And it was hard to explain. "I met your ma not long after she moved to Reno. She was a waitress in a restaurant where I used to go and eat sometimes." He hadn't been paying a bit of attention to the occupants as he took his usual seat in the small diner. He'd been staring out the window, skimming the crowd as people outside walked by, when a cup of coffee appeared on his table.
"Much obliged," he'd muttered, expecting it to be his usual waitress, Carla, who always brought him coffee the minute he sat down.
"You're welcome." The soft lilt of that unfamiliar voice had dragged his attention to her face. Even now, he could feel the shock of looking up and being sucked back in time.
"Are you all right?" she'd asked.
He'd sputtered and mumbled something back at her that was probably as stupid to her as he'd felt when he said it. Over the next hour, he'd coerced enough information out of her that he was able to get Ed to run a thorough background check on her.
That report had stunned him as much as seeing her in the diner. Laura was the great-great-granddaughter of the child Bart had fathered the day he raped Matilda.
A child Matilda had given up for adoption.
By the time the Squires told him about the infant a few years after it'd been born, he'd been unable to locate it. Records weren't kept the same way then as they were today. Until the night he'd stumbled across Laura and Ed had run his own check, he didn't even know that child had been a boy.
At first, he'd been livid with the discovery and angry at fate for dropping that living reminder slap-dab in the middle of his territory. Since he knew he'd never dishonored Matilda by taking her before their wedding, there was no doubt about the paternal sperm donor for Laura's line.
But by the next night, he'd chosen to focus on two things. One, it wasn't the baby's fault that he'd been conceived by violence, and there was no reason for Jess to hold that against the boy's descendants. Two, they were every bit as much a part of the woman he'd loved as the children she'd kept and raised, and the descendants he had the Squires watch over. It was only fair he take care of Laura, too.
In Laura, he'd only seen Matilda's genteel face.
In Abigail, he saw both. The woman he'd loved more than his life and the man he'd hated with every part of his being.
It was one hell of a combination.
"And?" Abigail prompted. "She was a waitress..."
"We became friends," he said simply. And it was the absolute truth. "I'd go in a few times a week, and we'd chat for a bit." He smiled at his bittersweet memories. Like Matilda, she'd been sweet and unassuming. "She was highly intelligent and quick-witted. Funny as all get out. I used to love listening to her banter with her friends and the other customers."
"Did you ever go out with her?"
"Never. Dark-Hunters aren't allowed to date, and I knew I had nothing to offer her. I just liked being in her company. She was good people, and there's not a lot of those around. I left big tips, and she threatened the life of anyone who dared try and wait on me anytime she was working."
"Then why was my father angry at you?"
He was a psychotic idiot.
But Jess didn't say that. "I made the mistake of giving your mother a butterfly necklace that I'd seen in a local shop on her birthday. I thought it was pretty, and the blue diamonds in it reminded me of her eyes. I meant nothing by it, but your pa didn't see it that way. Even though I'd known her long before she met and married him, he accused her of cheating on him with me, and I left before I physically hurt him."
Abigail searched her mind for some memory to either refute or sustain his words. All she could remember was the loud sounds of shouting voices. Her parents didn't fight a lot, but it'd been enough that she knew to hide whenever they did.
Her hiding over it was the very thing that had saved her life.
Sundown sighed. "I went out on my patrol, but I couldn't shake the bad feeling I had. I didn't want to leave her with him so mad. But I knew if I'd stayed, I'd have rearranged a few of his organs, and that would have only upset her more. I figured if I left, he'd calm down and everything would be all right.... At ten, I tried to call and got no answer. That worried me even more. So I headed back and..." He hesitated before he spoke again. "The police were already there and they wouldn't let me in. I looked around for you and asked about you, but there was no trace. They assumed that whoever killed your parents took you as well. We searched for you for a long time, but no one ever saw you again." He scowled at her. "So what happened to you, anyway? Where did you go?"
Abigail tried to recall when her adoptive father had shown up. But all she saw was Sundown walking out of her room. And then it'd seemed like forever before she heard a familiar voice call her name. "My adoptive father took me home with him. I don't remember seeing the police or really anything much about that night except you."
"What made you think I killed them?"
"I saw you in my room."
"I wasn't there, Abigail. I swear to you." There was so much conviction in his tone that he was either the best liar in the world ...
Or he was telling the truth.
"He looked just like you. He even had on cowboy boots."
"A pair of shit-kickers in Reno is normal footwear. That don't mean nothing."