Montana Hero (16 page)

The audience twittered. The actors had them. Kat looked at Flynn, her grin threatening to split her face in two. She glanced at Tucker, too, but he was watching intently, his lips miming some of the words her son spoke with an affected accent of Old Virginia.

Kat’s nest of butterflies never went away, but she managed not to cry or applaud too loudly or make a fool of herself. It helped that Flynn reached over and took her hand. He squeezed it supportively when Brady stumbled over the line after he had to help prompt his partner when she forgot a line. They both recovered without any real gap and they said their final good-byes, joined hands and walked off stage together.

The applause brought a tear to Kat’s eyes—even though she knew the exuberant cheer was for all the children, not just Brady. “My mother would have loved to see this. She and Brady used to play dress up and pretend all the time.”

“He did a great job,” Flynn said.

“Spot on,” Tucker said. “He had the audience in the palm of his hand the whole time.”

Kat knew that wasn’t true, but their praise felt good. A validation even that she’d done right to bring Brady to Marietta. He was flourishing. The past didn’t matter, the future would take care of itself. Her son was going to be okay.

She turned to Bailey and the other members of the family and gave a little clap. “They did great. Chloe was terrific.”

“There she is,” Bob Zabrinski’s baritone boomed. “The Sarah Bernhardt of the family.”

“The who?” Chloe asked, ripping off her wig.

“An actress long before your time,” her grandmother said. “You were wonderful, dear.”

“Thanks.”

Chloe threw her arms around her grandmother’s mid-section and hugged the woman hard. She only took a step back when Brady came along and there wasn’t room for him to pass. “Sorry,” Chloe said. “Thanks for helping with my one line.”

Brady nodded but his gaze seemed fixed on the tall, silver-haired man who obviously couldn’t wait to leave. “Where are you parked?” the man asked his son, who was holding the baby.

“About ten blocks away. Not quite, but it felt like it when I was running to get here before the show started. My wife does not like me to be late.”

Kat gave a little tug on her son’s jacket, expecting him to turn and acknowledge her, at least. She knew he wasn’t wild about public—or private, for that matter—displays of affection, but the fact he hadn’t even looked at her was unusual.

“Brady? Honey. You did great. I’m so proud of you. Isn’t there something you’d like to say to Tucker?”

He ignored her. Instead, he took a step toward the senior Zabrinski and held his position until the older man looked down. “Hello. Who are you? Oh, wait, you’re George Washington.”

Brady shook his head, his hair flattened in spots from the wig and sticking straight up at the back from his cowlick. “No. I’m Brady Adair Robinson. And I’m your grandson.”

‡

K
at heard the
words as clearly as if they’d been shouted at the top of a mountain and returned verbatim as an echo. Which happened when Robert Zabrinski repeated, “What do you mean ‘I’m your grandson’?”

The world around them seemed to shrink as those closest to the strange revelation inhaled and held their breath. Paul, baby in arms, leaned in closer, his fair brows knitted in question as he looked from his father to Brady.

“My grandma told me. She said you couldn’t marry her because she was a Jewish hippy.”

Kat’s heart thundered in her ears, along with the words
Jewish hippy.
Her mother’s words.
Oh, Mom, no. Please, no. Why would you tell Brady when you wouldn’t tell me?

Hurt and panic warred with her need to protect her son. How long had he been thinking about this, planning, waiting for the right moment? “Brady, honey, no. Oh, God, no, Mom didn’t say that, did she?” Kat cried, dropping to one knee. She gently gripped both of his upper arms to get him to look at her, but his attention was fixed on the man he’d just outted as a philanderer with an illegitimate child in front of his family and several dozen curious onlookers.

She felt the growing furor around them—suspicion, anger, embarrassment, and denial. “We should go, baby. This isn’t the place. Or the time.” She glanced up at the tall, scowling man, “His grandmother was sick. She didn’t always know what she was saying. He’s c…confused.”

Brady shook off her touch, angrily. “No, I’m not, Mom. I know what GG said. She told me about the whole family. The witch who made a banker die. The brother who shot his other brother.”

Kat’s jaw dropped and she shook her head, but no words came out. Thank God. The words she wanted to shout were for her dead mother.
Mom, how could you? How could you do this to your only grandson?

Mrs. Zabrinski took her husband’s arm and stepped closer. “What’s this all about? Who are you?”

Kat couldn’t remember the woman’s first name at the moment—hell, she could barely remember her own with so many eyes trained on her and her son. “Kat…Katherine Robinson. My son is Brady.” She gulped and added, “My mother’s name was Grace Adair.”

The woman looked at her husband. “Do you remember that name?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“She worked for you at Big Z’s Hardware. I have her final payroll check.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Grace…”

“Adair,” Brady shouted. “She said you were the love of her life.”

Kat groaned, softly. A part of her wanted to die, another part wanted to kill her dead mother.

“The name doesn’t ring a bell, son. Sorry. A lot of people have worked for me over the years. That was a long time ago.”

“Thirty-two years,” Brady said standing his ground the way he did when he believed he was right. “That’s how old my mom is.”

Robert Zabrinski stared at her with an intensity that made Kat want to crawl under a desk and wait for the world to end. But he didn’t utter a word.

Emotions she’d managed to repress for years…forever…bubbled to life, crashing through her brain, making her heart hurt so much she nearly doubled over. But she felt powerless to put this horrible genie back in the bottle, where she’d decided the past was best left.

The baldness of Brady’s statement—its obvious implication—triggered a group reaction. Paul passed the baby to Bailey then grabbed his daughter’s hand, pulling her from Brady’s side. “Time to go.”

Kat glimpsed the little girl’s quivering bottom lip and her pain quadrupled. She’d known this revelation would be hurtful, awful, which was the main reason she’d decided not to pursue the connection. But she hadn’t pictured the collateral damage. The grandchildren who worshipped their grandpa.

She looked at Brady, whose gaze remained fixed on Bob Zabrinski. A sudden insight stabbed her heart.
That’s why he did it. He wants to be part of this family. He wants more. More than just a mom who might get sick like his grandmother.
Oh. Oh.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. Sorry. As much a victim as any of them. Powerless to change a Goddamn thing.

Paul dragged Chloe toward his parents, probably intending to herd them away from the train wreck Kat and Brady had created. In his haste, he accidentally bumped one of the chairs into Brady, who winced and let out a small cry.

Kat’s mother-bear instincts kicked in. She pulled her son, who hated to be held but, for once, didn’t protest, into the protective shelter of her arms. “I’m sorry this came out today. I had no idea Brady was aware of any of this. He and my mother were very close, but she was ill for a long time.”

“I don’t know what this game is, young lady,” Bob Zabrinski said, his words biting with anger. “But what you’re implying…that I had sex with an employee…that you’re the result of that liaison…” He shook his head. “Never happened.”

Kat stared at him, turmoil writhing inside her chest. A lifetime of loss—everyone she loved, gone—exposed a raw, primal need she hadn’t known existed, let alone acknowledged. From some dark recess of her mind, she heard her grandmother berating her daughter for bringing the embarrassment of a
bastard love child
to her world.

“My mother loved you. She never cashed the check you gave her.” She somehow managed not to share the unspeakable question—had the money been intended for an abortion that Mom chose not to have?

Everyone spoke at once. Questions. Recriminations. Denials.

Flynn stepped to Kat’s side, his arms raised. “Time out, everyone. Please. Consider where you are and all the young ears present. Perhaps you’d like to do this some other time? Another place?”

Bailey touched his shoulder. “You’re right, Flynn.”

Kat wanted to shove her away. What was wrong with her? Life wasn’t complicated enough? She had to fall for the wrong guy, too?

Bob Zabrinski put one arm around his wife’s shoulders. “We’re leaving.” He looked at Kat for a long moment, but he didn’t say anything more. He simply shook his head.

Beyond the anger, Kat thought she detected a hint of regret—or was it confusion—in his eyes?

She didn’t care. The only thing that mattered at the moment was Brady. She sat and pulled him close enough that she could keep their conversation private.

“Did I do bad?” he asked, chin touching his chest.

Her already mangled heart bled a little more. “I know you’ve been thinking about this for a long time, haven’t you?”

He nodded. “Isn’t that why we came here? So you could meet your family?”

Kat’s heart squeezed so tight against her ribs she could barely swallow. “You’re my family, sweetheart. I love you more than life. We moved here because…” Was he right? Did she secretly plan to confront her birth father? Make Robert Zabrinski prove his paternity? Inflict some of the pain she’d apparently harbored all these years on an unsuspecting stranger and his lovely family?

No. Not intentionally.
And certainly not like what just happened. “We needed a change after Grandma died and Marietta is the one place where she was happiest.”

The truth…or some small part of it. At the moment, all Kat wanted to do was pack up and run back to Texas.

Kat stood, so drained she wasn’t sure she had enough in her to drive home. “Let’s go, baby. Do you still want an ice cream?”

“No. I wanna go home.”

Their apartment? Or Texas? Did it matter?

“Kat. A minute before you leave?”

Flynn. Oh, crap. What must he think? That she was a scheming gold digger after a piece of the big Zabrinski pie?

“Run to your locker and get your backpack, hon. And return any of the props that aren’t ours.”

“My ankle is killing me,” Tucker said. “I’m going to wait in the truck. Hey, buddy,” he added, giving Brady two thumbs up, “great job on your lines. You really delivered.”

Brady didn’t acknowledge the praise as he trudged toward the door leading to his classroom, so Kat said, “Thank you, Tucker. You helped a lot.”

Once Brady was out of earshot, she added, “I think he’s headed for a meltdown. Big emotional displays do that to him.”

“Me, too,” Tucker said with a wink. “Later.”

When they were alone, Flynn motioned for her to follow him to a quiet corner out of the way of the cleanup crew dismantling the stage.

“I gather what happened came as a surprise.”

“Completely.”

“But you’ve suspected for some time that Bob Zabrinski was your birth father?”

Stark. Frank. So like Flynn to cut through the bull crap.

“Mom told everyone she had an affair with a married man nine months before I was born. She was living in Marietta at the time and working at Big Z’s Hardware. When I found an old payroll check that she’d hidden in a book—” With the telltale bonus that seemed so ominous in Kat’s imagination, but probably signified severance pay or something completely innocent. “I went online and did some research. Mr. Zabrinski was her boss—her married boss. And he included a personal inscription on the check that sounded very…regretful.”

She tried to laugh but the sound came out broken. “Lame, right? The twisted logic of a needy little girl with daddy issues?” She wiped away the lone, stupid tear she couldn’t hold back. “You may not believe me, but I’d already decided not to contact him. I’m not stupid, Flynn. Or mean. I knew how much pain this sort of toxic revelation could bring to his family. I swear to you I had no idea Brady even knew his name, let alone put all this together.”

“Do you have a copy of the check?”

His question came across as too bloodless, too official, for her taste. She pushed off from the wall she’d been leaning against. “Of course. I never throw away anything…just like my mother. The original is in San Antonio. Which is probably where I should be,” she added.

Before he could say anything else—interrogate her further?—she spotted Brady shuffling toward them like an old man headed for a funeral. “I have to go.”

She felt his gaze follow her across the room. Was a part of her disappointed he didn’t offer more in the way of support? Maybe. But what man would? They barely knew each other and suddenly she was embroiled in an ancient scandal with his brother’s future in-laws.

Flynn had a promising future in Marietta. A small, conservative town where she’d just mortally insulted the patriarch of one of its most prominent families. Only a fool would jeopardize that future by getting involved with someone like her.