“I was kind of looking forward to being your hero next Sunday, supporting you with your family. Now I’m just the douche basket who took advantage of your tender heart.”
“You are not a douche basket.”
“Yeah. I kind of am.”
“Uh-uh. You’re a hero.” She tucked her head under his chin, nuzzled his throat. “My hero.”
He grunted. “Calling me a hero doesn’t make it so. And you’re not giving me a choice, are you? We’re owning this mess Martin put us in.”
She dropped a string of kisses down over his Adam’s apple, ending with a flick of her tongue in the hollow at the base of his throat. “That’s right—and, Jaxon?”
“Yeah?”
She nipped a kiss on his chin. “I wouldn’t want to be in this mess with anyone else but you.”
“Watch out. I’ll hold you to that indefinitely—like say, for the rest of our lives.”
For a moment, her face went so soft and open. But then she put on a flirty look and teased, “Hmm. I don’t know. It’s a little soon for any big commitments.”
Was it? Didn’t feel that way to him. “We’re already married. That’s a pretty big commitment.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Come here.” He drew her closer, kissed her temple and the space between her eyebrows, one cheek and then the other, after which he claimed her softly parted lips.
The magic began again.
They took their time, with long, wet kisses and slow, arousing caresses.
When he pulled open the bedside drawer for a condom, she whispered urgently, “Jax. Hurry. Please...”
He couldn’t suit up fast enough.
She reached for him again, opening to him. He buried himself in her tight, wet heat. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
And one way or another, he would make her see that he could be the same for her.
Later, he pulled her in close and they dropped off to sleep. That night, at least, he was certain she would stay with him.
But at a little after four in the morning, he woke suddenly to find she was gone.
* * *
To Aislinn, the next week sped by. She went to see Percy and Daffy and they agreed that, come Sunday, they would share the whole story with her brothers and sisters.
Other than the visit to Valentine House, she stayed on the ranch, spending long hours every day in her studio working on her new collection and keeping on top of a lovely avalanche of orders from online sales.
Her nights belonged to Jaxon—up to a point. At bedtime, they went upstairs together. In his room, they made beautiful love, and afterward, she fell asleep in his arms.
The peace never lasted, though. She always woke before dawn, frantic and panicky, her eyes popping open, her heart pounding in her ears—and she just couldn’t be there. She had to get out.
More than one of those nights, she sensed by his breathing that Jax was awake. But he kept to their agreement. He never tried to stop her as she tiptoed from the room.
Saturday came and with it, a rising anxiety. Sunday was too close. She would have to face the family, tell them everything she knew. It wasn’t her fault, that they’d lost a sister, that she’d taken their real sister’s place.
It wasn’t her fault.
So why did she feel so lost and guilty and alone?
She probably needed some serious counseling. But she really wasn’t ready to face therapy, either.
After Sunday, once everyone in the family knew what she knew, she would feel better. The undeserved guilt and the uncalled-for tension would fade.
David Hanes, the buyer from Tuesday night, returned to Wild River on Saturday afternoon. David’s wife and their little boy remained at home on their farm in northeastern Washington.
The Hanes family had decided to go for it and buy that other gray filly they liked so much. Erma put dinner on early and David joined them. He spoke of his farm and proudly announced that he and his wife, Louella, were expecting a second child.
They all raised a toast to Louella and the coming baby. Aislinn liked David. She was glad for him and his family—and for the distraction of company for dinner. For a little while, she almost forgot all her apprehensions about tomorrow.
By seven, David had the filly loaded up in the horse trailer and all the paperwork in order, and was on his way home to Holly Tree Farm.
Jax came in smiling. It was turning out to be a profitable summer for Wild River.
“Movie?” he asked her. “Your pick.”
“Sure.”
He ran upstairs for a quick shower and she wandered into the family room, turned on the big screen and started scrolling the Netflix options, thinking about tomorrow, her stomach kind of knotting up.
“Aislinn?”
She blinked up at Jax, who was freshly showered, his wet hair slicked back, and realized she’d just been sitting there, staring at the menu on the screen. “Sorry...”
He took the remote from her and turned off the TV, then sat down beside her. “Not really in a movie mood, huh?”
She leaned his way and he wrapped an arm around her so she could rest her head on his shoulder. “I’ve been sitting here thinking how I really don’t know for sure that Martin is my biological father. I was considering asking Daniel to do a sibling DNA test with me, just to prove we’re not brother and sister, after all—but really, with all the information I have, I’m reasonably certain that Martin and Paula were my real parents and Madison Delaney is the biological child of George and Marie Bravo.”
His lips brushed her hair. “Freaking out about the family meeting, are you?”
“Smart-ass.” She gave him a sharp elbow to the ribs, which didn’t seem to bother him in the least. “There actually is one other possibility. Lloyd Delaney could be my father. Think about it. How could Paula have passed Madison off as Lloyd’s if she hadn’t been sleeping with him at the same time as she was having an affair with Martin? And excuse me, but ew. It’s just wrong that I should have to even think about people who might have been my parents having sex.”
His arm rested on her shoulder and he was wrapping a curl of her hair around his index finger. “There is a resemblance between you and Martin—your eyes, a little around the mouth. Your coloring, too. And sometimes, the way you tip your head just so, when you’re listening? I see Martin in you then.”
“Proves exactly nothing.”
“Maybe not conclusive proof, but a clue and a convincing one.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“No. Definitely.”
“Still, I’m never going to know for sure—unless I try to have Martin exhumed for a DNA test.” She dropped her head back against the cushions and glared at the ceiling. “Exhuming Martin. Now, there’s a cheerful thought.”
“You really are freaked out about tomorrow.” He bent his elbow, wrapping his arm around her neck and pulling her closer. Pressing his wonderful lips to her cheek, he whispered, “It’s going to be okay. I promise you.”
“Thank you for being so patient with me. But there is no way that you can know for sure how it’s going to go tomorrow.”
He nuzzled her ear. “You’re serious about wanting some kind of proof that Martin was really your father?”
“Of course I’m serious. Everyone wants to know who their father was.”
“Yeah. Well, everyone doesn’t know. Some of us will never know.”
She let out a moan. “Oh, God.” And then she turned, caught his beard-scruffy face between her hands and kissed his mouth. Hard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I’m a selfish pig.” She went all the way with that, adding, “Oink, oink.”
He gave her a hint of a smile. “It’s okay. I’m okay. It was hard when I was a kid. I really did want to know my dad, at least to know who he was. But my mother didn’t put his nam
e on the birth certificate. And by the time I was old enough to insist on answers to my questions, she was dead.”
“And so you think of Martin as your dad.”
“Yes, I do.” He said it strongly. Proudly.
Her eyes burned. She blinked the moisture away. “I guess that’s something. He couldn’t have been all bad. I mean, you loved him.”
He caught her hand, wove their fingers together, brought her knuckles to his lips and kissed them one by one. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” Rising, he went to the low cabinet against the sidewall and returned with one of those old-timey picture albums. “Here.” He opened the album on the coffee table in front of them and dropped back down to the cushions beside her.
There were four faded photos on the first page, all of a woman who was probably in her twenties. The woman was dressed in high style—for the end of the 1950s or maybe the early ’60s. She had thick black hair and big dark eyes and a sort of sultry movie-star vibe, posing with a sexy smirk over her shoulder in one shot, a hand braced on her hip in another.
“Martin’s mother, the torch singer?” she asked.
Jaxon nodded. “Colette Durand, your grandmother. Don’t tell me you don’t see it. She looks just like you.” He turned the page and she saw more shots of Colette, two with a baby in her arms.
Aislinn took over, turning the pages herself: Martin as a toddler, at around five and maybe seven. There were more pictures of his mother. In some, Colette was all dressed up in glittery, clingy evening gowns, her hair upswept, wearing dangly rhinestone earrings. There were more shots of Martin, too, as he grew into a teenager in shiny, pointy-toed black leather shoes and tight jeans with way too much product in his inky hair.
By the last page, Colette was in her forties, possibly fifty, lying in a hospital bed, frail and way too thin, her black hair gone gray. Martin was a young adult, a handsome guy in a New-York-Mafia-wannabe sort of way.
She flipped the album closed. “Okay. You’re right. I look like both of them. I guess Martin can stay buried.”
“Hey.” He reached for her. She went to him willingly, curving her body into his steady strength. “Feel any better?”
“Strangely, yes. A little.”
“Marie and George Bravo are still your parents, too, in all the ways that really count. I know you lost them too soon, but you loved them. They loved you. You had a good childhood.”
She nodded against his broad chest, grateful for his strong arms around her, for the comforting beat of his heart beneath her ear. “Madison had a great childhood, too. All the tabloids say so.”
“You’ve been researching her online?”
“Guilty. She gave a long interview to Vanity Fair about growing up on ranches all over the Northwest, about how her dad was her hero and after he died in a fall from a horse, Madison begged her mom to take her to Hollywood so that she could be in movies. And Paula did it, moved the two of them to LA and took a bunch of low-paying jobs to support them until Madison got her first big break on Memorial Hospital. Maybe it’s all crap. But I believed it while I was reading it.”
Jax stroked her hair and curled a lock of it around his finger the way he loved to do. “Were there pictures of Paula?”
“A few. One really sticks with me. It showed Paula and Lloyd and Madison together. Madison was maybe five years old, looking like Harper and Hailey with a little touch of Grace, in pigtails on a palomino, Paula on one side and Lloyd on the other, both of them beaming up at her like she was the most perfect child ever born. Paula was slender, with dark hair. Lloyd was a big, blond guy. I could see how he never would have questioned that Madison was his.” She tipped her head back to meet Jax’s eyes. “Let’s skip the movie and go upstairs. I need a distraction from obsessing about tomorrow.”
“What kind of distraction?” As if he didn’t know.
“I want you to do that thing you do.”
“Which thing?”
“All the things.”
He gave her the slow smile she’d grown to love way too much. “There are a lot of them, now that I think about it.” He eased his arms from around her and rose. “Come on. We’d better get started.”
* * *
Upstairs, for a glorious couple of hours, Aislinn’s dread at facing tomorrow faded away.
But when she woke in Jax’s arms at two thirty in the morning, it all came rushing back. She returned to her room and spent the remaining hours of darkness staring at the bedside clock, willing herself into a sleep that never came.
Chapter Nine
For Sunday dinner at the Bravo house on Rhinehart Hill, there were twelve of them: Aislinn, her seven Bravo siblings, plus Percy, Daffy, Keely and Jax. Keely had dropped off the twins, Jake and Frannie, at their grandmother’s house for the night.
They ate at the long dining room table. There was laughter and easy chatter. Aislinn sat with Jax on her left and Matt on her right and thought how much she loved them all—and she fervently wished to be anywhere but here.
After the meal, everyone pitched in to clear the table. Keely served coffee in the family room with its high coffered ceiling, gorgeous glass-fronted bookcases and the giant fireplace where they all gathered on Christmas mornings to open their presents.
Today, they made themselves comfortable on the leather couches and chairs in front of the bow window that looked out on the front porch. Aislinn ended up on one of the couches between Jax and Liam.
Percy asked her, “Would you like to say something first?”
She gulped and shook her head, grabbing for Jax. He took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Beloved faces looked at her in confusion and concern. Somehow, she found her voice. “Thanks, Uncle Percy. But I would rather if you would just go ahead.”
“All right, then.” Percy picked up the sheaf of folders he’d set on a side table and handed them out. Aislinn let go of Jax’s hand to open hers. Martin’s last letter was inside. Percy went straight to the point. “It seems you all have another sister.” He let them have a moment for that to sink in before continuing, “In your folders is a copy of a letter that accompanied the will of one Martin Durand.” He quickly went on to explain the rest of it, everything that Martin had laid out in the letter, after which he shared all of the reasons that Durand’s claims were most likely true.
He saved the name of the missing sister for last. “Your missing sister, as it turns out, is a famous celebrity, Madison Delaney.”
Grace let out a cry. “Madison Delaney, the actress?”
“Yes.”
Before Percy could get out another word, Harper turned to Hailey, “What’d I always tell you?”
Wide-eyed, Hailey nodded. “That we could have been sisters...”
Connor said, “Wait a minute. I thought Ais was born in Montedoro. This makes no damn sense at all.”
Liam brushed Aislinn’s arm. When she looked at him, he said, “That night at Beach Street Brews—that’s why you asked us if we remembered the day you were born?”
“Yeah.” She glanced from Liam to Connor and then to Matthias. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to believe Martin’s story. But Uncle Percy and Aunt Daffy set me straight.”
Daffy said, “You all knew your mother. She loved to make things exciting and fun. She made up that story to please Aislinn when Aislinn was little. There never seemed to be any pressing reason to set the record straight.”
“Until now,” Aislinn finished for her.
“Ais?” Matt was watching her, worry etching new lines in his face. “Are you okay?”
Aislinn made herself nod. “Fine. Yes. Really.”
Nobody believed her. “Oh, Ais!” cried Grace and jumped from her chair.
A moment later, Jax had moved out of the way to make room for Aislinn’s sisters and Keely and Daffy.
They surrounded her, pulling her up from the couch to hug her an
d say how much they loved her.
She opened her mouth to tell them how much she loved them, but what came out was, “I feel so awful. I’m such a fraud.”
“No way,” announced Gracie.
“Not a chance,” Hailey declared.
Drama queen, much? She certainly felt like one, stealing the spotlight this way. Still, all the love and attention did soothe her battered heart.
“You should have told us sooner,” Harper scolded.
“Yeah,” agreed Hailey. “We’re really annoyed with you about that.”
“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t figure out where to start—and I’m okay, I truly am.” They looked at her as though they didn’t quite believe her. Not surprising. She didn’t quite believe herself. But her ongoing identity angst wasn’t the reason they were here. “There’s more to tell you. We need to let Percy finish.”
Reluctantly, her sisters returned to their seats.
Aislinn looked around for Jax. He stood several feet away. Both Connor and Liam eyed him with suspicion.
“Leave Jax alone,” she warned her brothers. “He’s been a hero through this, taking care of me, making sure I love living at Wild River with him. We really are married, however bizarrely it all came about.” She made herself add a big dose of the L-word to settle her brothers down completely. “I love him and he loves me.”
That seemed to quell Liam and Connor. They did that nodding thing men do to each other, dipping their heads at Jax like they’d come to some big agreement, all without actually saying a word. Jax nodded back.
Aislinn held out her hand to him and he came and sat with her again.
Harper fired a volley of questions at Uncle Percy. “So, have you talked to her, to Madison? Does she know about us? When can we meet her?”
“Slow down,” cautioned Daniel. “Let Percy talk.”
“It’s all right,” said Percy. “I’m sure everyone has a thousand questions. Unfortunately, the answers I have are unsatisfying.”
“What do you mean?” Hailey cried.
“You haven’t talked to her?” demanded Harper.
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