Montana Hero (27 page)

She nodded. “He told me the two of you itemized every expense the search was going to cost. Fuel for the plane. Hay for the horses. The cost of transporting the horses to the staging area. Feeding the volunteers…” She looked up. “Did you know Sarah Zabrinski organized that?”

“Janet told me. She said you and Sarah had a long talk, and Sarah gave you a bunch of papers.”

Kat stared at the ring, but she didn’t make any effort to try it on.

“Mom’s employment records. I couldn’t believe Big Z’s still had paper copies, but apparently Mr. Zabrinski is a bit of a packrat.”

Mr. Zabrinski.

“Bob came in today to file his log. He said his kids are organizing a
summit
—his word, not mine—for tomorrow and they want you and Brady to be there.”

Her chin made a small bobbing motion. When she looked at him, he could see the dread in her expression. “Sarah told me Robert refused on principle to do a DNA test, and he didn’t want any of his children to step in and volunteer. He’s adamant that he could not be my biological father because he never had sex with my mother.”

Flynn heard the same thing from the man himself. He seemed honestly baffled by the allegation. “I lived my life by the rules—just like a good man is supposed to do. To be accused of something this…immoral, this contrary to everything I believe in—just doesn’t seem right.”

“He told me he didn’t even remember what your mother looked like until Sarah showed him an old photo she found.”

Kat hopped off the ledge and reached for something from her back pocket. “Sarah gave me this. Mom’s in the middle.”

Flynn studied the photo. “I can see you in her face. That’s Janet on the other side, right? Who’s the guy?”

Kat let out a peep of surprise. “Janet?” She crowded in close enough to stare at the picture, too. “You’re right. I thought she looked familiar. I don’t know who the guy is, but he looks familiar, too.”

Flynn studied it a moment longer. “Can I take this with me? I bet Janet could tell us.”

Kat shrugged. “I guess so. He looks a little younger than Mom. Do you think maybe he might be the mystery sperm donor? They do look sorta chummy, don’t th—?”

Her question was cut off by the arrival of the doctor. She let go of the photograph and hurried across the room. Flynn placed the photo in his hip pocket and walked to the window to stare at the vista. He tried not to eavesdrop, but his curiosity was two-fold. He cared about the little boy he’d rescued. He also had a vested interest in whether or not Kat decided to stay in Montana.

He’d signed a loan application this morning. He was in the process of declaring this town, this state, his home. He planned to be here for the long haul, and he could see himself marrying again, maybe raising a couple of kids. He had no problem picturing Kat and Brady in his life. The ring he’d given her wasn’t meant to be a promise or pre-engagement. It was beautiful and the stone reminded him of Kat—precious and resilient. But, maybe, subconsciously, he hoped she’d read more into the gesture.

“How soon will he be okay to travel?” she asked.

“By air? Give it a week,” the doctor said. “By car, I’d suggest you hold off a few days. I’m confident he’s one hundred percent Brady, but why risk throwing a clot by sitting for long periods of time?”

Kat rolled her shoulders as if to dislodge temporarily the weight of the world from its resting place. She judged herself far harsher than anyone else did, Flynn knew. Would anything he or the Zabrinski family said to her tomorrow change her mind about moving? He didn’t know, but there might be one person who could.

He turned abruptly and hurried toward the door. “I have to get back to the office. I’ll catch you later, Kat.” He dropped a quick kiss on her lips. Then he left before she could give him back his ring and tell him she was leaving Marietta for good and they’d never see each other again. He wasn’t ready to hear those words. He’d never be ready to let her go.

‡

“J
anet,” Flynn said,
stopping at her desk on his way to his office. “Do you have a minute?”

She looked up. “Sure. Just finishing the last of the situation reports.”

“Excellent. Thank you.”

He looked around, and realized that although he’d thanked each person individually for his or her efforts to find Brady, he hadn’t made a public statement recognizing their tremendous group effort.

He cleared his throat. “I’m not good at speeches, but I want you to know I was very impressed by your teamwork and efficiency. I know I can’t take the credit for that. You can teach me a lot.”

“Like leaving the field work to your underlings?” Rebecca asked. “You’re supposed to be here bossing us around, remember? Not sleeping in a tent in the snow.”

He snickered softly. “I can’t promise I’ll be that kind of boss. Old habits are hard to break. Firefighters are the guys running into the burning buildings not from them, remember?”

“That’s what we figured. Plus, this one was personal,” Mike, the senior EMT, added. “Kat’s only been here a little over a year, but she’s one of us. You did us proud, Flynn.”

A spontaneous applause made the heat rise in Flynn’s cheeks, but he tried to acknowledge the praise as graciously as possible. “Thank you. Let’s get back to work. First round is on me at Grey’s on Friday.”

Of course, that earned more applause and a catcall or two.

A few minutes later, Janet paused in his office doorway. “Now, okay?”

“Sure. Come in. I just spoke with Kat at the hospital and she showed me this photo that she got from Sarah Zabrinski. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is you, isn’t it?”

She stepped to his desk and took the photograph he held out to her.

“Wow. An old one. Yes,” she said, studying the image. “That’s me on the left with…oh, what was her name? She only worked there a few months. Jenny? Goldie?”

“Grace?”

She frowned. “Gracie. Everybody called her Gracie. Is she Kat’s mother?”

Flynn nodded.

“Oh, man, I never put that together. Kat’s so businesslike and on the intense side. Gracie was totally laid-back. She had a Southern accent, but people joked that she came from California in a hippy van filled with pot.”

“She used drugs?”

Janet shook her head. “I never saw her, but she partied a lot with Rog.” She pointed to the young man in the photo. “Roger had a problem. Nobody blamed him, of course, after what happened to his brother and all, but he was pretty messed up at the time. The family gave him a token job at Big Z’s just to keep him out of trouble, I think.”

Flynn’s senses went on high alert—the way they did when he was reading a fire. “Roger is a Zabrinski?”

He looked at the photo again. Roger and Grace seemed pretty friendly. What if they had an affair, not Grace and Robert?

“Yes. There were three brothers: Richard, Robert and Roger. All Rs. People used to do that, you know? Saved on monograms or something.”

“Were? Past tense?”

She plopped her hip on the corner of his desk as if that was a pose she’d assumed often with her previous boss. Flynn wasn’t comfortable with her looking down on him, so he got up and carried one of the two stackable chairs to a spot across from him. “Here. You’ll be more comfortable. You were saying….”

“Richard, the oldest, was movie star handsome. Smart. Had a great future ahead of him. He came home from college for hunting season and…there was an accident. The story I heard was Roger tripped and his gun when off and Richard died.”

“Oh. Damn. How old was Roger?”

“Fifteen, I think. He was always a wild kid, but after that he got into drugs and alcohol. His parents finally sent him away to a military school. He bounced around a few colleges. Then he came into an inheritance from his grandmother and wound up marrying a stripper in Vegas. I heard bits and pieces of the story when I was working at Big Z’s.”

“So, he was married when this picture was taken?”

She nodded. “I think so. It’s hard to remember. I just worked there one summer.”

“Is he still alive?”

“Yeah. We’re friends on Facebook.”

He fought to keep from showing his surprise. “Really? Show me.”

Janet lumbered to her feet and walked around the desk. Within minutes, she was on the home page of her friend, Roger Zabrinski. Flynn scanned a few posts and the information in the sidebar where Mr. Zabrinski described himself, his likes, and his employment. “He works for a movie studio?”

“Semi-retired, now. But he built sets for movies. Has a ton of movie credits.”

“I don’t suppose you have his phone number?”

She gave him a look Kat would have called her Oh-So-Janet look. “You can message him. See that dot by his name? He’s online.”

Flynn’s hands shook a bit as he composed his inquiry.

“Hello. My name is Flynn Bensen. I’m Janet’s boss. We have a situation that you might be able to help us with. I’d really appreciate the chance to speak with you, if possible.” He included his cell phone number then gave Janet the universal thumbs up sign. “Thank you, Janet. You’ve been a big help.”

“You’re welcome.”

She turned to leave, but paused a moment. “Kat’s a good person. I admit I was a little hard on her, at first, because Ken hated her. I think I know why, now.”

He wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but he nodded. “I’ll tell her you said so.”

His phone started to ring. Flynn could tell by the display the call was from out of state. He waited until Janet closed the door firmly behind her before answering. This dirty laundry wasn’t leaving this room. If Roger Zabrinski claimed he never had sex with Grace Adair, then Kat would never need to hear about this.

But his gut told him this connection made sense given Bob Zabrinski’s adamant denial of any wrongdoing. And maybe it was his imagination, but the more he stared at the photos on Roger Zabrinski’s Facebook page, the more hints of Brady he saw in the older man’s still handsome face.

*

Kat walked from
the window to the door and back half a dozen times waiting for their release papers. She’d just picked up the phone beside the bed to call again when someone knocked on the open door. “Hello. Are we too late to visit?”

Bailey, Chloe, and younger brother Mark, hovered on the threshold a moment before Chloe dashed into the room crying, “This is the same room I was in when I fell off my horse at the fair.”

She waited for Brady to take out his ear buds then told him, “Dad says you and I are ranked Number One and Number Two in the Dufus Moves Of All Time category.”

“Which one of us is Number One?”

“Probably me. I could have been paralyzed from the neck down.”

“I could have frozen to death.”

Bailey walked in and plopped the obviously heavy infant car seat on the foot of the bed. She motioned for Mark to join them. “As I told Paul, childhood is
not
a competition to see who can give your mother the most gray hair. You’re equally lucky to be alive. Period.”

The two children did their best to appear chagrined until Mark walked to the opposite side of the bed and asked, “What are you watching?”

“
Big Hero 6
,” Brady said. “Flynn gave it to me.”

Both kids squeezed in closer to watch.

Kat started to explain that they were poised to leave once the release papers showed up, but seeing their three heads together caught her off-guard.
They could have been cousins.

“I’m glad we caught you. I’ve been sent to deliver your invitation to what I’m calling the Zabrinski Summit. Paul is not amused, but sometimes that family takes itself way too seriously.”

“A summit?”

Bailey made a scrunchy face and fish lips at the baby before answering. “A gathering. At Mia’s…well, Bob and Sarah’s place. Mia and Ryker and the kids have been living there while their new house is under construction, but my in-laws moved back early to help Meg and be part of Arya’s life. They’ve got their motorhome parked in the driveway, but they’re sharing the kitchen…it’s a little crazy. Anyway, the meeting is set for Friday after school. Can you make it?”

Kat’s stomach did a three-sixty flip. “I’ll have to see about child care.”