“But you gave up the idea of looking for your birth parents, didn’t you?”
“At first I was so angry that I didn’t care what they wanted, but then, after a few days, I realized how deeply hurt they would be. I told myself that they were my real parents in every way that mattered, so, yes, I dropped the idea.”
“Where would you have looked?” he asked.
“Dallas, I suppose. It was the closest big city.” She shrugged. “I was sixteen. This hit me out of the blue. I had no idea how to start.”
“And they never told you anything more, just that you had been born in Texas?”
“Nothing.” She sighed and broke the chip she was holding in two and put it aside.
When she glanced up again, Luke saw that her eyes were shimmering with unshed tears. His resolve stiffened. He would find her biological parents for her. She would have her family. She would have an identity that belonged to her, something he realized with sudden intuition was probably just as important to her as family.
No longer would she be Grace and Dancy Garnett’s adopted daughter. Or Erik Adams’s widow. Or even Angela Adams’s mother. She would know her roots, her heritage. That, above all, was something Luke could understand. It was something no one in his family ever lost sight of. He’d been raised on tales of his ancestors and their struggles and accomplishments. They’d been held up as role models, tough in body and indomitable in spirit. Luke and his brothers had been expected to surpass their examples. The pressure had been unceasing.
It was odd, he thought. Jessie had so little family history. He sometimes thought he and his brothers had had too much. The legacy had shaped them into the men they were. He had wanted to shape his own legacy. Cody had fought to claim the one they shared. Jordan was, quite possibly, the most fiercely independent of all of them.
He reached across the table and claimed Jessie’s hand. It was cold as ice. Clearly startled by his touch, she met his gaze.
“Just wanted to bring you back to the present, darlin’,” he said softly.
Color rose in her cheeks. “Oh, Luke, I’m sorry. I never talk about the past like that. I can’t imagine what got into me. You’ve probably been bored to tears.”
“Anything but,” he assured her, resisting the urge to run straight to the pay phone and call Jim Hill with the few bits of new information he had. He needed one last thing, though, the only thing he could think of that might help and that Jessie was sure to know, despite her doubts about so much else. He needed to find out her exact birthday. He knew how old she was—twenty-seven. And he recalled that her birthday was sometime in summer.
In fact he would never forget the celebration they’d thrown at White Pines her first year there. Erik had insisted on a real, old-fashioned Texas barbecue with neighbors coming from miles around and a live band for square dancing. He remembered every minute of it. That, in fact, was the night he’d realized that he was falling for his brother’s wife, that what he’d dismissed as attraction went far deeper.
Jessie had been his partner for a spinning, whirling, breath-stealing square dance. Her cheeks had been flushed. Her bare shoulders had shimmered with a damp sheen of perspiration. Her lush lips had been parted, inviting a kiss. He had obliged before he’d realized he was going to do it. The quick, impulsive kiss had been briefer than a heartbeat, but it had shaken him to his core. Jessie had looked as if she’d been poleaxed.
The band had shifted gears just then and played a slow dance. Jessie had drifted into his arms, innocently relaxing against him, oblivious he was certain to the fact that his body was pulsing with sudden, urgent need. Desperate to keep her from discovering just how badly he wanted her, he had spotted Erik across the dance floor and maneuvered them into his brother’s path. Erik had been only too eager to claim his wife.
If there had been regret in Jessie’s eyes, Luke had blinded himself to it. He’d taken off right after that dance and from that day on he’d steered as far away from Jessie as he possibly could without drawing notice.
Glancing at her, he wondered if she recalled that night as vividly as he did. Bringing up the memory was one way to learn the last piece of information he figured he could get for the detective—or so he told himself.
“Hey, darlin’, do you recall that shindig we threw for your birthday your first year at White Pines?”
Her blue eyes sparkled at once. “Goodness, yes. I’d never had such a lavish birthday party. Your parents actually had a dance floor installed under the stars, remember?”
“Oh, I remember,” he said, his voice dropping a seductive notch.
“I’d never square danced before.”
“You sure took to it.”
“It was exhilarating,” she said softly, and her eyes met his, her expression nostalgic.
If she was saying more than the obvious, Luke couldn’t be sure. He decided for his own sanity it would be best to steer away from the minefield of any more intimate memories.
“Was that July or August? All I remember was how hot it was.” Of course, he conceded to himself, his memory of the temperature might have had nothing to do with the weather. Jessie could have had his blood steaming with a look back then. She still could, he admitted. Air-conditioning hadn’t been manufactured that could cool him off in her presence.
“August second,” she said. “It was the day before my birthday.”
That nailed it down, Luke thought, rather proud of himself. He glanced at his watch, then slid from the booth. “Excuse me a second, Jessie. There’s a phone call I was supposed to make.
