“I can’t—”
“So help me, if you say you can’t tell me, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” she shot at him, her voice rising with every word. “Leave? Walk away when things get too much for you? Disappear like you did before? Leave me alone, without a word? Let me search for you for years and all the time you were sneaking around at my art shows? Is that what you’ll do?”
“No,” he said softly. “I won’t do that ever again. But right now, what I am going to do is stay in this room with you until you tell me what’s tearing you up inside.”
“I . . .” Her anger left her and she sat down on the side of the bed, her hands over her face.
Travis sat down beside her and put his arm around her, drawing her head to his shoulder. “Does this have to do with Russell being my half brother?”
Kim hesitated for only a second. “How did . . . ?”
“I’ve not had a lot of experience with relatives, but I’m a good observer. Who else can look at you with the hatred Russ had for me that first day? It was like looking in a mirror, except that one reflection wanted to murder the other one.”
Kim let out a deep sigh of relief that he knew. When her body relaxed, Travis turned her around on the bed so they stretched out together.
“So what happened while I was on the phone to Penny? You were fine while we were shopping, but when you came into the diner you were so white you looked like a vampire had drained you of blood.”
“That’s a more appropriate description than you know,” Kim said with a grimace.
Travis kissed her forehead. “I want to hear every word of it. Don’t leave anything out.”
“But—”
He leaned over her and looked into her eyes. “No buts. No excuses. And most of all, no fear. Especially not of me. Did you murder anyone I love?”
She knew he was trying to lighten the mood, but to Kim all this was very serious. “No,” she said, “but I’m considering running your father down with a lawn mower.”
Travis’s face lost its look of amusement and she saw the man who appeared in courtrooms. He fell back on the bed and pulled her to him so close she could hardly breathe. If she’d had her way, she would have moved even closer.
Where to begin? “Remember last night before dinner when I waited for you while you talked on the phone?”
“To that idiot Forester? Sure. What happened?”
“I met your father.” Travis’s hand tightened on Kim’s shoulder, but otherwise he said nothing.
Once Kim started her story, Travis said little, and listened hard. She told him of her two encounters with the man who called himself Red, and she went over every word she could remember of their conversations. She told Travis of Red’s little homily about children eating lead paint but only remembering being forbidden from doing what they wanted to do.
“That sounds like Dad. He thinks he can explain away every rotten thing he does.”
She could tell that he wasn’t shocked that his father had shown up in Janes Creek. But Travis drew in his breath when she told of Mr. Maxwell fishing in Edilean.
“I never asked Mom where she heard of Edilean in the first place. I never even thought about it, but Dad could have told her. It makes sense. Go on, please.”
She told him of when she realized Russell was his brother. “They were giving me looks of pleading not to tell you.”
“Penny was. Russ was enjoying every second of it.”
“You knew?!”
“One of the things I’ve learned in being a lawyer is to watch as well as listen. None of you were subtle.”
“Do you think Russ knows you know?”
“Of course. The kid is loving every minute of this.”
“He’s not even two years younger than you are, so he’s not really a kid.”