Look-Alike Lawman. Glynna Kaye
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secured. Keys in hand. Her gaze alert to their surroundings.
Normally she shopped for groceries on Saturday morning, especially in the fall and winter as days grew shorter and didn’t allow much time for after-work errands. Thank goodness for daylight savings time, but it would expire in another month. Unfortunately, she’d forgotten until this evening that she’d promised to make a red velvet cake for their youth pastor’s birthday potluck after church tomorrow. She couldn’t find a single drop of red food coloring in the kitchen cabinets.
“Mom?” Cory crawled into his seat and she locked the doors. Started the car.
“What?”
“When’s Officer Wallace coming to the school again?”
As the overhead interior light faded, she looked into her son’s hopeful eyes. He’d talked nonstop about Officer Wallace for the past twenty-four hours. How cool his badge was. How he’d brought him the ball glove. How he knew Daddy was a hero and said it was an honor to meet his son.
She offered a sympathetic smile. “Career day is once a year. It’s doubtful he’ll be back anytime soon.”
The glow in his eyes faded momentarily, then brightened. “Maybe he’ll come to visit anyway, to say hi to the kids.”
She didn’t want Cory to get his hopes up. The likelihood of Officer Wallace’s return was slim. Yes, he’d made a memorable impression on them both, but it didn’t take long for reality to set in. For her guard to go up. It was best for all concerned that Officer Wallace keep his distance. Unless she called the number on his business card, she suspected he would.
But she wouldn’t call him. Not even for Cory. Especially not for Cory. Another cop in his life was too risky.
She smiled again at her son as she put the vehicle in gear and backed it out of the parking place. “He has an important job, sweetheart, so it’s doubtful he could stop by even if he’d like to.”
“I wish he would.”
Heading into the darkened street, anxious to get home, she almost caught her own wishes echoing her son’s.
But that was stupid.
And she wasn’t a stupid woman.
* * *
Gazing down at the comatose Belle Colby, hooked up to medical paraphernalia of every imaginable kind, Grayson harbored the same frustration as his siblings at not being able to get desperately needed answers to their questions.
Although his siblings had picked up rumors from a former neighbor of the then still-intact family, what was the real reason Belle and his dad split? Why had they separated Maddie and him from their twin counterparts? The boys had been two, the girls not much beyond six months. Why had his father led him to believe Sharla Wallace was his birth mom?
Grayson gripped the black, leather-bound Bible in his hands. Did Belle know who’d sent these Bibles to him, his twin brother and two sisters? He and Maddie had received them in June, after their dad headed out on his six-month medical mission and not long before Grayson went undercover. No postmark. No return address. Later, Violet had found one on the seat of her car after church and Jack’s had turned up on the hearth of the home he was renovating.
They all held the same handwritten, anonymous note, the words of which were burned into his memory.
I am sorry for what I did to you and your family. I hope you and your siblings, especially your twin, can forgive me as I ask the Lord to forgive me.
When he and Maddie each received a Bible and identical note, they’d initially been puzzled. Then they’d laughed them off, thinking someone had them confused with somebody else. At that point they hadn’t any idea they each had a twin. But someone had known—and for some reason felt guilty about it.
Who? And why?
Gray shook his head as he continued to watch the quiet rise and fall of Belle’s breathing. Would she ever be able to answer their questions?
The most pressing question of all, however, was where was his dad? No one thought much about it when he didn’t return calls while on a mission trip. He wasn’t big on checking in and worked in remote areas with limited phone reception. Then in August it was discovered he’d left his cell phone at one of his stops in Blackstone, Texas. Probably got hundreds of miles down the road before he realized it, intending to swing back and get it later. Not too much concern at that time.
But in September when Grayson returned from his assignment, the family enlisted him to find their dad so they could get answers to their family mystery. Not long into his search he’d learned that his father appeared unwell at one location. Jack had followed up, going down to search the migrant camp where he’d last been spotted. He’d come up empty-handed except to confirm that when last seen, their father appeared feverish, coughing and maybe not quite lucid at times. Now they were greatly concerned and Gray’s own investigation had escalated.
His heart heavy, he sat down in a molded plastic chair next to the bed, placing the mystery Bible on his knee. From the moment he laid eyes on her, he’d had no doubt that Belle was his mother. All the kids including him looked like her. None of them resembled their father. Although he hadn’t yet looked into her eyes, he’d seen almost three decades’ worth of photographs of her when he’d first come to the home of his long-lost siblings.
For the thousandth time in the past four weeks, he willed himself to remember something—anything—of his first two years with his birth mom. But not even a shadow of her remained.
Incredibly, the woman he and Maddie adored and had grown up believing was their mother wasn’t their birth mother, although she was their little brother, Carter’s, mom. The whole thing seemed like a dream—or a nightmare. He still hadn’t grasped that Violet and Jack had lived separate lives, raised by this woman whose life he and Maddie should have shared as well.
He reached for his mother’s warm but seemingly lifeless hand. Ran his thumb over the back of it. Said a silent prayer, then spoke aloud. “It’s me, Grayson. Jack’s brother. Your son.”
Did that sound weird or what?
She didn’t stir.
“I, uh, understand you never wanted Jack and Violet to pursue finding their father.” He cleared his throat. “But we need to track Dad down. Let him know what’s going on here. I know he’s okay. He’s gotten caught up in his work like he often does. He’s a doctor now. A good one. Did you know that? A missionary doctor much of the time.”
He shook his head, wondering about the wisdom of pouring all this out to the woman in the bed. Could she even hear him? Understand any of it?
“I’m a police officer in Fort Worth. That’s why the others are counting on me to find him. I’m sorry if that’s not what you want us to do. We don’t mean for it to upset you.”
He gently squeezed her motionless hand. “But don’t you worry. Things will turn out fine. All of us kids are grateful we’ve found each other. Maddie’s even moved from Fort Worth and will be marrying your ranch foreman, Ty. Doesn’t that beat all?”
He paused to catch his breath, not used to rambling on in a soliloquy. “Violet and Jack are both engaged to fine folks, too. Keira’s a vet, which will come in handy at the ranch, and Landon’s an old friend of mine. So lots of weddings in the works, and we need you there to help out.”
Silence permeated the room, except for the wall clock ticking away the seconds as he breathed in the antiseptic scents clinging to the Spartan space.
“Nothing in the plans like that for me.” He chuckled, but memory flashed unbidden to the captivating Elise Lopez. Why couldn’t he get her out of his head? “So don’t go getting your hopes up. I think I’m destined to go it alone. You know, the dedicated lawman route.”
“Oh, yeah, the dedicated lawman,” a familiar female voice whispered from the doorway. His sister. The original one. Maddie. “Leaving scores of women