“No. I’m okay. Thanks.”
And with that, I get out of the car and go in. When I hear a car pull up out front a few minutes later, I assume Clancy has forgotten something for his totally non-meddling mission with Maverick.
My breath hitches the moment I hear the voice on the other side of the front door. “Jackson, let me in. I know you’re in there.”
“Fuck off, Ridge.”
“I’m not leaving until I talk to you.”
“Motherfucker,” I mutter under my breath. The last person I want to waste what little vision I have left is him.
“I’ll yell through the door if I have to.”
“Suit yourself. I’m going to take a shit, so you’ll be wasting your breath.”
Silence.
Maybe it worked?
I inch toward the door, waiting to hear him walk away.
He doesn’t.
He exhales loudly, and then the motherfucker drops the bombshell of the century.
38
Jackson
“You haven’t touched your food, son,” Clancy says.
I push my plate away, my stomach churning, unable to get Ridge’s words out of my mind. If he’s telling the truth, everything I thought I knew is a lie. “Don’t have much of an appetite. Sorry.”
Clancy got back from helping Maverick set up for the talent show with Pip in tow about half an hour ago. They instantly knew something was up. I told them about Ridge paying me a visit. A string of expletives flew out of Clancy’s mouth when I broke the news Ridge delivered. Plans for an early dinner at the diner before the talent show were scrapped, and Clancy made mac and cheese at home instead.
“Do you believe it?” Pip asks, sounding about as shell-shocked as I still am.
I turn in Clancy’s direction since he’s the only person who might be able to clarify whether Ridge was telling the truth that he and I could be half brothers. “Should I believe him?”
I catch the sound of Clancy breathing a few times. “There were rumors about your mother and Ridge’s father being more than just friends. Started a couple of years before you were born,” he says, choosing his words with care. “That’s not the sort of thing a parent wants to hear about their child, so I ignored the gossip. Then you were born, and the rumors died down. You look nothing like Grant Forrester, so I laid the matter to rest. Especially after your father passed away. It became completely irrelevant.”
I don’t blame Clancy for wanting to sweep it under the rug, but unfortunately, whether or not I take after Grant Forrester and Dad dying aren’t irrelevant. Neither point does a damnthing to change the fact that Ridge and I could be related. Just the idea of it gives me the ick.
“I just can’t believe it. Dad might not be my dad.”
“Now, listen here, Jackson. Milton Hunter was, and willalwaysbe, your father,” Clancy says. “A DNA test will never change the bond you shared with him, nor the love he had for you. Milton was one of the most decent men I’ve ever met in my life. He loved all three of his kids with everything he had.”
My thoughts wander back through time.
Him letting me ride horses at the center he worked at when I was a toddler. Showing me how to brush a horse’s coat in long, gentle strokes. Being wrapped in his arms, watching in awe as the night sky burst into color at every single fireworks show he made sure we never missed. Him reading to me before tucking me in at night. How can that man not be my dad?
“How did Ridge find out?” Pip asks. “What evidence does he have?”
“He said his dad had a heart attack last year. When things were looking grim, his father confessed to him about having an affair with Mom. The timing lined up with me being born the following year. So Ridge hired a private investigator to look into it. An unethical investigator. No surprises there. That’s how he got his grubby hands on my medical records and knew about my condition.”
“Sothat’swhy you punched him,” Pip says.
“Bingo.”
