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“I’ve been trying to talk to you for the past six months, but there never seems to be the right time or place.”

“So why bother?” Reed lifted the warm beer and downed the last drops. A long silence stretched between them as the jukebox switched from a lively tune to a cry-in-my-beer song. All the old anger and hurt of his teen years had mellowed into an even stronger indifference for the man who’d never treated him like a son. Now he looked across the table at the weathered, retired rancher, who’d almost lost his wife and immediately afterward sold his ranch. Property that had been in his family for a century. William Bryson wasn’t as intimidating as he’d been twenty years ago. He just looked old and tired.

The graying man rested his elbows on the table and laced his fingers. “I’m a stubborn man.”

Agreed.

“A stubborn fool,” the man continued without looking up. “But one thing is for certain, I’ve always loved your mother more than anything. It took her almost dying to realize how unfair I’ve been to you all your life and how hard it was on her.”

A lone fiddle picked up the tune on the Jukebox song and played a plaintive melody, accentuating the anguish in his father’s voice.

Reed shifted uncomfortably and leaned forward to stand.

“Don’t go. I have to get this out. I have a confession to make.”

“It’s a little late for confessions.” Reed continued his upward movement, but his father’s hand gripped his forearm and held him.

“It’s not just my confession. It’s something your mother wanted me to tell you as well. She just doesn’t have the strength to right now.”

Had it only been his father, Reed would have left. Instead he sat back in his seat. “Go ahead.”

“Your mother and I dated for two years before we were married.”

“And I was born nine months later. I’ve heard this story.”

“Not quite nine months,” he said in a whisper. “What you don’t know is that she was pregnant when we got married.” His father looked up, his gaze colliding with Reed’s. “With another man’s baby.”

The sound faded into the background of Reed’s mind as his father’s words sank in. The people moving around the bar blended into a dark blur. “What are you saying? I’m not your son?”

“No.” William Bryson stared into Reed’s eyes, the lines etched deeply into his weathered face. “And I never gave you a chance to be mine.”

Reed shook his head slowly. The way his father behaved toward him all made sense now. The man couldn’t love another man’s son. His jaw tightened and he leaned toward the man who’d pretended to be his father all these years. “Not that it matters, but whoismy father?”

“Up until the day I sold the ranch, your mother hadn’t said a word. All she told me back when she had her stroke was that she was raped.”

The older Bryson’s words hit him like a punch to the gut. “Raped? And she didn’t tell anyone?” So his father was a scum-of-the-earth bastard. And here he thought the hard, unbending man he’d known as his father was bad. Talk about a winning combination. The heat in the stiflingly full bar got to Reed and he pushed to his feet. “Pardon me.”

He couldn’t get away from his father fast enough. At first he headed for the door, but then he saw one of the Hispanic men from the far corner getting up and heading for the men’s room.

No matter how he felt about his father, he couldn’t walk away from the cattle-rustling investigation. He followed the man to the bathroom, hoping to see him without his hat. Perhaps if he only focused on Mona’s problems, he could forget his own.

* * *

MONA PULLED INTOthe parking lot near ten o’clock, tired, disgruntled and ready to kick some ranch hands’ butts. And just her luck, Dusty had just shoved Jesse out the front door of Leon’s.

Catalina followed on his heels, pounding his back. “Leave him alone, Dusty Gaither, or I’ll call the cops!”

In a pool of light cast by the lamp over the door, a crowd of rowdy rednecks gathered around the wrestling men and the one waitress trying ineffectually to break up the fight.

As soon as she opened her truck door, the wind whipped her hair into her face, blinding her for a second. Shouts sounded in between the roaring of the wind in her ears. When she pushed her hair out of her face, and she could see again, fists flew and Catalina was in the middle of it.

“No!” Mona might as well have spit in the wind for all the good her shout did.

“Stop it!” Catalina tried to grab Dusty’s arm. He backhanded her and sent her flying into a couple bystanders.

Her blood rushing to her head, Mona tossed her cell phone to the man nearest her. “Call the sheriff.” Then she pushed her way through the thickening crowd, careful to shield her belly from stray elbows.

A roundhouse punch to the gut sent Jesse sprawling in the dirt flat on his back. Mona ran to him while Catalina jumped on Dusty’s back.