Page 40 of Hotshot Mogul

Another look passed between my parents. “Is it far?” Mom asked.

“About a quarter mile is all,” Rufus said. “Are you allergic? They haven’t bothered anyone.”

“No, I’m good,” Mom said. “Would you mind if I came with you, to give the guys some time? If not, no biggie.”

“You are welcome to come with us,” Callie said.

Dad stood to kiss her goodbye. I wanted what they had, with Anneliese, only Anneliese. But she was long gone. I had to accept that.

Mom’s steps were firm and sure. Her recovery from her heart attack was amazing. “See you in a bit,” Mom said. Dad watched her until they were out of sight.

“She’s doing great,” I said.

“Yeah.” Dad stood and pressed his back against the oak tree.

“Don’t,” I sputtered. I had truly lost it. Dad looked at me, concerned. “Don’t listen to me,” I said. “I’m off today.”

He dropped his hand on my shoulder. “Just today?”

I sunk down so I leaned back against the tree with my backside on the ground. It helped. “No.

“Talk to me, son.”

The story, all of it, spilled out—Anneliese disappearing into the fucking tree, Beth’s wrongful claim that I had fathered her son, my slutty past and the early American/French stuff. “I think I’m losing my mind sometimes. But she was real. Callie and Rufus knew her and helped her. And she and I were real. It was something like you and Mom. I know that what you have is rare as hell.”

“Damn.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “Bruce, I made mistakes, so many mistakes before your mother and I… Like father, like son. I had hookups, too many, after a girl who loved me had died. I didn’t face it, process it the right way. Like Diana.”

A bird cawed. A breeze gusted. I wiped the sweat off my temples. “Dad, I know my anger with you was off-base. I’m sorry. I’m sorry it took Mom having a heart attack for me to get my head out of my ass.”

Dad nodded. “Thanks. There’s more. A flight attendant I had been with said she was pregnant, and the baby was mine. That was just when your mom and I were getting together. It wasn’t mine, but it crushed your mom. It crushed us. I was mad as hell that your mom left before I even knew he wasn’t mine. It was hell for us both until I found her, and we figured it out.”

Wait, what? “You found her. She disappeared?”

Dad’s smile was sad. “So much of this, you and Anneliese, and me and your Mom, is the same.”

I stood and pressed my forehead into the tree bark.

“Maria Rosa had cryptic messages for us, too, when we were apart. They were the same for both me and your mom. ‘The answer is in the sky.’ And it was. You should see if you can find out what happened here, where this oak tree has been for hundreds of years. Your Mom and I can help, if you want. I’ll have to tell her, though, either way. Unless you want to?”

A crack of hope winnowed through my bleak darkness as Dad spoke into his phone. “Where can I find the 17th century history of Fort St. Joseph, Michigan?” Cell service was available on most parts of the trail now, and his phone was quick to answer.

“French pioneers, suffering great hardship, worked alongside black robes at the trading post,” the efficient female AI voice said. Every cell in my body flashed cold, then hot. AI continued, explaining that Michigan’s economy during that time, the 1640s, centered around the fur trade. While the main trading posts were in Detroit, Sault Ste. Marie, and Mackinac, Fort St. Joseph and Grand River Valley were important posts.

Michigan State University was the source cited. Dad rolled his eyes; he’d attended University of Michigan briefly before he went to flight school.

To expand the fur trade into the western Great Lakes, the French made alliances with the Native American nations.

I did a search on Fort St. Joseph. We were close. My phone slipped out of my nerveless fingers. My ears were ringing.

Dad grabbed my shoulder. “Son, what’s wrong?”

I was standing on solid ground in the twenty-first century. Except, I wasn’t. My temples throbbed. I held a knife. The trunk of the oak tree was half the diameter it should be. The sky was dark. The air was thick and humid.

Men, more than a dozen, crowded around me. They all had long, straight dark hair. They spoke words that were not English. Someone shrieked. It was the cry to battle—to shed blood.

A beautiful woman, my woman’s anguished face hovered above me as I weakened. She pressed my hand over the hard swell of her stomach.

My stomach cramped, hard. Dad was crouching over me, deathly white. I was flat on the ground.

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