“What did it say. The letter?” Joe’s voice was low and thick with emotion.
“I don’t have all the words, but it said that if she died, the boy’s father was not fit to raise him, and she wanted Nixon to go to his three brothers in Ryker Falls.”
“Do you have a description of this Claire Redden?” Joe rasped.
He knew his mother’s name was Claire. That was about all Luke remembered about the woman who had abandoned them.
“Five foot five. Brunette. Green eyes. Her man, the boy’s father, is in a motorcycle gang, the Bandits. All I have on him is that his name is Grill. Sheriff Dans asked the boy when he’d last seen him, and he said he wasn’t sure but awhile.”
“Well, fuck.” Joe let out a breath.
“Could be BS,” Jack said.
“How?” Luke asked. “Why would our names be on the letter if it was?”
“I don’t know why, do I?” Jack snapped.
“If he is ours and his mother has just been murdered, then he’s going through hell,” Luke growled. “And we all know what hell is like.”
He was back there then. In his bedroom, cowering in the corner as his father started yelling and trying to get into their room. The gnawing pain of hunger, and the cold of not being dressed in warm clothes.
“I still say it could be BS,” Jack said.
“How do you figure?” Luke snapped. “Why the fuck would some stranger decide to call us her sons?”
“Don’t roar at me!” Jack snarled.
“Simmer down,” Joe said.
“We can’t leave him alone.” He looked at his brothers. “You know that just as I do. He could be ours,” Luke said. He got to his feet, needing to move. His chest was tight, his head felt dizzy. His mother was dead. He walked away from his brothers and tried to breathe.
“Sorry, I forgot my shopping.” Quinn reappeared. She reached where he stood in the middle of the café, a small smile on her lips. It fell away as she looked at him.
“What’s wrong?” She stopped before him.
His eyes locked on hers. Focused on the brown depths. Tried to clear the chaos inside his head.
“Luke?” Her hand touched the one he had clenched at his side.
“We-We just had some news.”
“Bad?”
He managed to nod. He opened his fist and gripped her fingers hard, needing to feel grounded to something, anything. The warmth of her skin eased some of the ice inside him, but only some.
“What’s happened?”
“We’ve had a visit from the past,” he managed to get out. His voice sounded weird. “We have a brother.”
She looked from him to his brothers and Pip and then back to him.
“You need to breathe now, Luke. Slow it down.”
He tried to focus on Quinn’s voice. Suddenly panic had tightened his chest, like it had when he’d been scared as a child.
“Luke!” His eyes shot to hers. “Inhale as I count to four.”
He did as she asked.