Almost a Bravo

by Christine Rimmer

  Amanda came back in at four to close up. Aislinn went home to the cottage where she lived with her sisters Hailey and Harper. The two had recently graduated from OU down in Eugene.

  The cottage was a family property built in the ’40s, a rambling collection of rooms, all on one level, with two baths and four bedrooms. Her ancient great-uncle Percy Valentine had given it to her as a gift for her twenty-fifth birthday with the understanding that she would welcome any siblings who needed a place to stay.

  Neither of her sisters’ cars were out in front when she got there, which was good. She had this feeling that if they saw her face, they would know something was wrong and they would demand that she tell them everything. She wasn’t ready to talk about any of it—not until after she’d met with her brothers, anyway.

  Before going inside, she visited Luna and Bunbun, her German angora rabbits. The pair had the run of half of her front porch, which was enclosed, rabbit-proofed and equipped with a roomy hutch they wandered in and out of at will—except on the rare occasions that she needed them caged.

  Needing comfort, she got down on the porch floor with them and indulged in a long cuddle session. She buried her face in their enormous clouds of fur, lavished them with rubs and pets, all the while murmuring silly endearments.

  Once she’d loved them up thoroughly, she filled their hay racks, refreshed their food and water and cleaned their litter boxes. And then, leaving them happily noshing away, she went on into the house.

  It was far too quiet inside. All her fury and misery at what had happened in Astoria that morning came flooding back. She made herself a sandwich, sat at the table and cried for a while.

  She really needed to talk to her best friend. Aislinn and Keely never kept secrets from each other. If Keely was here, Aislinn could get it all out, tell her friend everything.

  But Keely was off on her honeymoon. Confiding in her would have to wait.

  Glumly chewing her sandwich, Aislinn group-texted three of her brothers—Matthias, Connor and Liam—all of whom, so the story went, had been there in Montedoro when she was born. Daniel had been there, too. But he was with Keely in Bora Bora and Aislinn wasn’t bothering him, either. Daniel and Keely had had more than enough challenges to face in the past few months. They deserved their honeymoon in paradise, a beautiful time for just the two of them, 100 percent free of family drama.

  There’s something important I really need to talk to you guys about, she texted her brothers. Beers at Beach Street Brews? Seven sharp. I’m buying.

  Actually, she preferred a little bar called the Sea Breeze that Keely’s mother, Ingrid Ostergard, had bought, remodeled and reopened just a month ago, on Independence Day. But Keely’s mom would be there. And Grace, the youngest of the Bravo siblings, probably would, too. Gracie had started working for Ingrid during the Sea Breeze’s remodeling phase.

  And the fewer family members around for this particular conversation, the better. Aislinn still hadn’t decided how much to tell her brothers. It was all a big mess. She was a mess.

  A mess who had no idea who she really was.

  Her brothers got right back to her. They would all three be there at the brewpub at seven o’clock.

  That made her cry again. Who had such great brothers—big, handsome guys who dropped everything to be there if their sister needed them? They were the best. What if it turned out they really weren’t even hers?

  * * *

  Beach Street Brews was a barnlike place with scuffed wide-plank floors and rows of high-sided wooden booths lining the tin-paneled walls. The acoustics were terrible. On the weekends when they had live music, conversation was impossible.

  But early on a Wednesday evening, it wasn’t so bad. Matthias had gotten there first. Matt was ex-military. Now he worked as a game warden with the Oregon State Police.

  He was out of uniform tonight. When Aislinn slipped into the booth next to him, he poured her a beer from the pitcher he’d already ordered.

  “You okay, Ais?” he asked. “You look kinda down.”

  “Been better,” she admitted.

  His golden-brown eyebrows drew together in concern, but before he could say anything more, Connor and Liam showed up.

  Matt poured them beers and they talked about the warm weather and how Connor was doing over at Valentine Logging. He was running the family company while Daniel was on his honeymoon. Aislinn sipped her beer and watched their dear faces, their gold-kissed eyebrows and tawny hair.

  George Bravo had had dark brown hair and blue eyes. Marie was blue-eyed, too, and a natural blonde. All of their children had blue eyes and none of them had hair any darker than medium brown.

  Except Aislinn.

  Her mom had always claimed that she was special, different. And her dad used to say she took after the Bravo side of the family. He’d had six brothers and a couple of them were dark-eyed with almost-black hair. Her mom used to say she looked French—a little French princess, born in a villa on the Cote d’Azur. Aislinn had loved that, loved being the different one.

  Until today.

  Matt asked, “So, what’s going on with you, Ais?”

  “Is everything okay?” asked Liam, burnished eyebrows drawing together.

  At home, she’d debated whether or not to tell all and decided she ought to be totally honest, offer full disclosure. But now, sitting in that booth, her gaze bouncing from one well-loved face to another, she just couldn’t go there, couldn’t tell them outright that she might not be their sister, that she’d taken their real sister’s place, while the true Aislinn had gone off to California to become Hollywood royalty.

  Later for all that.

  “I’ve been thinking about Mom,” she began. “About the story she always told me, that I was born in Montedoro.”

  “The Montedoro trip.” Connor mock-saluted with his glass of beer. “Mom just had to go there, even though she was almost eight months’ pregnant with you.”

  “And, of course,” Liam added, “she and Dad took us along—not that I remember a thing about it. I was what, three?”

  And Matt had been five, Connor four. Daniel, seven at the time, would probably remember the most of the four of them. Too bad he was off somewhere in paradise with Keely.

  Matt volunteered, “I kind of remember the Prince’s Palace. Huge and white, up there on that hill overlooking the harbor. And I remember meeting Uncle Evan and his wife, the princess.” Their dad’s brother, once an actor, had married Montedoro’s ruling princess. Matt went on, “But I’m drawing a complete blank on the villa we stayed at—the one where you were born, I mean. Didn’t you go to Montedoro to check it out, after college?”

  She licked the beer mustache from her upper lip. “I did, yeah, the summer after my senior year. The old count and countess had died. The people living at Villa Della Torre invited me in for coffee and listened politely when I told them that I’d been born in their house. But they had nothing to tell me. They’d never even met the count or the countess. I stayed at the palace during that trip. Uncle Evan and Her Serene Highness were so nice to me. They remembered your visit all those years before, remembered that Mom had been pregnant, but they said that they hadn’t realized that Mom had given birth there, in the principality.” At the time, Aislinn had been kind of disappointed that they didn’t remember—disappointed, but not the least alarmed.

  Not like now, when her whole world felt turned upside down, spinning in dizzying circles, way too fast.

  She glanced at Connor again. “You sure you don’t remember anything?”

  He took a gulp of beer. “Mom and Dad were always hauling us along with them to the far corners of the earth. The trips are kind of a blur to me. Sorry, I’ve got nothing.”

  Liam said, “Something’s off with you...”

  “Yeah,” Connor agreed. “What’s going on?”

  Guilt took a good poke at her, fo
r keeping them in the dark. But she just couldn’t go there. Not yet. “I was only wondering about how it all happened, you know, on the day I was born?”

  Matt tipped his head to the side, studying her. “You’ve got a problem, haven’t you, Ais? And you don’t want to tell us what.”

  She couldn’t outright lie to them—but she just wasn’t ready to tell what she knew. “It’s complicated. I don’t want to get into it, not right yet.”

  “Anything we can do?” asked Liam.

  She caught her lower lip between her teeth and shook her head.

  Matt put his massive arm around her. “You call. We’re there.”

  She let herself lean into him, as if he could ground her somehow, keep her tethered to dry land so she wouldn’t go bobbing wildly off into nowhere, a tiny boat set adrift in a churning, angry sea.

  * * *

  After the disastrous visit to Kircher and Anders, Jax had gone straight back to Wild River and spent several hours in his study finding out everything he could about Aislinn Bravo. She kept public profiles on social media, so he learned a lot there. He also called a few people he knew in Valentine Bay and pumped them for anything they knew about Aislinn and the Bravo family.

  The next day, he returned to Kircher and Anders. Kip ushered him back to his corner office and shut the door.

  “I’ve got questions,” Jax said, as he settled into a leather guest chair. “Starting with, can the will be broken?”

  “I’m sorry, but no. Martin Durand had an absolute right to disburse his worldly goods in any way he chose and his will is legally airtight.”

  “Wild River belonged to my aunt. She left it to Martin, but it was always supposed to go to me when he died.”

  Anders adjusted his glasses, braced his elbows on the arms of his swivel chair and steepled his fingers. “There’s not a lot of hope in trying to hang a case on that.”

  “But in his last letter, Martin admitted outright that he and my aunt had an understanding that the ranch should go to me.”

  “Yes. You could argue that. And the rebuttal would be that he did leave you Wild River, just with certain stipulations.”

  “What about Aislinn Bravo? Is she really his daughter?”

  “Jaxon, I have no idea if she is or she isn’t. You would need a paternity test to get a definitive answer to that question. And even if such a test proved that she and Martin shared no DNA, the will would most likely stand.”

  Was Anders hinting at an angle there? “‘Most likely’?”

  “If you proved she wasn’t his daughter, then you could use his last letter as evidence that he included her in his will believing she was his biological child. It’s a stretch, but you might challenge the will by arguing that Martin would never have left her anything if he knew she wasn’t his.”

  “That sounds weak.”

  “Correct. It’s weak. And your suit would likely fail. Plus, by the time you obtained DNA samples not only from Aislinn Bravo, but from Martin’s remains and then hashed it all out in court, Wild River would already be sold, anyway.”

  Jax sat back in the guest chair. “You’re my lawyer now.”

  Anders granted him a thin smile. “And I’m pleased to help you in any way I can.”

  “Got any suggestions to get me out of this mess?”

  “As your lawyer, I would advise you to marry Aislinn Bravo and remain married to her for the next three months.”

  “I didn’t need a lawyer to figure that out, Kip—and in spite of Martin’s claim that the woman was once in love with me, so far she’s not jumping at the chance to get my ring on her finger.”

  “I’m sorry, Jaxon. Truly. But there is no way I can help you with that. Give her a little time.”

  “Time? There are six days left until we have to be married.”

  “Look at it this way. If she doesn’t agree from the goodness of her heart, maybe she’ll think of a use for the money. Not many people would turn down a chance at fifty thousand dollars.”

  * * *

  It was just after noon and Aislinn was selling a ceramic sculpture to a regular customer at Sand & Sea when Jaxon called. She had her phone right there on the register counter, set to vibrate. It spun halfway around and lit up with his name, because she’d programmed it into her phone, ready to go as soon as she felt she could deal with him.

  “Go ahead,” said the customer. “Answer it. I’m in no hurry.”

  But Aislinn was so far from ready to talk to Jax again. “I’ll call him back later.” She gave the customer a big smile and let the call go to voice mail.

  Later didn’t come—not that day, anyway. It was rude of her not to pick up or even listen to the message he’d left, and she was sorry. But she needed more answers before she faced his demands.

  When she got off at four, she called Valentine House, where her great-uncle Percy and great-aunt Daffodil lived. They were brother and sister, Percy and Daffy, the last of the Valentines. Neither had ever married and they still lived in the house where they’d grown up.

  When Uncle Percy finally answered the phone, she asked him if she could drop by.

  “Bring pizza,” he instructed. “With the works. Anchovies on the side.”

  Half an hour later, bearing an extralarge pie with everything on it—except the anchovies, which had their own small separate tub—she mounted the chipped concrete steps leading up to the seven-thousand-square-foot mansion on the edge of Valentine City Park. Aunt Daffy’s garden was glorious if a tad overgrown. And to Aislinn, the Italianate Victorian itself looked like something transplanted from the Garden District in New Orleans. Built by Captain Aeschylus Valentine back in 1922, the house boasted a healthy helping of gingerbread trim, an excess of dentil moldings and acres of balconies framed in iron lace. The paint job needed freshening and some of the moldings could use repair, but still. It was a beautiful old house and it made her smile every time she saw it.

  Daffy and Percy greeted her at the door.

  “So good to see you, sweetheart.” Daffy’s thin, dry lips brushed her cheek, light as a cobweb. Aislinn got a whiff of the familiar vanilla and sandalwood scent of the old woman’s Arpège perfume. “You’re a lifesaver with that pizza. Letha’s off today.” Letha March cleaned the house and cooked for them. “Let me take that.” Daffy whisked the pizza away.

  Percy led her into the parlor, where the red carpet had a dizzying pattern of closely woven white lilies overlapping each other. When Aislinn was little, she used to try to count those lilies.

  They ate the pizza right there in the front room, paper plates in their laps, clutching paper napkins. Percy talked of the ongoing hunt for her brother Finn, lost in some frozen wilderness on the other side of the world.

  He was so sure they would have Finn back home eventually. “We shall never give up the search, never surrender the quest,” he declared, like some latter-day Winston Churchill. And then he gave her his sweetest, dottiest smile and asked, “But how are you doing, my dear?”

  Aunt Daffy, slim and straight even at eighty-plus, her silver hair in soft waves framing her narrow, wrinkled face, piped up with, “Yes. Tell us everything.”

  Aislinn realized she wanted to—needed to—tell someone. Or maybe she was just ready to get it all out. “It has to be only between us, for now, anyway, until I figure out what I’m going to do next, until I’m ready to tell the whole family.”

  “And so it shall be,” declared Daffy, sharing a nod with her brother.

  It was so simple after that. She swore them to secrecy and then she told them. Everything. About her summer at Wild River Ranch, her college-girl crush on Jaxon, about Martin Durand, about that letter he’d written claiming to be her father and to have switched her with her mother’s real daughter on the day she was born, about the terms of his will—and yes, she had meant to keep all those secrets until after she’d shared everything
with Keely. But she really needed answers now.

  When she’d told it all, Daffy asked, “Will you marry the man?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is he a good man?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do believe that he is.”

  “And your feelings for him...?”

  “Aunt Daffy, that was years ago.”

  Daffy peered at her closely. “I think you still like him.”

  “I do like him. And whether I decide to marry him or not in the next week, I’m counting on you two to keep my confidence about all of this.”

  “We’ve given you our word,” Percy intoned.

  Daffy promised, “We will not let you down.”

  “Thank you. And what I really came here for was to ask you both if you recall how Mom always said I was born in Montedoro?”

  Daffy waved a hand. “Ah, our Marie. So full of fun and fantasy.”

  “But is it true? Was I born at Villa Della Torre?”

  Daffy and Percy shook their heads in unison. Daffy said, “Your mother loved that story. Sometimes I think she even started to believe it.”

  “Oh, God.” Aislinn felt sick to her stomach. “Just tell me the truth, please. I really do have to know.”

  Daffy patted her shoulder, a touch meant to soothe her. “You were her firstborn daughter, her little princess—and of course you had to have been born in a villa overlooking the Mediterranean.”

  “You’re saying she just made it up?” Her heart was a ball of lead in her chest.

  “Well, it wasn’t only that Marie considered you her little princess, it was that you fell in love with all things royal,” Daffy said, as if that explained everything. “You do remember your princess phase?”

  “Yeah, I remember.” She’d had three princess dresses, in pink, blue and yellow, each with a big tulle skirt and a train. Her mom had made her a princess room, with glittery stars on the ceiling and a bed like a throne. She’d had four tiaras, each more sparkly than the last. And a magic wand, too—because when you’re five, the line between princess and fairy is a blurry one.

  “You loved the story of your Montedoran birth,” Daffy reminded her. “As did your mother. It just seemed harmless and sweet to indulge you both. And, well, the years went by, didn’t they? We lost Finn and then your mother and father, and the story simply stuck. Now and then you would mention it, but until now, you’ve never asked directly if it might actually be true.”