by Candis Terry
Dec knew they were planning to hire a full-time planner for the vineyard, but he wouldn’t mention that to Lili until they knew who she really was. No sense trying to make her a part of anything if she was an imposter.
“So do you like it here?” Brooke asked.
“It’s very different. A lot more laid-back.”
“That’s exactly what I enjoy about it most. Dec and I both live in Southern California, although I’m about to make a change and move here.”
“She’s trying to get away from me.” Dec put down the menu. “But it won’t work.”
“You’re really going to leave Southern California?” Lili asked. “I thought everyone was trying to move there. Not away.”
“How else am I going to create and run a business here?” Brooke said. “I can hardly do that from hundreds of miles away.”
What Dec had said to Brooke just before they’d fallen asleep earlier, after having the best, most soul fulfilling sex of his life, was true. There was nowhere else to go when the only place he wanted to be was with her. If she planned to move to Sunshine, he needed to figure out exactly how to make it all work.
“Know what’s on my bucket list?” he asked her.
She shook her head.
He pointed to the menu. “Eating a chili and lime pizza.”
“Nice detour.”
“You said I needed to learn to have more fun.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “What says party better than a chili and lime pizza?”
“You could start slow, you know. I’m not sure—”
“I wonder if they serve margaritas here too.” He looked around the restaurant then realized they had to go to the counter to order. “Name your poison, ladies.”
“Diet Pepsi,” Brooke said.
“Same,” his might be sister said.
“Party poopers.” He got up and went to the counter. Ordering wasn’t the main thing on his mind. Figuring out what to do about his—scratch that—their future topped the list. While he waited for their drinks he tried to put his mind to work. But just like with his dyslexia, everything seemed completely backward.
When he turned away from the counter with their drinks and their pickup number for the pizza, he almost dropped the tray.
Beside the table where his might be sister was seated stood Nicole—the sister he and his brothers had kept in the dark.
Chapter 19
“I barely kept Nicole from finding out about Lili,” Dec said to his brothers in the vineyard office the following morning. Last night when he and Brooke had dropped Lili off at her cabin, he’d gone inside their own and put out the code red call to all of them. “Luckily Nicki’s friends were waiting in the car and she was just picking up a to-go order. I did my best to rush her out the door.”
“Close call,” Ethan said.
“Tell me about it.” Dec sat back in the chair, his heart pumping as hard then as it had the night before. He and Brooke had finished off a bottle of wine before he finally felt its effects. Brooke’s naked and sensual ministrations had helped too.
Sex.
Best. Medicine. Ever.
“I call bullshit on this hush-hush thing with the baby dragon,” Jordan said, using his affectionate nickname for their sister. He leaned forward and settled his elbows on his bent knees. “Nicki’s the one who’s been dealing with Dad’s emotional abandonment all this time. Why are we keeping this a secret from her? She deserves to know.”
“And she will as soon as the facts come in,” Parker said. “But there’s no need to throw her in the spin cycle until necessary.”
“Hold up. I think I get what Jordy’s saying.” Dec looked over at his twin brother. “Nicole already feels like she’s been ostracized from this family because of Dad’s behavior toward her. So in trying to protect her, aren’t we doing the same thing?”
“Exactly.” Jordan pointed at Dec. “I really don’t think she’d want to be kept in the dark. She’s a big girl now. She’s planning her future. She’s smart. Let’s give her some credit for that and let’s stop treating her like she’s a two-year-old. Yes, she can be an emotional time bomb. Believe me, no one knows that better than me. But given the circumstances, she should have the right to explode. When she calms down she’ll be more reasonable to deal with.”
“I agree,” Dec said even as his stomach twisted with agony for all his little sister had to deal with lately: the feelings of abandonment, the loss of her parents, being ping-ponged between brothers for adult supervision, among other typical teenager issues.
“I don’t know.” Ryan got up from his chair behind the desk, ran a hand through his hair, and paced the floor. Finally he stopped and sat back down. “Who’s going to clean up the tidal wave if it all goes south?”
“We all will.” Dec knew from the bottom of his heart that no matter what the DNA said about Lili, they all loved Nicole, and they’d be there to help her figure things out. “We can be a hell of a support system if we work together.”
In that moment, Dec realized what he really missed about being with his brothers. He missed their stupid arguments, their competitiveness, the way they all talked over one another at the dinner table. He missed the way one of them would clamp a hand over his shoulder when something was troubling him, and then they did what they needed to do to help pull him out of his own messes. He missed how they’d all come together in hard times like they’d done when their parents had been killed. He and Jordan had reconnected after a long absence away from each other, but they hadn’t connected nearly enough. Dec needed—wanted—more time.
Family first.
Though a shadow of deception hung over their father’s legacy, his motto came back to Dec as strongly as it would have if his father had spoken it from the grave.
“Family first,” Dec said, and they all agreed.
“The private lab said they should have the results to us by this afternoon.” Ryan twirled a pencil through his fingers. “Guess we need to get together with Nicki and let her know what’s going on.”
“If you guys don’t mind, I’d like to have Brooke here. She and Nicki have gotten fairly close and it might do well for her to have another female close by.”
“Is there another reason you want her here?” Ethan asked.
“Might be.”
His knowing brother grinned.
“I’ll have Lucy come too,” Jordan said. “Nicki and Lucy are like peas in a pod. Having both Lucy and Brooke here should give her an added support system.”
“Might as well bring Aunt Pippy too then,” Parker said. “Since she’s the one who’s been guarding the family secrets all this time.”
“Anyone want a drink first?” Ethan asked.
“Fuck one.” Dec scoffed. “Bring on a whole damn bottle.”
“Are you kidding me?” Nicole jumped up from her seat at the kitchen table. “Our father treated me like crap because he already had another daughter?”
“At the moment, it’s only a possibility,” Dec explained. “The DNA results will give us the truth.”
“The truth?” Nicki snarled. “I’ll give you the truth. Our jackass of a father cheated on our mother. He had another child he blew off and completely ignored. Just like me.”
“He loved you, Nicki.” Ryan tried words to calm her down but they only added more fuel to her fire.
“No. He loved you, Ryan. And the rest of you. He tolerated me even though I did nothing to turn him against me except being born.”
She crossed her arms over her stomach as if she was in physical pain and a sob burst from her chest. Dec got up and went to her. She might try to push him away, but he wouldn’t let that happen. She’d suffered enough, and the need he felt to protect her was a living, breathing thing.
He wrapped his arms around her. Instead of pushing him away, she melted against him. “It’s okay, sis,” he whispered. He softly stroked her hair, and while he rocked her in his arms, he thought about Brooke. In his sister’s heartbreak, he imagined Brooke’s
as she’d realized what her father intended to do and how she’d been forced to run for her life.
Whoever said women were the weaker sex had never taken a good enough look. They were far braver than any of the males in this room.
Him included.
“It’s okay,” Dec said to her while his brothers came to her and they all ended up in a huge group hug. “We love you. And we’ll figure this out together.”
In Brooke’s dark past, family meetings never occurred. As a child you were told by your parents and the elders what you were going to do whether you liked it or not. In her mind, the nots outweighed the likes by many. Not that she was ever asked her opinion. She was told how she would think. How she would behave. And even how she would feel. Brooke had broken every boundary they’d put in her way.
The Hastingses had taught her love, hard work, and to dream big, but they’d never had family meetings either.
The Kincades were a different breed. They argued as hard as they loved. And heaven help anyone who tried to come between them.
This was the reason Brooke felt so bad for Lili MacKay. As soon as the brothers let Nicole in on the situation, Lili would walk through the door with a target on her heart and soul.
Nothing about the young woman seemed deceptive and Brooke believed Lili was telling the truth. She didn’t believe the young woman would be the type to show up and try to con a family like the Kincades. Why put yourself through the heartache? And for what? A few dollars? Lili just didn’t seem the type. She had a sweet but feisty personality. She’d made it clear that she was self-sufficient and wasn’t after money. She simply had wanted to meet the man her mother finally revealed as the father she’d never known.
Only Lili had arrived too late.
For Nicole, the bomb was about to drop. Brooke liked the teen. She was sweet, funny, and very talented. And she loved her brothers so much she was willing to push them in a direction they may never consider. Life wasn’t a fairy tale, but Brooke still wished she had a magic wand she could wave that would take away all the sadness and complications this family had gone through.
Now the brothers, Aunt Pippy, Lucy, and Brooke had all gathered in the freshly painted living room of the main house. Because of the current renovations, items and photos had been boxed up and all that remained were the pieces of leather furniture. The disorder of the room seemed to mirror the chaos in the family’s lives and the emptiness brought an emotional chill.
Brooke had tried to convince Dec that she had no business being at such a personal event. But he’d insisted that he needed her there. Now he sat beside her on the sofa, holding her hand, their fingers locked together like a lifeline.
Murmured conversation in the room stopped when Nicole came down the stairs with her little gray kitten, Fezzik, at her feet.
“Well, that’s encouraging.” Nicole glared. “Were you all talking behind my back?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, squirt.” Jordan caught her in a headlock then kissed the top of her head. A smile never touched the teen’s lips. It was as though she knew the sky was about to fall.
“Nicki, come on in and sit down.” Ryan waved a hand toward an empty chair. “We have something to discuss with you.”
“There’s more?” Dark brows slanted over her blue eyes. “Jesus.” She dropped into the chair then patted her legs for Fezzik to jump onto her lap.
As the oldest, and therefore the undeclared leader, Ryan took charge of the discussion. “The DNA results are back. We’ve contacted Lili and asked her to join us. That way we can find out the truth together.”
Nicole’s eyes widened as she absently stroked the little cat on her lap.
Beside Brooke, Dec squeezed her hand. She gave his a reassuring squeeze back.
“So . . .” Nicole spoke up through the unsettling quiet. “You’re saying that any minute a woman who might or might not be my father’s illegitimate daughter is going to walk through that door and you expect me to just sit here?”
“Yes,” Ryan said. “It won’t take long. While we waited for the results, Ethan convinced her to stay at the cabin next to grandfather’s.”
Nicole speared a glare in Ethan’s direction then dropped a heavy sigh with the drama of an atomic bomb. “And now you’re telling me that at any point in time in the last couple of days I could have run into her and—”
“Actually, you did run into her,” Dec said. “At the pizza place. She was sitting at our table.”
“The blonde?” Nicole tossed a look at Brooke. “Sorry. No slight on your hair color.”
“Yes,” Dec confirmed. “The blonde.”
“Then how can it be that you’d believe she’s related? Have you seen us?” Nicole swept her hand at all of them. “How could a blonde possibly come from our father?”
Brooke bit her lip. Now was not the time to go into a lesson about genetics. But right now, someone needed to hold the poor girl. Whether from anger or fear, she was trembling. Brooke nudged Dec in the side and gave a nod toward his sister. She mouthed, “Hug her.”
Without hesitation, he got up and went to Nicki’s side. When his sister looked up at him with a desperate look in her eyes, he leaned down and hugged her. Brooke couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in her eyes. Especially when Dec kneeled on the floor beside the chair and held Nicki’s hand.
“We’re about to find out if that’s possible,” Dec said. “And no matter what the results are, we’re family. We stick together. Every single one of us—Brooke and Lucy included—are here for you.”
Nicki looked hard at Dec, then she shared that same scowl with her other brothers. “I love you guys. But if that test comes back positive, I’m not going to be the only one who’s going to have to adjust. A positive test means Dad positively cheated on Mom. And that creates a whole new breeding ground for open wounds and mistrust.”
She glared at their Aunt Pippy, who’d sat through the entire conversation peeling the orange polish off her fingernails.
“A DNA test might tell us one thing,” Nicki said. “But it’s not going to tell us the whole story. And, Aunt Pippy, like it or not, you’re going to have to open that can of worms and talk.”
“I know.” Their aunt nodded nervously. “I should have told you sooner. I just didn’t want to betray your father.”
“Why not?” Nicki asked. “He betrayed the rest of us.”
Before Pippy could respond, Ryan’s phone rang. As he answered the call he became the focus of the entire room. Feeling the pressure, he got up and walked out of the house.
“Guess he wants to hear the results in private first,” Parker said.
“He’s going to have to tell us anyway,” Ethan added. “Why hide?”
“Because everyone needs to hear it at the same time.” Parker seemed like he was trying to keep the duh from his tone. “And there’s a person missing from the puzzle.”
Nicole sighed and Dec squeezed her hand.
A few minutes later Ryan came back into the room. “That was the lab. Lili’s on her way up to the house now.”
Brooke’s heart stuttered. Whatever the results, everything in this family was about to change. She looked at the man she loved with all her heart and wondered exactly how it all would affect him.
By the time Lili came through the door, Jordan and Lucy had tucked Nicole between them on the sofa. She kept her head down, refusing to look at the young woman who’d entered the room. Dec understood how she felt. Well, he tried to understand. In Nicki’s mind she’d been treated unfairly by their father and Lili could be the entire reason for that. However, if that was the truth, Lili had suffered the same mistreatment.
It wasn’t fair.
And it didn’t make sense that their father could have been capable of something like this. But it was a fact they all might have to deal with.
Lili gave everyone a timid smile, but she stopped in her tracks when she spotted Nicole. Dec shot Lili a warning look but he knew that she was in as tough a place as the rest o
f them. No one should be silenced here. And the only person who should bear the force of their wrath was the one person who couldn’t be here to explain himself.
“I’m so sorry,” Lili said to Nicole, who refused to look up. “I really didn’t come here to hurt anyone,” she said to the rest. “This wasn’t something I’ve known about for years and only now decided to investigate. My mother died just a few weeks ago. So believe it or not, this is as painful for me as it is for you.”
“I doubt that.” Nicole’s head finally came up with a snap. “If you’re our father’s daughter, and what you say is the truth, you haven’t lived with his deceitfulness all your life. I’ve had to live with being ignored by him because of you my whole life. Try feeling my pain.”
“I’m sorry, Nicole.” Lili gave her a sympathetic look. “As much as I’m sorry for your pain, you’re wrong. I have suffered deceitfulness and alienation. Just like you.”
Ryan offered Lili a seat but she chose to stand.
Dec liked the young woman, but if she’d come here for any other reason than the truth, he’d make her sorry she’d ever stepped foot in Sunshine. On the other hand, if her truth was validated by the DNA test, Dec had a lot of things to consider.
He glanced at Brooke and was glad he had her by his side. He wanted her by his side always. He wanted to make her happy the way she made him happy. He’d protect her at any cost. He loved her more than he’d ever thought possible.
Now Dec understood why Jordan had given up his multi-million dollar hockey career to be with Lucy. With the situation at hand, Dec couldn’t help wondering if their father had ever felt that way about their mother.
If he had, what the hell had gone wrong?
Anticipation intensified as Ryan stood near the fireplace and faced them.
“The lab is mailing each of us a notarized copy of the DNA results in case we have any questions. But the bottom line is . . .” Ryan turned his eyes toward Lili, who stood near the door, nervously wringing her hands. “Based on DNA retrieved from several items belonging to Dad and Lili’s sample, the results are 99.99 percent positive that Lili is his daughter.”
