Fifteen minutes after she'd socked him a good one, he'd noticed she hadn't returned to the reception. He checked the parking lot and saw her pickup was gone.

Brandt had left immediately.

The drive to her place had been little more than a blur. He knew when he'd cut the truck's headlights and pulled into her driveway that she hadn't gone to bed yet. Even if her trailer had been completely dark he'd still be standing on her porch, ready to rip the damn door off the hinges if she didn't answer his knock.

A knock, which she'd ignored for the fifth time.

Screw it. Jessie already thought he was heavy handed, so he used that heavy hand to beat on the aluminum siding. "I ain't leavin' Jessie, so open up."

Lexie barked inside and Jessie shushed her as the door swung inward.

His braced himself, half-expecting she'd be aiming a shotgun at him.

Why that thought heated his blood just proved how twisted he was when it came to his conflicted feelings about his former sister-in-law.

But Jessie wasn't packing heat. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him through the screen door. "Did you bring the ropes to hogtie me with?"

"Funny. I'm comin' in."

She muttered, "Typical McKay macho bullshit," and unlocked the screen door.

Any relief that she'd relented to listen to him vanished when he remembered what he had to tell her.

Inside, he absentmindedly patted Lexie's head and watched Jessie grab two beers out of the fridge. She passed him a bottle on her way to sit on the couch.

She'd changed out of the slinky gray cocktail dress and into baggy red sweatpants and a black sports bra that molded to her upper torso, emphasizing the slenderness of her shoulders, the gentle curve of her breasts and the flatness of her belly. Damn woman looked good no matter what she wore.

Or didn't wear. The image of her naked in his arms had been permanently burned into his memory banks, but oddly, that wasn't the first thing that popped into his head whenever he saw her. Usually the word mine flashed behind his eyes in big red letters, and that was just all kinds of fucked up.

By the time she faced him, he'd managed a bland expression.

Jessie's gaze dropped to his stomach. "Sorry for punching you."

"No, you're not."

Her smile was there and gone. "Why are you here?"

"Because I need to tell you something." At her uncomfortable look, he held up his hand. "I promise it doesn't have nothin' to do with the embarrassing way I threw myself at your feet last year."

She frowned.

"You don't remember?"

"Of course I remember. I just...didn't see it that way."

"Thank God for that," he muttered, swigging his beer.

"What's up, that you had to chase me down at eleven o'clock on a Saturday night?"

Blurt it out.

No, break it to her gently.

"Brandt?"

"It's..." Fuck. This was gonna suck ass.

"What? You're scaring me."

"I came across some information... Well, that ain't exactly true. I wasn't the one who made initial contact... Ah hell. I'm doin' this all wrong." He chugged another drink of beer. "Last month a woman called me. She said she knew Luke."

Jessie didn't speak. She just blinked those amazing baby blues at him.

"She said she knew Luke intimately, so intimately in fact, that he'd knocked her up."

"What?"

"This woman claimed she'd been sleepin' with Luke and didn't know she was pregnant until after he died."

Every bit of color drained from Jessie's face.

"She said she broke it off with him a week before his accident. When she discovered she was pregnant...somehow she'd heard you got kicked off the ranch. She figured she'd get the same treatment from Luke's family, and get nothin' but grief from you, so she didn't tell anyone Luke was the father."

"Bullshit," Jessie spat. "She knew carrying the baby of a dead man was worth something."

Brandt shook his head. "I honestly don't think she did."

"But she knew Luke was a married man when she slept with him?"

"Yes. There's no excuse for that. But I will tell you, she's young, Jessie."

"How young?"

"She just turned twenty-one."

Her mouth tightened. "That bastard Luke was fucking a nineteen-year-old girl?"

Hearing such crude words from Jessie caused Brandt to flinch. "Apparently."

"How old is the kid now?"

"Sixteen months."

"It's pretty damn convenient, if you ask me. Luke's been dead for two years. There's no way to prove..." Jessie's sharp gaze pierced right through him. "You have a guilty look on your face, Brandt McKay."

"Because I did demand proof. Right away. I contacted Dr. Monroe and she put me in contact with a place that specializes in fast paternity tests. Long story short, Landon is Luke's child. But really, all I had to do was look at the kid and I knew."

Jessie's tough shell cracked and her face crumpled. "Oh God. No. This is not happening."

Brandt was beside her in an instant. He wanted so badly to pull her into his arms, offer her comfort, but he wasn't entirely sure she wouldn't slap and claw at him, taking her rage out on the messenger since she couldn't take it out on the person who deserved it.

Goddamn you, Luke. What the fuck were you thinking?

He hadn't been. As usual his brother thought of himself first.

Jessie hugged her knees to her chest, hiding her face beneath her tangle of hair. Her shoulders shook as she rocked on the couch.

Brandt was helpless to do anything but watch her fall apart.

Lexie came over, whining at her mistress's distress, but even the dog seemed at a loss.

He drained his beer. Then he got up and grabbed another. Staring out the window, his thoughts as jumbled now, as when Samantha Johnston had contacted him six weeks ago.

Brandt hadn't told anyone in his family about meeting Samantha and Landon. It'd been ripping him up inside to the point he was pretty sure he'd given himself an ulcer.

He lifted the bottle to his lips only to come up empty. He'd sucked down the whole damn thing without thinking about it, without tasting it-which was why he hadn't been drinking the last month. It'd be too easy to wind up drunk every damn night, without intending to.

"Am I the last one to know about Luke's secret love child?" Jessie asked.

Her tear-choked voice startled him. "No. Hell no. I wouldn't do that to you." He crossed the room and sat next to her. "You're the first one I've told. You're the only one I've told."

"Why me first? Why not Tell or Dalton or your folks?"

How did he phrase this?

You've gone too far to worry about sparing her feelings now.

"Because this isn't happy news for you, Jess."

Her mouth trembled and he watched as she fought to stop it. She inhaled. Exhaled. "But it will be happy news for them."

Brandt nodded.

"Jesus. This is a nightmare. Just when I think it can't get worse, it does. Just when I think Luke McKay can't possibly hurt me any more than he already has, he does."

He didn't dispute it, which forced her to meet his gaze.

She paled further, if that were possible. "It gets worse, doesn't it?"

"Afraid so. Look, Samantha has had a rough go of it. She's young, a single parent with no one to turn to, so she's made some mistakes."

"What kind of mistakes?"

"She got a DUI when Landon was six months old. She managed mostly to stay on the straight and narrow...until two months ago."

"What did she do?"

"Got a second DUI."

Jessie's mouth dropped open. "Are you joking?"

He shook his head.

"Is that why she contacted you? To bail her out of jail?"

"No. She contacted me after the arrest because she knew she'd be sent to jail. She moved away from the guy she'd shacked up with and moved back in with her aunt. But the aunt can't take care of Landon. So she needs..."

"Oh no. Please tell me you didn't volunteer to-"

"What choice do I have?" He stood and paced to the door and back. "If one of Landon's blood relatives doesn't take him, her aunt will turn the child over to Protective Services."

"It sounds like the kid will be a helluva lot better off with a child protection agency than with her," Jessie snapped.

Brandt froze. "You don't mean that."

"Yes, I do. She's a perfect example of why there are these types of agencies, Brandt. Let them deal with her and with the kid. They're more qualified to make a rational decision about-"

"The only living link I'll ever have to my dead brother? I'm just supposed to say, oh well, not my problem? Not care? He's little more than a baby, Jess. None of this is his fault. Don't you see that? I'm sorry, but I can't walk away. I won't."

"Fine. You can't. I get that. But I don't understand what any of this has to do with me."

Here was the moment of truth. He knelt in front of her. "Because I can't do this by myself. I need your help."

"No."

"Just hear me out."

"No. God. No. Stop. Brandt. Please. Just stop."

The look on her face was killing him, but somehow he soldiered on. "It's a temporary situation. Just a few months."

"You can't be serious. You really aren't asking me to help you take care of my dead husband's illegitimate child."

"That's exactly what I'm asking."

"Oh God, I'm gonna be sick." She shoved him aside so hard he fell on his ass and she raced to the kitchen sink.

Her retching sounds, mixed with her heartbreaking sobs, made his eyes burn and his throat tighten.

He was asking the impossible of her. He knew that. But he also knew that Jessie had the kindest soul and the purest heart of anyone he'd ever known. That's why he hated how his brother had treated her. And it pissed him off that Luke still had the power to hurt her-to hurt both of them-from beyond the grave.

Brandt wasn't a religious man, but maybe there was a reason this child had happened and a reason why Samantha had come to him for help. He had to believe this shitty situation would mean something good in the end. Because if he thought too hard about the cruelty of it, he'd go stark raving mad. Hell. He was almost there.

He picked himself up off the floor and went to her. Jessie didn't shrink away when he wrapped his arms around her. She turned and burrowed into his chest, sobbing.

Brandt held her and let his tears fall along right with hers.

Finally, she whispered, "I can't do it."