and my dad liked to be on the go, so I was left with a nanny a lot. Looking back, I wonder if I wasn’t an accident or maybe the way to get my dad to marry her because he had money at the time. She was three months pregnant with me when they…” He shrugged and went silent for a minute or two. “The last year, when she knew she was dying, she kind of depended on me, and we got closer than we’d ever been. I hate to tell you this, but I never really knew her all that well. She never, ever told me about you guys. I found your letters after she was gone.”
“How did you find us anyway?” Pax asked.
“The return address on the letters was a starting place, and then I made a few phone calls and found out that you still lived here on the ranch, so I bought a bus ticket. I got into town this morning,” he said.
“How’d you know that I was your brother?” Pax asked.
Landon pulled a picture from a shirt pocket and handed it to him. “That’s one of the photographs I found in the bank box. Teresa and Barton on their wedding day is written on the back. You’re a dead ringer for your father.”
“I always said the same thing.” Iris stood up and headed toward the house. “I’ll have my things ready when Alana gets here. Y’all have lots to talk about, I’m sure.”
“We’ll pay you minimum wage, like we do the kids who work for us,” Maverick said, “and believe me, you will earn every dime of it.”
“Yes, sir.” Landon nodded. “I’m not allergic to hard work, and I’m glad to have the job. You won’t have to bird-dog me.”
“What did you say?” Iris stopped in her tracks.
“Point me in the direction for every thing that needs to be done,” he explained.
“I know what bird-doggin’ is,” Iris said. “I haven’t heard that expression used since my husband died.”
“I worked with a salty old cowboy on the ranch where I spent my summers.” Landon smiled for the first time. “He used it a lot.”
“I see.” Iris went into the house and left them alone on the porch.
“I’m sure you have more questions, so ask away,” Landon said.
“She never told you about us?” Pax asked.
“Not one time,” Landon answered.
“Did you ever wonder about her past? Where she came from? If you had siblings or maybe cousins, you might have on her side of the family—or even grandparents?” Maverick asked.
“She told me that she had been married before and talked a little about Iris, but she didn’t mention that I had brothers,” Landon said. “When I asked her to tell me more, she said she’d grown up in foster care. Do you know something different?”
“Little bit,” Maverick said. “She had a brother who died when Pax and I were little kids. I remember going to his funeral. Mam told us when we asked about him years later that he had two kids with his wife, and twins by his mistress who were born at the same time as his last son with his wife. The wife took her two boys to Canada, where she was from originally, and the mistress was from North Dakota, so she went back there with her son and daughter. The family had lost track of them long before her brother died. So, we have four cousins out there in the wilds somewhere. Our grandparents on that side died sometime before I was born. She wasn’t an orphan and she didn’t grow up in foster care. She grew up in Dallas, Texas. Her dad worked for the sanitation department, and her mother was a kindergarten teacher. They both retired and died within a year of each other.”
“Did y’all get to see them often?” Landon asked.
Pax shook his head. “Maybe a dozen times in our entire lives. They didn’t like our father. From what we’ve pieced together, they thought she married down when she wed a rancher.”
“Nothing much surprises me about Mother anymore,” Landon said. “She was a complicated woman. I often wondered if maybe she had some mental-health issues. When she was in a good mood, she was fun, but when she was in one of her bad moods, I stayed over at a friend’s house.”
“I have a question,” Pax said. “What would you have done if we’d told you to get lost?”
“You don’t owe me anything at all, so I would have gotten