Page 13 of Baxter's Right-Hand Man

“First cousins, which makes us second cousins, I believe.”

“And you’re just coming forward now? Why? I don’t get it.” He sounded genuinely confused and a touch agitated. “No offense, but she never mentioned you.”

“Why would she?” Mr. G countered. “I was more than a decade older than her. She followed me around when she was a little girl pushing her beloved baby doll, Annie, in a stroller with books tucked under a soft green blanket. She’d tug at my jeans and ask me to read to her. So I did. Family gatherings were hell for me as a teenager. A game of chase or an hour wiling away with a pile of books was a welcome distraction. I saw her a few times a year until I finally escaped to the West Coast and gratefully dropped off the face of the Earth.”

“You ran away?”

Mr. G shrugged. “Let’s just say I took the first bus out of Ohio when I was eighteen and never looked back.”

“Huh. Why?”

“Oh, dah-ling…life has never been easy for boys like me. My father made my life hell at home. My only regret was that I didn’t leave sooner.C’est la vie.” Mr. Gowan smiled tightly. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cup of tea?”

“Positive. Um…I’m sorry. I’m trying to understand things I’ve sort of filed away in my brain. I’m not close to my family. At all. That’s common knowledge. I left home at seventeen and…I didn’t talk to any of them for years. Even my mother. She was persistent, though.”

“How did she get in touch with you?”

“Through the studio, where I landed my first gig as a minor character on that football dramedy everyone was crazy about fifteen years ago,” Pierce replied. “That was my big break.”

“Mmm, I remember that show. All those sexy men in tight pants…”

“Right. Well…she wrangled my number from the receptionist, and that was sort of the beginning. We didn’t mend fences immediately. It wasn’t until she and my dad divorced that things got better.” Pierce’s lips twisted painfully. “But now she’s gone.”

Mr. Gowan shifted forward and set a gnarled hand over Pierce’s. “I’m sorry for your loss. Your mother was a lovely woman.”

Pierce knit his brow suspiciously. “How would you know that? You said you hadn’t seen her since you were eighteen. She would have been a little girl.”

“No, no. I met her two years ago.” Mr. Gowan turned my way with a regal lift of his chin and called out, “Lo, dah-ling, will you please hand me that box? The one with the chubby angels on it.”

So much for hiding in plain sight.

I retrieved the delicate gold filigree box from the shelf behind me and crossed the room to hand it to Mr. Gowan. He had a hard time opening the tiny clasp, so I did the honors and dutifully placed it in his lap, aware of Pierce’s laser-sharp gaze.

Fine. He probably wasn’t looking at me at all, but a girl can dream. I nodded when Mr. G thanked me, and returned to my post in the shadows to give them privacy.

Sadly, their conversation continued at a lower volume than I could hear clearly while Mr. G sifted through photos with his head bent.

“…contacted me out of the blue last…she insisted…lunch here…on the patio…January, but a pretty day. She wore a brilliant…matched her eyes and…talked about you. She was proud as—” Mr. G froze. “This is it. Two years ago in this very room.”

Pierce took the pic from Mr. G and stared at it in wonder. Oooh, I wished I could see, but there was no way from this angle. I kept my eyes trained on Pierce and sidled closer…as quietly as humanly possible.

Pierce’s face went pale, and his expression flattened. If he was aiming for neutral, he didn’t quite hit the mark. He looked devastated.

“It’s…her.”

Mr. Gowan settled creakily into his chair and steepled his hands as if in prayer. “Yes, Colleen was quite beautiful. You resemble her, you know. You have her eyes, her bone structure—it must be a Richelieu trait.”

“Richelieu. Did you change your last name?” he asked, his gaze still on the photo.

“A new start was necessary.” Mr. G’s tight-lipped reply carried the weight of a heavy, untold tale. He inclined his chin meaningfully. “I’m sorry I can’t give you that. It’s my only copy.”

“May I take a photo of it?”

Mr. Gowan beamed. “Marvelous idea!”

Pierce pulled his cell out to snap a pic then handed the photo back, and typed a quick text. “We have five minutes, tops, till my team descends to do publicity shots and move on. Thanks for this. I wish I was a better listener. Maybe she mentioned you and I forgot…”

His voice drifted and hung in the air like a painful question mark. I hated silences like this, but I curbed my compulsion to jump in and fill it with a witty segue. This wasn’t my business. This was deeply personal and wrought with so many untouched layers of potentially sticky emotions between strangers with an untested connection. I didn’t belong here at all.