Chapter 15
Sam tookthe laptop away to study the screen. Her head spun from the champagne, but she could comprehend the lines well enough. Geoffrey Kennedy, late husband of Carmel, father of Montague, Hillvale mayor, and Kurt Kennedy, lodge owner, was hergrandfather?
“Orare Montgomery and Kurt Kennedy my half-uncles? Dotheyknow that?” she asked tentatively. “I’ve never had family. I don’t know how the relationshipswork.”
“Looks like Zachary would have been their older half-brother, so yeah, I guess you can go with half-uncle,” he acknowledged, still studying the screen. “Looks like your grandfather had Kurt and Monty late in life. It’s possible theyknow nothing aboutZach.”
Sam shuddered, realizing herunclesran the town—and may never have known about her existence. She stared wordlessly at the screen, trying to absorb the hot mess that was her real, very mixed-up birth family. Jade and Wolf were much easier to handle in comparison. She had a longing for the sanity of the university and the office waiting for her backthere.
Walker took the laptop back and scrolled around. “Even better, Cass and Geoffrey seem to be half-siblings, so I guess Cass is...” He scrunched up his nose to figure it out. “She’d be Zach’s half-aunt and your great-aunt. She essentially raised her nephew because Geoffrey wouldn’t claimhim.”
“I remember her telling me that she waslikea grandmother to me. I guess, since she raisedmy father, that was truth of a sort too.” She curled up against his side to study the screen, but her head couldn’t take in muchmore.
“Cass sent you up to Hillvale for a reason. And given your relationship to Kurt and Monty, I’m guessing it’s not one Carmel will be happyabout.”
“I still can’t recall how Cass sent me up there. If I’m remembering right, I think I refused to go. Ididn’t want any part of a family that didn’t want me.” That hurt as much now as it had since she was a kid and learned whatadoptedmeant. “Geoffrey Kennedy or my birth parents essentiallypaidWolf and Jade to keep meaway.”
“Don’t be so hasty to jump to conclusions. We still don’t have all the data on your mother. Where did she hook up with Zack? In Hillvale? Frisco? Did she know theLucys? The Kennedys? Did they pay her to leavetoo?”
“Is she even alive?” Forgetting about Walker’s search for people who might have met his father, she spun the laptop screen again. “Susannah Ingersson Kennedy. Zackmarriedmymother.”
“He also used his birth father’s name and not Tolliver, which is why your genealogist was running into difficulty,” Walker pointed out, as if thatmight besignificant.
“That’s rude. I’m SamanthaMoonbecause my parents adopted me. I don’t want to be a Kennedy or whatever. My birth parents gave me up. Why would my father cut out Cass’s married name if she raised him as aTolliver?”
“To taunt his father and his father’s new family would be my guess. Looks like he wasn’t more than twenty when he married. That’s not always a realbright age, especially for a troubled addict. Since Cass was a Kennedy before she married, he wasn’t completely disrespectingher.”
She wrinkled her nose. “But when I was born, they used Tolliver on my birth certificate. None of this makes sense, unless they deliberately wanted to confuseme.”
“I don’t have answers,” Walker said with a shrug. “Cass can tell us more tomorrow. Butlook at theIngersson.”
“Why does that sound familiar?” Were there still holes in hermemory?
“Valdis,” he replied curtly. “Her real name isValerie Ingersson, and her real hair color is blond, just likeyours.”
Sam snapped the laptop shut. “That’s it. I can’t take any more. I’m related to a witch, a death goddess, and the owners of half the town. I never had any idea thatfamily could be such aheadache.”
Walker dropped the computer on the coffee table and hugged her at the sametime.
She knew he only meant to comfort her, but she needed more than that. She needed out of her head and back to basic human touch. Walker smelled of delicious masculine musk and the remnants of aftershave, and he’d opened the top button of his shirt so she couldjust...
Glimpsing a tattoo on the brown skin beneath the V of his shirt, she leaned over and kissedit.
He grabbed her hair and pulled her head up so he could meet her eyes. “You are no longer a missing person and no longer mycase.”
“I hope that means something significant.” She unbuttoned the next button to see the tattoo. It was a Chinese symbol she couldn’tinterpret.
“Itmeans I may regret this in the morning, but at least I won’t feel guilty preying on a victim.” He growled and bent to capture hermouth.
Selfishly deciding to believe that his comment about regret was his problem and not hers, Sam climbed across his thighs. Alcohol had a lovely effect on inhibitions, but she would have done this without the champagne. As if starved, she devoured Walker’smouth. He had flexible lips that plied hers with expertise, authoritative, demanding, and as hungry as hers. She absorbed his male scent, the rough texture of his jaw, and his strength. She wriggled downward until she could feel his hard thighs and the long ridge lengthening beneath herbottom.
“Your duty is to serve and protect?” she asked teasingly, coming up for air. “I’m not a victim,you know. I’ve been taking care of myself these past sixyears.”
“You and your trust fund in your ivory tower,” he corrected. But then he ran his hand under her shirt and released her bra and everything was allright.
“Broaden my world,” she murmured some minutes later when he lifted her and carried her toward thebedroom.
“No promises,” he muttered back. “One night, that’sall thisis.”
