“That’s where Axel found his solace, too, on the open road. He was a brokenhearted kid struggling to get through each day. I worried he’d do something stupid like drive off a cliff, but while he was stronger than that, he was still human. When he was on his bike, he was okay. But off it? He went from one woman to another, trying to keep from falling into the abyss of his grief. That’s not to say if he and your mother got together, that she wasn’t special to him. She very well could have been, and he wouldn’t have told a soul, because he didn’t believe he deserved any kind of happiness after losing his girl. I don’t have the answers you’re looking for. But honestly, D, I can’t imagine my brother taking pictures with any woman, much less keeping them. Maybe that should tell you something.” He looked at the pictures, bushy brows slanting. “I sure miss the bastard.”

Wynnie put her hand on Tiny’s back as he handed the pictures to Diesel.

Diesel stared at the pictures, feeling a kinship with Axel’s grief. But that didn’t lessen the uglier emotions coursing through him. He knew all about trying to fill a void any way he could, but the idea that that was all his mother was to the guy who might have been his father only made him angrier.

He lifted his gaze to Wynnie, hoping for some kind of answer. “She didn’t say anything to you when she was in therapy?”

Wynnie shook her head. “I wish she had. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I asked her if there was any other family we should be talking with to help them prepare, to help you move on, but she said there was no one. When I asked about your father, she said they were just two kids having fun, and he wasn’t interested in anything more. I pushed her on it and told her he might have changed over time. I tried to get a name. I was worried it might come to this one day. But she’d said it wasn’t in the cards.”

That wasn’t good enough anymore. He needed to know the truth.