Читать книгу The Cowboy's Big Family Tree - Meg Maxwell - Страница 9
ОглавлениеThe first thing Logan had thought of when he woke up in the morning was Clementine Hurley. For the past three months he’d put her out of his head, easily done with the dulled anger that had taken over his waking moments since he’d gotten Parsons’s letter. Except when it came to Harry and Henry. From the time he got the boys up for breakfast and then ready for school, he was good Uncle Logan who put their needs first. But the second they were safely ensconced somewhere else, whether at school or with their sitter, the long-simmering burn would start churning in his stomach, thrumming in his head, questions with no answers.
This morning, though, his first waking thought had been Clementine and the questions he clearly saw in her eyes. She deserved better than how he’d treated her. But he didn’t want to explain anything. He didn’t want to talk. He just wanted to be left the hell alone.
Now, after dropping off the boys at school, Logan stood in the barn, grinding feed for the cattle, his own burning questions back full force. Was he this Clyde Parsons’s son or not? Why would the man make up a lie and send a deathbed confession? Why would he stuff a safe-deposit box full of money for eighteen years and send Logan the key if he wasn’t Logan’s biological father?
Maybe Clyde Parsons had a mental condition and didn’t know what he was doing. Maybe it was all one big mistake. His biological son was a different Logan Grainger. Once, someone had dropped off an unfamiliar wallet in Logan’s mailbox with a sticky note on it: Logan, found this by the steak house, but the driver’s license was for Logan Granger out in Grassville, a few towns over. Whoever had found it probably just quickly eyeballed the name, thought it was Logan Grainger’s and dropped it off without noticing the Grassville address.
Yes, Clyde Parsons was probably Logan Granger’s biological father. He’d just messed up the spelling of the last name. Sorry, Logan Granger, but you’ve got a biological father out there you never knew about. Believe me, I know how you’re going to feel when I straighten out this mess and discover it’s you Parsons meant to send his deathbed confession to.
Except Parsons had revealed some personal details in the letter. There was no way Logan Granger’s father’s name was also Haywood. Daniel, Peter, George, Tyler—sure, maybe. Haywood—no damned way.
For months Logan had been doing this, his mind wrapping around any slight idea that would make the letter not true. But then the “oh yeah” would hit him a second later. Something that would send shivers up his spine to make him realize Parsons was probably telling the truth.
Logan was holding on to probably instead of definitely as long as he could.
What the hell had happened back then—twenty-eight years ago? His parents’ wedding anniversary was eight months and three weeks before he was born. Logan never really thought about that much before, but the past three months, as logistics whirled around his head during barn chores or late at night in bed, he figured he’d come into the world a few weeks early. His brother had been five weeks premature and healthy as can be. So maybe Logan had been a couple of weeks premature too. If Parsons was Logan’s biological father, then his parents had gotten married immediately after his mother had discovered she was pregnant. His mom and dad had both grown up in Blue Gulch, had known each other the way everyone does in a small town, but they’d never dated in high school until they’d suddenly married the summer after. So they’d had a whirlwind romance and gotten married. Happened all the time.
If it was true, had Haywood Grainger known? It was clear from Parsons’s letter that his mother knew Clyde T. Parsons was the father of her baby. Had she told Haywood? Had his dad raised another man’s child thinking Logan was his own flesh and blood?
Logan stopped grinding the feed and the silence was too much. He needed distraction. He needed to find out the truth, have his questions answered, but he wanted the truth to be that Haywood Grainger was his biological dad, that Parsons was lying or suffering from dementia and lost in an old dream of the girl who’d gotten away.
It was possible.
Logan adjusted his Stetson and stalked over to the far pasture, zipping up his leather jacket as the December first wind snaked around him. He looked out at the herd grazing, just watched them standing there, calm and steady. As always, the land, the herd, the ranch worked their magic on his head and heart and he felt better. The letter receded from his thoughts as he decided to move the herd out farther tomorrow and tried to focus on whether he wanted to take on Wildman, another old rodeo bull who needed to be nursed back to health. Logan had done that once when he first quit the rodeo, but it was lot of work and took time and Logan had little room for either.
His cell phone buzzed with a text. He grabbed it, worried as always that it had to do with the twins, that something had happened.
But it was Clementine.
I’ll drop the boys off after the show rehearsal. I need to talk to you.—Clementine.
No question mark. Not “can” I drop off the boys. Not “can” we talk.
I will. I need. End of story.
Didn’t she know it was too hard on him to see her? That she was the first woman who’d interested him since The Liar? Plus, even more so, just the sight of Clementine reminded him of who he’d been before he’d gotten Parsons’s letter: a Grainger. His father’s son. Exactly who he thought he was. Albeit hardheaded and stubborn, fine. But his father’s son. Clementine had been there when he’d gotten the letter. Hell, she’d brought it in from the mailbox, not that that was her fault.
In her presence, his life had completely changed. Went from one thing to another.
Maybe. If. He closed his eyes and shook his head, driving himself crazy. Something had to give here. He had to look up the guy or ask someone or find out something, dammit.
In the meantime, he could text Clementine back a No, that won’t work for me, I’ll pick them up, no time to talk, bye. He’d done that the first month after he’d pushed her out of his life. She’d show up at the house, she’d call, she’d text, and he just cruelly shut her out. He released a deep breath, another gust of cool wind going straight to his bones. Maybe by “I need to talk” she meant she wanted to talk about the twins and how often he should work with Harry and Henry at home on the songs they had to learn for the Christmas show.
Right.
This was his mind wrapping around stupid maybes when Logan wasn’t a stupid man.
Clementine wanted to talk about them. About what happened last August. About why he’d closed the curtain on them before it had even gone up.
But he didn’t want to talk about it with anyone.
Thing was, Clementine Hurley knew what it was like to have a birth parent and be raised by someone else. Maybe talking to her would help him sort out some of the wild feelings that were making him crazy.
He shook his head. He’d talk to her, then he’d feel close to her again, then he’d be kissing her and suddenly he’d be losing his head again in a romance. He liked Clementine—truth be told, he more than liked her in a deep down way he never would allow himself to think too much about. But everything inside him felt like it was made of the same thing his hard head was made out of. Something had closed inside him, period. He was done with women, done with love and romance and thinking about marriage and the future. And as attracted as he was to Clementine, he wasn’t about to use her for sex. He’d hurt her enough.
But maybe if he finally said something, gave her an explanation without going into specifics, just some general: Got some strange news I don’t want to talk about and can’t deal with, so I’m laying low these days kind of thing. A person on the receiving end of that explanation would have to respect that, right? She’d back off. He could go on trying his damnedest to pretend she didn’t exist.
That settled, he texted back an Okay.—L and went back to the house to fill up a thermos with strong coffee, surprised to see his answering machine blinking on the house landline. Everyone who needed to get in touch with him had his cell phone number.
He pressed Play and headed to the refrigerator for the pitcher of iced tea the twins’ sitter had made yesterday.
“I’m calling for Logan Grainger,” a stranger’s voice said. “I’m from the Tuckerville Post Office. You have been noted on a form here as the emergency contact for the late Clyde Parsons. His PO box hasn’t been paid in two months and will need to be cleaned out by the end of the week or the contents will be turned over to the state.”
Logan froze. Emergency contact? How dare—
Logan counted to five in his head to calm himself down, then shoved the pitcher of iced tea back in the fridge, his mind on the key and the money Parsons had written about. Child support. Well, Logan didn’t want anything to do with Parsons’s money or his damned guilt. He hated the final paragraph of Parsons’s letter and had almost ripped the thing to shreds right after he’d read it.
You’ll also find some photographs in the PO box. There’s one of your mama. To this day I swear she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. There’s one of us together too that always killed me to look at. I screwed up big. I failed her and you. I just want you to know, most of all, that I’m sorry. I tried not to think of you and did a damned good job of it too. But now that I’m dying, I’m thinking about you a lot.
—Yours, Clyde Parsons.
My father is Haywood Grainger, you stinking liar, Logan wanted to scream. His father had been a great dad. He practiced soccer with Logan and Seth for hours in the fields. He’d chaperoned overnights in the woods for Boy Scouts. He’d patiently tutored Logan in chemistry, having to study the textbook himself first to understand it. He’d taught Logan to be proud of the small bit of land they owned, how to raise and care for cattle, how to ride a horse. He’d been the best father and had always made Logan feel okay about himself.
Because he didn’t know he wasn’t Logan’s biological father? If he had known, would he have treated Logan differently? Or not? Had Haywood Grainger known or not?
More than anything else on earth at the moment, Logan wanted Parsons to be wrong. He wanted Parsons to have been mixed up. Or that the pregnancy and himself as a father was some fantasy he’d cooked up because his girlfriend, Logan’s mother, had dumped him for a better man—Logan’s father. Maybe Parsons really wasn’t his biological father at all. Logan liked that train of thought.
Except there were pictures in the PO box. Not that they’d prove anything, but Logan could see what Parsons looked like. If Logan looked nothing like him either, then maybe he could go on forgetting the whole thing. Pretend he’d never gotten the letter, force it from his mind.
But since the seed of doubt was there, that he wasn’t the son of Parsons, maybe seeing a photograph of Parsons would settle something for Logan either way. Or not. Now he was thinking in circles. Logan was surprised he hadn’t collapsed in a dizzy heap on the kitchen floor.
That’s it, he thought. Just do it. Get it over with. He grabbed the letter from where he’d stuck it between the side of the microwave and the wall, took out the little gold key and shoved it in his pocket. Then he put on his leather jacket and his Stetson, let his ranch hand know he’d be gone for a few hours, and headed for his pickup.
Tuckerville was just over an hour away. During the drive, he kept the radio loud to drown out his thoughts. When he pulled into the Tuckerville post office parking lot, he didn’t hesitate; he got out of the truck and went inside, ready to finally do this, to know something for sure.
He fished the old gold key from his pocket. 137 was imprinted at the top of the key. He found the right box on the last row, stuck in the key and felt his stomach twist with the lock.
He opened the little square door. Inside the long, narrow box was stacks of money, small bills haphazardly bundled in rubber bands and a bunch of envelopes, some large manila ones, some letter size.
Logan pulled out the large envelope and reached in. He could feel several photographs.
He pulled one out. Ellie McCall Grainger sat on the bank of a river in one, grinning in the sunshine. She wore a yellow T-shirt and jeans rolled up to the knees, her bare feet in the water. God, he missed her. His mother was kind and patient.
He didn’t have to wonder who had taken the picture.
He turned the picture over. Beauty at the River. With a date, November, twenty-eight years ago.
Logan was born almost exactly nine months later.
The next three photographs were also of his mother alone, smiling, looking very happy, either at the riverbank or in two of the photos at a farm stand, pointing at the display of Christmas wreaths.
He pulled out the final photograph and gasped, the picture slipping out of his hands. Logan stepped back, his hands shaking. No. No way.
Get ahold of yourself, he ordered.
He steeled himself and picked up the photograph, forcing himself to look at the man pictured, his arm around Logan’s mother.
Clyde Parsons was a dead ringer for Logan. The height. The dark hair. The Clint Eastwood squint. The shape of his face, his features, the expression.
His stomach felt like someone had just socked him hard, and his head felt so woozy he had to grip the side of the box unit to steady himself.
Clyde Parsons had been telling the damned truth. Logan wasn’t a Grainger.
* * *
Well, it was a good thing Clementine had gotten bold and insisted on bringing the boys home since Logan had arranged for her replacement, the twins’ sitter, to drop them off at the rehearsal after school today. She had no doubt the woman would have come to pick them up too. Anything so that Logan could avoid her. Well, no more.
He didn’t have to want to date her. But he couldn’t just fire her without a reason. Dump her from his life with no cause. And she wasn’t leaving tonight until she had that reason. She was tired of racking her brain at night, tired of wondering if she’d done something wrong. Tired of trying to figure out what in the heck was in that letter that seemed to change everything. And if she was going to spend the next few weeks with the Grainger twins at rehearsal, she had to know what had caused Logan to push her away.
She pulled up to the sprawling white farmhouse, the front porch festooned with white lights, a three-foot tall painted wood nutcracker soldier standing aside the door next to two sorry-looking carved jack-o’-lanterns that Logan probably couldn’t bear to get rid of. Clementine loved how he tried so hard to make a sweet life for his nephews. Decorating for the holidays and carving pumpkins hadn’t been part of his world before he’d taken them in. Last summer, he’d told her stories about his life on the rodeo circuit, and though it sounded lonely to Clementine, he’d said he loved it. He’d muttered under his breath about something, a bad incident, but he wouldn’t talk about it. Then, Clementine had just been starting to understand Logan Grainger somewhat—he didn’t like to talk about what upset him, same as her, same as probably lots of people, except her two sisters. Now she wished he was more like Annabel and Georgia and said outright what was digging at him.
Clementine turned around and glanced at the twins in the back in their car seats. Both of them were fast asleep, Henry’s head hanging down, Harry’s to the side, his little pink mouth open. Both clutched the little stuffed reindeers she’d bought for them from a sidewalk fund raiser in town. She couldn’t bear to wake them.
Clementine walked up the three steps to the porch and smiled at the jack-o’-lantern, took a deep breath and knocked. Logan opened the door, eyebrow raised since his nephews weren’t at her side. “The boys fell asleep in their car seats. I think the rehearsal tuckered them out. My gram brought turkey po’boys and a few side dishes as a surprise for everyone for the first rehearsal, so they did eat.”
He looked past her at the car. “That was nice of her. Tell her thank you from me. I’ll carry them up to bed.”
She stood on the porch while he carried in Harry. When he went back out for Henry, she headed into the kitchen. She didn’t work for Logan anymore and had no business going into his kitchen and making a pot of coffee the way she used to, but too bad. The man needed coffee and so did she. And she wasn’t leaving without knowing what had him so tied up in knots.
He hadn’t opened up to her in three months. Why would he now?
She heard him walking upstairs, then a door being slowly closed. Then his footsteps on the stairs again.
He came into the kitchen, glancing briefly at her. “Is that coffee I smell?”
“I took the liberty. You looked like you could use some.” She bit her lip. Well, go ahead, Clem. He’s not going to bring it up. “Logan, I—I know you’ve made it crystal clear that you don’t want anything to do with me. I don’t know what happened back in August. You kissed me, and I thought something was happening between us. Then a minute later, you read a letter and that was it. All of a sudden, the next day you fired me and wouldn’t talk to me.”
He turned away for a moment, then leaned against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m sorry, Clementine. I was a real jerk to you.”
But why? she wanted to scream. Why, why, why?
She waited for him to elaborate. Maybe if she stopped trying to fill the silence, he’d go on.
She could hear the coffee dripping into the pot. The second hand on the big analog clock on the wall ticking away. Her own beating heart.
He looked at her for a long few seconds, then said, “Can I ask you a personal question?”
Please do, she thought.
“Sure,” she said, practically holding her breath.
He looked at her, his blue eyes intense, then he glanced away. “Did you feel, deep down, that the Hurleys were your parents, that you were their child? Or did you feel...adopted?”
What the heck? Where was this coming from? Was he worried about how the twins would feel being raised by their uncle?
She stared at him, having no idea where he was going with this or what this had to do with her question. But clearly, it did. “To be honest, both,” she said. “But the Hurleys took me in when I was eight. From that point on, I did feel they were my parents and I loved them and I believed they loved me. Annabel and Georgia felt like my sisters from the start because they were so loving to me. They made me feel like I was one of them. But maybe because I was eight when they adopted me, I was very aware that for the years prior, I was in limbo. Foster care. I had a birth mother, but she couldn’t take care of me.”
He nodded. “Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”
Again, what the hell? Hadn’t she and Logan talked about this a bit when he’d first hired her as the boys’ after-school sitter? He knew Clementine’s story. It had come up because when she’d first starting babysitting for him last spring, not long after he’d come home to raise the boys, he once asked aloud if the twins would accept Logan as a father figure. She’d talked a lot about love and commitment and being there as what mattered.
“My mother was a drug addict,” she said. “She had me at eighteen and managed to be clean during her pregnancy for my sake. That tells me a lot about her. She tried hard. But she couldn’t stay clean and she was in and out of rehab for years. So I say couldn’t.”
“Well, sometimes it’s about wouldn’t.”
She walked over to him and put her hand on his arm. He stiffened. “Logan, what is this about?”
He reached over to the counter to a few manila envelopes with a letter lying on top. He handed her the letter, which was from a Clyde T. Parsons in Tuckerville. “Read it,” he said.
She gasped at the first sentence. Then about three more times. Oh, Logan, she thought. What a thing to find out at age twenty-eight—and when everyone involved was gone.
“This is about wouldn’t,” he said. He opened a cabinet and pulled out two mugs, then filled them with coffee and got out the cream and sugar.
She put the letter down on the counter and reached for her mug. “Not necessarily.”
“Not necessarily?” he repeated, frowning. “He walked out on a pregnant woman. Walked out on his responsibilities to her and to me. Then he needs to die in peace so he flings a grenade at me as a parting gift? Wouldn’t, Clementine.”
Her heart constricted. This was complicated and messy and was tearing him apart, rightfully so.
She wrapped her hands around the steaming mug. “I’m just saying that there’s a fine line between can’t and won’t. Sometimes people can’t step up. They don’t have it in them.”
“Bull. I stepped up. My brother and his wife died leaving two little boys confused about why their parents weren’t here anymore.”
“You had it in you, Logan. You’re strong. You care. Some people just can’t handle things. So they walk away.”
He shook his head. “You mean they won’t, so they walk away. Anyone can step up.”
Clementine felt lead weights on her shoulders. “I don’t know.” She really didn’t. Her birth mother hadn’t been able to, even thought she’d claimed quite a few times over the years that she wanted to. Sometimes, to keep your heart intact, you had to believe what you needed to believe. Clementine needed to believe in couldn’t, not wouldn’t.
Logan’s jaw was set hard. “So you condone what Parsons did.”
“No. Of course not. I’m just saying he very likely didn’t have it in him to do anything else.”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” He turned away and took a long drink of his coffee.
She hadn’t meant to shut him down. Maybe she was supposed to listen more, talk less?
If she didn’t believe in her heart that her birth mother was a couldn’t and not a wouldn’t, Clementine was sure her heart would break in a thousand pieces. Sometimes, when she thought about Lacey Woolen, it was the only thing that kept Clementine okay.
“I can only talk about my particular situation and how I feel about it,” she said. “I completely understand how you feel, Logan. The parting gift, the walking away, the grenade, I get it. God, what a bombshell.”
“Why didn’t my parents tell me?” he asked quietly. “How could they let me live a lie?”
“Probably because deep down and no matter what, you were Haywood Grainger’s son, and that was no lie. It was their truth, Logan.”
“But not the truth,” he said, shaking his head again.
She wanted to go over and wrap her arms around him, but she didn’t dare. “It’s complicated.”
He took another sip of his coffee. “Let’s change the subject. How’d the boys do tonight?”
She smiled. “Great. They now can sing the first line of ‘Jingle Bells’ without a hitch. And that’s only after one night of rehearsal.”
“Isn’t the first line just ‘Jingle Bells’ twice?”
She laughed. “Yes. But they’re only three years old.”
“They’ve missed you. I’m glad they can spend time with you.”
She was quiet for a moment, then said, “At least I know now why you fired me, why you pushed me away. You were all torn up.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry, Clementine. You deserved better than that.”
So come over here. Kiss me again. Take me in your arms. Let me in now that I know. Maybe I can help.
He did none of the above. “I don’t know who the hell I am,” he added grimly. Am I even Harry’s and Henry’s uncle if I’m not a Grainger?” He shook his head. “That’s dumb. Even if I’m just half, I’m still their uncle.”
She put down her mug. “You are, no matter what.”
“I hate this,” he said. “I hate it all.”
She bit her lip and let out a breath. “Have you verified that this Clyde T. Parsons is telling the truth? Have you seen the photographs he mentions in the letter?”
He explained about the call this afternoon, about the picture of Clyde Parsons being a dead ringer for him. He picked up one of the manila envelopes, reached in and pulled out a photograph of a man without looking at it, then handed it to her.
She took the photograph and stared at it. Oh wow. Clyde Parsons looked very much like Logan Grainger. They had the same features—except Clyde’s eyes were hazel—the same hair, and there was something so similar in their expressions.
Her heart went out to Logan. How hard this must be. So much to take in, so many questions, no answers.
“Maybe Parsons has family,” she said softly.
He shot a glance at her. “His family has nothing to do with me.”
She wasn’t so sure she agreed, but now wasn’t the time to talk about that anyway. “I just mean that maybe you can find out who Clyde Parsons was, what he was like. You could do some poking around about him.”
“Don’t I know everything by his actions? He walked out on his pregnant girlfriend. He let another man take responsibility.” He set his mug down hard in the sink. “You know what? I’m done talking about this. Done thinking about it. Haywood Grainger was my father—he raised me. That’s all I need to know.”
Except the whole thing was tearing Logan apart. So it wasn’t all he needed to know. It was what he wanted to know, but for closure, for peace, he’d have to do more than ignore the truth.
Clementine glanced at her watch. “Oh no, I’m late. My shift starts at six and you know how crazy busy Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen gets on a Friday night. “By the way, my sister Annabel told me that tomorrow’s special is Gram’s famed macaroni and cheese. Maybe you can bring the boys in for lunch. Oh and practice ‘Jingle Bells’ over breakfast.”
He nodded. “Will do. And maybe we will come in for lunch tomorrow. I’d like to thank your grandmother for the po’boys. The twins love Hurley’s po’boys.”
And hadn’t had them for the three months he’d been avoiding her, hung in the air between them.
“Logan, if you need to talk about this, you can call me or come see me anytime. You know that, right?”
“I’m done talking about it,” he said, his blue eyes stony. “But...thanks,” he added, his expression softening just a little.
She headed toward the door, wishing she could stay, wishing she could rush over to him and hug him tight. It took everything in her to walk to the door and leave him alone with his thoughts.
