CHAPTER 13

	The first half of the drive to Draper passed in almost complete silence.  Joey
spent most of her time looking out the window.  Blake made a few valiant attempts at
conversation that Joey politely answered before falling back into silence.  At last, in utter
frustration, he pulled the truck off the road and turned off the engine. 
	On the drive home from Draper earlier he had had a lot of time alone to think
things over.  No matter how he had looked at things he had come to the same
conclusion. There was no way around it, Joey had to know the truth.  It wasn’t just that
she was writing a book of his life story — he still wasn’t sure if the information he was
about to give her should be included in the book — but he just felt it was right that she
should know. By the time he had arrived at the ranch his mind had been made up and
he knew that if he was going to do this, he had do do it right away before he changed his
mind. Now, as he struggled to strike up even the smallest conversation, he wondered if
he had made the right decision.  
	“Joey, listen, this isn’t easy for me. “
	She blushed and shifted in her seat. She was being childish, she thought.
Obviously whatever he was taking her to see meant a lot to him, and here she was
brooding over having made a fool out of herself in his study.  She turned to look at him
sheepishly, wondering how she could make it up to him.
	“I’m sorry, Blake.  I’ve been acting a little silly here I guess.  I just wish I hadn’t
embarrassed myself back in your study, you must have thought I was acting very
foolish.”  She glanced at him, and was surprised to see him smile at her.
	“Well, maybe you were — just a little. But look at it this way, it gave me an
excuse to kiss you,” he said, teasingly. She blushed even more and quickly turned her
face away, but he laughed at her and reached out to turn her to look at him again.  “Hey,
don’t be embarrassed.  I didn’t mind kissing you at all.”
	 She noticed that his eyes were now intent on her lips, and she swallowed hard,
wondering if he were thinking about kissing her right then and there.  Not that she didn’t
want him to kiss her, she reminded herself, as he began to lean in towards her.
	“Like right now, for example,” he was saying, as he approached.  “Does it
embarrass you that I want to kiss you right now?” Dumbly she shook her head, unable to
find her voice, and he smiled at her again.  “Good,” he whispered, as his lips touched
hers in a soft but short kiss, after which he lifted his head and smiled down into her eyes. 
He definitely wanted to do more than just kiss her, he thought, but this wasn’t exactly the
time or place.  He straightened and cleared his throat and brushed a strand of her hair
behind her ear. 
	“So, I think you should stop worrying about the kissing, OK,” he said, trying to
make light of things. 
	Her head was spinning.  Him kissing her hadn’t been the problem — except for
worrying if Mable suspected anything. It had been her childish outburst about thinking he
was going to send her home that had embarrassed her, but she supposed that if he
were willing to ignore it, then she should too. 
	“Alright,” she said, trying to sound final, as if the topic need not be discussed
again and hoping it never would be.  “I’m sorry. I’ll be better company, I promise.”
	His smile widened. If only she knew that she was the best company he had ever
known, he thought to himself, but now wasn’t the time to tell her that. Right now, he was
on a mission, and they were getting side tracked.  If they didn’t get back on the road to
Draper he might end up changing his mind. 
	“So — what was it you wanted to tell me?” she said, bringing him right back to
the subject at hand. 
	He shifted, and looked out the front window of the truck.  “There’s some thing you
need to know,” he said, in a thoughtful tone.
	“Alright,” she nodded.  “And  I need to know this in order to write the book?”
	He nodded.  “More or less, although I’m not sure if this should be in the book or
not.” 	
	“I think you’re confusing me, Blake.” She shook her head.
	He sighed, and looked at her with searching eyes.  “Joey, what I’m going to tell
you is something I’ve never told anyone else in my life.  Except for the people involved,
no other living soul knows — except Cordelia.”  
	“But you’re going to tell me,” she said, still not sure she understood where he
was going with this. “And you don’t know if you want it in the book or not?”
	“I trust you to do the right thing, Joey.  I just don’t think you can write my
biography properly if you don’t know the truth, even if you choose not to tell it.”
	“OK,” she nodded. “I can accept that.”  She quickly fell into the role of reporter
respecting an informant’s right to privacy.  “I never write anything that is considered off
the record, Blake.  I won’t betray a trust for the sake of a story.”
	He smiled at her, looking somewhat reassured, then shook his head. “I’ll let you
be the judge of whether this needs to be in the book or not, after we get where we’re
going.“
	“Where are we going, Blake?” she asked, finally.
	He took a deep breath and looked straight ahead.  “I’m taking you to meet my
mother.”
	Joey looked confused. “I don’t understand.  Cordelia is in Draper?”
	“No,”  he shook his head, then turned to look at her.  “But my mother is.”
	It took a few moments for the magnitude of his words to sink in.  During the time
she processed the information, he sat looking uneasy, as if wondering if he had done
the right thing, while she stared at him in awe. At last she tried to speak.
	“You mean ....”
	“Cordelia is not my mother, “  he finished her sentence for her.
	“Oh Blake! I’m so sorry,” she blurted out, before she had time to think about what
might be more appropriate to say.
	He actually laughed at her. “Sorry that Cordelia is not my mother?”
	“No!” she gasped, flustered that she had said the wrong thing. “No, of course not!
I meant, I’m sorry you’ve had to live with this secret all your life.”
	He shrugged. “Not all my life. I didn’t know until I was old enough to understand
the severity of letting the secret out.”
	“You mean Cordelia meant for no one to ever know.”  She thought she
understood what he meant, and he nodded to confirm her suspicions.
	“Exactly.  Not even me.” There was bitterness in his voice as he spoke this time,
and he was staring far off into the distance.  Joey felt her heart go out to him, thinking of
what it must have been like as a child to find out your mother wasn’t who you had always
thougth she was.
	“But you did find out.”
	“Yes. Thank goodness my dad didn’t share her opinion.”
	“Was your father...?”  she looked at him, not sure how to voice her question, but
once again, he knew what she wanted to say and completed it for her.
	“Yes, Samuel Winters was my real father.”  He gave her a wry smile as she
digested this information.
	“And your mother?” 
	“My mother...” he said, pausing for a moment. “My real mother lives in Draper. 
She was a maid for Dad and Cordelia, a young and beautiful Chippewa Cree.  When
Cordelia found out she insisted my mother be sent away and my father have no contact
with me.  He wouldn’t agree.  He said no matter where I went he would always
acknowledge me as his son and heir.  Cordelia was a very powerful woman, but she
couldn’t win that battle.  She had to agree to a compromise to avoid a scandal.  She let
the girl stay until I was born, then sent her away, keeping me and raising me as her own
son.  The secret was to remain on the ranch.”
	Joey pondered this information.  She remembered Mable telling her about the
young maid who was fired by Mrs. Winters and how shortly afterwards the main house
was renovated to encorporate the staff quarters. Obviously Cordelia wanted her staff
right where she could see them at all times. This also explained why the lady of the
house had preferred married staff.  Things were starting to fall into place in her mind,
except for the one main unanswered question. If Cordelia Winters wasn’t Blake’s real
mother, then who was?
	Suddenly something he had just said struck her and she turned to look at him.
She remembered the pictures in the photo albums he had given her, how she could
always see no resemblance at all between him and Cordelia, and although he did look
like his father, some of his most striking features had reminded her of someone else
completely.
	“William!” She spoke the word outloud, though bearly a whisper, and saw the
expression on Blake’s face change in confirmation of her thoughts.
	“You must be a very good investigative reporter,” he said, with a wry grin. “How
did you figure it out?”
	“A few things.  You once told me William was full blood Chippewa Cree, and his
daughter lived in Draper.  Mable told me your father had written William’s daughter into
his will.”  Blake was nodding as she spoke, agreeing with her deductive reasoning,  but
the main piece of evidence was sitting right in front of her.  “Most of all though, I saw a
picture of you as a boy sitting on William’s knee. I couldn’t get over how much you
looked like him in so many ways. Now I know why.”
	“At least I knew William was my grandfather before he died, “ Blake said in a
subdued voice. “He had always known, but since Father refused to let him go the
compromise was that he never mention it to anyone as long as he lived.  We sort of
broke that rule once I found out the truth.  I wasn’t going to let Cordelia make him take
that secret to his grave.  He was my grandfather, and I was damned if he was going to
die without hearing me call him that.  It was the proudest moment of his life, when he
was finally able to call me grandson.  Still, he knew he couldn’t speak it in public, and he
kept that promise ‘til the day he died.”
	Joey smiled, remembering the look on the old man’s face in the picture that had
haunted her for so long.  “He loved you very much,”  she said.
	Blake nodded. “Yes he did, and I loved him, even before I knew the truth. It was
very painful for him, though, to be around me every day and know that I wasn’t allowed
to know who my mother was. He used to take me with him, to visit her, when I was a
boy.  Dad would take us in to Draper, and William and I would go visiting while Dad did
business.  At least that was what they told me. It was Dad’s way of letting her watch me
grow up.”
	“Did he ever go visit her himself?”
	“My father? Yes, on occasion. It hadn’t been a casual fling with the hired help,
Joey.  Dad had loved my mother very much.”
	“Why didn’t your father just leave Cordelia and stay with your mother?”
	“Times were different back then.  Cordelia was a powerful woman, with a
powerful family.   She would have ruined my father rather then see him living on the
ranch with a Cree wife.”
	Joey frowned. She had never realized just how lucky she had been growing up. 
A child of mixed blood herself, she had never had to face the type of scandle that Blake
talked about.   But her grandmother had, though she seldom talked about it.   She
looked at Blake thoughtfully.  She could see now the native lines in his face, the
darkness of his eyes and skin.  Features she hadn’t seen in pictures of his father.
Features that made Blake Winters stand out in a crowd.
	“She must have been very beautiful,” she said, thinking out loud. 
	“She was,” Blake replied, though Joey could tell he was curious what had
prompted her to say it.  She shifted uncomfortably and looked out the window. 
	“Well then, is there anything else I need to know before we go visit her?” she
said, trying to sound cheery.  
	He grinned, started the truck and pulled back onto the pavement.  “Nope, that’s
about it.”  Then he glanced at her as he drove along the deserted road.  “Her name is
Alice.”

	Alice Whitefeather was a slender woman in her late fifties.  Her hair was still dark,
and she wore it long, framing a face that was still very beautiful.  Joey imagined what
she must have looked like as the young woman that Samuel Winters had fallen in love
with.  She greeted her son with a bright smile and warm hug, and it was obvious she
loved her son very much.  She gave Joey the same bright smile, then glanced from her
to Blake.
	“And who is this you have brought to me?” she asked.
	“This is Joey Webber, Mother,” he said, making a point of calling her mother, and
Joey didn’t miss the quick, cautious glance the woman shot in her direction.  Clearly their
relationship was still a well kept secret and Alice was concerned about her son’s
outspokenness.  Blake didn’t miss the look either, and quickly reassured her.  “She’s
writing my biography. Remember I told you about that?”
	Alice moved to her son’s side and drew him away by the arm, keeping an eye on
Joey as she whispered to him. “Is this wise?” she asked him pointedly.
	“I trust her, Mother.” he assured her. 
	Alice frowned. “Maybe so, but what if this information gets out?  I have never
trusted that lady Cordelia, and I am not about to start now.”
	“Don’t worry.  Joey will do what’s right.” Blake insisted, but Alice was not
convinced. Blake pressed his hand against her arm and continued.  “Mother, trust me on
this one. I felt she needed to know the truth.  As  for what she writes, I trust her
completely.  Besides,”  he smiled and winked at her.  “Nothing gets published without my
approval.”  Alice smiled nervously at Joey, and took a deep breath. After years of
keeping secrets, it would be difficult for her to be open, but for Blake, she would try.

	In the end,  the woman warmed to her, and the afternoon passed much quicker
than Joey would have liked.  Although they talked about Blake, and some about Samuel
and Cordelia.  Alice even talked about herself, touching on the circumstances behind
Blake’s birth.  She had loved Samuel Winters, and that love had been returned, though
the grip of his wife had been strong.   Alice had never married after moving to Draper,
living a solitary life waiting for the occasional visits from her father and the boss’s boy
who didn’t know he was her son.  	
	Over dinner, Alice talked about her father, William Whitefeather, with a great
love, and Joey was fascinated by her stories.  As she listened it became obvious to Joey
that the man had had a great influence on Blake’s character.  She found herself feeling
very proud to have had the opportunity to have met the woman who couldn’t openly call
herself his mother.  Joey was certain she would have enjoyed hours in the old man’s
company and never ceased to be enthralled.
	“I wish I had met William,” Joey mused, as the drove back along the long
highway to the Silver Star. 
	“He was a very special man,” Blake agreed. 
	Joey sighed, and looked out the window as the passing scene.  She
remembered the first time she had travelled this road, how uncertain and yet excited she
had been. She remembered too, the greeting Blake had given her. How different things
were now. Her mind was reeling with information, and the book was going to have to
take a completely different turn. The problem, of course, would be how to handle the
bombshell of information she had been handed today.  If she told the truth, she would be
no better than the tabloids, dragging secret pasts out into the sunlight and serving no
purpose but to hurt the people involved. She was sure Cordelia Winters would still be
holding a pretty big grudge against Alice Whitefeather. On the other hand, how could
she represent Blake’s true self without revealing this secret.
	“What’s the deep sigh for?” Blake asked, glancing at her as he drove.
	“Nothing,” she said, smiling. “I’m just thinking about the book.”
	“Hmm.”  He turned his attention back to the road ahead.  He hoped he had done
the right thing, taking Joey to meet his mother.  He was staking everything he owned on
the belief that she would treat things with care. He only hoped he was right.