Texas Heroes_ Volume 1(180)
She looked at Dev. “Is he going to tell me what?”
“Come sit down, Princess.” Her father settled her in one of the big leather wing chairs and hovered beside her. He looked anxious. Unsettled.
“I don’t want to sit.” She got back to her feet.
“What’s this about, Charles?” her mother asked.
“It’s about the past, Mrs. DeMille,” Dev responded.
Her mother’s look at Dev was pure disdain. “Charles?”
“Lacey, has he harmed you?” Her father neared her side.
She surprised even herself by backing away from her father one step.
Hurt darkened his eyes. “Why have you come, Princess?”
“I’d like to speak to my parents alone, please, Dev.”
Dev didn’t move. Instead, he looked at her father as if expecting something.
Her father gave Dev a glance that almost seemed…guilty? “What did you want to discuss?” he asked.
Lacey looked around her at the familiar surroundings, at her mother’s blonde perfection, the refuge of her father’s broad-shouldered frame.
The air vibrated with anger. With secrets.
“Someone explain to me what’s happening here.” She wrapped her hands around her middle.
Dev swore darkly and stepped toward her, his hands extended as if to hold her.
“Dev? What does he mean? Why would you want to—” Use me? She couldn’t say it. “After last night, I thought we—”
Her father exploded. Whirled on Dev. “You were with her last night? Is there nothing you won’t do for revenge?”
Dev’s eyes shot sparks. He glanced at Lacey, then back at her father. Guilt rode hard on his face.
He turned toward her. “Lacey, don’t let him lie to you again. Remember what he did before. Last night has nothing to do with this.”
She wanted to run, wanted to hide from the foreboding sinking into her bones. Wanted to vanish right now, this instant. She held on desperately to the fraying edges of her strength. “What doesn’t have anything to do with last night?”
His green eyes darkened. His hands dropped to his sides. He turned to her father. “Do you tell her, or do I?”
“Tell me what, Daddy?” Her heart was thumping so fast she felt dizzy. “Mother?”
Her mother looked utterly confused. Her father said nothing.
Dev crossed the floor then, came to her side. Grasped her arms and lowered her to the chair. His eyes looked so sad.
Whatever it was, she already knew she didn’t want to hear it. Something deep and visceral told her she would never be the same once she did.
“No.” She tried to rise, shaking her head. “No, don’t. I don’t want to know, whatever it is.”
Dev looked so torn, so weary. “This doesn’t have to be bad, Lacey. There’s good news for you.”
It didn’t feel good. Her father looked a hundred years old.
Dev reached for her hands, clasped them tightly. His jaw tightened, and sorrow washed over his face. The green eyes she loved—
Dear God. She was such a fool. He didn’t love her. He’d seen her heart tumble and he was—
“Don’t,” he said, his voice unbearably gentle. “Don’t try to imagine. In all of this, you’re the innocent, Lacey.” Then his voice thickened. “But first, you have to believe me that last night was a miracle. It was a dream I’d given up on a long time ago. I want to believe that we laid a foundation that even this news can’t destroy.”
She could barely concentrate on his words for the loud thumping of her heart. “I don’t understand.”
Dev cursed softly. “I tried to figure out the right way to do this, but—”
“Just do it, Dev. Stop scaring me.”
“All right.” He pinned her with that green gaze, his eyes soft and gentle but dark with foreboding. “You’re adopted, Lacey. I’ve been hired by your birth family to find you. You’re not the natural child of the DeMilles.”
For a moment she didn’t react at all. She blinked once, twice, then shook her head.
Then she surprised herself. She laughed, though she could hear the sharp edge of hysteria. “What? You’re out of your mind. What kind of joke is this?”
“It’s not a joke.” He shoved one hand through his hair. “You are the natural child of Dalton Wheeler and Jenny Wallace Gallagher, both deceased. These people—” He indicated her parents. “—paid a lot of money to hide your adoption and fake your birth records. You have a half-sister, Maddie Rose Gallagher—Dalton’s daughter—and two half-brothers, Boone and Mitch Gallagher, who are Jenny’s sons.”