Hold Me by Lucianne Rivers Page A

Five C Ranch, had supposedly died during the Gulf War when Jane was six. What else had her mother kept from them?
    “Your mother honestly thought your father was killed in action over twenty years ago.” Dawn took a sip of water from a heavy crystal glass. “She told me she received a phone call several weeks ago from a man who told her Zach was alive.”
    “What man?” Allison asked, arms crossed.
    “He didn’t identify himself,” Dawn said. “He hung up when she asked his name. Very cloak and dagger.”
    “And Mom believed him?” Jane wasn’t sure she did.
    “Candace hired a private investigator with connections to the military. He found no record of your father’s death.”
    Margo raised an eyebrow. “Who’s the investigator? Maybe I know him.”
    Margo probably knew everyone in local law enforcement. She’d been promoted often, and Jane suspected she’d make police chief someday.
    “His name is Robert Rivera,” Dawn said, referring to her notes. “He’s a former Navy SEAL.”
    “Never heard of him,” Margo said.
    “Excuse me.” Allison stood and strode to the door, her face grim. Jane knew from the set of her shoulders that she was garden-bound. Jane stood, intending to comfort her most fragile sister. News of their father’s existence, coupled with the loss of their mother had brought chaos to their orderly existence. She wanted to reassure Ally that, Zach or no Zach, Jane and Margo would never take the ranch away from her.
    “Wait,” Dawn said, handing each of them an envelope with their name on it. “Candace left one for each of you.”
    Staring at her name scrawled on the envelope in her mother’s hand, Jane bit back a gasp of despair and cleared her throat. “Thank you for making the trip, Dawn. You didn’t have to come out here for this.”
    “Candace was my friend, and I care about you girls. It was the least I could do.” Dawn rose and hugged each one. They murmured their goodbyes and she gave them a last, pitying glance before clacking down the wooden-floored hall to the front door.
    The sisters stayed in the library until the sound of Dawn’s car on the gravel driveway disappeared.
    Jane looked at each of their faces—Margo’s watchful, Allison’s glum. “If Dad’s alive, I want to find him.”
    Allison, who Jane knew didn’t remember Zach Caldwell, paced across the room and stared out the window at the acres of dirt and cacti.
    “Don’t worry, Ally.” Jane glanced at Margo, eyebrows raised. “Neither of us wants you to leave the ranch. I’m certain Mom knew that when she made her will. We’ll find Zach. You stay here and run the place as only you can.”
    Margo nodded, eyes on their youngest sister.
    “You really mean that?” Ally, usually so sure of herself, asked in a tremulous voice.
    “Of course,” Jane said. She and Margo moved to flank Allison by the window. The winter sun appeared from behind a gray cloud. Its beams shone through the glass, lighting their faces.
    “So what do we do now?” Allison asked, her words hollow and haunted.
    Fierce protectiveness and determination rose in Jane’s chest. “We find our father.”
    …
    Two weeks later
    Jane’s suit was past saving—the cream-colored, dry-clean-only fabric creased and sullied with stale-smelling coffee. Her flight to Cancun had been uneventful, but finding her way to the bus station had involved an altercation with an unscrupulous taxi-driver. College-level Spanish hadn’t prepared her for the pace and patois spoken in Mexico. No doubt the cabbie had taken her on a circuitous route to the bus station and charged her accordingly.
    Managing to buy a ticket to Chetumal had also been a feat. She’d rewarded herself with a much-needed coffee, and promptly spilled it down the front of her suit and into her purse. Jane quickly pulled her dripping cell phone from her purse and found it dead and unrecoverable, fried by the liquid.
    Fabulous.
    Night had fallen by the time the coach pulled into the