“Exactly.”
Something about that red mark bothered Charlotte. She moved to grab the lawyer’s packet again, and flipped to the paternity test results proving Lyndsey was his daughter. There, she also found an affidavit from Tracy, admitting to their affair.
“Look.” She held up the paternity sheet and pointed to a gray splotch. “I thought something looked familiar.”
Mina held up her own copy of the twins’ test and compared the two. “They both have the same splotch, but Lyndsey’s is gray. How is that possible?”
“I think Lyndsey found the copy you left in Kimber’s things. We know she’s been sneaking up there for weeks. I’m assuming he wasn’t always awake.”
“Probably not.”
“She must have made a copy with her own name on it and then convinced him to change his will based on the information.”
Mina gaped. “He was awfully fuzzy the last few months of his life. He could have gotten the story confused and believed she was his daughter, not the twins.”
“Could he have believed he’d had an affair with Lyndsey’s mom?”
Mina snorted a laugh. “He’d slept with everything that moved at that company. That part probably is real.”
“And he could have forgotten the twins were his too?”
“During those last few months, he’d forgotten they existed entirely, several times. He forgot who I was once or twice.”
Mina’s eyes began to tear. “What am I going to do?”
“I think we have to take this new information to Sheriff Carter.” Charlotte grimaced. “And we definitely need a new paternity test, not to mention a lawyer to prove Kimber wasn’t of sound mind and check the dates and signatures on everything.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Gemma leaned against the doorway of the stall and stared at Todd. He’d taken off his shirt and the muscles in his back moved and flexed as he picked through the straw.
“Hey,” she said, in what she hoped sounded like a sexy, smoky voice.
Todd looked up and rolled his eyes. He had a smile on his face when he first glanced up, but it had slipped away the moment he saw it was her.
No. I’m imagining that. He’s just hot. It’s humid today.
“Hey,” he said before returning to his work.
“What time do you think you’ll be done?”
Todd paused and leaned on his apple-picker, wiping his brow with the back of his arm.
“I don’t know. I guess the same time I’m usually done.”
He stared at her, as if waiting for her to say something, but she suddenly lost her nerve. Her mouth felt dry.
Gemma chewed her tongue a second and swallowed. “I was wondering if, maybe later—”
“If maybe later she could ride you like a stallion.” Payne banged into her sister’s arm, knocking her from her sexy, hip-cocked pose and sending her sprawling toward the wheelbarrow full of horse manure. She caught her balance and shoved her sister back.
“You’re such a jerk.”
Payne laughed and stepped back to avoid Gemma’s retaliation. She folded her hands and held them beneath her chin as she stared into the rafters. “Oh Todd, what are you doing tonight, big boy?”
Gemma could feel her face burning. She glanced at Todd and saw he, too, was laughing. Laughing at her.
She turned on her sister, who still stood swoony-eyed, pantomiming her adoration for Todd.
“I hate you!”
She ran down the center aisle to the barn exit. Once out, she threw her back against the outer wall, tears gliding down her hot cheeks.
He thinks I’m a joke.
She heard boots approaching and for a moment thought it might be Todd on his way to comfort her. He was coming to tell her she had no reason to be embarrassed and that he had feelings for her, too.
“Come on, I was just playing,” said Payne as she rounded the corner.
Oh it’s you.
Gemma looked away and wiped at her tears. “It’s not funny. You embarrassed me. Why do you always have to be such a jerk?”
Payne snorted a laugh. “You can’t be serious. You don’t really like Todd.”
Gemma looked at her sister. “What if I did?”
“Why would you be all over the manure boy?”
“He’s not a boy. He’s older than we are.”
“Yeah, and there’s another reason he wouldn’t want to be with you. You’re seventeen.”
“So?”
“He’s, like, twenty-one. That’s, like, statutory rape or something. He could go to jail.”
“We’re only four years apart.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Gemma crossed her arms against her chest and pouted. “We could wait to have sex.”
Payne guffawed. “Boys that age don’t wait to have sex.”
“How would you know?”
“Everyone knows. Boys that age are basically just a walking penis. It’s all they think about.”
Gemma looked across the field at her horse in the pasture, grazing. “Not Todd.”
“You’re kidding. Especially Todd. You know about him and Lyndsey, right?”
Gemma’s attention whipped back to her sister. “What?”
Payne nodded, a smug look on her face.
She always thinks she knows everything. Trouble was, she did seem to know more and she was younger by four minutes.
Payne rolled her eyes. “They’ve been doing it for months.”
“No, they haven’t.”
“Yes, they have.”
“How do you know?”
Payne huffed, as if she could barely deal with how stupid her sister was. “Remember that time she was late for our lesson and I rode back to the barn to find her?”
“Yeah?”
“Guess where I found her?”
Gemma sniffed and forgot her embarrassment. The gossip was proving much more interesting than her own pain. “Where?”
“I saw him coming down Lyndsey’s stairs. Tucking in his shirt.”
“So?”
“Whaddya mean so? It was so obvious. He had a whole look about him.”
“What kind of look?”
“You know. That I-just-rolled-out-of-Lyndsey’s-bed kind of look.”
Gemma peeked around the corner of the barn to stare down the center aisle. She
