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His mouth tightened.
“With baby Stella,” he added, his voice noticeably rougher. “Once Emma got out of the hospital, she joined them. Which leads me to a rather uncomfortable question. But I gotta ask. About Stella…”
Garrett couldn’t help being surprised at the unasked question. He knew Jesse and Mariana had dated, but it must have fizzled out much earlier than he thought, or else the sheriff would have known the answer to the question he was asking.
“Stella is mine,” he said. “Mine and Emma’s. She was a few months pregnant at the time of the accident.”
Jesse’s face contorted.
Chapter Sixty-One
GARRETT
He may as well have punched the other man. Jesse staggered back, his face turning gray.
“Emma delivered Stella in Denver,” he continued in a softer voice, conscious that he was delivering one hell of a blow. “The labor pains may have helped rouse her from the coma. But when she woke up, she had no memory of being pregnant. She couldn’t even speak yet, let alone care for a baby. So Mariana took the infant.”
Jesse grunted, wiping his face. Garrett felt bad, but Jesse had to know the truth. It was better to rip off the Band-Aid. Trying to ease into it wasn’t going to make it any easier for the man.
“You never did track down the driver of the car,” he continued. “Once Mariana realized Emma was pregnant, she connected the baby with the accident. She thought the father might have run Emmy down. Little did she know I was having a literal pity party just a few miles away, drowning my sorrows in cheap beer and overpriced whiskey because of a stupid misunderstanding.”
“Huh.” Jesse processed that. “I guess that’s a good enough reason to keep the baby’s parentage a secret. But I still can’t believe Mari didn’t tell me.”
Garrett didn’t know what to say to that, so he decided nothing wasbetter. Clearing his throat, he gestured down the incline, beginning a careful climb down to the area Jesse had indicated earlier.
“Was it around here?”
“Yeah. Just to your right.” The sheriff pointed a few feet from him. “We’re not sure where she hit her head but as best we could figure, her leg struck that tree, stopping her descent to the bottom. I know it sounds weird, but that might have been lucky. The bottom has some big stones that could have done a lot more damage.”
Garrett turned, scanning the bottom of the incline.Christ. Jesse was right. Those boulders were fucking huge.
Swearing under his breath, Garrett crab-walked across the uneven ground, one leg higher up on the slope to maintain his balance.
Seeing how much trouble he was having, Jesse wisely decided to stay where he was. His traction would have been shit in those cowboy boots.
“We scoured the ground around her thoroughly in the days following. Aside from her phone, there was nothing down there.”
“No auto glass on the road? Like from a headlight?”
Jesse shook his head. “Just the paint transfer on the tree.”
Garrett began to climb back up, glad he’d busted out his hiking boots for this. “How high was it?”
Jesse put his hand out, helping haul him up the last few feet. “What was that? I missed it.”
“The paint transfer on the tree.” Garrett brushed off the dirt on his knees. “Was it at sedan or truck height?”
“Sedan is my guess, although it looks to be about truck height now. But that’s only because the tree has grown. Come see.”
They examined a faint scar on the trunk, which was just above his waist.
“The paint was an extremely common shade of black,” Jesse said with a frown. “It was used by multiple car makers. It was the only clue. We didn’t find any clear fresh tire tracks. The ground was too hard-packed. The few impressions we had were confused. The clearest looked older and were likely made during the rain we hadweeks earlier.”
Damn. No wonder the trail had gone cold.
Garrett scanned the road. It did bend sharply here. Itwaspossible the driver hadn’t seen her. Especially if she’d been wearing something dark.
“I suppose it could have been an accident,” he muttered. “She might have jumped off the road to avoid getting run down, her injuries a result of hitting one of these trees.”