Big Girls Don’t Cry (Dundee, Idaho #6)(17)
Author: Brenda Novak

“My friend Glenda does. But I don’t. Duh.” She rolled her eyes and laughed again. “Don’t you know anything?”

He pinched his lip. “I admit that I’m a little puzzled.”

“About what?”

The whole situation. His brother-in-law seemed to have built two complete families. Two families that existed in different parts of the country. And, from what Isaac could tell, they were completely unaware of each other. How had Keith managed to get away with it for so long?

A bang drew Isaac’s attention to the house. Isabella’s older sister had thrown the door open. “Isabella, it’s your turn to put the silverware on the table!”

The little girl sighed dramatically. “I’m coming,” she said, and started back up the driveway.

Isaac watched her go. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do about the mess Keith had created. He didn’t want anyone to be hurt. Not the attractive woman he’d just met. Not her sweet little girls. And certainly not his sister and her children.

In two hours, he’d be having dinner with Keith’s other wife, the mother of his other family. At some point, Isaac would have to tell her—and Elizabeth, too.

God, what was he going to say?

CHAPTER SIX

ISAAC ARRIVED at the diner early. He’d already explored the area and found that there weren’t a lot of things to see in Dundee. After about three blocks of businesses, the town fell to quasi-rural residences like Reenie’s, where the people enjoyed small acreages and often owned horses or other animals. Once he started climbing into the mountains, he saw mostly large ranches.

“Would you like anything else to drink?” A waitress, wearing a badge that identified her as Judy, set a glass of water in front of him. About forty-five years old, she had a smoker’s voice and bleached hair with dark roots.

“Maybe in a minute or two,” he said. “I’m waiting for someone to join me.”

“Who?”

He’d never had a waitress ask him for the name of the party he was waiting for, at least not as if she had a personal interest. He glanced up to see Judy putting her order pad in one of the pockets of her apron. “Excuse me?”

“Who are you waiting for?”

“Reenie O’Connell.” Reenie’s last name tasted bitter on his tongue. He didn’t want to believe she could be married to Keith. Surely there was some other explanation. He wasn’t sure about the ramifications of bigamy, but he knew it was illegal. He needed to do some research, maybe call his friend in Chicago who worked for the Attorney General’s office. Part of him wanted to see Keith behind bars. The other part realized that putting his brother-in-law away wouldn’t help either family. Which might be the reason, besides the few sensational polygamy cases coming out of Utah, he’d never heard of anyone going to jail for marrying two people at one time.

“How do you know Reenie?” she asked, seemingly unaware that he might consider it rude for her to be so inquisitive.

“I used to work with Keith.” He repeated the lie he’d told Reenie while trying to remember what he’d read in the paper about Tom Green. The State of Utah had put Tom Green in jail for bigamy. But, if Isaac remembered right, there’d been other charges as well. Keith hadn’t married anyone underage. And what he’d done had nothing to do with collecting welfare. He maintained two relatively “normal” but separate lives, and he seemed to be a good father to his children. Did the state send bigamists like Keith to jail?

“Hel-lo?” The waitress snapped her fingers in front of him, and Isaac belatedly realized that she’d asked him another question.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “What’d you say?”

“Did you meet Keith at that computer company?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head. “Good thing you got out when you did. Keith’s sure gone a lot. If you ask me, he needs to stay home and take care of his family.”

Which one? “How well do you know Keith?”

“Well enough. Everybody knows everybody else around here.”

“How long has he been living in Dundee?”

“Let’s see.” She rolled her eyes, which were caked with blue eye shadow, toward the ceiling. “Seems like…gee, his folks must’ve moved here at least twenty years ago.”

Twenty years was a long time. Her answer certainly didn’t make Isaac feel any better about who might have come first in Keith’s life. “Are his folks still in town?”

“Sure are. They don’t live more than a couple miles from Reenie.”

Interesting. Apparently, Keith’s parents were alive and well, and hadn’t been killed in an automobile accident, as Isaac had been told. Keith also purported to be an only child. Elizabeth was always saying how terrible she felt that he had no family.

Me and the kids…we’re all he’s got, Isaac.

Isaac smoothed his eyebrows with a thumb and finger. “Does he have any siblings?”

He wasn’t surprised when she immediately responded in the affirmative. “Two brothers.”

“Do they still live in town?”

“No. One’s away at college. Baylor. The other married and moved to Boise several years ago.”

“I see.” He hauled in a deep breath. “When did Keith marry Reenie?”

Her trust gave way to skepticism. “I thought you were waiting for Reenie. I thought you were friends.”

“Actually, I know Keith.” But certainly not as well as he had once believed. “I just met Reenie this morning when I stopped by to look at the Jeep she’s selling.”

“What brought you to town in the first place?”

“I’m writing a novel about small-town relationships. Reenie’s agreed to help me with some of the research.”

Judy pursed her lips and nodded as though grudgingly impressed. “Reenie’ll be a big help. I’m sure she’ll tell you all about how she and Keith met in high school. Got hitched almost as soon as they graduated.”

So what he’d suspected was true. Liz was the other woman. She’d met Keith on an airplane only eight or nine years ago.

“Reenie’s father is Senator Holbrook, you know,” the waitress said.

Isaac didn’t know. But neither did he care much about Reenie’s political connections. He was too busy trying to place events in their proper order. First Keith had married Reenie. Then he’d been hired by Softscape. The company had moved headquarters, and he’d started traveling extensively. Which is how he’d crossed paths with Elizabeth. They began to date, she got pregnant with Mica, they married right away. The only thing that made Keith’s extramarital affair so different from those of a lot of men was that he’d married the other woman without divorcing his first wife….