Kat took a seat beside Brady. She hadn’t had to tell Gordie to get straight to the reason they were here; apparently Brady had done that when he’d followed her inside after she’d teased him.
She probably shouldn’t have done that, but she’d wanted him to think about something other than what they were about to reveal for just a few moments.
Her plan had worked. A little too well really, because now she was aroused and everyone in the room knew it. Damn stupid coyote senses. At least they didn’t have to worry about announcing their recent mating bond.
Their mutual marks might be hidden by their clothes but for a room full of coyote shifters, seeing those bite marks wouldn’t be necessary. Within seconds of them entering the house, their mated status would have been obvious.
They’d made quick work of the introductions and with Brady having grown up here, he didn’t require in-depth details. Now that everyone had taken a seat, the room filled with tension, the air vibrating with anticipation.
Kat wanted to believe no one was looking at Brady as a threat but she couldn’t deny that with the last name Connelly, his presence put everyone on edge.
She wasn’t sure if Gordie or Steve had told anyone the real reason why they were here, not that it mattered. They’d all know soon enough.
“I know you all came here expecting a nice dinner with friends and to welcome our newest pack member, and we will get to that, I promise.” Gordie smiled at her and Brady as she spoke. “Brady and my sister have some things to say, but I need to tell you all what I’ve discovered first, and while it’s not the reason for this meeting, I feel it has something to do with what Brady and Kat are going to share.”
“Just spit it out, Doc.” Steve put an arm around his wife. “They’re not going to shoot the messenger.”
“I ran some tests. Before Brady came to town. I didn’t know there was anyone to claim the bodies and I wanted to add to my research—”
“Doc, get to the point,” Steve urged.
Kat glanced around the room; no one appeared to have a clue what Gordie was talking about but Kat’s gut told her it wasn’t going to be a surprise to her. Or Brady.
“It’s okay, Gordie.” Kat took Brady’s hand in hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Whatever you have to say isn’t going to be worse than what we’ve discovered.” She deliberately used “we” so everyone knew she stood beside Brady in this.
“Oh.” Gordie sighed. “Okay. Well, anyway, as I said, I ran some tests. You all know I’m researching the coyote gene and whether it strengthens or weakens when mixed with human DNA. I acquired Malcolm’s DNA when he was killed in his attempt to run Quinn over. It’s how I determined the origin of the turned shifters who had shown up during that time period. That they were turned by Malcolm Connelly.”
“The council blamed Malcolm for those and numerous other incidents, but I’m not sure some of it shouldn’t fall on the younger Connelly’s shoulders,” Quinn said.
“It shouldn’t. The shifters I mean. It was definitely Malcolm who turned the humans. It couldn’t have been Marcus.” Gordie looked at Brady, her hands twisting in front of her and Kat knew what she was going to say before she said it. “Marcus wasn’t a Connelly by blood. My tests show he was a non-blood. And I don’t have a record of the DNA line that he was turned by.”
“What the fuck?” Brogan surged to his feet. “How the hell was Marcus non-blood? Connelly was full-blood; his son had to be at least half-blood.”
“Malcolm brought Marcus to the mountains as a two-year-old and gave him to my mother.” Brady said, drawing every eye in the room.
Kat held her breath. She’d let him lead this; she might be the one with the knowledge, the one who’d read Michelle’s journals, but it was Brady’s information to share.
“What did you say?” Dale asked, rising slowly to his feet. “Your father gave Marcus to your mother?”
“Ren and I have been going through my mother’s things.” Brady snorted. “That’s if she even is my mother. She definitely wasn’t Marcus’s. At this point we don’t know all the details. We’re only partway through the journals she left. Ren has been taking notes. I don’t think we should reveal everything we’ve discovered until we’ve finished reading all the entries and have a clearer view of what happened.”
Dale strode forward, moving beside Brogan who stood in front of Brady, the sheriff’s glower as fierce as the sovereign’s. “I’m sure our sovereign agrees with me when I say I think you should explain yourself,” he growled as he leaned in.
Kat moved closer to Brady on the couch. She straightened her spine, sat as tall as she could, and lifting her chin a notch, she raised her voice and commanded, “Sit down. Lording it over us from up there isn’t going to get you answers.”
“Ren. It’s okay,” Brady murmured, squeezing her hand. “I’m sure—”
“No, it’s not okay. None of this is your fault, and we’re in a position to explain what, until now, has been the unexplainable. If they don’t play nice, neither will we.” Kat tipped her chin up further and crossed her arms, her eyes daring either man to argue with her. “You want your answers, you sit down and listen, and only listen. You can ask questions after we finish telling you what we’ve discovered so far.”
“Fair enough. But I want access to those journals,” Brogan said taking his seat once more.
Dale took a moment to stare Brady down before glancing her way then following their sovereign’s lead. The sheriff’s gaze told Kat he wanted to make it clear while they weren’t enemies, as sheriff he wouldn’t let them get away with not answering.
“Kat is right. No one is going to blame you for anything your parents may have done, Brady.”
Kat was glad for the sheriff’s concession even if it sounded forced.
Ignoring Dale’s words, Brady turned and addressed Gordie. “I’d like to come into the clinic and have you run tests on my blood. I think you’ll find I’m not a Connelly either.”
“Jesus. And the crazy just keeps on crazying,” Quinn said, with a sigh. “I think you better explain why you think that.”
“We’ve barely started with the journals. My mother seems to have written the majority of them after leaving the mountain. I don’t know exactly what they cover. We know Marcus was brought here as a child and my mother was told to raise him.”
“They’re labeled by year and some have a name inside the front cover, but I think they might overlap timewise a bit too,” Kat added. “Which is why I’ve been taking my own notes.”
“According to the journals, Marcus was turned at the age of four by old man Baker.” Brady revealed the one piece of information Gordie didn’t seem to have.
Brady’s words had Dale straightening in his chair, his hands clenching, his breath sucking in hard.
Tatum stiffened beside him. “Cade,” she whispered, her hand finding one of Dale’s.
Kat focused on Tatum, and whispered, “There’s a book with the name Cade inside it. I haven’t read it yet because I tried to put them into order before I started.”
“Oh god.” Tatum wrapped her arms around her expanded belly and bent forward. Dale reached over and scooping her up, placed her in his lap and cuddled her close.
“What year?” Dale ground out through clenched teeth.
“From what I’ve worked out, he would have been six,” Kat offered in a louder voice.
Tatum buried her face in the side of Dale’s neck and he held her tight, buried his nose in her hair, and whispered nonsense words Kat couldn’t hear.
It took him a moment to get his emotions under control. When he did, Dale turned to Brogan. “I want that book.”
Brogan nodded. “Once Brady and Kat have gone over everything, we’ll make sure you get that one.”
“How many other names are there?” Gordie asked, her gaze a mix of shock and curiosity. Kat could almost hear her sister’s brain whirring around with possibilities.
Kat looked to Brady, tried to telegraph with her eyes it was up to him if he wanted to reveal that information now. He gave her a nod.
“Including Cade I found ten names written inside the covers.”
“I don’t recognize any of the names other than Cade. Those of you who are older and never left Whispering Springs may know them,” Brady said. “I’d like this to remain between us until we know exactly what my mother’s words reveal.”
Brogan leaned forward in his chair, his arms resting on his knees. “Agreed. And if either of you want help going through the journals, let us know.”
“Thank you, sovereign. I appreciate that but I’d prefer to know what else is in them before I share with you or anyone else.”
“The offer stands.” Brogan smiled grimly. “I thank you for your willingness to share this information. It can’t be easy for you and I want to reiterate what Dale said earlier. No one will blame you for what Marcus, Malcolm, or Michelle Connelly did.”
Brady tipped his chin in acknowledgement.
“Watson,” Kat said. “Michelle Watson. She never married Malcolm.”
Brady’s gaze zipped to hers, his hand landing on her leg in a hard thump. “Ren.”
Too late she realized she’d revealed something she shouldn’t have. They should have talked before coming here to be sure she knew what she could and couldn’t say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay. We should probably tell them that part anyway,” Brady said with a sigh. Turning back to the room, he continued. “Michelle Watson was taken from a street in Omaha, Nebraska, and brought to Whispering Springs by Malcolm.”
“Taken,” Rowan gasped. It was the first time she’d spoken. “He kidnapped her? Kept her here all that time? But why didn’t she—”
“Stockholm Syndrome,” Gordie interrupted. “He had her long enough and isolated enough for it to develop. She didn’t start working for Dad until a couple of years after Kat was born. Jesus, Kat would have been around four. She came in with burns to her hands and Dad offered her a job before he’d finished seeing to her wounds.”
“Burns?” Brady asked.
“Yes. I remember because it was the first time Dad let me into an exam room while he worked on a patient. Well, he didn’t exactly let me in. He was too busy seeing to your mom while our mom took care of you and Marcus.”
“And he offered her a job?” Brady shook his head. “I don’t remember her not working at the clinic. As far as I knew she worked there every day until…”
Kat stood. “I need to read the rest of those books. Maybe she tried to escape—”
“Ren.” Brady stood and grabbed her hands. “They can wait. We’ll get the answers and probably a whole bunch more questions we’ll never find the answers to, but it can wait.”
“But, Brady—”
He yanked her into his chest. Pressed her face into his neck. “No. Let’s take the rest of today. Spend some time with your sister and Steve. I know you missed seeing everyone the last few days while we were snowed in.”
She smiled. Brady was right. She’d been pacing the floors with a journal in her hand, a notebook beneath it ready for her to jot anything significant down, for days now.
Claustrophobia had never been an issue for Kat but idleness had. Standing still, doing nothing, had never been her thing. She couldn’t even stay still long enough to soak in a bath.
The only time she remained in one place was when she was in a kitchen. Except her mind and hands were so busy there she didn’t notice the lack of movement.
“We’ve got plenty of time to read what my mother wrote.” He squeezed her tighter. “Plenty of time to discover if she was my mother at all.”
Shit. She’d forgotten to tell him. She was pages away from confirming that Michelle Watson was Brady’s mother. In the journal Kat was currently reading, Michelle was pregnant. The joy in the woman could be felt in her words; she’d never made it this far into a pregnancy before and Kat couldn’t deny the other woman’s happiness had soaked into her words, into the pages of the book.
If she had the timeline right, Michelle was pregnant with Brady and he definitely wasn’t a Connelly.
He was Matthew’s son.
And she still didn’t know who Matthew was or where he’d gone.
Before she had to bit her tongue to stop herself from revealing what she’d read this morning, her brother-in-law saved her.
“Okay, who’s hungry?” Steve asked. “Thanks to the Den, we’ve got a feast waiting to be devoured.”
Kat turned to her sister. “You got food from the Den?”
Gordie laughed. “You didn’t expect me to cook, did you?”
Kat shook her head. “Jeez, no, but you could have asked me to bring food over.”
Linking her arm through Kat’s, Gordie tugged her away from Brady. “You did. Wendy sent the last of the beef stew you made before the storm and El brought along a batch of her grandmother’s famous spaghetti sauce too.”
“I brought bread,” Tatum added as they made their way toward the kitchen.
“My contribution is clean up,” Rowan added from behind them.
Glancing back, Kat found the men remained in the living room eyeing the newbie in their midst. She hoped they weren’t too rough on Brady.
As if she could read her mind, Gordie said, “Don’t worry. They’re just going to grill him on his intentions toward you.”
Kat laughed. “Only you would think telling me not to worry and then telling me what’s about to happen means I won’t.”
“I think Brady’s intentions are clear and I approve, but you know men, they have to thump their chests and grunt a few times before they give their approval,” Rowan said as she moved past them with an armload of plates. “I’ll get the table set.”
“You approve?”
“I most certainly do. And I know what it’s like to spend years away from your mate so I’m not about to judge you or him for giving off enough pheromones to slay a bull.”
“Oh, but we weren’t mates when—”
“Of course you were.” Gordie patted Kat’s arm. “You were just too young to know it but everyone else did.”
“What?”
“Well, everyone who took the time to look.” Gordie waved a hand in the air. “It doesn’t matter. Water under the bridge. Now let’s get the food on the table before it goes cold again.”
Kat studied her sister. Had Gordie known Brady was Kat’s mate all those years ago? She hadn’t but Gordie was older by six years; she would have known what was building between her and Brady because she would have seen it in others. She’d also been close to Rowan before the accident, would have known about and understood the bond between their friend and Quinn.
Jeez. Kat closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. Why hadn’t she been able to work out why Brady’s disappearance had hurt so badly?
Hindsight. It was a brilliant thing. She hadn’t only been in love with Brady all those years ago, she’d stayed in love with him. Through no contact and a furious hatred that was spawned by the actions of his father and brother—who weren’t related to him at all.
She had to tell him what she’d read this morning; whether she knew for sure or not, he needed to know what she suspected.
And they needed to find out who Matthew was.