Page 2 of River Justice

He struggled to read what it said. Then, in horror, he read it again. His hands trembled, the words blurring as his heart pounded, his mouth gone dry.

I Have Holly Jo

Will Contact

With Demands

CHAPTER TWO

BRANDSTAFFORDSTEPPEDout of the shower and reached for a towel. His head swam, making him regret last night. How much had he drunk? He couldn’t remember. Judging by how hungover and sick to his stomach he was, way too much.

What had possessed him?Oh, that’s right, he thought, giving himself a mental forehead slap.I found out that my whole life has been a lie.

Not that he hadn’t suspected as much. Little had he realized, though, that knowing the truth was so much worse than speculating. His own fault, he thought with a curse. If he’d never sent his DNA to be tested... It had been impulsive, something so not like him. He was the rational, calm, sensible, unemotional Stafford among a houseful of the opposite, he told himself.

Then, like kicking off an avalanche, he’d initiated something that he couldn’t stop. Once he’d seen the results, he’d been determined to find out if his suspicions were true. The moment he did that, he opened a Pandora’s box of secrets that could destroy his life and ruin others as well.

He swore as he wrapped a towel around his waist and stepped deeper into his bedroom suite. Like a lot of ranch homes, this house had been added on to as the family had grown. He had his own wing in the back of the house with a view of the mountains in the distance. Not that he noticed the view today. He was too busy mentally kicking himself for what he’d done.

For way too long, he’d pretended that he didn’t want to know why he was so different from his siblings. Not only did he not want to buy into his suspicions, he definitely did not want to prove them. Then his sister Oakley, the rebel of the family, had gotten her DNA tested through one of the online labs. She’d gone on about how easy it was. “Just mail in a sample and the results are emailed to you.”

When Oakley had mentioned what she’d done to their mother, Charlotte Stafford had thrown a fit. “Why would you do such a thing?” she’d demanded.

“I wanted to know who I am,” Oakley had said, brushing it off as nothing. “DNA’s amazing. Like if CJ, Brand, Ryder and Tilly all had theirs tested, even though we’re siblings, the results would be different because we only share fifty percent of the same genes. Only identical twins share a hundred percent. Don’t you find that interesting?”

Brand had. And he’d found their mother’s overreaction even more curious. She’d been furious—and something even more telling. She’d been terrified. He’d seen it in her emerald green eyes and the way she wouldn’t meet his blue-eyed gaze—the only blue eyes in the family.

He’d known right then that he had to have his DNA tested. He couldn’t keep pretending. He had to know the truth. He’d sent for the kit, followed the instructions and mailed it in. Unlike Oakley, he’d had no intention of telling their mother. Even then, he was still hoping he was wrong.

But when it came back, he had proof that he wasn’t Rake Stafford’s son, because his results were nothing like the ones Oakley had left lying around in her room.

For years he’d heard the rumors about his mother and their ranch neighbor, Holden McKenna. His sister Tilly had married Cooper McKenna, so he figured he should be able to get a hair sample from Cooper’s comb. It would be nice to cross off at least one suspect from his list—his main suspect.

With the DNA obtained from Cooper McKenna, he’d had another test done to compare with his own. That was when he’d confirmed it. He was the son of Charlotte Stafford and Holden McKenna—and he had a DNA report to prove it.

His mother and Holden—both married to others at the time—had gotten together and he was the result. He had the goods on both of them, which raised the question: Now what? He had proof, but what was he going to do with it? Confront his mother? Confront Holden? Did he want his father to admit it? His mother? Or should he bury what he’d learned and live with it just as he had for all these years?

Yesterday, after getting the results, he’d done what any red-blooded American cowboy would do—he’d gone drinking with friends in town. Something else he seldom did. He hadn’t told anyone why he was drinking so much. But he’d consumed enough alcohol that one friend had insisted on driving him home while another friend followed in his pickup.

While he had a copy of the results in his jacket pocket, he hadn’t even told his best friends.

They were worried about him before he’d done something even more out of character. On impulse, he’d had his friend stop at Holden McKenna’s mailbox out on the county road. He’d scribbled Holden’s name on the outside of the sheet of paper and dropped off the copy of the DNA report he’d been carrying around all night.

When he’d awakened just before noon today, he’d realized with a sickening roll of his stomach that there was no way to retrieve the report from the mailbox. By now, the mail would have been delivered, and someone from the McKenna Ranch would have taken it up to the house.

The thought of what he’d done made him more physically ill than the hangover. His timing couldn’t have been worse. His mother’s second husband’s remains had recently been found in a well not that far from the ranch. It was no secret in the county that she was the number one suspect—if not the only one—because of her tumultuous relationship with her second husband, Dixon Malone, who had mysteriously disappeared years ago.

On top of that, his older brother CJ—and their mother’s once favorite—was in jail awaiting trial on numerous felonies, including attempted murder and second-degree manslaughter. Their mother had already alienated both of his sisters, Tilly and Oakley, leaving only himself and his younger brother, Ryder, still at home on the ranch.

This was definitely not the time to drop his bombshell on her and the man she’d openly despised for years. Brand, clearly the product of a secret affair, didn’t want this getting out. His family was the talk of the county enough as it was, one reason he and Ryder had always kept a low profile. They’d worked the ranch, avoiding the drama that was often going on up at the house—or in town.

As he started toward his bedroom closet, he caught a glimpse of movement outside. He stepped to his window in time to see a figure creeping along the side of the house, headed for the stables. Her back was to him, but as hungover as he was, he could still tell it was a young, shapely woman. Her head of long black hair fell almost to her shapely behind, a behind tucked nicely into a pair of jeans.

Clearly, she was sneaking around looking for something. He frowned, not sure he was up to dealing with a thief, given his hangover. But he realized he was probably the only one not off working somewhere on the ranch or in town today—other than this trespasser.

Given little choice, he pulled on jeans over his naked, still-damp lower body, going commando, and rushed barefoot to the door before she could get away. Time to find out what she was doing sneaking around the Stafford Ranch.

HOLDEN’SFIRSTINSTINCTafter reading the strange note was to call the sheriff. But he couldn’t shake off the feeling that this was some kind of prank. A sick joke. He had to make sure that Holly Jo was missing. He tried Elaine’s number. By now she would have reached the school.

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