quietly. When she paused, he took the opportunity to comment. “Sounds like he had a pretty hard time of it.”
Debi took in a long, shaky breath. It hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park for her, either. But this wasn’t about her, she reminded herself sternly. It was about Ryan. About saving Ryan.
“He did,” she answered. “He kept asking me why he was the one who got to live and they had to die.” A rueful smile touched her lips. “That was while he was still talking to me. But that got to be less and less and then the only time we talked at all was when I was nagging him to do his homework and stop cutting classes.” The sigh escaped before she could stop it. “I guess you could say that they were one-way conversations.”
He was all too familiar with that—from both sides of the divide, he thought.
“What brought you here to The Healing Ranch?” he asked her. When Debi looked at him, confused, he explained, “It’s usually the last straw or the one thing that a parent or guardian just couldn’t allow to let slide.”
She steeled herself as she began to answer the man’s question. “I had to bail Ryan out of jail. He ditched school and was hanging around with a couple of guys I kept telling him to avoid. One of them stole a car.” She had a pretty good idea which one had done it, but Ryan refused to confirm her suspicions. “According to what another one of the ‘boys’ said, the guy claimed he was ‘borrowing’ it just for a quick joy ride. The owner reported the car missing and the police managed to track it down fairly quickly. The boys were all apprehended.”
Age-wise they were still all children to her, not young men on their way to compiling serious criminal records.
“But first they had to chase them through half the city.” She didn’t want to make excuses for her brother, but she did want Jackson to know the complete truth. “Ryan didn’t steal the car, but he knew it didn’t belong to the kid behind the wheel. He should have never gotten into the car knowing that.” This time, she didn’t even bother trying to suppress her sigh or her distress. “He used to make better decisions than that,” she told the man sitting opposite her.
A lone tear slid down her cheek. She could feel it and the fact that it was there annoyed Debi to no end. She didn’t want to be a stereotypical female, crying because the situation was out of her control. She couldn’t, wouldn’t tolerate any pity.
Using the back of her hand, she wiped away the incriminating stain from her cheek.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “I’m just a little tired after that long trip.”
Rather than comment on what they both knew was an extremely lightweight excuse, Jackson took the box of tissues he’d kept on his desk and pushed it over toward the young woman.
He watched her pull one out, his attention focused on her hand. Her left hand. There was no ring on her ring finger—but there was a very light tan line indicating that there’d been a ring there not all that long ago.
“Did your marriage break up over that?” he asked her gently.
Debi raised her eyes to his in wonder as she felt the air in her lungs come to a standstill.
How did he know?
Debi stared at the man sitting across from her. Had Sheila called him to set things up for her? She hadn’t mentioned anything, but if her coworker and friend hadn’t called this man, then how did Jackson know about the current state, or non-state, of her marriage?
“Excuse me?” she said in a voice filled with disbelief.
Even as he asked the question, Jackson was fairly certain that he already knew the answer. Whoever this woman’s husband had been, the man was clearly an idiot. Two minutes into their interview, he could tell that Deborah Kincannon was a kind, caring person. That she seemed to be temporarily in over her head was beside the point. That sort of thing happened to everyone at one point or another. It certainly had to his stepmother.
The fact that Ryan’s sister was exceedingly attractive in a sweet, comfortable sort of way wasn’t exactly a hardship, either. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that her choice in men, or at least in this man, left something to be desired.
“Did your marriage break up over that?” he repeated. Jackson could almost hear the way the scene had played out. “Your husband said he’d had enough of your brother’s actions and told you to wash your hands of him, am I right?”
Debi could feel herself growing pale. The second this man said the words, she remembered the awful scenario and how it had drained her.
Her mouth felt dry as she asked, “How did you...?” Her voice trailed off as she looked at Jackson incredulously.
“Your ring finger,” he answered, nodding at her left hand. “There’s a slight tan line around it, like you’d had a ring on there for a while—until just recently.”
Debi nodded and looked down at her left ring finger. It still felt strange not to see her wedding ring there. She hadn’t taken the ring off since the day she’d gotten married, not even to clean it. She’d found a way to accomplish that while the ring remained on her finger. But now there seemed to be no point in continuing to wear it. If she did, it would not only be perpetuating a lie, it would also remind her that she had wasted all those years of her life, loving a man who was more a fabrication than real flesh and blood.
The John Kincannon she had loved hadn’t existed, except perhaps in her mind.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, she couldn’t help thinking. There had been signs. Why hadn’t she allowed them to register?
She supposed the answer lay in the fact that she just couldn’t admit to herself that she could have been so wrong about a person for so many years. A person she had given up so much for. A person who had inadvertently caused her to sacrifice her parents’ lives. So when warning signs had raised their heads, she’d ignored them, pretending that they didn’t exist. Whenever she found herself stumbling across another warning sign, she’d just pretended that it was a little rough patch and everything was all right. How wrong she’d been.
Debi cleared her throat and sat a little straighter in her seat.
“I don’t see how that would matter, one way or another,” she finally replied, sounding somewhat removed and formal.
Jackson pretended not to take notice of the shift in her voice and demeanor. “Oh, it does,” he assured her. “It does. I’m not trying to pry into your private life. I just want to identify all the pieces that make up your brother’s life. If your marriage broke up because of him, then Ryan might have that much more guilt he’s carrying around.”
The laugh that suddenly left her lips had a sad, hollow sound. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that, Mr., um, White Eagle—”
“Jackson,” he corrected.
That felt easier for her. As if they were in this together.
“Jackson,” she repeated, then continued with what she wanted to tell him. “If Ryan feels responsible for my marriage falling apart, to him that’s a very good thing. He and John never
