The Outer Edge of Heaven by Jaclyn M. Hawkes

here."
    Richard was still staring at her aghast. "Luke told you that? Luke honestly believes that?" She nodded and he said a mild expletive and went on, "My own son Luke? Who I talk to every single day of my life? Who I thought I had the ultimate father son relationship with, thinks I'm turning this place over to Chase?"
    He began to swear again and sat down heavily in a chair and Charlie wondered if she'd made a big mistake telling him as he continued to mumble, "How can he possibly think I'd turn this place over to Chase? It’s all I can do not to kick Chase out because he does so little around here. Chase would destroy this place in a month." She shrugged and waited to see if he was going to yell at her or cry.
    He didn't do either, but he turned to her and asked tiredly, "Is there anything else this earth shaking you've figured out since you've been here that I'm missing and need to know?"
    Charlie hesitated. He seemed to honestly want to know, but some of the things would be likely to rock his world. He saw her hesitation and said, "Go ahead and tell me, Charlie. They're my children. My greatest treasures. I love them and I need to know."
    "Okay…" She sat down in the chair next to him. "Do you want me to be brutally honest? Or politically correct?"
    He sighed, but then said, "This is Montana, Charlie. We don't do politically correct. Let me have it."
    Nodding, she began, "Well, I guess you should probably know that Lindie's baby is Chase's and Luke isn't truly in love with her, but he's going to marry her because he feels it's the only honorable thing to do. Lindie actually wants to give the baby up for adoption and go to college, but she can't get that through to Luke."
    Richard closed his eyes and bowed his head quietly, but then a few seconds later looked back up. "And."
    "Um… Tuckett is smoking pot with Tyree, but I'm going to kill both of them before you have a chance to, so that's a moot one."
    At this Richard sat forward abruptly. "Smoking pot! Tuckett? You're kidding!"
    She shook her head sadly. "I wish I was. I'd been wondering if Tuckett was smoking. Regular smoking, but I just caught the two of them not half an hour ago. I was looking for Luke to tell him when I came in here."
    Richard put a hand up to rub the back of his neck. "What else?"
    "Actually, since you already know about your wife's shenanigans, that's about it. Fo finally has a girl he really likes. That's earth shaking, but it's a good thing. Madge has an on-line fling going, but I think she's being smart about it so that's all okay. Other than the fact that Jamie thinks he wants to be a ballerina, I think everything else is under control."
    He sighed and then cracked a halfhearted smile. "Oh, that's all I need on top of everything else. A son who's a ballerina."
    Luke came in from the garage right then. He laughed and asked, "Chase wants to be a ballerina?"
    Richard shook his head. "Not Chase, Jamie. Have you got a second Luke? There are some things Charlie and I were just discussing that I think you need to be in on."
    Luke looked from one to the other and Charlie said almost guiltily, "I hope you're not going to want to kill me later, Luke."
    She got up to go and added, "When you're through here with your dad, would you come find me? I'm going to need some help murdering Tyree and then trouncing Tuckett." As she walked out the door, praying for all she was worth, she could feel Luke's eyes burning into her back.
    They were still talking earnestly when she came back in two hours later to start dinner and when the kids came in laughing and squealing, Luke and Richard headed into the office and shut the door behind them. Charlie started in praying silently for them again and began getting ready to grill steaks for dinner.
    Dinner was long over and the kids down for bed, but she still hadn't seen Tuckett. Luke and Richard were still cloistered behind the office doors and Charlie had begun to worry in earnest. She wished Fo didn't have a date