“Doctor, is it possible that I fathered this child?”
Harris looked at him carefully.
“Yes.”
Samuel stared.
“But you cannot tell me that it is certain?”
“No. Only a proper medical examination can determine what can be established medically, and the child's parentage cannot be settled by the old report. But your old report did not prove you were infertile. It never did.”
Samuel lowered his head.
The relief was so sudden that it frightened him.
He wanted to believe.
He wanted to go home, kneel beside Anna, and tell her that the child was theirs.
But hope had become dangerous to him.
He had once trusted a physician's words and built fourteen years of grief around them.
He would not replace one certainty with another simply because he desperately wanted it to be true.
“I need to understand what happens next,” he said.
Harris nodded.
“You should speak to a physician who has no connection to your family or the old hospital. Let him examine you and explain what can be determined. And you should keep those records safe.”
Samuel placed the documents back into the folder.
“There is something else.”
Harris waited.
“Thomas came to my house last night. He told me he had paid Dr. Lang because he wanted to protect himself from losing the ranch. But he wouldn't tell me whether anyone else had been involved.”
The old doctor looked troubled.
“Thomas was not the only person who benefited.”
“Who else?”
Harris opened a drawer and removed a small ledger.
“I kept a record of the payments because I feared the truth would eventually be needed. Edward arranged the money through a company that purchased timber rights. Thomas signed the draft, but the funds came from Edward's account.”
Samuel took the ledger.
“Why didn't you give me this with the letter?”
“Because I was not certain it would be safe.”
“Safe for whom?”
Harris's face tightened.
“Samuel, there are things about your father's estate that you may not know.”
Samuel looked at him.
“What things?”
“Edward had been pressuring Joseph to sell a portion of the ranch before your accident. He claimed the land contained valuable mineral deposits. Your father refused because the property included the creek and the grazing ground that supported the cattle.”
Samuel remembered the dispute.
He had been present at one of the meetings. Edward had offered a substantial sum for the eastern acreage, but Joseph had rejected it.
“The land was never for sale,” Samuel said.
“Edward believed your father was being sentimental. He thought the property could be divided and sold for much more than it earned as a ranch.”
Samuel opened the ledger.