Max sat down next to me and put an arm over my shoulder. “Sugar, relax. Maddy is right as rain. It’s what she found in the test as it pertains to our genetics that’s shocking. I brought her here to tell you directly, and I wanted to be here to let you know that I’m with you every step of the way.”
I swallowed and clutched his hand, bringing both of mine to my chest. “Max, you’re scaring me.” His shoulders sagged, and he cupped my cheek and brought my forehead to his lips where he planted a lingering kiss.
“It’s okay. Everyone is fine.” He cleared his throat. “Go on, Ms. Zayas, share what you found.”
The entire room seemed to go dead quiet. The air around my body felt thick, like fog had settled around us as I watched the woman pull out a set of papers and lay them out on the bed.
“It’s easier if I show you.” She placed three sets of paper down in a neat line facing me so that I could easily see them. One had the name Mia Saunders, the next Maxwell Cunningham, and the last Madison Saunders. They were the same sheets that she’d shown on the LCD screen at the meeting last week. The squares and lines familiar from that slide alone. “See here where your genetic markers match up with Mr. Cunningham’s?” I nodded. She moved to Max’s sheet and pointed to Maddy’s. “Now see how these genetic markers match up?” They were nearly identical, carbon copies of the other.
“Yes. So what does this mean?” I frowned while trying to put all the pieces together to make the final image.
“Okay, now compare yours to Ms. Madison Saunders.” She moved mine next to Maddy’s. Not all of the boxes matched up, but a whole lot of them did.
I shrugged. “What does this mean?”
Max rubbed my back while I tried to find the answer they obviously wanted me to come to without using words.
Ree Cee sighed. “Ms. Saunders, this test was done three times to be sure. Mr. Cunningham requested the three tests so that the results could not be disputed.”
“And?” I shook my head. “Spit it out already. We already know that Maddy is Max’s sister too. What is so surprising?”
Maxwell closed his eyes but waited for the attorney to respond. “Ms. Saunders, this shows that Madison Saunders and Maxwell Cunningham are one hundred percent blood-related. They share the exact same mother and father. You share the same mother with both of them but have a different father.”
The world around me stopped. Every muscle, every breath, every atom within me sat on pause. For several moments, my vision went in and out, and my heart pounded so hard I thought someone was standing on my chest.
“Christ, she’s fainting,” was the last thing I heard before the world went black.
* * *
I awoke later to warmth over my entire side and my right hand completely numb. Something was holding my hand in a vise grip while the left side of my body was hot as hell. I blinked a few times, seeing the ceiling of the guest room at the Cunningham ranch. The room was darker, lit now only by a soft lamp in the corner.
A murmuring sound came and went like gusts of wind carrying sound in snippets. Straining, I could hear it coming from my right. “Please make her okay. I can’t lose her now that I just found her. I can’t lose her now. I can’t. Please make her okay.” It was Max saying those soft muffled words. Turning my head, I could see him leaning over the bed, his forehead planted on our clasped hands. He held it so tight, I was pretty sure there was no blood circulating. I wiggled my fingers, and his head snapped up. “Thank God!” He moved to the head of the bed and scattered a halo of dry kisses against my brow. His eyes were moist as he leaned back. “You scared the hell out of us. You’ve been out for an hour.”
I tried to roll, but my left side was still pinned down by the heavy weight. I turned my head and found Maddy snuggled up along my side, an arm wrapped tight around my waist. Her head was pinned to my ribcage and her breath came out in soft puffs against my neck.
“What happened?” I whispered, not wanting to ruin this moment. It had been too long since I was cuddled up with my girl like this.
“You fainted and then went into an exhausted sleep. I even had a doctor down the road come check on you. He said you were fine, just sleeping really hard. Said the body sometimes does that when presented with extreme information the mind can’t yet handle. I’m sorry, Mia. I didn’t know that what she said would do this to you.”
I shook my head. “Nonsense. I’m fine. I haven’t been sleeping, worrying about all this.” I gestured generally over the room, but he knew what I meant. “And I’ve been concerned about my boyfriend. I haven’t heard from him in several days, and he’s in Asia on location. Then your attorney hit me with this, and I think I just shut down.”
He nodded his eyes, sympathetic and understanding. Maddy stirred, and her eyes blinked open. “Hey, you okay?” she asked sitting up.
Running my fingers through her hair, I took in every lovely facet of her face: the eyes that matched my own, the pert little nose, and the cherub-red lips. No matter what, she was still my sister, even if by half, which posed an entire new set of problems. “I’m fine. Come sit up. We need to talk to you about something.”
I pushed back up against the headboard and fiddled with the strings on the quilt. I’d bet good money that Cyndi had sewed this herself. Wouldn’t surprise me. She was the picture-perfect country wife. Max sat down at the foot of the bed and put a warm hand over my knee. I was starting to get used to the comforting gesture from my big brother.
“Maddy honey, some information has come to light about us and our family.”
Her eyebrows narrowed. “Like what?”
“Well, it turns out that our mother had a child before us.” Her head snapped back and her mouth opened. “I know, believe me, it shocked the hell out of me, too. But uh, baby girl, Max here, he’s our brother.” I tried to soften it in a way that would hopefully get through to her compassionate side. Of the two of us, she was definitely more kind.
Maddy’s eyes widened, and then she did something I hadn’t expected. A slow smile slipped across her face. “You’re our real brother?” she asked, awe filling every word.
Max nodded. “Yeah, sweetie, I am.”
“But how?” The words came out breathy and uncertain.
“I found some information in my late father’s will leaving close to half of my family’s company to a woman by the name of Mia Saunders.”
“No way!” She put her hand over her mouth.
Max chuckled softly. “Yes way. Anyhow, I had an investigator research for Mia Saunders with the appropriate information. When I saw your sister’s image, I knew she was my sister. We’d even met before in the past when my father went to Las Vegas before you were born.”
“And Max had DNA tests done on me and you and confirmed biologically that we are indeed siblings.”
Maddy scooted up onto her knees and planted her hands on her thighs. Her entire body lit up like a firecracker. She was taking this way better that I’d imagined. “This is so cool!” She threw her arms around Maxwell. “I always wanted a brother!” She squealed in delight. Yep, way better than I thought. And I had been stressing about this all week. Only this wasn’t the end of it.
I patted Maddy’s back, and Max released his hold on her. She wiped tears from her eyes and smiled. “Baby girl, there’s more, and I’m not really sure how to tell you this.”
Her smile faded and she tilted her head to the side. “Just tell me, Mia. What you’ve already revealed is awesome news. Our family is bigger. It’s not just you and me. We now have a brother and a sister-in-law…and oh, yeah”—she clapped her hands together—“we have a niece and a nephew on the way! I cannot wait to tell Matt and Pops! This is going to be the best year ever. Matt will have you in the wedding, I can have Isabel as the flower girl…” She went on and on.
I sighed, and Max placed a hand on her shoulder. “Sweetie, your sister is trying to share some information that might not be so easy to swallow. I’m glad, hell, I’m elated that you’re so happy we’re fa
mily. I share those feelings.”
Maddy beamed at him like only she could. Fuck, this sucked. Why the hell did it have to be so hard! It’s like I was always the bearer of bad news. This one time I wish I could have left it at Maxwell being our brother, let’s celebrate, and start having family reunions and get to know one another, etcetera No, it has to come with the whopping side of the man you thought was your father your whole life is not your real father. Oh, and by the way, the man that is your real father is dead so you’ll never get a chance to know him.
Tears flowed unchecked down my cheeks. I inhaled deep and let it fly. “Mads, the attorney found something else about your genetics.” I flicked at the tears, pissed that they were falling and that I was not able to hold them back.
Max reached out a hand to me, his eyes betraying his sadness. He knew what saying this cost me, and he was there, sharing in my grief. He hated knowing I was in pain and that what I had to share would only bring more. He’d always wanted a big family, and now he was getting two sisters to add to his fold.
“May I?” he asked, and it became clear then and there, I truly wasn’t alone. Max might have been my brother for only a week but he was ready to jump right in and dish out the hard stuff, say what needed to be said, take the brunt of the pain for me. I nodded, not knowing what else to do. My form was racked with emotions so damaging it was as if each sob were a punishing blow to the chest.
“Maddy, sweetie, what Mia is trying to tell you is that the attorney found out that you and I have the same parents.”
She blinked a few times but didn’t move. “You mean the three of us have the same parents? But that would mean Pops is your dad, too, and he didn’t even know it?” Her eyebrows rose to her hairline.
A gut-wrenching sense of dread bubbled up as I spoke the words that would change her life forever. “No, baby girl. Pops is not your dad. You and Maxwell share the same parents. That means your real father was Jackson Cunningham.”
A tidal wave of tears hit her hard, rushing down the smooth lines of her face in rivulets. It was like watching a mudslide down the face of a California mountain, seeing her face crumble into a mess of tears, snot, and wracking sobs. “But, but, Pops…I don’t understand.” She shook her head and covered her face as she cried. I pulled her into my lap, and her face went straight for my neck as it always had during times of turmoil. “But you’re still my sister.” She hiccupped.
“Yes, baby, yes, we are biologically still sisters but only by half.”
“Not by half to me!” she cried, wetting the skin of my clavicle with her hot tears.
I kissed her hairline and pet her over and over, whispering that I loved her, that I’d always be there, that nothing would change between us. I tried to spin the side of having Maxwell as our brother to help bring her out of her emotional breakdown. Eventually, she stopped shaking, and her breathing became slow and even. She’d cried herself to sleep. This was not an unusual reaction. When she dated boys in high school and they broke her heart, this was much the same response.
Max stood and paced. “Is she going to be okay?” He looked like a caged animal. His form was taut, hands clenched into giant fists, and his stance ready for battle. He didn’t even know us and he was on the defensive, ready to go down swinging to protect his new family.
“Yes, she will be fine. I imagine this is a heavy blow to her. Same for me, but we’re used to surviving difficult things.”
That was the wrong thing to say because he scowled and looked at me, his pale eyes a frosty ice-green shade. “Not anymore. You now have our family money and connections.”
I frowned. “We don’t want your money or connections.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. You’re getting it. The attorneys are already working to change over the forty-nine percent to you.”
“What? You’ve got be kidding?”
He stopped and put his hands on his hips. “Nothing’s changed, Mia. The will is iron clad. My father obviously didn’t know about Maddy, but you’re getting nearly half the company.”
“I don’t want it!”
“You don’t want to be part of my family?” His voice was strained, pained even.
“Of course, we’re going to be family. But I don’t need your company to be your sister. Besides, what about Maddy? She’s your real sister!” My tone was harsh and unrelenting.
“So are you! Half or a hundred, it’s all the same to me.”
I closed my eyes and tried to think, but there were too many emotions swirling around my head. “I want to give my half to her then.”
Max laughed. Full on tipped his head back, held his stomach, and belly laughed, overtaken with hysterics. “You’re going to give billions of dollars’ worth of stock and all that comes with it to our little sister?”
I cringed and my lips tightened. “She’s the only person that matters.”
He huffed. “Yes, you’re working your ass off to pay her schooling, and going from place to place to be whatever a stranger needs you to be in order to pay off your father’s debt but you won’t take money that’s rightfully yours? You are somethin’ else, sugar.”
“I’ll tell the lawyer myself.”
“Too late. I’ve already told the lawyer to draw something up to split the company three ways. Soon, you and Maddy are going to be very rich women, but it will take the next six months to a year to satisfy the conditions set in the will, and then we’ll both have to sign over a portion.”
“But Jackson wasn’t my father. Why should I have any stake in this? Divide it between the two of you.”
He shook his head fervently. “Not what Dad wanted. He knew who you were, knew you weren’t his, and he wanted you to have it anyway. Now if he’d known Maddy was his, I know in my heart of hearts that he’d want it split among the three of us. That’s just the type of man he was. Honor and family meant everything to him.”
“You’re not going to change your mind, are you?” I retorted.
“Nope.”
“Are you always like this?”
“Like what?”
“Bossy, obstinate, unwilling to see reason?” A slow smirk slipped across my lips even though I didn’t want it to.
He smiled, sat on the bed, and picked up my hand. “When it comes to my family, you’d better believe it.”
* * *
The buzzing phone woke me up from a dead sleep. The kind of sleep that happens after popping a couple of Benadryl. I grappled for my phone and answered without checking the caller ID. It was probably Millie. I’d shot her text, telling her to send me the details of the next client, but to give me a few days in Malibu before I left. She’d agreed, and I hadn’t even bothered to check who my new client would be. It didn’t seem to matter before, but she was probably checking in with me since I’d be flying to Malibu tomorrow. Maddy and Matt were heading back to Vegas today on Maxwell’s private jet with the new information that she had a brother, was about to become a rich woman, and the knowledge that the man who’d raised her was not her father.
“Hello, hello, is Mia Saunders there?” A nasally voice broke through my sleepy bliss.
I cleared my throat. “Uh, yeah. I’m Mia Saunders, who is this?”
“This is Wilma Brown from Kindred Hospital and Convalescent Homes in Las Vegas, Nevada.”
I sat up as if a pail of ice cold water had been thrown on me. “What’s the matter with my dad?” I asked, rushing the words and needing to hear that he was okay.
“Ms. Saunders, I’m afraid your father took a turn for the worse. He contracted a viral infection that worked its way through his nervous system. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any previous medical files as your father hadn’t had much in the way of medical treatment, and we gave him the strongest antibiotic possible to counteract the infection.”
Oh, no, oh, no. I could hear the in the tone of her voice that this was bad. Really fucking bad. “Is he going to be okay?” I cut in.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Saunders, but the antib
iotic ended up being something he was allergic to. He seized several times before we could give him additional medication to counteract the seizures and the allergic reaction. He was also allergic to the ant seizure medication and he went into cardiac arrest.”
His. Heart. Stopped.
His heart stopped.
His heart…stopped.
No matter how many times or different ways the phrase rolled around in my head, it still had the ability to rob me of breath. “Ms. Saunders? He’s alive, but he’s in critical condition. It doesn’t look good. I’m sorry to say, but it’s touch and go right now. You and your family should probably come as soon as possible.”
“What?” He was fine the last time I saw him. Maddy just told me he looked great, that the doctors were baffled as to why he hadn’t woken up.
“He may not have a lot of time. You’ll need to come soon if you want to say goodbye.”
“Thank you. I’ll be on the next plane. Please, do everything you can,” I begged.
“We will. Goodbye, Ms. Saunders.”
Critical condition. It doesn’t look good. Come soon. Say goodbye.
I closed my eyes, and the words moved across the back of my eyelids like the scrolling newsfeed at the bottom of the television on the local news stations.
No matter how many times I saw the words, repeated them silently over and over, the end result was still the same. My father was dying.
Mia’s journey continues in September Calendar Girl.
The End
Mia’s journey is continued in:
Calendar Girl: September
(Coming Soon!)
Keep reading for an excerpt!
Excerpt from September Calendar Girl #9
August: Calendar Girl Book 8 Page 11
