“It means thanks for the coffee this morning. Gotta go.”
As she slid behind her steering wheel, he called out, “I don’t know. Nothing says love like a fruit cup, Meg.”
She sent him an exaggerated eye-roll, but smiled all the way back to the house.
As she and Ryan devoured their subs in silence at the kitchen table, Meg broke it by saying, “I ran into Dad at the diner.”
Ryan raised a brow in a “go on” kind of way as he chewed.
“He noticed my ring.” She held up her hand. “It was Mom’s. When I told him I found it in the attic, he got all bent out of shape. I’ve been meaning to tell you guys about the box of her things I found.”
“What kind of things?”
“You sound just like Dad. Normal high school things. Except for a couple of files I haven’t looked at yet.”
“Files?” Ryan’s sub stopped halfway to his lips. “What kind of files?”
“Legal-size official ones. They’re up in the attic. I can go get them after we finish if you’d like.”
Ryan dropped his half-eaten sub and started for the attic. Still starving and reluctant to put her sandwich down, she sighed and followed him up the stairs. “What’s going on, Ry?”
“Probably nothing. Where are they?”
She pointed out the box. He sat down and tore the lid off, then dug the files out. Slapping the first one open, his face hardened like granite. He scanned the second one and said, “Dammit. He promised me no one would ever find these.”
“Who promised you?” She sat beside him and reached for the file, but he held it out of reach.
“Uncle Ray. You don’t want to see these, Meg. Nothing good can come of it.”
That made her want to see what was in there even more. Especially because Uncle Ray was the former sheriff. Waggling her fingers at Ryan, she said, “Technically, this is my house. Everything in it belongs to me, and you know it, lawman. Hand it over.”
Ryan took out his phone and hit a button. After a few seconds, he said, “Mom’s missing files were in Meg’s attic. You need to be here. Tell Ben too.” He hung up and slid the phone back into his pocket.
What the heck? “If you’re trying to freak me out, it’s working. What’s going on, Ryan? How bad can it be?”
“Bad. Can we wait for Casey, please?”
“No! Tell me.”
He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Because no one would ever talk about it, as soon as Uncle Ray retired and I became the sheriff, I looked into Mom’s car accident.”
“And? For once would you please just string a few sentences together and spare me the misery of extracting them from you?”
“Uncle Ray and the others covered up the details of the accident because Mom wasn’t alone that day her car slid off the road. You were in the car too, along with another person. You were the only one who survived.”
“Oh. So I was in a car wreck with Mom when she died? Why would that be such a big secret?”
“Because . . .” Ryan licked his lips, obviously struggling to say more. “Your father was in the car too.”
“What?” That made no sense. But Ryan had said your father. They didn’t have the same father? How could that be? “So . . . Dad isn’t my father? Then who is?”
Her heart pounded as Ryan slowly handed her the files. What the hell was going on? How could this happen? Possibilities buzzed like a hornet’s nest in her confused brain.
Ryan said, “The second one has the results from the paternity test. Mom’s parents tried to take you away from Dad, but he wouldn’t let them. There was a court battle, but Dad had so many inside connections, Grandma and Grandpa finally gave up. I think that’s why they left the house to you. Probably because they didn’t know if Dad would leave you anything like the rest of us.”
So her brothers and sister, the people she loved most in the world, were just half siblings? And her father wasn’t her father?
She started to open the file, but stopped. She looked up at Ryan, and her aching heart nearly burst out of her chest. Maybe she didn’t want to know? Maybe if she never opened the file, things would just stay the same? “I’m afraid . . .”
Ryan moved closer and threw his arm around her shoulder, drawing her against his side. “It’s just DNA. Family is about who cares for you.”
Nodding, her eyes burned with tears as she slowly opened the file. She read the paternity results over and over until it finally sank in. How could it be true? She wasn’t who she thought she was at all. And how could everyone have lied to her like that?