Page 87 of Heart Like a Cowboy

“I didn’t hire the artist to paint that,” she said, speaking to the crowd now as she pointed to the top painting. “I don’t want it to exist because the painting is a lie. Everything you know about that man is a lie.”

Tilly wasn’t pointing at the image of Jack but rather Egan, and that got people turning to him.

“Egan Donnelly lured my son into a vehicle where he was killed,” Tilly went on. She wasn’t crying, and Egan figured that was possibly because the muscles in her face were too tight to let any tears come through. “My son wouldn’t have been anywhere near that—”

“That’s not true,” Alana called out, her voice somehow managing to be louder than Tilly’s despite her not having a microphone.

“Hell,” Egan grumbled, and he started weaving his way through the crowd again to get to Alana.

But Alana just kept on talking. “Jack and I had an argument, a really bad argument,” she emphasized, “and he wanted to talk to Egan. FYI, Egan was on that transport vehicle and could have been killed, too. And he was on that vehicle so he could see Jack.”

Tilly looked ready to implode. “Egan is responsible.” And the woman’s gaze seemed to dare Alana to disagree.

Alana dared. “No, the IED is responsible, and since this has turned into a tell-all, let me do some telling.”

Tilly actually darted toward Alana, but Anton hooked his arm around the woman’s waist and held her back. Even if Tilly had managed to tackle Alana, Egan wasn’t sure that would have stopped her. Alana certainly didn’t stop when he made it to the podium to try to talk her out of this. Instead, Alana grabbed Tilly’s microphone and got to spilling.

“Jack and I had argued because he’d been having an affair,” Alana announced. “With her.”

Alana’s pointing finger had everyone, including Egan, turning to see Melinda at the back of the crowd. Melinda looked as if she wished a big hole would swallow her up. However, it was Tilly’s reaction that was the stunner. Because there was no “stunned” to it. Tilly didn’t look at Melinda as the stranger who’d bedded Jack. No.

Tilly recognized her.

WTF? Had Jack told his mother about his lover? That didn’t make sense, but Egan was suddenly very certain that Tilly had not only been aware of the affair but had also known the identity of Jack’s lover.

“Don’t do this,” Tilly warned Alana. No shout this time. Just angry whispered daggers. “Don’t put something out there that you can’t take back.”

“How did you know about Melinda?” Alana asked, clearly picking up on Tilly’s reaction, too.

“She’s Jack’s friend,” Tilly insisted. “Hisfriend,” she emphasized. “And Jack turned to her during his time of overwhelming grief. That’s all it was. Grief. It’s exactly what’s happening between Egan and you, and it’ll be over like that.” She snapped her fingers. “And then you’ll have to live with the regret of what you both have done.”

Egan figured Tilly had managed to land the intended blows with those words. Words that he wished he could sure as hell deny, but there was the possibility that regret would rear its ugly head in the future.

The mutterings of the crowd grew louder, and that’s when Egan realized people were moving closer. Now that the microphone wasn’t being used and Tilly was whispering, it would no doubt be hard to catch whatever the woman was saying. However, Egan was sure that enough people would have heard even without voice amplification and that within seconds—if it hadn’t happened already—news of this would be all over town.

“How did you know about me?” Melinda asked, moving up from the back of the crowd. The question and the movement yanked Tilly’s stony glare from Alana and Egan to her.

Tilly dismissed her as if swatting a fly. “Your mother.” Her voice was flat now, and even though she wasn’t tall enough to actually look down her nose at Melinda, she was obviously trying to do that. “She contacted me about a year ago and tried to tell me a bunch of lies.”

Egan had thought the day had already met its quota of bombshells. Apparently not, though.

“My mother?” Melinda questioned. “She told you about me? About Easton?”

“She told me lies,” Tilly snarled in a low growling whisper. “Jack might have bedded you out of grief, but that’s it. Nothing more happened.”

“Sweet merciful heaven,” Alana grumbled, and she managed to make it sound like the rawest of profanities.

Alana yanked out her phone from her pocket, and Egan realized she was pulling up a photo. Of a kid. But not just any ordinary kid, he soon noticed when he looked at that little face. That little smile. Those little eyes. Obviously, Jack’s DNA had won out big-time in the boy’s creation because he was the spitting image of Jack.

“Deny this,” Alana snapped, taking on some of Tilly’s outrage. “I dare you to deny this.”

Everything went silent. Egan wasn’t even sure anyone was still breathing. And the only sound that came was a small whimpering gasp from Tilly’s throat.

At that moment, the skies opened up, and the storm came with a vengeance.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

ALANASATINher car and stared down at her lap full of lazy daisies. All waiting to be plucked so they could reveal answers.

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