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Jack swallows and turns to his mother. “Are you sure you really want to know?”
Lauren nods. “I think it will be good for me and good for Pat. Everyone wants to know where they came from. My whole life, I had no idea I was the daughter of Brad Steel. And Ryan, you spent half your life not knowing who your biological mother was. If we can find out, we should.”
“God, this is so fucked up,” I say under my breath.
My father looks at me sternly. “David, we are all truly sorry about your vacation.”
“Oh God,” I say, “that’s not what I meant. I just… Do you think this could get any weirder? Any worse? Any more horrific? Uncle Joe, we can’t lose you. We just can’t.”
Aunt Melanie wipes her eyes again, and so does Aunt Jade.
“David,” Uncle Joe says. “You know I think of you as a son. Bradley and Brock are my biological children, but I regard all of you as our sons and daughters. So believe me when I say this, son. I’m going to fight this with everything I have. But even if I fail, I have two brothers and two sisters who can lead this family into the next generation.”
I get choked up at that, and I’m not the only one. Sniffles resound throughout the room. Angie and Sage are nearly sobbing.
“I think we need to adjourn for now,” Uncle Talon says. “Tomorrow, Aunt Ruby, Uncle Bryce, and I will go with Pat to see the DNA expert and get our blood drawn. If our suspicions about the rapists are correct, we’ll be able to identify Pat’s father. In the meantime, Uncle Bryce will begin working on the deed transfers with our attorneys.”
“Does that mean we can go?” Dale asks.
“Yes, son. You all can go.”
As we all rise, one by one, we give Uncle Joe hugs and wish him well. It makes him uncomfortable, I can tell, but he puts up with it because we’re family.
He’s been our patriarch since we all came into this world.
And all recent things considered, I’m not sure we can survive without him.
Chapter Sixteen
Maddie
I spend the morning helping my mother around the house.
“It is nice to have you home, Madeline,” she says. “I missed you.”
“I would’ve been in college anyway,” I say.
“I know that.” She draws me in to squeeze me. “You’re my baby. My last little one. We’re truly empty nesters now.”
“I suppose you’ll have grandchildren soon,” I say.
She furrows her brow a bit.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your brother and Brianna Steel,” she says. “I didn’t see that coming, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.”
I blink. That’s strange. She was ecstatic when Callie and Rory snagged Steels. “Then how would you feel about me with Dave Simpson?”
She widens her eyes, and I recognize the look—the ecstatic one.
“There’s nothing,” I say quickly. I don’t want to get her hopes up. “I mean, we’re kind of seeing each other. It happened while we were overseas.”
Mom frowns. “I didn’t even know Dave was there.”
“Yeah, he showed up a couple of days into the tour.” I bite my lip. “But now something’s happening that they all had to come home for, so my vacation got cut short.”
“I suppose you could have stayed.”
