“Because she looks like Lorna.” His gaze met mine. “She’s our mother.”
Reid
“Your mother?” I repeated. Turning back to the woman, I again scanned her withered form. “Nancy Pierce?” Of course I knew the name of my wife’s mother. “That’s her? Are you sure?”
With a grunt and a huff, Mason walked away from the capos and the car, toward the night.
I followed a step behind, finally reaching for his shoulder. Rain squished from the fabric of his shirt as I gripped, stopping and turning him back. “Where are you going?”
His green gaze shot through the veil of rain. “I can’t look at her anymore.”
“Listen, I don’t have a fucking idea what to do with the bombshell that she could be the long-lost Nancy Pierce, but right now, I don’t give a fuck. You need to get your shit together. Lorna needs to get back to the ranch and get some real medicine and care.”
Mason inhaled and nodded. “You’re right.” His jaw, covered in a few days of scruff, clenched as his eyes searched through the rain toward the car. “We’re leaving Nancy to rot.”
“What?”
“We’ll fucking leave her out here where they found her. You saw her. Hell...” He looked down at the accumulating water. “The rain will carry her away, and wildlife will take care of the rest.”
“Wait? You want to leave her? That’s your mother.”
“She’s the woman who gave birth to me, but that doesn’t make her a mother. What is a fucking mother?” He pointed toward the car, his volume raising. “That woman was a selfish cunt who never gave two shits about Lorna, Miss...” He took a breath. “About any of us.”
“I get that, man. I do. I’ve listened to Lorna over the years. I know the woman wasn’t exactly mother of the year.”
“More like Mommie Dearest.”
I took a few steps to collect my kaleidoscope of thoughts. “How did she get here?” When Mason didn’t answer, I went on, “How did she end up with Lorna? Did the kidnappers have her? The Order?” I added.
Mason’s voice rose above the increased rumbling of thunder. “I don’t fucking care.”
“Right now, I believe you. Lorna has been found. My wife and your sister is alive. That’s all that matters.”
He lifted his chin. “I’ll have Christian take her...no, I’ll do it.”
As Mason started to walk back toward the cars, I seized his arm. In the millisecond that my grip touched his wet forearm, my brother-in-law froze. His green stare sent daggers my direction as he looked between my grasp and my eyes.
Inhaling and shaking the rain from my face, I released him.
While Mason had come a long way with showing his tattoo-covered scars, he drew the line at sight. Touching any of his uncovered skin was reserved solely for one woman. She was currently tending to my wife. I lifted my hands. “Sorry.” Before Mason could begin walking again, I spoke, “What if it’s not her?”
“It’s been almost twenty years, but I’m not mistaken.” He looked up into the falling rain and back. “You know how little kids are supposed to find solace in their mom’s face? Look in her eyes for comfort and all that shit? Well, to me, seeing her was the opposite. Seeing her meant the beginning of a nightmare, because when she showed up, it was rarely alone. I know in my bones that woman is Nancy Pierce.”
“Or...she could be someone who was chosen for her similarities to make you think it’s her,” I offered. “The Order has replaced bodies before.” It was Mason’s body they’d replaced with a burnt corpse, but that was old news.
Mason exhaled as his teeth clenched.
“Just hear me out,” I said above the increased howling of the wind and the pelting rain. “If this is the Order we’re dealing with, couldn’t it be possible that they’re fucking with you?”
Lightning zigzagged through the sky as seconds later thunder crashed in a rolling long rumble. The lightning and thunder were getting closer together, meaning the strikes were getting closer.
Mason pointed toward his truck. “I don’t want to tell her that Nancy showed up dead.”
“Lorna or Laurel?”
“Lorna,” he answered. “I saw Lorna before I laid the blanket on her. The last thing my sister needs is to deal with more shit than she’s already been given. What is the sense in telling her a ghost showed up dead?”
My neck straightened as the sky again filled with light. “The choice to tell Lorna about anything isn’t yours. Stop treating her like she’s eleven.”
“I’m not.”
I could go down the I’m her husband road, but another thought occurred to me. “If it is the Order, what do you believe they expect you to do with the body?”
Mason paused, wiping the rain from his forehead, smoothing back his shoulder-length hair, and shaking the moisture from his palm. “There’s no going back in the Order. It’s not like when we served. The Order is black and white, succeed or fail. There’s no gray, no in between. If you go down on a mission, you’re dead. It doesn’t matter because you were already.”
“So, they expect you to leave her?”
“I’m not fucking programmed by—”
“The capos are taking the body back to the ranch,” I interrupted. “I know I’m not thinking straight, but any damn clue to get me to whomever hurt Lorna is one clue I refuse to leave to raging rivers or wildlife. And the last fucking thing we need is to have a body found on your property, prompting Montana authorities to start asking questions.”
“The chances she’s ever found—”
“Are zero if we take her. If we leave her, the authorities could get an anonymous call.”
Mason’s neck and shoulders tightened.
“We’re taking her,” I repeated, “Once we get her back to the ranch, I’ll run her DNA. First, we’ll verify her identity. No matter who she is, this will give Laurel and me a chance to examine her, figure out her COD, and see if she holds any clues to who had Lorna.
“I sound like a prick, but let’s use that corpse to get whatever information we can. Then, if she is your mother and you still want to feed her to the horses, I don’t care, but,” I added, “no decision is final until Lorna gets a say.”
Mason shook his head. “Pigs eat bodies, not horses.”
I didn’t respond.
“I can agree to that under one condition.” He waited for a response, but I remained silent. “I’m not treating Lorna like a kid,” he said, “but someone fucked her up. You agree that we don’t tell Lorna until she can handle it.
“Fuck, we can keep Nancy on ice. I don’t give a shit. But with my sister, we don’t know how she’ll even wake or what she’ll remember.”
“Ice.” I looked at him side-eyed. “We agree there will be no disposing of the body until Lorna is involved. She’s an adult. If that’s Nancy Pierce, Lorna was her child too. My wife deserves as much of a say as you.”
Lightning again streaked across the sky as simultaneously, thunder shook the ground.