“Bridget, I left because I got so exhausted, and you were so afraid of me... Your smiles were all gone—I hated that—and it got to the point I was afraid I was going to hurt you.”
“Easy excuse.” But something shifted in Bridget’s face.
“When your mother died, you had no one.” Ralph seemed smaller, more shrunken than he had when he’d started talking, as if his confession had left him depleted. “I’m sorry for everything, for leaving you without a loving father, without an income, without even a word, but most of all, I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you then.”
Bridget made a scoffing noise. “You’re the reason I’ve never been able to make a relationship work. You know that? Even when I was married, I always expected him to dump me and move on. I never trusted. He got tired of dealing with your ghost.”
“Easy excuse,” Ralph said.
Kellen stared at him in horror. Holy crap, what a thing to say. Not that it wasn’t true, but...what a gamble. Her gaze shifted to Bridget.
Bridget didn’t turn and run, she didn’t scream and cry, she didn’t tell him to go to hell. But from her chest to the top of her forehead, she was ruddy. She was silent and almost frighteningly still; she truly looked as if she was fighting the urge to ram Ralph’s wheelchair into the wall.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me. I don’t. But you are still the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, and I wish I could see you smile like you did when you were a baby.” Ralph coughed and sipped air with irregular efforts. He shook his head as if trying to keep himself conscious, and his breathing smoothed out a little. “Your smile is still in there somewhere, and it could light up the world.”
One tear welled, then another. Then a multitude of tears, irrepressible, unstoppable, began to drip down Bridget’s cheeks.
Dr. Nouvelle appeared at Kellen’s side and pressed a handful of napkins into her hand, then retreated again. The coward.
Kellen wanted to be a coward, too, but she’d been fainthearted enough these last few weeks, so she walked to Bridget and stuffed the napkins into her hand.
Bridget pressed the napkins to her mouth to stifle her sobs. She bent from the waist and cried with the agony of seedling dreams that never took root. She cried for a lost childhood. She cried for her mother’s weary days and lonely nights.
Ralph reached out a hand toward her head and almost patted her.
So close.
Then as if they’d been burned, he pulled his trembling fingers back and tucked them close to his chest.
Bridget must have felt a trace of something—his sorrow, his truths, his almost-touch, his love—for she straightened. She wiped her face and stepped in front of him. She knelt so they were face-to-face. “Before she died, Mom forgave you. But I couldn’t. I was so angry on her behalf, so angry about all the years she worked and suffered and worried about you.”
“Sorry.” His whisper was barely more than a thought.
Bridget’s voice grew stronger. “Now I’m thinking about this evening’s event, and what people said about you, and remembering the years of labor in the kitchen and all the kindness I’ve seen you show... I can’t judge you. You’re a good man who faced a bad situation and did the best you could. It wasn’t good, but in the end, we’re all just doing the best we can.”
“I am trying to do good...now.” Ralph broke down and wept. He wept for the wasted years and the love he could have had. He wept for his family. He wept for the man he wished he could have been.
But when he looked up, Bridget was smiling at him.
Her smile lit up the world.
* * *
KELLEN SAT IN Bridget’s office, reading the newest Dr. Brown sci-fi mystery on her app, when Bridget returned looking tired to death, blotchy with tears and happier than she had looked in all the weeks Kellen had known her. “Okay?” Kellen asked.
“I didn’t see that coming.” Bridget looked sharply at Kellen. “Did you?”
“Didn’t have a clue until this afternoon when I picked him up,” Kellen assured her.
As if she couldn’t remain upright for another minute, Bridget sank down on her knees, then flat on the floor, arms out, staring at the stained tile ceiling. “My mother said...she said I had to give up the bitterness and the fear of trusting any man, or I would never have a family. I want a family. I’ve always wanted a family.”
Kellen thought about her friends in the military. They had been her family. Then she thought about Max and Rae, and that familiar panic lifted her off the earth and the elevation stopped her heart.
Bridget continued. “I can give up the bitterness, but when I think about trusting a man...it’s not going to happen. That wound is never going to heal. So you know what this means?”
“No?”
“I’m going to have to adopt those kids.”
“What kids?” Kellen was honestly bewildered. Then—”Wait! Sophia and her brothers and sister?”
“I always wanted a family,” Bridget repeated. “A baby.”
“They’re not babies! And there’s four of them!” Kellen was dazzled and horrified by the mere idea of...of four children. “You’re really going to adopt them?”
Bridget turned her head and looked at Kellen. “Do you not get it? This thing with Ralph—with my father—it’s a sign. An omen. A directional marker on the bumpy road of life.”
Much struck, Kellen said, “I get it. You’re right. Sign. Omen. Directional marker.”
“For us both?” Bridget asked as if she already suspected the answer.
“How did you know?”
“No one shows up in town and goes to work at a soup kitchen because their life is perfect.”
Bridget had made the hard decision.
Now it was Kellen’s turn: to face Aunt Cora, to do her duty to her daughter and maybe open herself to something so big, so earth-shattering, it would change her life. “I’m sorry, but I won’t be in to work tomorrow.”
Bridget performed a crooked thumbs-up. “I’ll find someone to cover for you.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE NEXT MORNING, as Kellen drove south down the highway, she called hands-free to the Di Luca Winery.
Max picked up the phone. “Kellen?”
“Right. May I speak with Rae, please?”
A pause. Maybe some disappointment. She sort of hoped. Then, “Rae, your mama wants to speak with you.”
Just like before, Kellen heard, “Yayyyyy!” Then Rae’s breathless voice came on the phone. “Mommy! Guess what I’m doing?”
“Eating breakfast?”
“Yes! Grandma made biscuits and she burned the bottoms.”
Kellen heard Grandma Verona muttering in the background.
“I had scrambled eggs with spinach and cheese. I love spinach! My friend Chloe hates spinach. I like it with balsamic vinegar. Daddy said I have expensive taste. My zio in Italy makes balsamic vinegar and—”
Kellen didn’t know how to get a word in edgewise, so she interrupted. “Rae, I have something to tell you.”
In a serious voice, Rae asked, “Is it momentous?”
The kid was seven. Where did she get this vocabulary? “Yes. I have one more solemn responsibility and duty, and when I’m done, I’m coming to live with you.”
“Yayyyy!” For a little person, Rae had good lungs. “Daddy, Mommy’s come home. Grandma, Mommy’s coming home!”
“Home? Whoa. I still don’t know whether we should exactly call it—” There was a loud thump, and Kellen’s ear rang like a gong.
Max’s voice came on. “Sorry. She was so excited she dropped the phone. Now she’s dancing... You’re coming to stay here?”
“You can get the whole story from Rae. I have one more solemn responsibility and duty—”
Max started laughing. It didn’t sound like mean laughter, more like genuine amusement.
“Then I’ll travel to the winery to be with Rae.”
Max abruptly stopped laughing. “And be with me?”
Complications! “Max...”
“Sorry. One step at a time. I don’t mean to scare you off before you even get here.”
When Kellen got to the winery, she would be in his power. She wasn’t defenseless anymore, and Max was nothing like her abusive dead husband, but still, the idea of being on his property raised the hair on the back of her neck. “You’re not helping.”
He knew the right thing to say, the right tone to take. “I’m not going to trap you here. You’ll be free to leave anytime.”
But she wouldn’t. She had a solemn responsibility and duty to Rae, too. “I don’t know how long my journey will take, hopefully, at tops, a couple of weeks.” She stopped, wrestled with her innate privacy and finally managed to add, “I’m going to visit my aunt in Nevada. She’s in a memory care facility—she has dementia. I want to touch base with her in a meaningful way. The medical establishment tells me she has her good days and her bad days, so the length of time I’m away isn’t up to me.”
“I understand.” Max sounded warm and comforting, like a down throw tossed around her shoulders. “Thank you for trusting me with your family situation.”
Trust? Him? Yes, of course. Apparently Bridget wasn’t the only one with trust issues. “I’ll keep you up to date,” Kellen said. “Talk to you soon.”
“I look forward to that.” That pleased tone of voice...
Kellen shivered even though the summer sun was shining in her window...and not from fear.
* * *
THIS TIME, AS Kellen pulled into the memory care facility, she chose her parking spot carefully, making sure her steering wheel and seat belt were shaded by one of the spindly trees in the parking lot. She gathered up the visitor’s ID tag from its place between the seats and clipped it to her jeans. She stepped out into a desert heat so stifling it hurt to breathe, walked across the sweltering parking lot, pressed the button at the front door of the facility and was buzzed in.
There behind the front desk was the amiable Nurse Warren. He smiled. “Welcome back, Ms. Adams!”
“I shouldn’t have left so...abruptly last time.” She scuffled her feet like a guilty kid.
“It happens here a lot. The important thing is that you came back.” His tanned face showed compassion, comprehension.
“Thank you. Really.” He made her feel better. “How is Cora?”
“I believe you’ve come on a good day. She’s been very present this morning, and she even thanked one of the nurses for her lunch, which is a rarity.” He led Kellen down the brightly lit hallway toward Aunt Cora’s door.
“Really?” Kellen couldn’t hide her surprise. “She’s a very proper person. She always says ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’”
“Ah, but she hates cottage cheese, so usually no thank-yous.”
Kellen couldn’t help herself. She grinned.
“That’s the spirit! Best of luck to you.” He ushered Kellen into Aunt Cora’s room and, as he left, he shut the door behind him.
Despite the warmth of the day outside, Aunt Cora Rae was covered in three blankets, including an old crocheted afghan Kellen recognized from her childhood. She had always loved the ‘70s vibe of its mustard yellow and red orange stripes. Aunt Cora looked more like herself, too. Bright-eyed and aware. She stared at her visitor for a suspense-filled moment, then drew a breath. “Cecilia?” She sounded pleased. “You’ve come to visit me?”
Whew. Relief. Aunt Cora was here today. “Yes. I’m Cecilia.” Kellen came to the bed and sat carefully on the edge. “And yes, I’ve come to visit you.”
Aunt Cora craned her neck to look around at the door. “Did you bring Kellen with you, Cecilia? Did you bring my little girl?”
Taking Aunt Cora’s hand gently, Kellen said, “No, ma’am. I’m here alone.” Kellen wasn’t quite sure how to approach this subject, so she went with directness. “Do you want to know what happened to Kellen?”
Kellen watched Aunt Cora’s memory try to come up with the answer. When it didn’t, she looked at her niece’s sorrowful face and began to cry. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“Yes. I’m so sorry.” Kellen began to weep, too. She doubted she would ever recover from her beautiful cousin’s fiery death and her own part in it.
Aunt Cora leaned forward with her arms outstretched, and Kellen did something she had rarely done as a child. She hugged her aunt.
They pulled apart when the tears had soaked each other’s shoulders.
Aunt Cora said softly, “You look so much like her.”
Yes. It was because of their similarities that Cecilia could take Kellen’s identity and become Kellen. It was through Cecilia that Kellen could live again. But there was more. “Aunt, there’s someone else who looks so much like her. I hope you’ll get to meet her soon. She’s my daughter, Rae.”
“You have a daughter?” Cora wiped her eyes. “You named her after me?”
“Her father named her. Rae is a good name. I hope she’ll be a credit to you.”
Kindly, Aunt Cora said, “Her mother is a credit to me, so I have no doubt in my mind.”
This time Kellen leaned in to hug her aunt as fiercely as the woman’s old bones would allow. “Thank you. Actually, I have a picture of Rae here.” Kellen pulled her phone out of her back pocket and flipped to the school photo of her daughter. Handing it to Aunt Cora, she said, “She’s a carbon copy of Kellen.”
Cora stared, lost in memories of her only child, looking at a picture that seemed so familiar. “This is Kellen?” she asked.
Already her mind was slipping. “No, dear, that’s my daughter, Rae.”
“That’s right. I remember. You named her after me.” Aunt Cora looked up, her eyes in soft focus as she fought to remain cognizant. She tapped the screen. “What is this little girl like?”
Kellen thought back to her conversations with Rae. “She’s a happy child. She likes everyone and just...loves life. She gets excited about breakfast, about sunrise, about going to school, about staying home with her grandmother. She’s the most positive person I’ve met since Kellen passed away.”
Cora handed back the phone and caught Kellen’s hand.
For now, for this moment, the old lady was savoring the human touch. To be truthful, Kellen enjoyed it, as well.
“Cecilia,” Aunt Cora said, “would you plump up these pillows and tell an old woman a story?”
“About what?” Kellen asked cautiously.
“Tell me what you and my daughter were doing that night I caught you in the garden. Remember? When you were fifteen, maybe sixteen?”
“I remember. Man, were you mad!”
“Man, were you guilty!”
“Yes. Yes, we were.” As she told the story, Aunt Cora Rae laughed until she was wiping tears from her eyes.
Outside the door, Nurse Warren nodded, smiled and slipped away.
* * *
Don’t miss the next Kellen Adams novel, What Doesn’t Kill Her by New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd, coming soon from HQN books! Read on for a sneak peek...
What Doesn’t Kill Her
by Christina Dodd
Willamette Valley in Oregon
Di Luca Winery
Bark mulch pressed splinters into her bare knees and the palms of her hands. Evergreen azaleas scratched at her face and caught at her hair, and the white blossoms smelled musky as they dropped petals on the ground around her. Spiderwebs brushed her skin and stuck. She could feel the scurry of tiny segmented feet down her back.
Or could she? The feet might be an interesting figment of her imagination, but whether they were or not, she still crawled close to the back wall of the Tuscan-style winery building, under the hedge, and constantly scanned the sunlit lawn beyond.
>
Retired Army Captain Kellen Adams did not intend to be caught. Not now. Not when she was so close to her goal—that small locked side door that led down the stairs and into the cool quiet wine cellar.
A sudden notion brought her to a halt. Had she brought the key? She groped at her button-up shirt pocket. Yes! The key was there. She breathed a sigh of relief—and her phone whistled, alerting her she had a text.
It was Birdie.
BIRDIE HAYNES:
FEMALE, 5'10", 130 LBS. AMERICAN OF COLOR: HISPANIC, AFRICAN AND FAR EASTERN. MILITARY VETERAN. RECENT WIDOW. LEAD MECHANIC. BIG RAW HANDS, LONG FINGERS. BEAUTIFUL SMILE IN A NOT-BEAUTIFUL FACE. BEST FRIEND.
She had sent a photo of her and the film star, Carson Lennex, leaning against a beautiful old car. Birdie had thoughtfully labeled it 1931 Bugatti Royale Berline de Voyager.
Beautiful! Kellen texted back. Like she cared about the car. It was the smile on Birdie’s face that warmed her, and Carson Lennex had put it there. God bless the man. After the death of Birdie’s husband, Kellen had feared she would never smile again.
Putting her phone back in her pocket, she started forward again. One meter remaining until she broke into the open. She knew from previous missions this was the tricky part; moving from the relative cover provided by the shrubs and into the open. She made a last reconnaissance, started forward—and a scattering of dirt, moss and debris landed on the last shrub in the line, then tumbled to the ground directly in front of her. In a split second, her brain registered the source.
From three stories straight up, something was falling off the roof of the Italian-style villa.
Kellen flung herself backward, away from the onslaught of baked terra-cotta roof tile that slammed to the ground and shattered like shrapnel. A jagged shard bounced and hit her, pierced her jeans and her hip.
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