Chapter One
Palmer Hudson liked to have fun. He’d learned at an early age that life was going to punch you in the nose as often as it could, so you might as well enjoy the ride between blows.
That didn’t mean he was irresponsible. Maybe, on occasion, he hit the bottle a little harder than he should, and definitely, on occasion, he was a little careless with women, but always, no matter what, Palmer showed up and did what he was tasked with doing.
Some days, it was ranch chores at the sprawling Hudson Ranch, which had been part of his family for five generations. And sometimes it was stepping in as investigator on one of the cold cases his family investigated as part of Hudson Sibling Solutions—his oldest brother’s brainchild after the disappearance of their parents when Palmer had been twelve.
One day they’d been there...and then they’d been gone.
No one had ever figured out what had happened to them. But Jack had stepped up and taken care of the five minor Hudson kids. Jack had been eighteen and had taken on the weight of everything.
Had it turned him into an uptight tool most days? In Palmer’s estimation, yes. He could hardly hold it against Jack when Jack had kept them together. Driven him to football practices, signed off on his joining the rodeo early, made sure there was food in the fridge and money in the bank.
Jack had been the glue so much so that, even though they’d each tried their hand at off-ranch things—Grant had joined the marines for a time, Cash had gotten married and had a kid, Mary had gone to college and Anna had tried her own brief stint at the rodeo—all these years later, they were all back home. At the Hudson Ranch. Running Hudson Sibling Solutions and living just outside the Sunrise town limits.
Family.
Nearing thirty, Palmer didn’t consider his wild days behind him, but he supposed he was starting to understand the adult art of balance.
Mostly, he thought darkly when he recognized the raven-haired woman sauntering toward him. He’d been heading for the main house, but now he was seriously considering turning on a heel and beating a hasty retreat.
Louisa O’Brien was the one person, maybe in the whole world, who made Palmer Hudson uncomfortable.
Since she was his kid sister’s best friend, he’d once enjoyed annoying and torturing Anna and Louisa whenever given the opportunity. It’s what big brothers were for.
But ever since Louisa had come home from some fancy college out east a couple of years back, Palmer had done his level best to steer clear.
Because Louisa O’Brien had grown up into a flat-out knockout. Wavy black hair that she almost always hung loose around her shoulders, dark green eyes the color of deep summer and an almost-constant smirk that promised she knew a lot more than you did. Not to mention the way she wore her jeans—which he absolutely refused to notice ever since that one time he had very much not realized it was Louisa he’d been ogling at the local bar.
He might not have a lot of boundaries when it came to women, but Louisa was one.
“Hey, Palmer,” she greeted, coming to a stop in front of him.
He hadn’t run away, so he supposed he just had to deal. Much as it pained him. “Afternoon, Louisa. Anna’s out of town.”
“Yeah, I know. I actually came by to see you.”
“What the hell for?” That was another thing about adult Louisa. He was forever saying the wrong thing around her when he’d never had trouble charming a woman in his entire life. From the cradle, he’d been able to wrap the female population around his...finger.
Of course, he didn’t want to charm Louisa. He wanted to stay the hell away from her at any and all costs.
She grinned at him, green eyes wreaking real havoc with his system—a system that should absolutely know better.
“I need a favor,” she said, and though she tried to keep the grin stretched wide, he saw the shift in her eyes. Something serious lurked behind that attempt at amusement.
“Why don’t you ask literally anyone else?”
“Why so
grumpy?” she asked, reaching out to poke his chest.
He sidestepped her. He had learned that nothing good came from pretending like she didn’t affect him. So, he just straight up avoided.
“Got things to do, Louisa.”
“And people, I assume,” she returned with a smirk. A smirk with just enough flirtation that he had to very firmly take his imagination to task. No picturing Louisa O’Brien in absolute any kind of state of undress.
Ever.
“I need shady help,” she said, as if she didn’t know how she affected him when he had the sneaking suspicion she knew and used it against him. Routinely. “And you’re the shady one.”
“Anna’s shady.”
“No, Anna’s vengeful,” she corrected. “There’s a difference.”
It was true, but Palmer didn’t have to like it.
“It’s a bit delicate. I’d ask Cash, but he’s not taking cases right now. At least, that’s what Mary said. And as much as I trust Anna with anything... Well, I need a delicate hand.”
It irritated him that she’d want to go to Cash over him, which wasn’t a fair assessment since he didn’t want her coming to him. But still. Emotions and facts didn’t always line up neatly. So, his response was a little gruffer than it should have been. “Since when is that my department?”
She blew a breath, frowning out over the distant mountains. Something twisted in his stomach. He very much wanted to fix whatever was worrying her. But he could not take that risk.
When she returned her gaze to him, he was sunk. “This is serious, and I need someone I can trust. I’d go to Grant or Jack, but they’re just too...straight and narrow. I need someone who’s not afraid to bend the law a little. I need answers at literally any cost.”
“Any cost is a dangerous proposition, Louisa. You might want to rethink what you’re offering.” Because every now and again, the best defense was an obnoxious offense.
She frowned. “No one’s paying you to be a jerk.”
“Nope, I do it for free since I love it so much.”
She laughed. That was another problem with Louisa. Sure, like everyone else, she didn’t take him too seriously, but she didn’t get bent out of shape. She took things as they came, and since that was his entire life motto, he couldn’t help but respect it.
Her laugh died quickly though, and any attempt at humor too. She clasped her hands together, looking up at him imploringly.
Hell and damn.
“I found something that changes my entire life, Palmer. I need answers. I need help. I don’t know who else to go to.”
“Like what?”
“Like...I don’t think my parents are who they say they are. I don’t think I’m theirs. And I don’t think any of it was ever legal.”
LOUISA WOULDN’T CRY in front of Palmer Hudson for a million dollars. She had pride. Some people had told her she had too much.
She didn’t mind. Pride got a person places, and it kept them protected from people taking advantage. It protected soft hearts that didn’t want to be soft.
So, she had her pride and she forced back every last drop of moisture in her eyes that threatened. Even though it was hard.
She’d never said the words she’d just uttered out loud to Palmer or anyone. She still didn’t want to believe it. But the past six months had her feeling hollowed out and empty. Sad and scared. She couldn’t live in denial any longer. She needed answers.
She hoped to God she got answers that were comfortable. With every passing month, it felt less and less likely.
“I don’t follow,” Palmer said, studying her in that careful way of his. Palmer played into his fun-loving, heavy-drinking, serial-dating reputation. He made sure everyone thought there wasn’t much substance under that black cowboy hat.
But Louisa knew his family saw the substance underneath, and she knew that under all those bad boy ways he’d learned to cope with his parents’ disappearance was a man who was careful with the things that mattered.
She wasn’t ashamed to admit, in the privacy of her own mind, that she’d been in love with Palmer Hudson since she was thirteen years old. Who would have been able to resist? He’d been impressive at seventeen. Homecoming king. Football quarterback. Off to the rodeo, always smiling and laughing despite the tragedy that had befallen his family.
She’d believed—hoped—for years she’d grow out of those feelings for him. She knew he’d never, ever reciprocate those feelings. But hers stubbornly and religiously stayed, even after her four-year stint in New England for college.
Even if she sometimes entertained the fantasy he might reciprocate other things if not feelings.
Regardless, she loved him. And she’d bite her own tongue off before she admitted it to anyone.
That little wrinkle had kept her from asking for his help for months now. She’d tried to think of a way to bring it up to Anna that wouldn’t send Anna flying off the handle. She’d considered, over and over again, consulting one of the other Hudsons. Any other Hudson.
But if everything she suspected was true, she was a cold case. And she needed help. Careful help. Determined help.
Palmer fit the bill. Unfortunately, more than anyone else. He wouldn’t want revenge. He wouldn’t tell anyone. He wouldn’t follow every law to the letter.
He’d find her answers.
Maybe he’d tempt her in the process. Because, damn, the man was enticing. If that was the price she had to pay, then so be it.
“So, this woman found me on Facebook,” she said, since starting at the very beginning seemed safer somehow.
“No reasonable story starts with those words, Lou.” He looked down at her, so condescending, she almost turned and left right then and there. She didn’t need his disdain. She didn’t need him.
But she did need answers
“She was a freshman at my alma matter,” Louisa continued, trying to keep the snap out of her tone. “And she’d seen my softball team photo in the athletic complex from when we won our championship.”
“Still proud of that one, huh?”
“I assume you’re still proud of all your buckles?”
He didn’t respond to that.
“So, she contacts you and says what?”
“That we’re identical. And isn’t that so weird? She sent me her softball picture.”
“You opened an attachment from an unknown source?”
“Yeah, I did, Palmer. So buy me some antivirus software. The point is, she was right. She looked almost exactly the same as I did at eighteen. We decided to try to trace our family trees to see if we...connected somehow. Like long-lost identical cousins.”
“And you didn’t?”
“No. But then she suggested we do one of those ancestry DNA tests. You know? The ones that tell you where your family came from, and you can connect to other people with the same DNA or whatever.”
“Sure.”
“I was kind of excited. I thought it would be something cool. Like my great-great-grandma had an affair with some outlaw. I thought it would be fun, maybe funny. I entertained the possibility we weren’t related at all and we’re just freak doppelgangers too, but dreaming up how we might connect felt... I don’t know. It was just fun. So I told my parents. I thought we should all do it.”
He must have read something in her tone because his frown deepened. “They didn’t go for it?”
“They forbid me.”
Palmer’s eyebrows drew together. “Forbid you? I didn’t think your parents forbid you anything.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but no. They’ve always been lenient. Bent over backward to make me happy. I know that.” She wrapped her arms around herself. It was silly. A silly thing to still be upset about, but it was jarring when parents got really militantly angry for the first time when you were twenty-four.
Even when they’d caught her with a beer after graduation, she’d gotten gentle talking-tos, despite every don’t-drink-before-you’re-legal lecture known to man. They just...didn’t get mad. They were overprotective, but they were careful.
Now she wanted to know why. Why for twenty-four years they’d been so accommodating when all her friends had had more rules, more lectures, angry fights with their parents as they’d experimented with teenage rebellion.
But Louisa had never been able to rebel, even when she’d tried, because her parents did not forbid.
Until, as an adult, she’d asked to do a fun little DNA test. “They threw a whole fit. Said it was dangerous to give your DNA to those places and there
was no way any of our DNA was going to be sent off to some shady business.”
“It’s not a bad point, Louisa.”
She didn’t groan, though she badly wanted to. “No, it wasn’t. Still, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. If they’d been rational. If this woman hadn’t told me...”
“Told you what?” Palmer asked.
This was the hard part. The part that didn’t make any sense. The part that, for months, she had convinced herself wasn’t true. Until Kyla Brown from Lakely, Ohio, had sent her picture after picture of family members who looked like Louisa herself.
When she’d never once been told she took after her parents. Never once.
“Her older sister was stolen as a baby. Kidnapped. They never found her—not a baby or a body. ...
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