Page 3 of Spilling the Tea

Corbin rolled his eyes. “Not hardly. Tanner is so ready for that wedding he’s gotten annoying.”

Chance sighed as he stood to stretch. “Okay, I give up. What is it?”

Corbin paused a moment, held Chance’s gaze, and then said. “Ravena Boyle is back in town.”

Dr. Zoey Pritchard placed her mobile phone on speaker while glancing at the document she held. It was a bill of sale of a ranch house in Houston, Texas.

Her paternal grandaunt, Paulina Pritchard, who’d raised her since the age of eight, had died unexpectedly of a heart attack two weeks ago. While going through her aunt’s belongings today, she had come across the document in a trunk underneath the bed.

Since the paperwork had been in Zoey’s mother’s maiden name, she could only assume her mother had inherited the ranch from her parents. The date on the bill of sale, which happened to have been Zoey’s ninth birthday, meant Aunt Paulina had sold the property less than a year after Zoey’s parents had been killed in a car accident.

That was close to twenty years ago. It was an accident where an eight-year-old Zoey had miraculously survived. The police, paramedics, and fire departments had said it was a miracle. But that miracle hadn’t come without a price. In addition to several physical challenges she’d had to overcome, she had lost her memory of the first eight years of her life.

A year ago, Zoey began dreaming of being on a ranch with a couple she knew were her parents from photographs she’d seen of them. As far as she knew, she had been born and raised in Boston. Whenever she mentioned the dreams to Aunt Paulina, she had dismissed such a notion of her parents ever being on a ranch or owning one as ludicrous. Both had been orthopedic surgeons who’d met and married right out of medical school and worked in a hospital in Boston. Why hadn’t Aunt Paulina told her about the ranch then? Instead, she’d made it seem like there hadn’t been any merit to Zoey’s dreams whatsoever.

“I can’t believe it, Lucky,” she told her best friend. “Why didn’t Aunt Paulina tell me about this?”

“I don’t have an answer for you, Zoe, but it doesn’t surprise me. I always thought your aunt deliberately kept a lot of stuff about your parents from you. Now you have proof that she did.”

Yes, she did have proof, Zoey thought, placing the paper in the middle of the kitchen table. She glimpsed out the windowand saw how wonderful the weather was outside. San Francisco was always nice during May, with flowers blooming everywhere.

“So, what are you going to do?” Lucky interrupted her thoughts to ask.

She and Lucky Andres-Tankersley had been best friends since junior high school when the Andreses moved into the neighborhood. Zoey had considered Lucky’s home to be a fun house. The Andreses were the type of parents she wanted to believe hers would have been had they lived.

After high school, she and Lucky packed their bags and left California for New York to attend NYU. After graduation, Lucky remained at NYU to get an MBA. Meanwhile, Zoey moved to Baltimore to attend Johns Hopkins medical school after deciding to follow in her parents’ footsteps and become an orthopedic surgeon, where she remained after completing her internship, while Lucky landed a job with a well-known technology firm in Manhattan.

“I truly don’t know what I’m going to do. Now more than ever, I believe those dreams of me on a ranch with my parents might be the start of a break in my memory loss.”

“I just don’t get it, Zoe. I would think when you told your aunt about those dreams, she would have been happy at the possibility that your memory was returning.”

“Yes, I would have thought so too,” she said, drawing a deep breath, not fully understanding why her aunt had not.

“Your aunt hadn’t been kidding about not approving of your parents’ marriage,” Lucky said. “It was as if she wanted to wipe your mother’s presence from your and your father’s lives.”

Zoey nodded, sadly thinking the same thing. For the longest time, she’d stopped asking her aunt anything about her parents. Although Aunt Paulina usually had good things to say about Zoey’s father, that had not been the case with her mother. She claimed she had no idea where her mother was born or abouther family’s history. All her aunt would say was that her parents had met in medical school and that Holton Pritchard had lost his ever-loving mind after meeting Michelle Martin. He’d claimed it had been love at first sight. Because Aunt Paulina believed such a thing was complete nonsense, she hadn’t approved of the marriage and had seen no reason to attend the wedding.

“I can’t help but wonder what else she kept from me other than the document and the necklace,” Zoey said.

“What necklace?”

Zoey fingered the beautiful heart-shaped gold pendant necklace with a diamond in the center that she’d placed around her neck earlier. She then told Lucky about finding it in the trunk as well. “It belonged to my mom,” she said, trying not to choke on the words.

“How do you know that?”

Zoey swallowed deeply. Her eyes began watering with tears, and she was glad Lucky wasn’t there to see them. “Because it’s the same necklace she wears in my dreams.”

“Oh, Zoe,” Lucky said sadly.

Zoey could hear the tears in her best friend’s voice. Tears she was shedding for her. For years, Lucky had been the only one to do so. After a few sniffles, Zoey said, “Just think, Lucky. Those dreams are a good sign.”

“Yes. I always thought they were a sign your memory was returning. Time for you to hire a hot, hairy, and handsome private investigator to uncover the truth.”

Zoey couldn’t help but laugh. Lucky always preferred men with a lot of hair on their bodies. With a full beard and hair that went past his shoulders, Lucky’s husband, Burke, from Canada, definitely fit her best friend’s requirements. “A private investigator, Lucky?”

“Yes. What if your parents hadn’t been killed in a car accident? What if you were kidnapped as a child and PaulinaPritchard wasn’t your aunt? What if you have other relatives somewhere?”

Zoey rolled her eyes. Lucky enjoyed watching crime shows. “Although I can’t recall what happened when I was a child, I do remember the physical injuries I endured as a result of the accident. Besides, there is no way my aunt would have been given custody of me if she truly wasn’t my only living relative.”

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