I fell asleep.”
“I hope you got answers to your questions first.”
I groan and drop in to the chair. “I forgot.”
“Bet you didn't forget to fuck her though, did you?”
I’m used to his crude language, but the vitriol in his voice surprises me. I sit up straight. “Why are you talking like that? You don’t even know her.”
“And neither do you,” he shoots back.
I scowl at him. “I know everything I need to know. The rest is just biography.”
He scoffs and leans forward and steeples his fingers under his bearded chin. “Really? Then what’s her name?”
I roll my eyes and shake my head in confusion. “Beth Mortimer.”
“The house she’s staying in is owned by Andrew Wolfe. His ex-wife's last name is Mortimer.” He says the man’s name like it’s anathema to him.
I stare at him, incredulous .“You looked up who the house belongs to?”
He shrugs, not even remotely apologetic. “It’s public information. And I’m glad I did. That family is toxic and dangerous. And I know he has two daughters. One of them is named Bethany. He mentioned her in an article. Said she’d be his successor. This Beth of yours has got to be her. And so, I've got to wonder why she's using an alias.”
My mind races to keep up with the onslaught of details, and I grasp onto the only straw I can fine. “A lot of people don’t go by their legal name. This doesn’t mean anything."
He doesn’t blink. “It means she doesn't want you to know who and what she really is.”
I laugh, too stupefied to do anything else. “And why would she do that?”
“Because, our families have a history, The Bosch's and the Wolfe’s. They hate us as much as we hate them. She has to know that.”
“Why does she have to know?” I point to my chest, “I didn’t know about this Wolfe person.”
He waves my argument away “Because I don’t live in the past and I don't live in Winsome. But she grew up here, so trust me, she knows. And she also knows that the minute I heard her real name, I’d be on to her.”
“On to her? "I repeat baffled. “You sound like one of those gossip columnists you hate so much.”
He narrows his eyes in disgust, but I see pity in them too. “I’m sorry. But, you can't have anything to do with her. Do you understand?”
His command sends ice through my veins and steel into my spine. I shake my head. “No. I don’t understand.”
He slams his hands onto his desk and shoots out of his seat. He levers his body toward me, and glares at me. “That family’s mendacity is the reason your birth mother begged me to make sure you grew up far away from this town.”
I blink in dazed astonishment. He never speaks of my biological mother. All I know of her is that she’s a woman he had a fling with when he was in Austin for a conference. Then a year later, he gets a call that she’s dying and has a baby whose birth certificate had his name on it. He went down to Austin, did a DNA test, got the results just as the woman, Susan Kendicott, died. He brought me home and that was it.
“You’ve never told me she was from here. Why do you keep so much from me?” I demand,
“I don’t!” he roars, and his hands slam down on the desk. His face is red, and he breathes fast and hard like he’s trying to cool down.
How did things escalate so quickly? He smooths his hair back in place. “I'm not keeping anythi—- agh,” He falls back into his seat with a grunt and clutches his chest. “Water,” he groans.
I put a cap on my anger and rush to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. He had a heart attack last year, and I’m still haunted by how close we came to losing him.
