Texas Wild (12 page)

Rico had deliberately been a jerk, and he had never acted that
way before. If she didn’t know better she would think it had been intentional.
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, and she suddenly slowed her pace. Had it been
intentional? Did he assume that if he was rude to her she would pack up and go
running back to Denver?

Well, if that’s what he thought, she had news for him. It
wouldn’t happen. Now that she was here in Forbes, she intended to stay, and he
would find out that two could play his game.

Not surprisingly, he was waiting for her in the lobby when she
finally made it down. Deciding to have it out with him, here and now, she walked
over and stared up at him. “I’m ready to take you on, Rico Claiborne.”

He smiled. “Think you can?”

“I’m going to try.” She continued to hold his gaze, refusing to
back down. She felt the hot, explosive chemistry igniting between them and knew
he felt it, too.

“I don’t think you know what you’re asking for, Megan.”

Oh, she knew, and if the other night was a sample, she was
ready to let loose and let her hair down again. “Trust me, I know.”

His smile was replaced with a frown. “Fine. Let’s go.”

They were on their way out the revolving doors when his cell
phone rang. They stopped and he checked his caller ID, hoping it wasn’t Jeff
Claiborne again, and answered it quickly when he saw it was Fanny Banks’s
granddaughter returning his call. Moments later, after ending the call, he said
to Megan, “Change in plans. We’ll go to the newspaper office later. That was
Dorothy Banks, and her grandmother can see us now.”

Eleven

“Y
es, may I help you?”

“Yes, I’m Rico Claiborne and this is Megan Westmoreland. You
were expecting us.”

The woman, who appeared to be in her early fifties, smiled.
“Yes, I’m Dorothy Banks, the one you spoke to on the phone. Please come in.”

Rico stepped aside to let Megan enter before him and followed
her over the threshold, admiring the huge home. “Nice place you have here.”

If the house wasn’t a historical landmark of some sort then it
should be. He figured it had to have been built in the early 1900s. The huge
two-story Victorian sat on what appeared to be ten acres of land. The structure
of the house included two huge columns, a wraparound porch with spindles, and
leaded glass windows. More windows than he thought it needed, but if you were a
person who liked seeing what was happening outside, then it would definitely
work. The inside was just as impressive. The house seemed to have retained the
original hardwood floors and inside walls. The furniture seemed to have been
selected to complement the original era of the house. Because of all the
windows, the room had a lot of light from the afternoon sunshine.

“You mentioned something about Ms. Westmoreland being a
descendant of Raphel Westmoreland?” the woman asked.

“Yes. I’m helping her trace her family roots, and in our
research, the name Clarice Riggins came up. The research indicated she was a
close friend of Raphel. Since Ms. Banks was living in the area at the time,
around the early nineteen hundreds, we thought that maybe we could question her
to see if she recalls anyone by that name.”

Dorothy smiled. “Well, I can tell you that, and the answer is
yes. Clarice Riggins and my grandmother were childhood friends. Although Clarice
died way before I was born, I remember Gramma Fanny speaking of her from time to
time when she would share fond memories with us.”

Megan had reached out and touched his hand. Rico could tell she
had gotten excited at the thought that the Bankses knew something about
Clarice.

“But my grandmother is the one you should talk to,” Dorothy
added.

“We would love to,” Megan said excitedly. “Are you sure we
won’t be disturbing her?

The woman stood and waved her hand. “I’m positive. My
grandmother likes talking about the past.” She chuckled. “I’ve heard most of it
more times than I can count. I think she would really appreciate a new set of
ears. Excuse me while I go get her. She’s sitting on the back porch. The
highlight of her day is watching the sun go down.”

“And you’re sure we won’t be disrupting her day?” Megan
asked.

“I’m positive. Although I’ve heard the name Clarice, I don’t
recall hearing the name of Raphel Westmoreland before. Gramma Fanny will have to
tell you if she has.”

Megan turned enthusiastic eyes to Rico. “We might be finding
out something at last.”

“Possibly. But don’t get your hopes up, okay?”

“Okay.” She glanced around. “This is a nice place. Big and
spacious. I bet it’s the family home and has been around since the early
nineteen hundreds.”

“Those were my thoughts.”

“It reminds me of our family home and—”

Megan stopped talking when Dorothy returned, walking with an
older woman using a cane. Both Megan and Rico stood. Fanny Banks was old, but
she didn’t look a year past eighty. To think the woman had just celebrated her
one-hundredth birthday was amazing.

Introductions were made. Megan thought she might have been
mistaken, but she swore she’d seen a hint of distress in Fanny’s gaze. Why? In
an attempt to assure the woman, Megan took her hand and gently tightened her
hold and said, “It’s an honor to meet you. Happy belated birthday. I can’t
believe you’re a hundred. You are beautiful, Mrs. Banks.”

Happiness beamed in Fanny Banks’s eyes. “Thank you. I
understand you have questions for me. And call me Ms. Fanny. Mrs. Banks makes me
feel old.”

“All right,” Megan said, laughing at the teasing. She looked
over at Rico and knew he would do a better job of explaining things than she
would. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was trying to take
over his job.

They continued to stand until Dorothy got Ms. Fanny settled
into an old rocking chair. Understandably, she moved at a slow pace.

“Okay, now what do you want to ask me about Clarice?” Ms. Fanny
asked in a quiet tone.

“The person we really want information about is Raphel
Westmoreland, who we believe was an acquaintance of Clarice’s.”

Megan saw that sudden flash of distress again, which let her
know she hadn’t imagined it earlier. Ms. Fanny nodded slowly as she looked over
at Megan. “And Raphel Westmoreland was your grandfather?”

Megan shook her head. “No, he was my great-grandfather, and a
few years ago we discovered he had a twin brother we hadn’t known anything
about.”

She then told Ms. Fanny about the Denver Westmorelands and how
they had lost Raphel’s only two grandsons and their wives in a plane crash,
leaving fifteen of them without parents. She then told Fanny how, a few years
ago, they discovered Raphel had a twin named Reginald, and how they had begun a
quest to determine if there were more Westmorelands they didn’t know about,
which had brought them here.

Ms. Fanny looked down at her feeble hands as if studying
them…or trying to make up her mind about something. She then lifted her gaze and
zeroed in on Megan with her old eyes. She then said, “I’m so sorry to find out
about your loss. That must have been a difficult time for everyone.”

She then looked down at her hands again. Moments later, she
looked up and glanced back and forth between Rico and Megan. “The two of you are
forcing me to break a promise I made several years ago, but I think you deserve
to know the truth.”

Nervous tension flowed through Megan. She glanced over at Rico,
who gazed back at her before he turned his attention back to Ms. Fanny and
asked, “And what truth is that?”

The woman looked over at her granddaughter, who only nodded for
her to continue. She then looked at Megan. “The man your family knew as Raphel
Westmoreland was an imposter. The real Raphel Westmoreland died in a fire.”

Megan gasped. “No.” And then she turned and collapsed in Rico’s
arms.

* * *

“Megan,” Rico whispered softly as he stroked the side of
her face with his fingertips. She’d fainted, and poor Ms. Fanny had become
nervous that she’d done the wrong thing, while her granddaughter had rushed off
to get a warm facecloth, which he was using to try to bring Megan back
around.

He watched as she slowly opened her eyes and looked at him. He
recognized what he saw in her gaze. A mixture of fear and confusion. “She’s
wrong, Rico. She has to be. There’s no way my great-grandfather was not who he
said he was.”

Rico was tempted to ask why was she so certain but didn’t want
to upset her any more than she already was. “Then come on, sit up so we can
listen to her tell the rest of it and see, shall we?”

Megan nodded and pulled herself up to find she was still on the
sofa. There was no doubt in her mind that both Ms. Fanny and Dorothy had heard
what she’d just said. Manners prompted her to apologize. “I’m sorry, but what
you said, Ms. Fanny, is overwhelming. My great-grandfather died before I was
born so I never knew him, but all those who knew him said he was a good and
honest person.”

Ms. Fanny nodded. “I didn’t say that he wasn’t, dear. What I
said is that he wasn’t the real Raphel.”

Tightening his hand on Megan’s, Rico asked, “If he wasn’t
Raphel, then who was he?”

Ms. Fanny met Rico’s gaze. “An ex-convict by the name of
Stephen Mitchelson.”

“An ex-convict!” Megan exclaimed, louder than she’d intended
to.

“Yes.”

Megan was confused. “B-but how? Why?”

It took Ms. Fanny a while before she answered then she said,
“It’s a long story.”

“We have time to listen,” Rico said, glancing over at Megan. He
was beginning to worry about her. Finding out upsetting news like this was one
of the reasons he hadn’t wanted her here, yet he had gone and brought her
anyway.

“According to Clarice, she met Raphel when she was visiting an
aunt in Wyoming. He was a drifter moving from place to place. She told him about
her home here and told him if he ever needed steady work to come here and her
father would hire him to work on their ranch.”

She paused a moment and then said, “While in Wyoming, she met
another drifter who was an ex-con by the name of Stephen Mitchelson. She and
Stephen became involved, and she became pregnant. But she knew her family would
never accept him, and she thought she would never see him again.”

Ms. Fanny took a sip of water from the glass her granddaughter
handed her. “Only the man who showed up later, here in Texas, wasn’t Raphel but
Stephen. He told her Raphel had died in a fire. To get a fresh start, he was
going to take Raphel’s identity and start a new life elsewhere. And she let him
go, without even telling him she was pregnant with his child. She loved him that
much. She wanted to give him a new beginning.”

Ms. Fanny was quiet for a moment. “I was there the day she made
that decision. I was there when he drove away and never looked back. I was also
there when she gave birth to their child. Alone.”

The room was silent and then Megan spoke softly. “What happened
to her and the baby?”

“She left here by train to go stay with extended family in
Virginia. Her father couldn’t accept she had a baby out of wedlock. But she
never made it to her destination. The train she was riding on derailed, killing
her and the baby.”

“My God,” Megan said, covering her hands with her face. “How
awful,” she said. A woman who had given up so much had suffered such a tragic
ending.

She drew in a deep breath and wondered how on earth she was
going to return home to Denver and tell her family that they weren’t
Westmorelands after all.

* * *

Several hours later, back in his hotel room, Rico sat on
the love seat and watched as Megan paced the floor. After leaving the Bankses’
house, they had gone to the local newspaper office, and the newspaper articles
they’d read hadn’t helped matters, nor had their visit to the courthouse. The
newspapers had verified the train wreck and that Clarice and her child had been
killed. There was also a mention of the fire in Wyoming and that several men had
been burned beyond recognition.

There were a lot of unanswered questions zigzagging through
Rico’s mind but he pushed them aside to concentrate on Megan. At the moment, she
was his main concern. He leaned forward and rested his arms on his thighs. “If
you’re trying to walk a hole in the floor, you’re doing a good job of it.”

She stopped, and when he saw the sheen of tears in her eyes, he
was out of his seat in a flash. He was unsure of what he would say, but he knew
he had to say something. “Hey, none of that,” he whispered quietly, pulling her
into his arms. “We’re going to figure this out, Megan.”

She shook her head and pushed away from him. “This is all my
fault. In my eagerness to find out everything about Raphel, I may have caused
the family more harm than good. You heard Fanny Banks. The man everyone thought
was Raphel was some ex-convict named Stephen Mitchelson. What am I going home to
say? We’re not really Westmorelands, we’re Mitchelsons?”

He could tell by the sound of her voice she was really torn up
over what Fanny Banks had said. “But there might be more to what she said,
Megan.”

“But Fanny Banks was there, Rico,” she countered. “I always
said there was a lot about my great-grandfather that we didn’t know. He went to
his grave without telling anyone anything about having a twin brother or if he
had family somewhere. Now I know why. He probably didn’t know any of Raphel’s
history. He could never claim anyone. I don’t know how the fourth woman named
Isabelle fits in, but I do know Raphel—Stephen—finally settled down with my
great-grandmother Gemma. From the diary she left behind, the one that Dillon let
me read, I know they had a good marriage, and she always said he was a
kind-hearted man. He certainly didn’t sound like the kind who would have been an
ex-con. The only thing I ever heard about Raphel was that he was a kind, loving
and honorable man.”

“That still might be the case, Megan.”

As if she hadn’t heard him, she said, “I have to face the
possibility that the man my father and uncle idolized, the man they thought was
the best grandfather in the entire world, was nothing but a convict who wasn’t
Raphel Westmoreland and—”

“Shh, Megan,” he whispered, breaking in and pulling her closer
into his arms. “Until we find out everything, I don’t want you getting upset or
thinking the worst. We’ll go to the courthouse tomorrow and dig around some
more.”

Sighing deeply, she pulled away from him, swiped at more tears
and tilted her head back to look up at him. “I need to be alone for a while so
I’m going to my room. Thanks for the shoulder to cry on.”

Rico shoved his hands into the pockets of his khakis. “What
about dinner?”

“I’m not hungry. I’ll order room service later.”

“You sure?”

She shrugged. “Right now, Rico, I’m not sure about anything.
That’s why I need to take a shower and relax.”

He nodded. “Are you going to call Dillon or Ramsey and tell
them the latest developments?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. It’s something I wouldn’t be able
to tell them over the phone anyway.” She headed for the door. “Good night. I’ll
see you in the morning.”

“Try to get some sleep,” he called out to her. She nodded but
kept walking and didn’t look back. She opened the connecting door and then
closed it behind her.

Rico rubbed his hand down his face, feeling frustration and
anger all rolled into one. He glanced at his watch and pulled his cell phone out
of his back pocket. A few moments later a voice came on the line. “Hello.”