"You don't owe me for her."
He nodded.
Then became quiet.
"There is one thing I never told you."
I sighed.
"If another criminal organization is involved, I'm leaving."
He laughed.
"No."
"What?"
"Why I chose you."
"For Mara?"
"Yeah."
"Because we're brothers."
David looked at me.
"That's part of it."
Something in his expression made me uneasy.
"What aren't you telling me?"
He reached into his pocket.
Pulled out an envelope.
"Remember the DNA test?"
"Unfortunately."
"The one proving I wasn't Mara's biological father?"
"Yeah."
"There was another test."
My stomach tightened.
"What other test?"
David handed me the envelope.
I opened it.
Read the page.
Then read it again.
My brain refused to understand.
"That's impossible."
"No."
"David."
"It's not impossible."
I looked at the name.
Richard Morgan.
My name.
Then the result.
Probability of biological paternity:
99.998%.
I stood so quickly my chair fell backward.
"What the hell is this?"
David didn't move.
"The truth."
"No."
"Rick."
"I never touched Laura."
"I know."
"Then explain it."
David looked toward the clubhouse.
Toward Mara.
Then said the sentence that changed my life.
"Laura isn't Mara's biological mother either."
I stared at him.
"What?"
"Mara was adopted."
The world seemed to tilt.
David continued.
"Privately. Almost nobody knew."
"Whose child?"
He looked at me.
And suddenly I was afraid of the answer.
"Remember Amy?"
I stopped breathing.
Amy Carter.
The woman I'd loved when I was thirty-seven.
The woman I'd planned to marry.
The woman who left after one terrible year when neither of us knew how to stop hurting each other.
She moved west.
We lost contact.
David said:
"She was pregnant when she left."
My knees weakened.
"No."
"She didn't know until afterward."
"Why didn't she tell me?"
"She tried."
"What?"
"She called you."
"I never got a call."
"Your brother had just died. You'd quit riding. You were drinking. You disappeared for months."
I remembered.
God help me, I remembered.
That year was a hole in my life.
David continued.
"Amy contacted me."
"Why you?"
"Because she knew I could find you."
"Then why didn't you?"
His eyes filled with tears.
"Because she asked me not to."
I stepped backward.
"What?"
"She was sick, Rick."
My anger disappeared.
"What do you mean sick?"
"Cancer."
I couldn't breathe.
"She found out during the pregnancy."
David's voice cracked.
"She refused treatment until Mara was born."
I sat down.
"She died?"
"Three months later."
I covered my face.
The clubhouse door opened.
Mara stepped outside.
She saw us.
"What happened?"
Neither of us answered.
She noticed the paper.
Picked it up.
Read it.
Her eyes moved across the page.
Then stopped.
She looked at David.
Then at me.
"What is this?"
David stood.
"Mara—"
She backed away.
"What is this?"
I couldn't speak.
David did.
"Rick is your biological father."
Mara stared at me.
I'd faced armed men.
I'd buried my brother.
I'd watched friends die.
Nothing had ever frightened me like the look in that child's eyes.
"Did you know?" she asked.
"No."
"You're lying."
"I swear to you."
She looked at David.
"You knew?"
"For two years."
Her face collapsed.
"Two years?"
"I was trying to protect you."
"Everybody keeps saying that!"
She screamed.
"Everybody lies to me and then says it was protecting me!"
She ran.
I followed.
"Mara!"
She stopped beside my motorcycle.
"Don't."
I stopped.
She was crying.
"You were my uncle."
"I thought I was."
"Dad was my dad."
"He still is."
"Mom was my mom."
"She still is."
"Then what are you?"
That question broke me.
I didn't have an answer.
So I gave her the only honest one.
"I don't know."
She wiped her face.
I continued.
"I found out thirty seconds before you did."
She looked at me.
"I don't know how to be your father."
Her lip trembled.
"I don't know how to be your daughter."
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Then we don't have to know tonight."
She stared at me.
"We don't?"
"No."
I pointed toward David.
"That's your dad."
David was crying now.
"Laura is your mom."
I touched my chest.
"And apparently I'm something else."
Mara almost laughed.
"Something else?"
"Yeah."
"That's stupid."
"Probably."
She sniffed.
"What do I call you?"
"Whatever you want."
"Boomer?"
"Absolutely not."
She smiled through tears.
Then she stepped forward.
And hugged me.
I held her.
Not as her replacement father.
Not as the man who had rescued her.
Not even as Uncle Rick.
Just as someone who loved her.
We could figure out the name later.
But there was still one thing I didn't understand.
Why had David waited so long?
I learned the answer weeks later.
He came to my house carrying the old leather jacket.
"I think this belongs to you."
I shook my head.
"No."
"Rick."
"It's Mara's."
"Why?"
"Because apparently everything important in our lives gets hidden in that jacket."
He smiled.
Then became serious.
"Amy chose you."
"What?"
"For Mara."
I stared at him.
"Before she died, she wrote instructions."
David handed me another letter.
Old paper.
Amy's handwriting.
I recognized it immediately.
My hands shook.
David,
If Rick is healthy enough to raise her, I want him to know.
I stopped reading.
Looked at David.
"You were supposed to tell me."
"Yes."
"Then why didn't you?"
"Because you weren't healthy enough."
The words hurt.
Because they were true.
After my brother died, I'd become someone I barely recognized.
Drinking.
Fighting.
Riding too fast.
Sleeping wherever I passed out.
David continued.
"I kept waiting."
"For what?"
"For you to come back."
I looked down.
"You eventually did. But by then Mara was calling me Dad."
His voice broke.
"Laura loved her. I loved her. And I got scared."