Chapter 1 - THE TWINS ON THE COUNTRY ROAD
“Buy the bastards some milk.”
Tessa Whitmore laughed as she tossed a twenty-dollar bill through the open window of my SUV.
The bill twisted once in the warm Kansas wind before landing in the dirt at Maren’s feet.
My ex-wife did not bend to pick it up.
She stood on the shoulder of a narrow road outside Baldwin City, wearing faded jeans and an old gray sweater despite the late-summer heat. A clear plastic bag filled with crushed aluminum cans hung from one hand.
Two babies were strapped against her chest.
That was what stopped my heart.
Tiny blond curls.
Pale blue eyes.
The same cleft in the chin my father had passed to me.
One of the babies woke and stared straight through the windshield.
It felt like looking at a photograph of myself at six months old.
“Rowan?” Tessa asked. “Why are you staring?”
I opened the driver’s door.
Maren’s eyes met mine.
She looked exhausted. Her cheeks were thinner than I remembered, and a tear in one sneaker exposed the edge of her sock.
But there was no hatred in her expression.
No plea.
Only pity.
“Maren,” I said.
She adjusted the carrier protectively.
Tessa leaned across the passenger seat.
“Well, this is awkward. I heard you were struggling, but I didn’t realize you’d become the recycling department.”
Maren said nothing.
I stepped closer to the babies.
“How old are they?”
Her face changed slightly.
Not surprise.
Pain.
“You don’t get to ask me that now.”
The words landed harder than if she had screamed.
One baby shifted against her. Maren placed her palm over his back.
Tessa climbed out of the SUV, smoothing her dark green dress.
“We’re going to be late for the tasting,” she said. “Your ex-wife’s bad decisions are not our emergency.”
I looked at the babies again.
The timing worked.
Maren and I had separated twelve months earlier. Our divorce became final six months after that.
If they were mine, she would have been pregnant when I threw her out.
“You were pregnant,” I whispered.
Maren laughed once, without humor.
“I told you.”
“You said you might be.”
“I showed you the test.”
I remembered the small white stick on our bathroom counter.
I also remembered the photographs my private investigator had handed me the following morning—Maren entering a hotel with another man, bank transfers from a hidden account, witness statements claiming they had been meeting for months.
I had looked at the pregnancy test and assumed it was another trap.
“You never proved they were mine,” I said.
The moment the sentence left my mouth, I wanted it back.
Maren’s eyes hardened.
“I never had to prove anything until your money taught you every woman was guilty.”
Tessa folded her arms.
“Oh, please. Rowan caught you cheating. Don’t turn poverty into sainthood.”
Maren looked at her.
“You should enjoy the next three weeks.”
Tessa’s smile thinned.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means women like you always believe the wedding is the finish line.”
A pickup truck approached behind us. Maren moved farther onto the grass.
I noticed the raw red marks beneath the straps of the baby carrier.
“Where’s your car?” I asked.
“Sold it.”
“Why?”
“Formula costs money.”
Tessa pointed to the twenty-dollar bill.
“Problem solved.”
Maren looked down at the money, then back at me.
Again, that unbearable pity.
Not for herself.
For me.
She turned and began walking toward a weathered farmhouse half a mile down the road.
“Maren, wait.”
She did not stop.
One of the babies looked over her shoulder.
His eyes were mine.
Tessa touched my arm.
“Do not let her ruin our weekend. She sees the car, the ring, the wedding coverage. She’s trying to get inside your head.”
I watched Maren walk away with my possible sons pressed against her chest.
“Did you know she was pregnant?”
Tessa’s hand went still.
“She claimed a lot of things.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“Rowan, she cheated on you.”
“You didn’t answer.”
Her expression shifted into wounded disbelief.
“You’re defending her after what she did?”
I got into the SUV.
Tessa remained beside the passenger door.
“Get in,” I said.
She smiled, believing she had won.
Instead, I drove her back to Kansas City and stopped outside her penthouse.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I need time.”
“Our engagement gala is tonight.”
“I’ll be there.”
“You promised we’d meet the caterer.”
“I said I’ll be there.”
Her face became cold.
“Don’t let a roadside performance make you forget who stood beside you after your divorce.”
I looked at her diamond ring.
Tessa had appeared in my life within weeks of Maren leaving. She had known exactly what to say, exactly which wounds to touch, exactly how to make my anger feel justified.
“I haven’t forgotten anything,” I said.
After she left, I sat alone in a parking garage for nearly three hours.
I kept seeing the babies.
At 7:11 p.m., I called Nolan Pike, the private investigator who had handled my divorce.
He answered on the fifth ring.
“Mr. Brooks. It’s been a while.”
“I need the original Maren file.”
A pause.
“You already received the final report.”
“I want the raw evidence.”
“That case is closed.”
“Open it.”
“I can’t help you.”
The line went dead.
Nolan had charged me eighty thousand dollars and answered every call during the divorce.
Now he sounded afraid.
I started the SUV.
His home address was still in my contacts.
By 7:42, I was driving south toward a house hidden behind cedar trees.
May you like
For the first time since my marriage ended, I was no longer asking whether Maren had lied to me.
I was asking who had needed me to believe she had.
