Page 105 of Proof of Guilt

elieve that now, though. And even if he did, it would only make him madder than he already was. He wouldn’t have wanted her fighting those kind of battles for him.

“Does Nathan know the truth?” Theo snapped.

Ivy shook her head, and she prayed Theo didn’t rush out and tell him.

“How about your late husband?” Theo again. “Did he know?”

“Yes. His name was Chad Vogel, and Nathan was eleven months old when I married him. But Jameson, Lauren and Gabriel didn’t know I was pregnant or that I had a child. Neither did Jodi. At least they didn’t know until I came back to Blue River two days ago.”

Now Theo cursed. “One of them should have called me. And don’t say they couldn’t find me, because Jameson’s a Texas Ranger. He could have tracked me down if you’d asked him to do that.”

“Yes,” she repeated. “And FYI, Jodi said I should tell you after she finally met Nathan day before yesterday. I just thought it was best if I waited until after the wedding to do that.”

Judging from his still-tight expression, Theo didn’t agree. And maybe he was right. Maybe she should have searched harder for him, especially after her husband passed away.

Theo glared at her a few more seconds before he finally glanced away and cursed some more. “Is Nathan healthy? Is he okay?”

It seemed petty for her to hesitate even a second to give him that info. But she knew that with each new bit, Theo would only want to know more and more. Then he would want Nathan to know who’d really fathered him.

Theo. And not Chad.

Of course, Nathan didn’t have a lot of memories of Chad anyway, since he’d died after losing his battle with cancer when Nathan had been only five.

“I’m sorry,” she said. It didn’t seem nearly enough, but there wasn’t much else she could say or do at this point.

There was a sound outside the window, a car engine, and Theo hurried to look while motioning for her to stay put. Just like that, her heart revved up again. Not that it’d gone back to normal, and that might not happen for a long time.

“It’s just the ambulance,” Theo told her. He stayed at the window with his gun drawn.

She was glad that it’d arrived. Now maybe the medics could save the gunman so they could find out what the heck was going on. And soon. It was probably too much to ask to find the person responsible for this attack and get him behind bars so that Gabriel and Jodi could get on with the wedding, but Ivy prayed that would happen. Her brother and Jodi deserved to have their special day.

“Did you love him?” Theo asked.

The sound of his voice cut through her thoughts, and it took Ivy a moment to realize that he probably wasn’t talking about Nathan. Of course she loved him. But Theo knew that and was asking about Chad.

“Yes. I did.”

In some ways that was a lie, but Ivy wasn’t about to get into that now. Besides, what Theo probably wanted to know was how she could go so quickly from him to another man. Especially when she’d had Theo’s child. But it was because of Nathan that she’d agreed to marry Chad. Once Theo got past the initial kick of anger, she’d maybe tell him more.

More that he wasn’t going to want to hear.

“Does it look as if the gunman is still alive?” Ivy said. It was definitely time for a change of subject, because whatever was going on outside that window was critical to their situation. A situation that didn’t necessarily have to include Theo.

He nodded. “The guy’s moving, clutching his chest.”

Probably because he was bleeding and in pain. She wasn’t certain of the details of his injury, but Ivy had heard Gabriel’s quick phone chat that he’d had with Jameson.

And now she moved on to the part about Theo not having to be in Nathan’s or her life. “For the record, I don’t expect anything from you,” Ivy continued a moment later. “We were practically kids when I got pregnant, and the feelings you once had for me are obviously long gone.”

Theo gave her a look that could have frozen the hottest levels of Hades. “I’m not leaving,” he spat out. He stared at her as if he might repeat it, but then he shook his head. “I just need to stop whoever sent those thugs, and then I can deal with everything else.”

That sounded like some kind of threat. And Ivy wasn’t immune to it. She’d never had to share her son with anyone. Not even Chad, who had been a “father” in name only, had been able to spend much time in the parent roll because of his health problems. She didn’t feel ready to share Nathan with Theo, either.

“Yeah, we were kids,” Theo went on, “but we sure as hell aren’t kids now.” He paused again, those jaw muscles stirring like crazy. “You should have found a way to tell me.”

Ivy huffed. “You can say that now,” she argued. “But we were in a different mind-set back then. Remember?”

“Of course I remember. Your mom caught us in bed. Your dad blew a fuse when she told him, and he ordered me to stay away from you. That should have been the time you backed me up, but you didn’t. You agreed with him and told me to get out of the house.”

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