Texas Rebels: Elias. Linda Warren

I have to tell you?”

      Elias pulled out his phone, tapped the screen and walked over and laid Chase’s picture in front of her. She refused to look at it. Falcon picked up the phone and stared at it.

      “Oh...”

      Quincy took it from him and passed it around the table. “Mom...”

      “That is not Elias’s son, Quincy.”

      “Mom...”

      “Stay out of this, Phoenix.”

      “Maybe you need to get a DNA test done,” Falcon suggested.

      “I don’t need a DNA test. I know Chase is my son.”

      “He is not your son, Elias,” his mother repeated in a steely voice he’d never heard before. And it brought out the anger in him.

      “What is it? Is it because he’s my son? Falcon and Leah got pregnant and you and Dad then invited them into the house to live. When Leah left, you helped with the baby. There was no question of DNA. When Jude got Paige pregnant in high school and gave the child up for adoption, you hired an attorney to fight to get him back. There was no question of DNA then either. Phoenix heard he was a father and you wanted to raise the boy. So what is it? Why is my son treated differently?”

      His mother carried her plate to the sink. “I’m tired of talking about this. We have work to do and it’s time we all got to it.”

      Elias picked up his phone from the table. “That’s it, huh? If my son is not welcome here then I’m not, either. I’m out of here.”

      “If you walk out that door, I will disinherit you.”

      A powerful silence filled the room.

      He turned back to look at the mother he’d loved all his life and he only saw an angry woman determined to stick to her principles of being right when she was wrong. She didn’t want to admit she’d made a mistake in turning away Elias’s child. He couldn’t change that, but he wasn’t going to stand for it, either.

      All his life he’d put his blood, sweat and tears into this ranch because one day he would own part of it. Could he walk away from everything he loved? It wasn’t much of a choice. He had a son and he had to stand up for him as well as for himself. As always, though, he had something to say.

      “Dad was alive back then. Don’t you think a Rebel/McCray child would have pulled him out of his malaise? It would have helped him to see that life goes on even after tragedy.”

      “That boy is not a Rebel.”

      His mother was taking a stance and he had to do the same.

      “I’m outta here.”