“Do know where we can find her?” Rafe wanted to jump out of his seat.
“I have no idea,” the other woman said. “I’m sorry. I remember that she didn’t live in town, but I don’t know if I ever knew where she did live. I just remember thinking that maybe she was always such a grouch because of her commute. I know making that drive across the long desert roads into town at ten o’clock at night would have made me tense, and having to make a long drive after a shift just to get home and rest would have done it, too. A lot of people didn’t like her, but I kind of felt sorry for her.”
Rafe was eager to be gone, to get on with what they’d found out, but Kerry took a couple more minutes, talking with Noelle, listening to her memories. Gaining information beyond the facts, he figured out eventually. Because nothing that happened was just a series of events; it also included the motivations and feelings of the people who figured in those events. By the time they walked with Noelle to the elevator, and thanked her, he realized that Kerry had just obtained a more thorough picture of the day Ace had been switched than Marlowe and Callum had managed to do.
And it left him wondering—did she do the same when she thought about the things that had happened to them? Did she try to put herself in his shoes—to understand the motivations and feelings that had driven him?
She wouldn’t have been successful at it. There was no way she’d ever understand the boy he’d been with her, the friendship they’d shared, and put it together with the choice he’d made. Because she was missing a key fact.
Which meant she’d have spent twenty-three years spinning her wheels. Settling for solutions that didn’t fit—at best. Or she was still battling the situation.
Was that why she was still single? Unwilling to trust in love? Because she didn’t trust herself to know when she had it? To know it was real?
For the first time since he’d made a promise to himself at thirteen to keep his reasons for ending their friendship to himself, Rafe wondered if not telling Kerry about Payne’s ultimatum had been the best choice.
Chapter 14
Finally. She was getting somewhere. She had a name. Nan Gelman. And a onetime title: maternity nurse.
If Ace Colton didn’t shoot his father, and she was not at all convinced that that was the case, then there was someone else out there who could make another attempt on Payne’s life. Someone from the Colton family’s past? She must know something about Ace’s birth, and that must be connected to the shooting.
It was just too coincidental that there had been no viable threats against Payne Colton in recent history. And then right after the board of Colton Oil received an untraceable email with the truth of Ace’s lack of Colton DNA, Payne got shot? The two incidents had to be related. It was the only thing that made sense.
Could this nurse, Nan Gelman, be involved somehow? If she had information, she wouldn’t want to upset the Coltons, who could sue her, but if the information helped...they’d be grateful. If nothing else, the woman would know someone else who’d worked at the hospital when she did. And surely she’d remember the birth of the first Colton child, since, as Noelle had stated, it was such a big deal to the hospital.
And Nan Gelman had worked later than planned Christmas morning. She’d been there at the time the babies would have been switched.
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Kerry discussed her theories with Rafe on the miles-long drive from the hospital back to Colton Oil, where he’d left his truck. Or rather, gave him her rundown. She didn’t stop talking long enough to allow him to get a word in. Couldn’t take a chance that he was going to make things personal again. She just didn’t trust herself not to respond.
Being with him all day, working with him—they’d never had this much time together in one stint in the past. Not since they were five at least and she couldn’t really remember before that. After his father had died, all of their time together had been stolen moments over the hill behind the barn.
So, yeah, it was nice not to have to watch the clock every second, fearing that they wouldn’t get told all that they had to tell.
Ironic that she now had the time with him, but didn’t have the freedom to share all her thoughts. Their current association had to be all business. It was the relationship she was allowing herself to have with him.
The one she’d chosen.
She couldn’t see him otherwise.
And she wanted to see him.
For now. It made no sense. Craving time with the man who’d broken her heart and soul was illogical. She didn’t get it.
But she knew she needed to, if she was ever going to be fully whole and happy.
She had to find her life without him in it. Find the mystery that drew her to him and solve it. To dissolve it.
“There are trunks in the attic of the mansion filled with keepsakes,” Rafe said as she pulled up to his truck. “Each sibling has one. I’ll get up there and go through Ace’s tonight...see if I can find anything from when he was born...”
She put the Jeep in Park.
“Can you do that? Without his permission?” It wasn’t like she had a warrant. And Ace Colton wasn’t likely to let her paw through his stuff. But that Rafe would do that... For her...
“He’ll give his permission,” Rafe said. “But yes, I can. The board has voted to actively search for who switched Ace at birth, to find the biological Colton, by any means available to us. Those trunks are accessible to all of us...”
Us. The word hit her hard. As did the fact that she’d just done what she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do. She’d taken hope, for a second there, that Rafe was choosing to help her at the risk of alienating another Colton.