“I did. I guess I was duped,” she admitted, ruffling his hair. So much for heroics.

“So the guy was a phony.”

“Big time.”

John Cawthorne stepped forward. “You’d better come into the house and slow down a mite. You look all done in.”

“I’m fine,” Katie lied.

“Dad’s right.” Bliss, ever the worrier, held the door open. “Maybe you should rest.”

“That’s a good idea.” Jarrod glared at his half-sister. “And give up the ridiculous notion that you’re going to interview Ray Dean for your story.”

“Ray Dean? Laddy’s dad? He was the guy?” Josh asked, his eyes round as saucers as his estimation of his mother and her bravery soared into the stratosphere.

“Stay away from the likes of him,” John growled.

Tiffany squeezed her hand. “Oh, Katie. Jarrod and ... and John are right. Ray Dean’s a criminal and you’re a mother, you can’t be taking any chances.” For once, Tiffany sided with her estranged father, and Katie saw that this family—ragtag and filled with more than its share of bitter memories, distrust, and skeletons tucked away in every available closet—had come together during this crisis. Unintentionally, she’d drawn them to one another.

“Maybe everyone should hear what Katie has to say.” Luke, the outsider, finally put in his two cents worth. He was standing beneath a madrona tree, one shoulder propped against the trunk, his hands shoved into the back pockets of his jeans. “Seems to me that it’s her life.”

Jarrod was about to argue. He opened his mouth, snapped it shut and then lifted a hand as if in surrender. “He’s right.”

“Tell us what happened,” Bliss insisted.

“Everything,” Tiffany added. “Come on, I think we can all fit into the parlor.” She held the door open and John urged everyone inside. There wasn’t enough of Katie’s odds and ends of eclectic furniture to hold everyone, but Stephen and Josh sat on the hearth, Christina was huddled in her mother’s arms while Bliss and Mason stood at the windows, Brynnie sagged onto the couch, and the rest were scattered throughout the room, either seated in kitchen chairs they’d dragged into the parlor, or on the floor.