Darkmoon(60)

But, being Lucas, instead of appearing discomfited, he merely replied, “Well, I’d actually been telling Connor for some time that he needed to live someplace a little more suited to the Wilcox primus. And then when it came out that he and Angela were going to have a baby, it got more urgent. A house became available, they looked at it and loved it, and the rest, as they say, is history.” He shrugged and reached for his own ice water, taking a sip before adding, “I really don’t see anything that strange about any of it.”

“You wouldn’t,” she said in cutting tones. “It’s fairly obvious you Wilcoxes do things very differently from us McAllisters. But Angela should’ve consulted with us — ”

“She’s consulting with you now,” Lucas responded breezily. “She could’ve just shown up here with her moving boxes and not told you anything. She is an adult, you know, and capable of making her own decisions.”

For the first time in my life, I saw Margot Emory at a loss for words. Her mouth opened, then shut again, and I saw her knuckles whiten as she gripped the edge of the table. Whether this unprecedented response was due to what Lucas had said or the completely unconcerned way in which he’d said it, I wasn’t sure, but in that moment I had to choke back the impulse to break into incongruous laughter. And that, I knew, would go over even worse than Lucas’ reply to Margot.

Connor spoke for the first time, saying, “We’re only trying to do what’s fair — ”

“Fair?” Bryce exclaimed. “How is any of this fair?”

“Is it fair to expect the primus of the Wilcoxes to live here full-time in Jerome?” I asked.

“No, we would prefer it if he stayed where he was supposed to be — in Flagstaff,” Margot snapped.

“You know that wasn’t going to happen,” I replied. “Besides, if we were going to be completely fair” — I put an unnatural emphasis on the word, staring straight at Bryce as I said it — “then technically I should be spending three-quarters of my time with Connor in Flagstaff, considering I’m half Wilcox myself.”

I might as well have thrown a live grenade into the center of the table. “What?” Bryce burst out, while Allegra shook her head, saying, “That’s impossible!”, and Margot stared at me as if she’d never seen me before.

“It’s true,” I said. “That’s what we found out when we went to California. My mother was shacked up with a Wilcox out there. End result: me.”

The words came out sharper-edged, more flippant than I had intended. Probably because the mystery of why my father had gone there at all, and had sought out Sonya McAllister, still hadn’t been explained. It chafed at me, stirred up emotions I wasn’t sure I wanted to analyze. All my life I’d wanted to know who my father was, but finding the truth had only caused more problems.

Finally, Margot spoke. “This — you must be mistaken.”

“No mistake,” Lucas said quietly, this time sounding quite sober, unlike his usual ebullient self. “Andre Wilcox left Flagstaff a little more than twenty-two years ago, and no one’s seen him since. The timeline fits. Not that Angela’s mother would have known. She thought his name was Andre Williams.”

“So he lied to her. Typical,” Bryce said.

“Enough,” I told him, sending him what I hoped was my best prima stare. It seemed to work; he subsided and pushed up against the back of his chair, as if to create a little more distance between us. “Yes, it turns out I’m half Wilcox. Ironic, isn’t it? Here you’ve been doing your damnedest to keep me here in Jerome, away from the Wilcox clans, and it turns out you both have an equal claim.”

“Not entirely equal,” Allegra said in her sweet voice.

Everyone turned toward her.

As if unsettled by being the center of attention, she reached up to smooth a wisp of flyaway hair from her forehead. “It may be true that you are half Wilcox, but you are also the prima of the McAllisters. That means our claim is the stronger one. You can’t just…abandon us.”

“Did I say anything about abandoning you?” I replied, irritated. “All I’m saying is that you have to accept that I’ll be here part of the time and in Flagstaff part of the time. Even if there’s some crisis, it’s only a little more than an hour to get here. It’s not like I’m buying a flat in Paris or something.”

“And what happens afterward?” Bryce asked.

“Afterward?” I repeated.

“After you have the baby — I mean, the babies.” His steely eyes seemed to bore into Connor, as if he held him directly responsible for my current condition. Never mind that I’d been a willing participant in those activities.