Chapter 19

19

He was ninety-nine percent certain the woman he had just seen walking around the Talley Inn was his long-lost older sister. Quade Davis just didn't know what to do about it.

He didn't even know how many sisters he had. He definitely didn't know why one would be in Masterson County, Wyoming, either.

Unless Zoey was looking for him.

He seriously hoped she wasn't looking for him. He wasn't ready to deal with long-lost family drama. Not now.

He was still hurting from his own drama. Far too much. He didn't know if he would ever stop hurting from it.

Ashley Renae Charlemagne would have been twenty-four years old today. Had she not had a heart attack two days after New Year's Eve—they'd just been walking down the street on their way to dinner. And she had collapsed in his arms.

Within a week, her heart had failed completely. And the rest of her organs followed. He had never been so helpless in his life. Not even as a kid, running from an abusive father to find his older brother clear across the country.

Losing her was like losing a piece of his soul. They'd only dated for three months, but he had loved her. Felt real with her in ways he never had with a woman before. And probably never would with a woman again. No woman would ever make him feel that way ever again. Ashley had been his one. If by some chance he ever did find a woman who made him feel that way again, Quade was going to scoop her up and run. Spend every minute with her forever.

He knew exactly what he had lost now.

Quade turned toward the dining room. It was closing in a few hours, he thought. He had been to the inn many times before. He liked it there. Had friends there. People he could be with if he wanted.

But he just didn't want to.

Quade didn't feel much like doing anything any longer. Working—he always worked. But it wasn't as satisfying as it used to be. Not before Ashley. Ashley had listened to him, encouraged him to do a few more children's movies in the next year or so. She'd said he should do what made him happy.

Not much made him happy right now. It just didn't.

Not without her.

His brothers had both called him already, even though they were busy on set. He was finishing up a few things to help his friend Rowland now. Then Quade was going to head back to his condo and just think. Get through another day and then another and then another.

That was the way it worked, right?

He wasn't up for family drama now, and reuniting with anyone from his birth mother's family hurt too much to even consider. It had just been recent that they had learned of what she had done—and that they had a large family in Texas. Sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles—he thought—that he would never know.

It hurt. All of it hurt. Quade just hurt so much.

Quade had grown up knowing that he had his brothers—and that was it. His brothers wanted nothing to do with their mother's family. They were concerned it would bring negative publicity that they just didn't want to deal with, not to mention his oldest brother Slater's ex-girlfriend was tied to that family.

The last thing Slater wanted was to ever deal with her again.

Or so he said. Quade suspected that was the exact opposite of what his brother really wanted. His brother had come alive when that woman was near. She had almost died in October, along with three of Quade's sisters. He had only met one of those sisters once.

Zoey.

And he was almost certain she was walking around this hotel now.

He took the back way, hoping she wouldn't be in the dining room.

He got lucky. No one but a single waitress was in the dining room. It was midweek, and it was snowing outside, and the inn just wasn't crowded. Mostly, people left him alone at the hotel. They were getting used to seeing him or his brothers around the place, at least. Being a famous actor had its definite drawbacks.

There was a new waitress working that he didn't think he'd met before—she was rolling silverware, sitting on a high stool when he walked in. She looked up and smiled.

She had a beautiful smile, short, curly white-blond hair that stuck up everywhere, and was tiny. Cute, too. Quade felt an unexpected smile hit him when he saw the familiar red and black tennis shoes on small feet.

The waitress wore Wonkus McBubbles and Prince Rufus sneakers.

"Hello, welcome to the dining room of the Talley Inn, Mr. McBubbles," she said brightly. "I'm Dylan. I'll be your hostess-slash-server-slash-bus Talley this evening."

"Just you tonight?" The dining room had a bit of a hollow feel tonight. But Quade thought he liked it best that way. It seemed so old, but in a good way. Like it had stood the test of time.

"I'm good at multitasking. Just you tonight? Prince Rufus and his princess were in this evening. You missed them by about an hour. They were really cozy looking. Nikki greatly approved of the pecan pie."

"I really just want a sandwich or something. But…pie sounds really good, too." He looked at her more closely. The green eyes were very distinctive. "You have to be a Talley?"

"So I have heard. It's kind of required around this place, I think. I'm still figuring it out. And yes, I am one of the secret-baby-Talleys. My dad is Arthur; I was the mystical, mythical Holy Grail Missing Talley one, I think."

"So Charlotte and Marin are your cousins." Marin had the same pale blond hair. Charlotte was almost as small and had the same big, wicked green eyes. All of the Talleys had the same eyes—except Marin's were startling blue.

"Yep. I'm one of the foundlings, though."

"I've heard the story." Charlotte had told him—her uncle had hidden four of his daughters in the Witness Protection Program. Charlotte's four youngest cousins had just recently been reunited with the rest of the Talleys.

"It's a bit complicated, no denying that." She shot him a wicked grin as she led him to the far corner booth. "And it's bound to get attention around this place. There are so many of us Talleys now, you know. Easy for the runt of the litter to blend in."

She peeked up at him through long, pale blond eyelashes that made her eyes look huge and beautiful. She really was beautiful, in an unusual kind of way. It made a man want to look twice and then a third time. And when she smiled, a man wanted to smile right back.

Like Ashley. She'd been a green-eyed blonde, too.

"You look kind of sad," she said suddenly. "Not that I'm prying or anything. Just tell me to butt out. Well, that was seriously rude of me. Excuse me, I'm a seriously unsocialized homeschooler, you know. I have never learned how to act in society."

Her cheeks were turning a little red, making the freckles stand out. Quade smiled for real this time. She made a guy want to smile. That was what it was about her. She made a man want to smile. "You do just fine. I'm just…what are you supposed to do when you're ninety-nine percent certain your long-lost sister is walking around the same hotel you are, but you don't know if you want to meet her again or not?"

"Well. Dude, I think you have come to the right place. I'm still trying to figure out this long-lost sister thing myself."

Well, he supposed she was probably one of the few people around who could halfway understand what he felt right now. "Can you sit for a while? Talk?"

Maybe…maybe the last thing he really wanted to do was be alone tonight, after all.

"I sure can."

Maybe tonight…maybe Quade just needed a friend.