The phone on his belt buzzed into life, and he quickly grabbed it. If she needed him…
“Mike?”
“Garrett.” Michael’s breath came out in a rush. It wasn’t Jenny.
“Hey, who were you expecting? Marilyn Monroe?”
“Yeah, right. What do you want?” It was impossible to eliminate the impatience in his voice, and he could imagine Garrett’s eyebrows doing a hike upward at the other end of the line.
“You were invited for dinner.”
“What?”
“Tonight,” Garrett said patiently. “We’ve had steak and salad, and Dylan and I have drunk most of the beer, but if you’re fast you can have some of Shelby’s pumpkin pie.”
Jenny doesn’t like pumpkin pie.
Somehow he didn’t say it. With a mental shake, he managed to get himself into the conversation. Into reality. “I’m not coming.”
“Are you with someone?”
“No.”
“As usual. You’re neck deep in work, maybe?”
“No, but…”
“Then we’re expecting you.” Garrett’s growl matched his. “The girls are disappointed. Or are you planning on staying out of family life completely now?”
“No.”
There was a pause. Something had caught Garrett’s attention. Something different? His voice lowered a notch, and Michael heard worry come into it. “You sound… You’re not down in that damned casino?”
“No!”
“Then get your butt over here, little brother,” Garrett demanded. “Before I drag you.”
Yeah. Okay. It seemed sensible enough, or more sensible than standing on the riverbank having conversations with himself. Besides, there was no point worrying Garrett and his sisters.
He took a deep breath, gathered his wits, turned into a single man again and went to face his family.
“THERE’S FIVE LEADS.”
Michael was sitting on the sofa at Garrett’s ranch, a can of cold beer in his hand. He’d refused Lana’s offer of a glass. He sat there trying not to think that Jenny would be shoving a glass at him regardless. He was trying not to smile at the thought.
“Are you with us, Mike?”
Michael blinked and focused. Garrett was standing in the center of the room. Their sister Shelby was on the floor at his feet, playing with Lana and Dylan’s baby, Greg, and Lana and Dylan were sitting way too close on the other sofa. The way they were looking at each other, there’d be another baby before too long.
“Oh. Um, yeah. Right.”
Garrett fixed him with a big-brother look that said, Pay attention or take the consequences, and continued.
“As I said, we need to do something concrete.”
What the heck were they talking about? They looked like they were waiting for an intelligent question. “We?” he said weakly, and hoped it was appropriate.
Apparently it wasn’t. All it earned him was a glower from Shelby.
“Garrett and me. Michael, you’re not listening. Shut up and concentrate.”
“Yeah, right.”
“We found five sets of triplets born around our birth dates,” Garrett repeated, frowning at his brother. Something was up with Michael, and he didn’t know what. His eyes stayed watchful as he kept talking. “Without fertility drugs, there weren’t as many triplets born then, and most didn’t survive. There are only five registered in Texas as making it.”
“So?” Two intelligent questions in one night! He was doing well. He nudged Shelby, and she glowered again.
“Shut up, Michael.”
Garrett’s frown deepened. Yeah. Something was definitely up with his baby brother, but all he could do was keep talking while he tried to figure it out.
“There was one set of triplets born to a LeeAnn and Gary Larrimore three towns from here at Lorretta Free Clinic. That seems the most promising lead, mostly because the hospital records are so scant, but there are four more around Texas. We thought if we split up… Mike, if you can help…”
Michael sighed as he finally figured what they were talking about. Their birth mother again! He might have known. They were asking him to get involved, and he didn’t want to.
“Why would I help?”
“Because we want to find our mother, Michael,” Shelby said, exasperated. “With your resources…”
“Sheila Lord was our mother, and that’s the only mother I want,” Michael said flatly. “Our natural mother dumped us.” Immediately Jenny came to mind. She wouldn’t have dumped her baby. No way! “Terrence and Sheila were the world’s greatest parents,” he went on. “They’re who I think of as Mom and Dad. I don’t need anyone else.”
“Most of the time you don’t need anyone at all,” Shelby snapped. “But some of us do.”
“There are easier ways to find someone to care about than searching for a woman who dumped us.”
“She cares.” Shelby’s voice rose. “Our mother cares. You read the note.”
“I know she’s having a guilt trip all these years later,” Michael argued. “So she sent Megan a stuffed toy and three cute little sweaters. It means nothing. She doesn’t suggest getting in touch.”
“The note said she loved us. Maybe she feels too guilty to ask about getting in touch.”
“Then maybe she’s right to feel like that. After all, she dumped us. She had no guarantee we’d be looked after.”
“Oh, right.” Shelby was angry, and on her high horse. Fighting with Michael had been her chief pastime since she was three. She swiveled on the floor and fixed Michael with a withering look. “She dumped us at Maitland Maternity, where Megan was in charge. Even back then, the press coverage on the place would have told her that Megan would move heaven and earth to get us cared for, and cared for together.”
“If she loved us, then she’d have stuck around to find out that we were okay.”
“She had reasons she couldn’t.”
“Well, I’m not interested in them,” Michael said flatly. “Terrence and Sheila did their best to bring us up. They gave us everything we needed and more, and it seems disloyal to them to go hunting for some woman who took the easy way out.”
“You’re too hard, Michael.”
“I’m not hard. I just see the facts. There’s no room in our lives for someone who never showed the least interest in being our mother.”
“There’s no room in your life for anyone,” Shelby snapped.
Now, that was a bit much. Michael considered her words while his siblings glared at him. He had everyone he needed right here in this room, he thought, and he really was fond of his hotheaded sister.
“Hey, except you,” he told Shelby, trying to prod her into smiling. He tweaked her hair as she sat on the floor beside him. She glowered, and he tweaked again.
“Cut it out!” Shelby protested.
“Then cut out being mad at me. You know you don’t mean it.”
“You’re so darned aloof. You don’t care.”
“Hey, I care about you guys.”
“Not enough to help us.”
“Nope.”
“Because you’re selfish.”
“Because you’re wasting time.” He paused. “And maybe because searching for this woman might be opening yourselves up to a whole lot of grief.”
“Aren’t you even interested?” she demanded hotly. “How can you not want to know?”
“Easy. I mind my own business. Not like some sisters I know.”
“Oh, you are so-” She grabbed the cushion she’d been using to support tiny Greg on the floor. Greg was lying flat on his back now, surveying his toes, and he had no need of it. In a practiced maneuver, Shelby took aim and swiped the cushion across Michael’s head.
Cushion swiping had been a skill Shelby had practiced since she was a toddler. Michael knew it and expected it. He rose and, catching her wrist, hauled her to her feet. He pushed her easily backward so she fell onto the sofa, then laughed into her indignant face.
“Some things never change,” he said fondly. “Isn’t this you all over, Shel? When all else fails, resort to violence.”