His First and Last (Ardent Springs #1) (21 page)

Some answers might be found in an obit, but not others. Not the things Spencer really wanted to know. Like did his father enjoy working with his hands? Or did he ever think about coming to see his son?

“Are you going to write her back?” she asked, sitting down next to him on the swing.

The thought had occurred to him. “I don’t want to make this time any worse.”

“She sent the letter. She had to know someone might write back.”

“But she didn’t sign it ‘Hope to hear from you soon’ either.”

“Spencer Boyd,” Lorelei said, “you’re that man’s flesh and blood. You’re part of their family. The least they can do is give you some answers.”

Lorelei was right. Whatever information his mother might cough up would be half-truths and would tell him nothing about the man in the picture. Annie Ramirez was Spencer’s only chance to learn more about who he was. And he deserved to know.

“Maybe in a few weeks,” he said, “when they’ve had more time to grieve, I’ll send a few questions and see if she answers.” Spencer refolded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope, feeling uneasy about reaching out to the strangers with whom he felt no connection. To change the subject, he asked, “What do you have there?”

“Oh,” she said, holding the plate higher. “I’m trying a new cookie. Snickerdoodles.”

“I’ve never heard of them.”

“I think they’re more of a northern thing. Basically a sugar cookie
rolled in cinnamon.” She stuck the plate under his nose. “Try one and tell me what you think.”

They definitely smelled good. “All right,” he said, picking up one of the warm cookies. “Is it supposed to be all cracked like that?”

“According to the pictures online, yes.”

It looked ready to crumble in his hand. Sticking the letter under his thigh, he broke the treat in half and popped one side in his mouth. He tasted heaven.

“Oh, man,” he said with his mouth full. “That’s awesome.”

“Good.” Lorelei hopped off the swing and headed back inside.

“Wait. Let me have another one.”

“Sorry,” she trilled. “You can’t eat the inventory. These are for tomorrow.”

He wasn’t about to let her get away with that. “Tomorrow my ass,” he said, chasing Lorelei into the house.

As the screen door slammed behind him, Spencer never saw the wind carry the letter off the edge of the porch.

By midafternoon, Lorelei had baked and packaged the twelve dozen cookies and moved on to the breads. Spencer had done more than his part, which had won him his own batch of snickerdoodles. Granny returned home from a late lunch with Pearl and stepped inside soaked. What had started as a sunny day turned overcast shortly after noon, and the rain had moved in less than an hour later.

“It’s like a monsoon out there,” Granny said, shaking the rain out of her gray curls as Lorelei grabbed a towel off the clothes basket near the bottom of the steps.

“Don’t you keep an umbrella in the car?” she asked, wrapping the towel around the older woman’s shoulders.

“It’s in the trunk. I would have gotten even more drenched if I’d taken the time to dig it out.”

“Not the best place to keep it then, is it?”

Granny shot Lorelei a dirty look. “It’s not as if I knew it was going to do this. Not one of those television weathermen predicted rain today.”

“You can’t trust ’em,” Spencer said from the couch, where he watched a baseball game with Champ curled up at his feet. “You’d have as much luck consulting a Magic 8 Ball as depending on those forecasters.”

“I know, I know.” Granny slipped off her wet shoes and walked into the kitchen. “It sure smells good in here. Is that cinnamon?”

“It is. I made a new cookie.” Lorelei returned to her banana bread mixture. “Well, not new as in I invented it, but new to Lulu’s Home Bakery.”

“That is such a cute name.” Holding the towel tight around her shoulders, Granny examined the cookies through their clear wrap. “Snow was so smart to come up with it.”

When Lorelei had told her grandmother about the new name and showed off the amazing logo Snow had designed, which was the word “Lulu’s” in a fun and funky font sitting on a brown oval with the words “Home Bakery” tilted on the bottom right-hand side, she’d oohed and aahed with the appropriate enthusiasm, but she’d mentioned nothing that said she understood the name’s significance.

“Does the name mean anything to you?” she asked, hoping to trigger something in Granny’s memory.

“It means my grandbaby has her own thriving business.” A quick check of the bread batter over Lorelei’s shoulder and she added, “And Lulu isn’t that far from Lore—” The words stopped abruptly. “Oh, my,” the older woman said. “That’s what your mother called you.”

Relieved she hadn’t imagined the pet name, Lorelei nodded. “Yeah,” was all she could say.

Granny gave her a hug from behind. “That’s a good memory. We don’t think about those often enough.”

Lorelei agreed. This week she would ask Mike to share some stories from his high school days with her mom. She wanted to hear more about the girl Donna Pratchett had been.

“So what did you two do today?” Granny asked. “Besides turn out all these cookies.”

The game went to commercial, and Spencer stepped into the kitchen with an empty beer bottle. Lorelei glanced his way with raised brows. They hadn’t discussed if he intended to tell Granny about his new discovery. Since it wasn’t her news to share, Lorelei stayed quiet, content to support his choice of whether to spill or not.

“I received an interesting piece of mail today,” Spencer said, dropping the empty bottle into the recycle bin under the sink.

“How did you get mail on a Sunday?”

“This one came through my mother.”

Granny sobered. “Oh. Was this mail good or bad?”

Leaning on the counter, he crossed his arms. “A little of both.” Reaching around to his back pocket, Spencer said, “Shit.”

“Now, Spencer,” Granny scolded.

“Lor, where’s the letter?”

“I don’t know. You had it.”

“I thought it was in my pocket.”

“It isn’t there?”

“Would I be asking if it was?”

She dropped the wooden spoon into the mixing bowl. “You don’t have to get snippy. It has to be here. Where was the last place you had it?”

Spencer checked the couch, flipping the cushions to check underneath. “I was reading it on the porch swing, and then . . .” His words trailed off as they both remembered where he’d put it.

Lorelei reached the door first and barreled down toward the swing. The wind was blowing the rain sideways, spraying drops down her side.

“Is it there?” Spencer yelled over the sound of rain hitting the tin roof. She didn’t have to answer, since he could see the swing was empty.

“We’ll find it,” she said, running back to the steps, then across the yard to the end of the porch. Spencer took a shortcut and hopped over the railing. There, drenched and stuck in the mud, was the precious envelope. Lorelei picked it up, noticing immediately that the return address had washed away. “It’s just a little wet,” she lied, handing it over.

“It’s more than that,” he said, wiping off a chunk of mud with his thumb.

“We can fix it. We need to let it dry.” Taking him by the hand, she dragged Spencer back to the porch, where Granny stood near the door looking confused.

“Is that your piece of mail?” she asked, pointing to the letter in Spencer’s hand.

“It was,” he said.

“I’m telling you,” Lorelei said, “we can dry it out and it’ll be fine.”

“Lorelei, the address is gone. We can’t bring that back.”

“Come on,” Granny said, holding the screen door open and waving them both inside. “You won’t be fixing anything if you get pneumonia.”

Champ met them inside the door, sniffing at the envelope. “Back up, buddy,” Spencer said, ignoring the water dripping from his hair. “Rosie, can you bring me a towel so I don’t soak your floor?”

Granny brought them each a towel from the basket, then stepped back to sit on a stool beside the island. “What’s in this letter that sent you two running out into the rain?”

Wiping down his arms, Spencer answered, “My dad.”

By the time they’d shared with Rosie everything that Spencer had learned that afternoon, the envelope had dried enough to examine without shredding to bits in his hands. The return address was definitely gone, but he’d hoped the letter might be intact. As soon as Lorelei gently unfolded the yellow paper, his hopes vanished with the running ink.

“At least the picture is okay,” Lorelei said. She’d apologized twice already, as if his leaving the letter on the swing was somehow her fault. Which it wasn’t.

“You do look a lot like him, Spencer.” Rosie held her reading glasses low on her nose as she examined the image.

“Do you remember him at all?” he asked.

Rosie shook her head. “Not the name or the face. They were rebuilding the old Franklin Street bridge around that time. Lots of young men came into town to do the work, then moved on.” Handing the photo back, she added, “Sorry I can’t be more help.”

Spencer shook his head. “Nothing to apologize for. We’re talking thirty years ago. I doubt anyone would remember him.”

“There’s always your mother,” Rosie said. “She should be able to tell you something about him.”

“She’s been keeping this secret for three decades. It’s unlikely she’d be willing to talk about him now. And I’m not sure I’d believe anything she told me anyway.” He laid the photo on the island countertop. “What I need is his side of the story. And it’s too late for that.”

“It isn’t too late,” Lorelei said. “We’ll find Annie Ramirez.”

“Lorelei, the return address was somewhere in Dallas. What are the odds she’s the only Annie Ramirez in that area?”

Waving his words away, she said, “We have the Internet. You can find anyone with the Internet. She’s probably the only Annie Ramirez linked to a Doug Crawford.”

“No.”

“No what?”

“We’re not tracking this woman down.” The letter had not included an open invitation for contact. If the family wanted to know him, this aunt of his would have said so. Spencer’s gut told him that no good could come out of pursuing this further. The man was gone and nothing was going to bring him back, especially not an unwelcome letter to some mystery aunt.

The stubborn look he knew all too well settled over Lorelei’s features. “You have an entire family living in Texas. Relatives, Spencer. Blood relatives. You have to pursue this.”

There was nothing to be gained by contacting his father’s family, which was how he thought of them. They belonged to the stranger who’d had a fling with his mother and never looked back. They had no connection to Spencer. Now that he’d had some time to think about things, he knew hunting them down would be a waste of time. Nothing he learned would bring his father back.

“When I woke up this morning,” he said, “I didn’t know who my father was and thought I never would. Now I have a name and a face. And that’s enough.”

“But—” Lorelei started, until Rosie cut her off.

“It’s his choice, Lorelei. If Spencer doesn’t want to contact them, you need to let it go.”

The younger woman crossed her arms as her jaw worked from side to side. Spencer appreciated Lorelei’s tenacity, especially since it was on his behalf, but this time he needed her to give in.

“I’m serious, Lor. This ends here.”

Her lips snapped together, and her eyebrows shot up. “Fine. You don’t want to contact them, that’s your call.”

“Yes, it is.” She was dying to argue. He could see it practically vibrating through her. But instead, she said, “I have more bread to make,” and turned to wash out the mixing bowl in the sink.

Chapter 18

Lorelei tried going to sleep, but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t stop thinking about Spencer and the mistake he was making by not contacting his family. Whether he agreed or not, that’s what they were. The man could have siblings, or grandparents, or at least a cousin or two. After a lifetime of nothing, he deserved to know more. To feel part of a family where people cared about you. Maybe even looked like you. How could he ignore that?

Though she knew the answer to that question. What if they rejected him? What if they didn’t want anything to do with the son Doug Crawford had abandoned? Or worse, what if they thought he only wanted money? Not that there was any indication the man had any, but still. There were plenty of ugly roads this family hunt could go down, and Spencer had likely thought of every one of them.