his mother took it until she had to say something. That’s when he hit her. He provoked her into an argument just so he could blame the violence on her.
“That’s why you quit talking, isn’t it? Jim threatened you.” Zach didn’t make it a question. Maybe he knew his brother after all.
“Not in so many words. It was the look on his face, the threat in his eyes. He made himself real clear without saying a damn thing.” Troy barely glanced at Zach and felt sick for being so weak so many years ago. He remembered the fear so clearly. Remembered thinking he could be next to accidentally fall down some steps or the person he told would have some mishap kill them.
Running a hand through his hair, Zach shot to his feet and paced to the front window. “I haven’t heard from him since you both left. He made it clean. No connection.” He paused. “We should find him.”
The thought made Troy’s stomach knot. He didn’t want to find him. He couldn’t prove anything, and the son of a bitch would never cop to pushing his wife down a flight of stairs. There was no point. It was yet one more bit of irony that the man who specialized in finding people, didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t find the man who’d raised him. If there was one thing he’d learned as a P.I., it was getting answers to questions didn’t always lead a person to the results they wanted. And nothing could bring his mother back. Avoiding this town helped him forget the painful memories. In his head it was all a matter of logic.
Sometimes life just didn’t work out the way you imagined. Sometimes things couldn’t be answered in a few questions or wrapped up nicely.
“I want to find that SOB and...” Zach’s angry words trailed off as he shook his head. “I should’ve done more. Maybe if I’d known how much she cared about me all those years I would have.”
“It wouldn’t have changed the way you felt about Celia,” Troy reminded him.
Zach nodded. “You’re right. But I had a right to know about you.”
“That might’ve destroyed your relationship with Celia.” Troy hated pointing that out, but it was true. He’d remembered Celia being sad a lot of the time. Was that because she hadn’t been able to conceive?
“It would’ve changed things, yes,” Zach agreed, “but I don’t know about ‘destroyed.’ You know, Celia didn’t have a problem getting pregnant, she had a problem staying pregnant. By the sixth miscarriage, she couldn’t take it anymore. It was too much for her to hope then lose that hope.”
Troy swore softly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know any of this.” For a P.I., he’d certainly missed the boat when it came to his own family.
“No reason you would. You were tiny. Just a boy. This stuff didn’t affect you. We purposely didn’t tell people because her chances of carrying full-term weren’t very good. It was easier to keep it to ourselves.” The sadness on Zach’s face spoke of a man who’d lived through emotional hell. But as Troy watched, Zach’s eyes took on a new look of hope.
“The day I discovered I had a son was just about one of the happiest days of my life. Even if you didn’t know, even if I never saw you again, I understood that the connection we shared when you were a boy stemmed from something in here.” Zach patted his chest. “I’ve always loved you, Troy. I’ve hoped and prayed that someday you’d come back so I had the chance to tell you. After so many years of wanting a son, I finally have one.” His grin stretched wide. “I gotta say, son. It feels real good to see you again.”
Troy had learned to keep a poker face from a very young age, but staring into the eyes of his uncle, no his father, cracked a line in the hard shell he’d wrapped around his heart and he let a half grin curve his lips. He glanced up in time to see Julie wiping her cheek quickly, her eyes brimming with tears. He swallowed back the emotion in his throat.
He had a chance to change his life. A chance to go from the loner he’d been to a man with a family. He had a father who loved him and wanted to know him, and he had a woman who filled his life with happiness. His relationship with Zach was bound to grow because