Page 17 of The Convict Gets His Girl

Hunter had known. On some level, he'd known. She took a deep breath, wiping her eyes. She glanced down, her hand shaking as it settled on her dirty jeans, the silence stretching.

Hunter picked up his coffee cup again and said, "It doesn't matter now. It's all in the past. Like I told Gemma, it's all water under the bridge, and we can all move on now."

Jewel's heart raced and her head pounded as she thought of what to say. The weight of her secret pressed on her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She glanced between the two men, searching for any hint that they might already know. Hunter's gaze was patient as he rocked in the chair steadily, but Chase watched her like a lion.

She wiped her clammy palms on her jeans and licked her dry lips. The words she'd rehearsed countless times in front of her mirror now eluded her. She took a deep breath, the whirlwind of emotions piling up inside.

"Not quite," she said on the exhale. "The thing is, I have a daughter. She's fifteen and one of you is her father."

* * *

Chase blinked, his hand shaking on his knees as his brain processed what Jewel had said.

Er, Luke, I am your father.

He shook his head and focused on her short, choppy, breathless announcement, rushed with obvious nerves. He made a mental note of her tone, her words, the cadence and rhythm of them, the blush on her cheeks, the way her eyes flashed from him to his brother and back again.

The words penetrated his brain, and he twisted to look at Hunter, his eyes flying to his oldest brother.

If they'd gotten into that knock-down drag-out brawl at poker night a few days ago because he'd finally screwed up the courage to tell Hunter he'd slept with his girlfriend back in high school, what would his brother do with this new information?

Chase rubbed his jaw, feeling the comforting pain of the bruise that grounded him in the reality of the situation. He could be a father. A creeping flush spread up his neck, and he shifted on the stairs uncomfortably.

Hunter's face showed his surprise, his voice confirming it when he said, "Fifteen years…"

Chase swung back to Jewel, who bit her lip as she glanced between the two of them. His tone was accusatory as he asked, "Why didn't you say anything before now? Say, when you first got pregnant?"

Jewel glared and frowned. "I was going to at spring break, but I had just found out and needed more time to process before coming here."

Hunter's rocking ceased, and he leaned forward to whisper furiously, "Why didn't you come home? After our fight, you left and never came back. You could've come back the next summer, and we could've talked this out."

Jewel's jaw lifted, and a look he was intimately familiar with crossed her face. Disappointment, accusation. He'd seen it often enough the past year around town.

"I was going to, but Chase was in the hospital, then went to trial. I didn't want to add that stress to your family, so I was going to wait until the baby was born to do a paternity test."

"Then I went to prison," Chase said flatly.

Jewel hesitated, then nodded curtly. Bile burned Chase's throat, but he pushed it down.

"Damn," Hunter said softly behind him.

Chase's nostrils flared. "Is she here? At your dad's house?"

Jewel shook her head. "No, she's a camp counselor at NASA this summer, so she won't move to town for another few weeks. She's staying with my cousins in Houston."

Chase nodded, trying to imagine what this teenager looked like, how she'd react to the idea of one of them being her dad.

He stretched his legs down the stairs, extending them straight as he said, "I think we need to do a paternity test now, before we meet her. That way we can start off on the right foot and not confuse the poor girl. What have you told her about us?"

Jewel rubbed the back of her neck and sighed. "That her dad lives here. She knows he's here somewhere but doesn't know who. It won't take her long to ask around and find out that Hunter was my boyfriend back then. She—she has the Williams' hazel eyes."

Chase sucked in a breath, his mind immediately imagining a little girl with Jewel's wild, curly hair and his eyes.

Hunter said quietly, "I don't think we should mention this to Ma or Dad or anyone else until we figure out which of us is the dad."

Chase's head shifted to stare at his brother, but before he could argue, Jewel rubbed her temples and nodded. "I know. Gemma and Dad already assume you're the dad, Hunter, and honestly, it'd be so much easier if that is true…"

Chase's chest ached, and his jaw clenched. He hated being kept in the dark and not knowing things. It was why he'd always had his head buried in a book as a kid. "How long have Gemma and Henry known about her?"

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