Chapter 25

TWENTY-FIVE

TULLY

There was something I hadn’t told Dev, something that made this situation a thousand times worse.

When the Scotts’ attorney had insisted on using their lab to run the paternity test, Susanna and I had arranged for a second set of samples to be sent to a separate lab for processing.

And those had also come back showing Lellie was not biologically related to Dev.

I didn’t know how it was possible, but I also knew that two different labs wouldn’t have made the same mistake.

When I boarded the jet to return home Sunday, after a blur of desperate hugs and promises to fix everything that felt hollow as hell, all I could think about was how I was going to tell Dev that he wasn’t actually Lellie’s father if it turned out it was true.

It shouldn’t matter whether Dev was Lellie’s biological father since Katie had named Dev in her will… but it did. A biological parent had a prima facie status that a non-biological parent didn’t. It meant he would be the legal default parent, to a certain extent, which would make it more difficult to challenge his right to custody. Without that, it would be much easier for the Scotts to challenge him and win, especially when I happened to know the judge assigned to the case was likely to be favorable to a trusted, long-term Texas resident and well-known Dallas pastor over an unknown single gay man from rural Wyoming.

The Scotts’ attorney would dig up every sordid detail of Dev’s sexual past, any break in his employment history despite his wealth, and his provable lack of interest in Katie or Lellie for the past two years.

It wouldn’t look good.

My palms began to sweat as I tried not to think about the moment a judge would proclaim the sudden end of Dev’s short fatherhood. I felt sick, but succumbing to my fear wouldn’t help the man I loved.

So I pulled out my laptop and began to strategize. I’d gotten where I was in my career because I had a sharp legal mind.

And I planned to use every bit of it to save Lellie from being taken away from her father.

The following morning, I decided to stop by Katie’s house to do one last walkthrough before letting the real estate agent take over. Renata and her parents had done a good job cleaning it and staging it to sell, and seeing it so devoid of Katie’s personal touches was heartbreaking.

I wandered idly through each room, pulling open drawers and peeking in closets to check for overlooked items.

You’re stalling.

Katie had made a lot of good memories in this house, and I’d been there for many of them. It wasn’t easy to say goodbye to the place we’d binge-watched Gilmore Girls and Ted Lasso . The place we’d taken a plaster cast of her giant pregnancy belly and joked about taking a cast of my dick at the same time to share on Grindr. The kitchen we’d destroyed with our attempt at making chicken tikka from scratch and where we’d interrogated Renata after her first date with her boyfriend.

The place I’d brought her home to from the hospital with a tiny little Lellie-shrimp curled up in her baby bucket car seat.

When I opened the small closet in Lellie’s nursery, part of me wanted to sit down inside it and close the door behind me. Wrap my arms around my knees and sob in the darkness for all the moments Katie had lost… and all the ones Dev might still lose.

Instead, I forced myself to close the door. And that’s when I saw the hairbrush on the floor behind the dresser.

When I got to the breakfast cafe, Susanna had already gotten us a table. Her brother was there with her.

“Hey,” she said, tilting her head at Tomas. “Thought I’d bring along another smart attorney to help us figure this out.”

I gave Tomas a hug. “Thanks, man. We could use the help.”

After taking a seat and asking the server for a cup of coffee, I turned back to Susanna. “I brought a brush with Lellie’s hair. Can’t they get a sample from that? We can find another lab.”

I knew I sounded desperate, but it’s because I was . And I didn’t know how else to help.

Susanna reached across the table and took my hand. “First of all, yes. We can definitely try that. But I…” She hesitated as if unsure how to proceed.

“Speak freely,” I said, trying not to sound annoyed by her caution.

“Brock Lois is shady as fuck,” Tomas said. “Susanna is trying to remain professional, but fuck that. The Scotts are represented by a snake, and I wouldn’t put it past him to have fucked with the results.”

I glanced at Susanna, who appeared to agree with him. “But that’s why we got a second set of samples,” I said. “Right? I mean, how could he have interfered with both labs when one was reporting directly to you?”

Susanna let out a breath. “I don’t know. But I’ve heard of two of his cases where similar stuff has happened. So I was thinking… Is there a way you could ask Orris?”

“What, just ask if he knows if Brock Lois, the guy he probably recommended to the Scotts, is a criminal co-conspirator? In what world would he admit it to me if he did?”

Tomas shook his head. “You’d have to be sneakier than that.”

We talked through how that kind of mix-up could possibly happen when it involved two different labs, and it was Susanna who finally said, “What if it was the witness?”

I remembered the quiet man in the brown suit. A young member of Brock’s team who’d been allowed to witness the sample collection. He’d been in the room, standing unobtrusively in the corner.

“But there’s no way…” I was getting ready to say he hadn’t gotten anywhere near the samples, had only stepped forward to view the signatures on the form, watch the sample collection, and sign the witness forms afterward.

But then I remembered there’d been that moment when Lellie had tried to escape into the hall. I was pretty sure that had happened after the sample collection but before the samples had been sealed. For two critical seconds, Susanna had been out of the room, and Dev and I had been distracted. The lab tech must’ve been distracted, too, since he’d gotten a lollipop for Lellie from somewhere.

Could the witness have switched the samples? How the hell was that possible? Would he have created a distraction if Lellie hadn’t provided one? Would the Scotts truly sink to that level?

Maybe. But Brock Lois definitely would.

“Okay…” I said, trying to figure out how to get the truth out of a complete stranger who definitely wouldn’t want to lose his job. I attempted a lame joke. “Which one of us is going to try and seduce the third-party witness?”

Tomas was a criminal defense attorney. He was known as a shark. When he made eye contact with me, all traces of my flirty friend were gone, and only the sharp-toothed predator remained.

“If you really want to get to the bottom of this… you’re going to lie to your boss.”

After stopping at the gym to sweat out my anger and frustration, I let myself into the cool air-conditioning of my apartment. It was quiet and clean. The modern furniture was sleek and minimalist, the way I’d always liked it.

There were no sticky handprints on my coffee table or diaper supplies stashed in several convenient locations, and there were zero brightly colored plastic objects in sight.

And it was so sterile it felt like an operating room in the world’s most boring hospital.

I wandered through the empty apartment, aching for the silence to be broken by a sudden squawk of discontent that the green beans that were so good yesterday were completely unacceptable today. Or the low hum of Lellie’s white noise machine. Or the periodic whickers and whinnies of horses outside the window.

Tomas’s suggestion had been bold. Stupid, too. He wanted me to initiate a conversation with my boss in which I confessed to seeing the witness switching the samples. “Tell Orris you were secretly relieved that the DNA results took it out of your hands.”

In other words, blatantly lie to my boss… and risk losing my job in a way that would virtually guarantee no other respectable firm would hire me.

It was ludicrous. Something I would never consider doing.

Under normal circumstances.

But the more I thought about it, the more my gut churned with unease when I considered the possibility that my boss, my very own firm, could be complicit in something so unfair and fraudulent.

And the very fact I was suspecting them told me a lot about how much trust I’d lost with the firm since seeing their reaction to Katie’s will.

I walked over to peer down at the view I had of a small city park. The heat had tapered off temporarily, so the park was full of people enjoying a Sunday afternoon.

Families with kids on scooters, in strollers, and racing ahead of their parents on the sidewalk. Couples hand in hand, holding dog leashes with their other hand. A woman in a backward ball cap, covering her mouth while she giggled at her phone.

I’d loved living here in the city. I’d imagined a full life here in Dallas with interesting friends, sexy men, and a fulfilling career.

But now, my closest friend was gone. The sexiest man I knew lived a thousand miles away. And my career felt like a promissory note written on counterfeit paper.

I’d wondered what I’d do if it came down to a choice between acting in Katie’s best interest or in my own. Now, my priorities had realigned themselves—or maybe just aligned themselves properly—and I knew exactly what I needed to do. I felt the rightness of it in my bones.

My phone buzzed with a call from Dev, and my chest tightened as I answered.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey, beautiful.”

His voice was low and slow, lazy in a way that reminded me Wyoming ran on a completely different kind of time than we had here in the metroplex.

My heart thundered in response to his voice. “Hey,” I said again. This time, my voice was soft, and even I could hear the affection in it.

“Did you sleep last night?”

My jaw ached with his kindness. Instead of asking about the case, about the lab results, he asked how I was.

“No. You?”

“Mmhm. But only because the guys got me shitfaced.”

“You’re kidding?” Dev was the least likely of anyone I knew to turn to alcohol in times of crisis. I was surprised he’d let them push drinks on him.

“No. It started with Landry suggesting a whiskey would take the edge off, make me less likely to spout off my anger around Lellie. But then Jo put her to bed in the big house again, and I was still pissed. Silas told me to finish my drink if I was going to be an asshole. I found out later it was a fresh pour. Then, after that, they kept sneaking refills in and convincing me I hadn’t had as much as I’d thought.”

I let out a laugh. “You must have been really upset. You’re not easy to fool.”

“I was. Obviously. I was distracted and angry. Hurt. I still can’t fucking believe the Scotts did whatever the fuck they did to screw with the results of the test.”

“You believe it was malicious now? That she’s really your daughter?”

He let out a beleaguered sigh. “Yeah. The guys talked me down and reminded me of the things I’d told them about Katie. There’s no way she’d have used a different donor without telling me, and the chances of the clinic making a mistake are infinitesimal.”

“Good. I want you to take Lellie to the nearest court-approved lab. Susanna’s sending you the information. We’ll get another test underway as soon as possible.”

“Yeah. I already talked to her. She called a little while ago.” He sucked in a shaky breath. “Said you were upset.”

“Jesus, Dev, of course I am.” I was annoyed he’d doubt it.

“Baby,” he began. “I need you to stand down and let me handle this with Susanna. I don’t want you to do anything to jeopardize your job, okay? Promise me.”

“Dev—”

“No, Tully. Promise me. I need you to take care of you because I’m not there to do it, okay?”

His words were so fucking sweet. So reassuring. How long had it been since someone wanted to protect me?

“I can’t promise you that.”

I heard the smile in Dev’s voice. “You can, and I’ll tell you why. You love me. And I’m asking you to let me love you right back, Tully Bowman.”

I closed my eyes and tried to keep breathing. “Yeah?” It came out as a croak.

His warm rumble of soft laughter rolled across the line. “Yeah. Now, promise me.”

I sucked in a breath and lied my loving ass off. “I promise, Dev.”

He breathed out a sigh of relief.

As we moved on to talk about how Lellie was doing, how Trigger was faring, and when I could come back to Majestic for another visit, my heart rate calmed.

Every word he shared about life back in Majestic was like twisting the little stick on a pair of cheap window blinds. The sun began to slant in a little bit more until a breathtaking view appeared.

My life, and every single thing I wanted in it, were not here in this vibrant city.

They were there in the sleepy, sage-blown town of Majestic, Wyoming… and I knew I would do anything to make them mine.

Even put my entire career on the line.