"Is this Mr. Daniel Lester?"
"Yeah, what of it?"
"This is Gunnery Sergeant Blue Morgan."
Silence fell, broken only by Lester's hoarse breathing.
"I thought you might like to know that your daughter Maria got here safely. Not that you care, seeing as you put her on that bus alone to start with."
"She's not mine."
"Whatever, you still put a ten-year-old girl on a bus and took her phone away. What the hell were you thinking?"
"To get her away from me. To send her to her real father, which is apparently you."
"You don't know if that is true."
"Angelina fucking lied to me for years. She's a fucking unfaithful bitch-"
"Mr. Lester, if you want to have a discussion about this, may I suggest you refrain from speaking about your wife like that?"
"Why should I? Fucking bitch told me all about you when she was dying, Sergeant, how she deceived me for all those years, how she fucked me over-"
"As I said, your wife is dead. We need to work out how to proceed from here."
Lester laughed. "I've worked it out, dude. I sent her bastard to you. As far as I'm concerned, that's the end of that. Now fuck off and don't bother me again."
The phone went dead, leaving Blue staring out into the night sky, his jaw set so hard his teeth were hurting. He had to try to be charitable. Lester's wife had recently died way too young, leaving him alone with a young child. Maybe the drinking was a temporary thing and once he got his shit together he'd realize what a douchebag he'd been to his daughter.
"Yeah, right."
Blue spoke out loud as his cell screen went dead. There was no point calling the man back. Lester was already well on his way to getting drunk out of his head, or maybe he was just drunk all the time now. Maybe when Blue turned the phone number over to Nate, Daniel Lester would change his tune when he had to deal with the authorities.
For Maria's sake, Blue hoped so.
There was a knock on his door.
"BB?"
"Come in, Chase."
His brother came in and closed the door behind him. He looked his usual calm self. "You okay?"
Blue rubbed his hand over his head. "Not really."
"Whom were you talking to?"
"Maria's father."
"You got his number. How did that go?"
"As you might expect when talking to a drunk." Blue appreciated Chase's lack of anxiety and matter-of-fact manner so much right now. "I want to tell you all what I found out today before I pass the information over to Nate."
"Cool." Chase dropped a packet on the bed. "I got this for you and Maria. It's a DNA kit that collects buccal cells from the inside of your cheek. You don't need the mother's DNA to get an accurate result. I know the guys who started the company, so you'll get priority."
Blue took the package and placed it on his old desk. "Thanks, Chase."
"You're welcome. It's prepaid for return, so just call them up and they'll get it back to the lab in California. I think it takes a minimum of five to ten days."
Blue nodded and Chase opened the door. "Now come on down, have some of your favorite pie, and we can talk it over after Ruth puts Maria to bed."
* * *
When Blue came back in with Chase, Jenna sent up a silent prayer of relief. He looked okay, a bit stern around the mouth, but she hadn't heard any shouting.
"Do you want some more pie, Jenna?" Ruth asked.
"No, thanks, I'm done." Jenna smiled as she pushed her bowl away. "That was awesome."
"You'll be coming back out here tomorrow to check on that piglet, won't you?" Ruth cut a piece of peach pie as big as Jenna's head and put it in a bowl for Blue with two scoops of ice cream.
"Yes, I told Roy I'd try to come out. I have to visit the Lymond place anyway."
Blue's gaze instantly came to her. "I thought you weren't going up there anymore."
"Dave's coming with me. One of Mark's horses is about to give birth."
"One of the two he has left?" Blue grimaced. "Just take care, won't you?"
"I will." She smiled at him and went to stand up. "Now, I'd better be going or my uncle will think I've been abducted by aliens."
Surprisingly it was Billy who laughed, making him look not only younger, but also very like Chase. "Ron's had a thing about aliens ever since he was a kid."
Blue put his hand on the back of her chair. "Then he won't mind if you stay a bit longer. I want you to hear what I've got to say as well."
She met his gaze. "Are you sure about that? I'm not really family."
"But I want you here. Is that okay?"
"If you're sure."
He nodded once and then turned back to the table, his expression resolute as Ruth returned from putting Maria to bed and brought Roy with her.
"Okay, Maria can't hear us talking, can she?"
Ruth shook her head. "No, she's the farthest away from the kitchen. I put her music on for her on her i-thing-well, Chase did, but it sure is loud for such a tiny little box."
Blue placed his hands flat down on the table. "I'm just going to tell it to you straight. I spoke to Dan Lester's wife Rosa, and found out I did actually spend a night with her sister-in-law Angelina Lester."
"And when you say spent the night," Chase said, "you mean you had unprotected sex with a married woman."
Jenna winced, but Blue didn't take offense.
"Number one, I didn't know she was married. I didn't even know until today that she was supposed to be separated at the time. Number two, something went wrong in the protection department, and I was too drunk to do much about it. She told me she was on the pill, and not to worry."
"Okay. So there is a possibility that Maria is your child."
"Yeah."
Silence fell around the table, and Jenna instinctively reached out and put her hand on Blue's knee. Despite his outwardly calm appearance, his muscles were so tense he was shaking.
"If it was a possibility, why didn't Angelina contact you before?" January leaned forward, her gaze sympathetic.
"I don't know." Blue shrugged. "Maybe she just wanted to forget what she'd done, pretend everything was normal and that any child was her husband's. I can understand that. What I don't understand is why she decided to confess what happened on that one solitary night to her husband just before she died."
"She told him Maria was your child?" Ruth demanded.
"She certainly implanted that suggestion at some point."
"How do you know?"
"Because when I spoke to Daniel Lester, he was drunk and abusive and told me he wanted nothing more to do with his wife's bastard."
"The horrible man!" Ruth muttered. "He doesn't deserve that sweet little girl."
"I agree. He sucks." Blue reached over to take Ruth's work-roughened hand. "The thing is-I wonder if Angelina knew anything more that would make even suggesting Maria isn't his kid make Dan think it was a done deal?"
"Like what?"
Chase stirred. "Maybe during her treatment, the blood work threw up some anomalies and made her think."
"It's possible, I suppose." Blue's shoulders relaxed a little bit. "Maybe they tested Maria to make sure she wasn't carrying the same genes and found out something else along the way."
"Unlikely if we're dealing with the maternal line, but there were probably a lot of tests." Chase frowned. "Did he sound one hundred percent convinced he wasn't her father?"
"Pretty much, but he was drunk, so you know what that's like."
Billy looked down at Blue's casual reference to his and Chase's shared past.
"I'm going to do the DNA tests that Chase got me. That will clear everything up once and for all." Blue looked around the table. "And if she's my daughter, I'll take care of her. I hope you all know that."
"Of course we do, BB," Ruth said. "I do have one favor to ask you. Can you do the test in a week or so when she's gotten more used to the place?"
"If we leave it that long, it will take another couple of weeks after that to get the results. Are you okay with that, Ruth?"
"She'll be fine here with us. She can treat it like a vacation and be our first guest at the new ranch."
Jenna smiled. "That's actually a good idea. She can try out the programs January and I have been working on for the kids. We can teach her how to ride."
Blue sat back. "You all sure about this? It's not like we're taking on a stray puppy here, and we won't be completely certain until we get the tests back whether she is my daughter or not."
"She sure looks like you, BB," Billy said quietly. "And Ruth."
Blue met his father's gaze. "She seems to like you a lot."
Billy shrugged. "I like kids."
"So-don't let her down, will you? Don't suddenly disappear on her or anything."
Billy swallowed hard, but he didn't look away. "I won't, BB. I promise."
"Don't promise." Blue stood up. "There's nothing worse for a kid than a broken promise from someone they care about."