Dallas, Texas

"Katherine, a pleasure to see you again", all smiles as he greeted her in the office reception area, JR's friendly demeanour was not what she'd prepared herself to encounter.

Matching his smile publicly, she didn't mince her words as they made their way behind closed doors. "Why haven't I heard from you?"

"I had a visit from your mother."

"She was here?" surprised, she wasn't sure she really should be. Her mother was now well known to hide things and a visit of her own to Dallas made sense if she intended to keep her secrets.

"She was."

Leading her to the bar in his office, he prepared a couple of drinks, notably mixing no alcohol into hers, indicating he knew a little more about her than he had the last time they'd met.

"And?"

"I think you should speak to her if you want to know the details of what went on in the past."

Skimming over the details, his answer was not satisfactory at all. She'd come to him first, she deserved his loyalty, not her mother.

"Why? So she can lie to me again? I've heard her version of history and none of her stories tell tales of a previous family."

"I'm not surprised; she's probably ashamed of her behaviour."

Not quite saying he knew what her mother was feeling, he implied that she was embarrassed, although nothing she'd actually done confirmed that. Her mother refused to even acknowledge that there was anything going on, let alone that it was something she felt badly about.

"Cliff thinks she has reason to feel that way."

"He would."

"What does that mean?"

Having spoken to Cliff herself, she had an idea of what she thought JR meant, however he was an ambiguous man and sometimes it seemed that he had more to say than what he actually verbalised.

"Well, she was his mother before she was yours."

Handing her her drink, he explained himself, making a good point. She disliked her mother sometimes but at least she had a mother, Cliff had grown up in an unstable home it seemed and had never had the opportunity to clash with their mother but be grateful that at the end of the day she was there. He held a lot of resentment towards her for leaving and would likely be even more hurt than he already was if he knew the full story, that she hadn't just left and never returned, but that she'd left, built a new life for herself and was keen to pretend that she'd never been anyone but who she was now.

"What about Pam? Do you think she'd feel the same way as Cliff?"

Fascinated by the idea that she had a sister she'd never known and would never know, she truly wanted to hear and understand what she'd been like.

"I wouldn't be surprised."

Shrugging, JR gave her very little to go off. She expected that it would be painful to be in the position Pam and Cliff had been in, but then again Cliff had told her that Pam had been only a year and a half old when their mother had left, so perhaps she'd felt differently as it was unlikely she truly remembered a full family life.

"She was hurt by my mother leaving?"

"I don't know, we weren't that close."

Admitting where the gaps in his knowledge were, JR didn't elaborate.

"Cliff told me she was lovely in spite of our mother, not because of her."

Believing Cliff probably had a point, especially if Pam had lived the majority of her life without a mother, she still didn't truly understand the sort of person Pam had been. Cliff was nothing like what she'd expected, so despite all the nice things she'd heard about Pam she still had questions. She knew even herself that despite being a nice person she had flaws, she could be selfish and demanding when she didn't get her way, and although rare, envy and jealousy were things she struggled with.

"She certainly made Bobby happy."

Avoiding answering as it applied to him, JR referred to Pam's effect on Bobby, which was the more important of the two relationships anyway.

"How is Bobby?" genuinely curious, she still had a strong desire to ask him all the questions she'd put to JR and Cliff, but she'd yet to get in contact with him.

"As good as can be expected", vague again, JR's answer implied his brother was still grieving, although it didn't explain where in the grieving process he was.

It was obvious to her after meeting Cliff that Pamela's loss wasn't easy to move forward from, however, he'd still managed to have a conversation with her, and if Cliff could do that then surely Bobby could too.

Approaching the bookshelf near the bar, she studied the framed photograph of four men by a river, obviously on a hunting or camping trip, recognising three of them as Jock, JR, and Bobby, with no name for the fourth man. It wasn't the fourth man that interested her though, it was Bobby. She'd seen her fair share of newspaper clippings and press releases, so she had a vague idea of what he looked like, but this was clearer and probably more recent than anything else she'd come across. "I'd like to meet him."

"What do you hope to accomplish here?" joining her beside the bookshelf, JR asked her what he'd always been interested in understanding.

"I don't know; I just want to hear the truth."

Honest, she told him that she was unsure what she would do with the information once she had it. It was a mystery that she felt needed solving; it was her past, a part of her, and something that she'd always wonder about if she didn't find answers now.

"I'm not sure Bobby can give you that, you do know they were only married for five months or so?"

Expressing a new hesitation, JR didn't seem particularly convinced that Bobby would be of any help to her, which didn't sound right at all.

"Still, he was her husband, I'm sure he can give me a better understanding of who she was than you can."

"It'll be different, that's for sure", murmuring, making little sense, JR sounded as if he were speaking more to himself than her.

"What does that mean?"

Waving his hand casually, he brushed off her concerns, "don't worry about it."

Expecting he was unlikely to explain himself, she didn't push him and changed the subject again.

"What did my mother say to you?"

"She wanted to know what I was doing snooping in her life."

Doing as he always seemed to, JR responded to her question with only a surface level answer.

"Did you tell her?"

Remembering how uncomfortable her mother had appeared to be with the idea of her making another trip to Dallas, she had to expect that JR had told her something, but she'd like to think he hadn't.

"Why don't you ask her?"

Frustrated, she raised her voice. "Do you think I haven't tried that?"

Ignoring her outburst, he asked about an encounter she'd had. "What did Cliff say?"

"You have a lot of nerve asking me for details when you won't do the same for me!"

Continuing to ignore that she was obviously annoyed, he was far calmer in his response than she was. "I advised your mother to do the same thing I'm advising you to do, talk to each other."

Making a completely unrealistic suggestion, he didn't appear to be joking, but surely he was. He had to know that talking didn't get her anywhere with her mother.

"And say what? Why did you leave your last family?"

"It'd be a good start."

Irritated by his lack of help, she took the advice he was giving her and applied it to their conversation, asking him a direct question.

"You said my mother knew you'd been snooping around in her life. Tell me, what did you find there?"

"There wasn't much you didn't already know."

"That doesn't help."

Touching her shoulder gently, he expressed what felt like pity to her. "Look, Katherine, I'll gladly have you back here to talk, but you need to push your mother on these questions first."

Preferring that he help her rather than feel sorry for her, she reiterated where she felt she was regarding her relationship with her mother. "You're not listening, she won't tell me anything."

"I told her you were smart, that it wouldn't be long before your suspicions led you to the information you desire." Shaking his head, he surprised her, complimenting her, making her consider the situation from a different perspective.

He could be manipulating her, flattering her to distract her from the lack of detail he was actually providing, but she wasn't sure. She didn't doubt she was smart, she'd always believed she was smart, so it wasn't far off the truth that she would find out the truth. What she'd always known too though was when to ask for help, which was what she was doing in his office.

"My suspicions have led me here. I've hit a dead end and other than asking Bobby about Pamela I don't know what to do."

"Sure you do. Keep at it and eventually something will happen."

Increasingly frustrated with his evasiveness, she snapped at him. "You're no help."

Still and quiet, he didn't react to her comment in any way, leaving her a little confused as to what was going on in his head.

Sighing, she calmed down a little, tiredly asking, "what is keeping you from letting me in on what you have?"

Cracking a smile, he explained himself, "I'm helping you. I read in the report that you want to be a journalist. Journalists push and dig, this is good practice."

Softening, she felt he was being honest with her, although she still would have preferred he'd just helped her as she'd asked him to.

"That's very nice of you. I must ask, are you sure you're not hiding information from me because you've made a deal with my mother to keep me in the dark?"

Chuckling, he refuted her allegation. "No. In fact, I told your mother that I didn't think you'd take a convenient lie over the complicated truth."

Appreciating that he'd told her mother not to lie to her, she didn't appreciate his further teasing that there was something to discover, something he wasn't willing to divulge.

"So you know the truth?"

"I have an idea of what happened when."

"And?"

"You're almost there."

Hearing plainly that he knew something she didn't, she felt exasperated, but knowing that anger would do her no good, she chose a different approach.

"Humour me; give me a little bit of information to leave here with", using a playful tone of voice, she asked him again to help her, making a motion with her fingers to indicate she was only after a small favour.

"All right", chuckling again, he played along with her request, "you were right about the birth certificate. It wasn't Burke, it was Blake."

Giving her something good, something real she could look into, she immediately warmed to him again. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Taking a drink, she finally felt like their meeting had come to something. It wasn't all that she'd hoped to find in Dallas, but it was more than she'd arrived with, and that was progress.

To be continued…