I stared at him a moment and wondered if he was right. Had Gran done this? Had she known? Was this a secret my mother had kept from me and if she had kept this from me then that meant… I had a brother.
“I don’t.” I shook my head. “I don’t think Gran would have kept the fact I had a half brother from me my entire life”
Rio shrugged. “Maybe not but if she had and she’d done it at the request of your mother then wouldn’t it make sense for her at her death to make sure you found out?”
There was one simple answer to that. “Yes.” Because Gran would want me to know. This could very well have been her way of putting me in the right place to make connections in hopes that the truth came out. A truth she wanted me to know. A truth I deserved to know.
“How do we find out who this Rebel is?” I asked.
Rio shrugged. “I don’t know. I was thinking there might be answers hidden away somewhere at your grandmother’s. I’ve exhausted my grandparents’ house.”
I inhaled deeply and exhaled before running my hand over my face. This was a lot. So much of it made sense, yet so much of it seemed unlikely.
“Can I see the letters? Just the ones my mom wrote?” I asked him then.
He nodded. “Yeah. We can start there.”
We. There was a we to this. We both wanted answers we had never gotten from our mothers. Yet, what if the secrets were there for a reason? To protect us? Should we dig into something we might not want the answers to?
Gran had sent me there. Rio was right about that. She had sent me to take tool boxes to Lloyd. Had she been hoping a connection like this one would happen? If she wanted me to know the truth then it couldn’t be that bad. Right?
“Okay, yeah. That’s where we will start,” I finally said.
“Sun has almost set. It’ll get dark soon and the crabs will be out. Want to walk back to the house. The crowd will either have thinned or moved inside. Depends on Saul’s mood,” he said as he started walking back that way before I could even answer.
I fell into step beside him and even though my mind should be turning with all this new information, instead I was thinking of someone else. “Why does it depend on Saul’s mood?” I asked.
Rio chuckled. “Because it is Saul’s house. Drake and I pay rent. Everyone will gauge Saul’s mood before deciding to stay or not. Typically he’s the first to leave a party.”
I had no reason to be so intrigued by Saul but hearing he owned that house only made me more curious. If he could afford a house like that then why did he drive an old beat-up truck? “How does he afford that house?” I asked bluntly.
Rio shrugged and for a moment I thought he was going to say nothing. I was being nosey and I understood if his shrug was the only response I would get. “That’s Saul’s story to tell,” he said finally.
I said nothing more and we walked back in silence. My thoughts finally moved from Saul back to the letters that could possibly lead to information about my dad… and Rio’s. Was it possible he was my brother? The idea seemed so insane I didn’t even take it seriously. But what if? How would that feel? And did my mother know?
If Rio was my brother and my mom knew about him, I wasn’t sure I could forgive her for not telling me.
The pool and deck appeared empty from down on the sand. Rio glanced up and then back at me. “Saul must have been done,” he said with a smirk then headed for the stairs.
I slipped back on my sandals, after dusting the sand from my feet, and followed him up the stairs. Rio had reached the top step when he said, “Run them off already?”
Saul was sitting in one of the teak double lounge chairs with a bottle in his hand. His gaze was on the crashing waves, but he turned his head in our direction at Rio’s question.
The moonlight cast shadows, making it hard to see his face clearly. “Drake called a poker night. Most are inside around the table,” he said.
“Ah, should have expected that with Benji back in town,” Rio replied. Then he glanced down at me. “You any good at Texas Hold ‘Em?”
“I’ve never played,” I replied, hoping he didn’t want me to go learn.
“Mind if I go sit in a few hands?” he asked.
I didn’t mind at all, but I also wanted a ride home. The reason I had agreed to come tonight was done. Staying here in a house that belonged to a guy that did not want me around didn’t sound like a good time. Telling him all of this with Saul watching us, however, was difficult.