1225 Christmas Tree Lane

7

Linc gritted his teeth. It was after two, and the traffic through Tacoma was bumper to bumper. “You’d think it was a holiday or something,” he muttered sarcastically.

Mel’s eyebrows shot up and he turned to look at Ned in the backseat.

“What?” Linc barked.

“It is a holiday,” Ned reminded him.

“Don’t you think I know that? I’m joking!”

“Okay, okay.”

“You’re going to exit up here,” Mel said, pointing to the exit ramp for Highway 16.

Linc sighed in relief. They were getting closer, and once they found Mary Jo he intended to give her a piece of his mind. She had no business taking off like this, not when her baby was due in two weeks. It just wasn’t safe.

His jaw tightened as he realized it wasn’t Mary Jo who annoyed him as much as David Rhodes. If Linc could just have five minutes alone with that jerk…

“I’ll bet he’s married,” Linc said to himself. That would explain a lot. A married man would do anything he could to hide the fact that he had a wife. He’d strung Mary Jo along, fed her a bunch of lies and then left her to deal with the consequences all on her own. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. No, sir. Not while Linc was alive. David Rhodes was going to acknowledge his responsibilities and live up to them.

“Who’s married?” Mel asked, staring at him curiously.

“David Rhodes,” he said. “Who else?”

The exit was fast approaching and, while they still had twenty miles to go, traffic would thin out once he was off the Interstate.

“He’s not,” Ned said blithely from the backseat.

“Isn’t what?” Linc demanded.

“David Rhodes isn’t married.”

Linc glanced over his shoulder. “How do you know?”

“Mary Jo told me.”

Ned and Mary Jo were close, and he was more apt to take a statement like that at face value.

“He probably lied about that along with everything else,” Mel said, voicing Linc’s own thoughts.

“He didn’t,” Ned insisted.

“How can you be so sure?”

“I checked him out on the Internet,” Ned continued with the same certainty. “It’s a matter of public record. David Rhodes lives in California and he’s been married and divorced twice. Both his marriages and divorces are listed with California’s Department of Records.”

Funny Ned had only mentioned this now. Maybe he had other information that would be helpful.

“You mean to say he’s been married more than once?” Mel asked.

Ned nodded. “Yeah, according to what I read, he’s been married twice. I doubt Mary Jo knows about the second time, though.”

That was interesting and Linc wished he’d heard it earlier. “Did you find out anything else while you were doing this background search?” he asked. He eased onto the off ramp; as he’d expected, the highway was far less crowded.

“His first ex-wife, who now lives in Florida, has had problems collecting child support.”

Linc shook his head. “Does that surprise anyone?”

“Nope,” Mel said.

“How many children does he have?” Linc asked next.

“Just one. A girl.”

“Does Mary Jo know this?” Mel asked. “About him being a deadbeat?”

“I didn’t tell her,” Ned admitted, adding, “I couldn’t see any reason to upset her more than she already is.”

“Good idea,” Mel said. He leaned forward and looked up at the darkening sky. “Snow’s starting again. The radio said there’s going to be at least three inches.”

“Snow,” Linc muttered.

“Snow,” Ned repeated excitedly. “That’ll make a lot of little kids happy.”

Mel agreed quickly. “Yeah, we’ll have a white Christmas.”

“Are either of you little kids?” Linc snapped. His nerves were frayed and he’d appreciate it if his brothers took a more mature outlook.

“I guess I’m still a kid at heart,” Ned said, exhaling a sigh.

Considering Linc’s current frame of mind, it was a brave admission. With a slow breath, Linc made a concerted effort to relax. He was worried about Mary Jo; he couldn’t help it. He’d wanted the best for her and felt that he’d failed both his sister and his parents.

To some extent he blamed himself for what had happened. Maybe he’d been too strict with her after she turned eighteen. But to his way of thinking, she was under his protection as long as she lived in the family home.

Not once had she introduced him to David Rhodes. Linc was convinced that if he’d met the other man, it would’ve taken him all of two seconds to peg David for a phony.

“What are you gonna say when we find her?” Ned asked.

Linc hadn’t worked out the specifics. “Let’s not worry about that now. Main thing is, we’re going to put her in the truck and bring her home.”

“What if she doesn’t want to come with us?”

Linc hadn’t considered this. “Why wouldn’t she? We’re her family and it’s Christmas Eve. Mary Jo belongs with us. Anyway, that baby could show up any time.”

Mel seemed distinctly queasy at the prospect.

Thinking back, Linc realized he should have recognized the signs a lot earlier than he had. In fact, he hadn’t recognized them at all; she’d told him and after that, of course, the signs were easy to see.

Not until the day Mary Jo rushed past him in the hallway and practically shoved him into the wall so she could get to the toilet in time to throw up did he have the slightest suspicion that anything was wrong. Even then he’d assumed she had a bad case of the flu.

Boy, had he been wrong. She had the flu, all right, only it was the nine-month variety.

It just hadn’t occurred to him that she’d do something so dumb. An affair with the guy was bad enough, but to take that kind of chance…

Frowning, Linc glanced in his rearview mirror at his youngest brother. He was beginning to wonder about Ned. He’d never seemed as shocked as he or Mel had, and Mary Jo had always confided in him.

“How long have you known?” he casually asked.

Ned met Linc’s gaze in the rearview mirror, his expression trapped. “Known what?”

“That Mary Jo was going to have a baby.”

Ned looked away quickly and shrugged.

“She told you as soon as she found out, didn’t she?”

Ned cleared his throat. “She might have.”

“How early was that?” Linc asked, unwilling to let his brother sidestep the question.

“Early,” Ned admitted. “I knew before David.”

“You knew that early?” Mel shouted. “Why’d she tell you and not me?”

“Because you’d tell Linc,” Ned told him. “She wanted to keep the baby a secret as long as she could.”

Linc couldn’t figure that one out. It wasn’t like she’d be able to hide the pregnancy forever. And why hadn’t she trusted him the way she did Ned? Although he prided himself on being stoic, that hurt.

Mel tapped his fingertips against the console. “Did she tell you how David Rhodes reacted to the news?”

Ned nodded. “She said he seemed pleased.”

“Sure, why not?” Linc said, rolling his eyes. “The pregnancy wasn’t going to inconvenience him any.”

“I think that’s why he could string Mary Jo along all this time,” Ned suggested.

“You’re probably right.”

“I warned her, you know.” Ned’s look was thoughtful.

“When?”

“When she first started seeing him.”

“You knew about David even before Mary Jo got pregnant?” Linc couldn’t believe his ears. Apparently Mary Jo had shared all this information with Ned, who’d remained tight-lipped about most of it. If he wasn’t so curious to uncover what his brother had learned, Linc might’ve been downright angry.

“So?” Mel said. “How’d she meet him?”

Ned leaned toward the front seat. “Rhodes works for the same insurance company. He’s at corporate headquarters in San Francisco. Something to do with finances.”

His sister worked in the accounting department, so that explained it, he supposed. “She should’ve come to work at our office the way I wanted,” Linc said, and not for the first time. That was what he’d suggested when, against his wishes, Mary Jo had dropped out of college.

From her reaction, one would think he’d proposed slave labor. He never had understood her objections. He’d been willing to pay her top wages, as well as vacation and sick leave, and the work wasn’t exactly strenuous.

She’d turned him down flat. Mary Jo wouldn’t even consider working for Three Wyse Men Automotive. Linc regretted not being more forceful in light of what had happened. She might be almost twenty-four, but she needed his protection.

As they approached the Narrows Bridge, Linc’s mood began to lighten somewhat. Yeah, Mary Jo needed him, and he assumed she’d be willing to admit that now. Not just him, either. She depended on all three of her brothers.

Ned’s idea that they bring gifts had been smart, a good way to placate her and prove how much she meant to them. Women, in his experience anyway, responded well to gifts.

Except that was probably the same technique David Rhodes had used.

“Did he buy her gifts?” Linc asked, frowning.

Ned understood his question, because he answered right away. “If you mean Rhodes, then yes, he got her a few.”

“Such as?”

“Flowers a couple of times.”

“Flowers!” Mel said.

“In the beginning, at any rate, and then after she was pregnant he bought her earrings.”

Linc sat up straighter. “What kind?”

Ned snickered. “He said they were diamonds but one of them came loose so I dropped it off at Fred’s for her. While he had it, I asked him to check it out.”

Fred’s was a local jewelry store the Wyse family had used for years. “Fake, right?”

“As phony as David Rhodes himself.”

Mel twisted around and looked at Ned. “You didn’t tell Mary Jo, did you?”

Ned shook his head. “I didn’t want to add to her heartache.”

“Maybe she already knows.” His sister might be gullible but she wasn’t stupid.

“I think she considered pawning it,” Ned muttered, lowering his voice. “She didn’t, so she might’ve guessed….”

The mere thought of his sister walking into a pawnshop with her pathetic bauble produced a stab of actual pain. “If she needed money, why didn’t she come to me?” Linc demanded.

“You’ll have to ask her that yourself.”

“I plan to.” Linc wasn’t about to let this slide. “What does she need money for, anyway?”

“She wants her own place, you know.”

No one needed to remind Linc of that. Mary Jo did a fine job of informing him at every opportunity. But it wasn’t going to happen now. With a baby on the way, she wouldn’t be leaving the family home anytime soon.

Linc liked that idea. He could keep an eye on her and on the baby, too. Even if he married Jillian, which was by no means a sure thing, the house was big enough for all of them. His nephew would need a strong male influence, and he fully intended to provide that influence.

“How much farther?” Mel asked.

His brother was like a kid squirming in the front seat, asking “Are we there yet?” every five minutes.

“Hey, look,” Ned said, pointing at the sky. “It’s really coming down now.”

“Did you think I hadn’t noticed?” Linc didn’t have much trouble driving in bad weather; it was all the other drivers who caused the problem. Snow in the Seattle area was infrequent and a lot of folks didn’t know how to handle it.

“Hey,” Mel said as they approached the first exit for Cedar Cove. “We’re here.”

“Right.” Not having any more specific indication of where they should go, Linc took the exit.

“Where to now?” Mel asked.

Linc could’ve said, “Your guess is as good as mine.” But he figured his guess was actually better. “We’ll do what Mary Jo did,” he said. “We’ll chase down David’s family. That’s where she’s going to be.”

Mel nodded. “Whoever said the Wyse Men needed a star to guide them obviously never met the three of us.”