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I nodded. The weight of the stress, worrying about how I was going to manage it all, had silently become unbearable.
How did he know?
Emotion burned behind my eyelids. “She’s a King, Dad.”
Dad’s eyes paused as my words sank in. His lips pursed. “Do you love her?”
“Loving her is like breathing.” The admission tumbled out of me in a whoosh of breath, without hesitation.
Dad considered, taking a sip of his beer and looking out onto the warm wood of the living room floor. “Then I don’t guess her last name makes much of a difference, does it?”
I clamped my hand on Dad’s strong shoulder, unable to tell him how much his easy acceptance of my love for Sylvie truly meant. The lump in my throat wouldn’t dislodge. “Thanks, Dad.”
My knee bounced, and I ran a damp palm down my leg. “I’m going to give her Mom’s ring. I plan to ask for her father’s blessing, even though he’ll tell me to go to hell.” I dipped my chin in resolution. “But I’ll give it to her anyway.”
Dad patted my knee and squeezed. “That’s a good man. You don’t need his permission, but no one can say you didn’t try to make it right.” Dad thought for a moment. “You know your mom’s father hated me, right?” My eyes narrowed, searching his face for signs of truth. “Yeah, he couldn’t stand that his Juney had fallen for a Sullivan when Russell King had been knocking at her door. Her father said she’d be wasting her life on a man like me.”
“Russell King?” Even the mere mention of Sylvie’s father had my nerve endings firing. “Isthatwhy he hates us all so much?”
Dad shrugged. “Russell has always had hate in his heart. Nothing was ever good enough. No amount of winning was ever enough for him. He wanted her, but she wanted me, and that pissed him right off. Went a long time buying things from under me. Undermining business deals so I’d suffer, but I didn’t care. If you ask me”—Dad leaned over and winked—“I got the one thing he could never buy. Your mother’s heart. Held on to that precious gift with both hands for as long as I could.”
A few of the pieces of the Sullivan–King mystery clicked into place. I sighed and sat back. “I guess it makes sense. He’s always had a chip on his shoulder. Been bitter.” I let my mind wander over the small bits of information we’d learned about the Kings and Sullivans in the last year. “Maybe Lark was right... this whole thing started with and has continued because of some unhinged love triangle.” I shook my head in disbelief. “Wild.”
“Sure, love makes men do stupid shit, but it’s always helped him to have the Sinclairs in his pocket, ears open for anything he could use against us. Those twins were playing both sides, just like their daddy and his daddy before him did.”
Playing both sides? Wait... twins?I paused. “Sinclair?” Something about that name tumbled around and scratched my brain.
“Who’s that?” Dad’s eyes searched my face.
I shifted to face him. “You said Sinclair—that the Kings have always had them in their pocket. What did you mean?”
Dad’s eyes shifted to mine, and confusion clouded their color. “I didn’t say that.” Defensiveness and fear pitched his voice higher.
My heart raced. The last thing we needed was for Dad to panic. Today was supposed to be a good day. New beginnings. I planted my hand on his forearm. “You’re right. Sorry, Dad, I must have misheard you.”
He blinked, and I knew we were moments from a meltdown. I hated that I’d pushed him too far, too fast, without reading the signs that I’d lost him to his own jumbled inner thoughts. “Do you want to watch a show, or should I unload a few more boxes?”
Dad scrubbed a hand on the back of his neck and sighed, though he was still simmering with agitation. “I’m pretty tired. I think I’ll rest for a while.”
I swallowed back the bile that rose in the back of my throat. “No problem. Let’s get you situated.”
I helped my dad get comfortable, and within minutes he was out cold, but there was something there in what he’d said. The only twins I knew of were Bowlegs and Bootsy and as far as I knew, they’d lived their lives on the fringes of Outtatowner for as long as I could recall.
Something wasn’t settling right, and Bootsy just may have the answers we’d been looking for.
THIRTY-FOUR
SYLVIE
I hadto practically push Duke out of the house to get him to agree to a night out with his brothers, but I was very much looking forward to a warm bath and a smutty book. The cool late-April air floated through the house, carrying with it the subtle scents of lavender and lily of the valley. On the blueberry bushes, buds were morphing into blossoms, and it surprised me just how much anticipation hung in the air.
My hand moved over my round belly. I was a week out from my due date, and impatience had settled into my bones. I couldn’t wait to meet our little man. For days I had struggled with sleep and a low pressure that made functioning barely tolerable. Kate had passed along some bath salts she said Beckett swore by, and I closed my eyes to envision the warm bubbles wrapping around me as I sank lower into the water.
Ed’s yippy bark startled me, and my eyes flew open. Something had alerted him, so I stood next to the large living room window for a moment and listened. A breeze shifted through the bushes, but otherwise the world outside the farmhouse fell silent.
I glanced at the clock.Just before nine.There was no reason for the staff who worked the farm to be milling around, butsomething had put Ed on edge. My hand patted behind his ears as a low growl vibrated through him.
My eyes flicked to the door, noting it was locked, but the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “What is it?” I whispered to Ed.
