A Family At Last

by Carolyne Aarsen

“Matthew that poor woman is eating her heart out for you. Only she’s scared to admit it. Why don’t you mosey on over to her house and talk to her yourself?”

  “I just might do that. Thanks a lot.” He set the phone down, glancing at the clock. It was a bit early to call it a day, but what he wanted to do rated above setting up a will for Alison and Jeffrey Scott.

  He paused, then went back to the phone. He had to know before he went.

  He punched in the numbers, praying as he did. Praying that Cory would listen.

  Each ring of the phone increased his own trepidation. Then finally…

  “Hello.”

  Strange that only one mundane word from her could create that funny breathless feeling in him.

  “This is Matthew,” he said, leaning back against the desk for support.

  Silence.

  “Please don’t hang up. Please let me talk to you.”

  “I won’t hang up,” she said softly.

  “Cory, honey. I’m sorry. Again.” He laughed a humorless laugh as he clutched the phone. “I should have told you about that other will, but I was scared.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Really. I’m as human as the next guy in love, Cory. I was afraid that you would get angry.”

  “I did, didn’t I?”

  He smiled at that. And for the first time in two days felt a glimmer of hope. “I should have told you.”

  “It didn’t really change anything, did it? Waiting to tell me.”

  “But it wasn’t fair. I let you hope. Every time I heard you talk about the money from the will, I felt sick. It was wrong.”

  “Well, I’m over it. I should have known better.”

  He paused, wondering. “Did you get my parcel?”

  “Oh, Matthew, she’s so beautiful.” He heard her draw in a slow breath. “Not just because it was a present…but because I know what you were trying to say.”

  “I didn’t know how else to say it. I want to give you everything that’s in my power to give you—” He stopped, surprised at the hitch in his own voice, unable to tell her what she really meant to him. “I love you,” he said simply, “And I’d like to come over.”

  “Please. Please come over.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  He waited for her to hang up but he could still hear her breathing. “You have to hang up,” he said.

  She laughed. “I remember Deirdre doing this with her boyfriend. I always thought that was silly.”

  “It is,” he agreed.

  “Then you hang up first. Otherwise you can’t come over.”

  This time he laughed. “I love you, Cory.” With a deep, slow sigh, he laid the phone in its cradle, sent up a heartfelt prayer of thanks and pushed away from his desk.

  He caught his coat from the back of the chair, and slipped it on, tightened the knot on his tie, ran a hand over his usually unruly hair and just as he was about to step out of his office, the intercom buzzed.

  Stifling an irritable sigh, he walked over.

  “What is it?”

  “I’ve got two men who would like to see you. They don’t have an appointment. Jake and Simon Steele.”

  Matthew paused, surprise bolting through him. He had just talked to Jake’s lawyer yesterday and now they were already here.

  Their timing was atrocious. All he needed was one more day. Twenty-four hours to fix up this mess between him and Cory without any other distractions.

  But he wasn’t even going to get a couple of hours with her. He stifled his own impatience, realizing he was being selfish. For Cory, these were the men she had been thinking of much of her life.

  For Joyce, the sons that necessity and difficult circumstances had forced her to give up. It was a momentous occasion.

  Thank you, Lord, he breathed, forcing his own concerns aside.

  “Okay. I’ll be right out,” he said.

  Matthew readjusted his tie and glanced down at his clothes, surprised that he should feel suddenly nervous.

  Cory’s brothers.

  He pushed open the door and taking a deep breath walked out into the waiting area.

  Two men were standing by the window who turned as he came closer. They didn’t look alike, but in Matthew’s first impression he could see Cory in both of them. The tallest one was dark, his eyes the same deep brown as Cory’s, holding the same wariness. The other had sandy-brown hair, the same color as Cory’s. His mouth had the same mocking tilt that Cory’s could.

  There was no doubt in Matthew’s mind who these two men were.

  “Hello. I’m Matthew McKnight.” Matthew held out his hand toward the tallest man.

  “Jake Steele.” Jake’s hand in Matthew’s was hard and callused. “This is my brother, Simon.”

  “We understand you know Cory and our mother,” Simon said as he returned Matthew’s handshake.

  “Yes. They live here in Stratton. Have for the past few months. If I had known you were coming…”

  Simon glanced at Jake, then back at Matthew. “We should have called, but I’m the impulsive one and wanted to come out right away. We’ve had a few disappointments already, that’s why we thought it would be best if we talked to you first, before going to see them.”

  Matthew acknowledged this with a nod. “I understand. Would you like to come into my office a moment? There’s a few things I would like to go over with you.”

  Even though he could see a family resemblance he wasn’t about to bring two completely unknown men to Cory and Joyce’s place. Not when so much emotion was at stake. And especially not after the last disappointment Cory had just suffered.

  Once inside Matthew’s office, Jake handed Matthew a letter. “This is from my lawyer. Just to let you know that we’re on the level. We didn’t want to go directly to their house. You have to understand that this is a difficult situation for us, as well.” Jake glanced at Simon. “As Simon said, we’ve had our share of disappointments and false leads. When my lawyer told us that you knew Cory and Joyce, we thought this time we would take things a little slower.”

  Considering they were here only a day after Matthew had spoken to Jake’s lawyer, he thought they were moving quick enough.

  Matthew glanced at the paper, then back at the brothers. “This looks in order. I spoke with Mr. Kowalchuk yesterday.”

  “Are you Cory and Joyce’s legal representative?” Simon asked warily.

  Matthew thought of the will and the attendant proceedings and decided to stretch the truth a little. It was for Cory’s sake, he reminded himself. “Yes, I am. Now, the question is, how do you want to proceed on this?”

  Simon glanced at Jake, then back at Matthew. “We were hoping that you, or someone from this office, would be able to take us to their home.”

  “They are still living here, aren’t they?” Jake asked.

  “Yes, they are,” Matthew replied. “In fact, I just found out Cory got off work early and is home right now.”

  The brothers exchanged another quick glance. Matthew could sense their banked anticipation and felt a flash of jealousy.

  How excited Cory would be to see them, he thought, trying to imagine her reaction. After all these years to finally meet her brothers.

  But why now? When he had so many things he needed to straighten out with her?

  Please, Lord, help me to be happy for her. And for Joyce, he prayed.

  “Before we go, I want to know if there’s anything we need to know about Cory and Joyce,” Jake said quietly. “Anything that might make a difference. For us.”

  Matthew pulled in one corner of his mouth as he thought. Should he tell them everything that had transpired the past few days? Should he get into the history of Zeke and the impact he had on their lives?

  He decided to go for straightforward. It would take a long time and a lot of sharing before these two men would fully know what had happened in Joyce’s and Cory’s lives. But they needed a couple of things now as he filled them in on Cory’s background.

&n
bsp; When he finished, Matthew leaned back against his desk, studying Jake and Simon, trying to imagine how Cory would react. In spite of his own mixed feelings he felt a stirring of anticipation and pleasure for Cory. “She has wanted to find you but hasn’t had the resources or the time. Your mother has fibromyalgia. I’m not sure myself what it all means, but Cory has told me that it has given Joyce a lot of pain and has decreased her ability to work. The disease is often exacerbated by stress.”

  “How would our coming affect her?” Jake asked.

  “To tell you the truth, I think a portion of her difficulty is directly connected to her feelings about giving you boys up. I am sure that finding out about you will make a huge difference for her.”

  Jake glanced at Simon again. Matthew could only guess as to what was going through their minds right now. Matthew’s parents’ marriage wasn’t perfect, but all his life he had known the security of a stable family.

  Jake and Simon had had to grow up with vague memories of another life, another mother. It must have been difficult.

  Finally Simon stood. “I don’t know about you, Jake, but I’m anxious to get this over and done with. This first meeting.”

  They shared a smile that Matthew was sure signified some common memory. Again he wondered how Cory would react to finally seeing the brothers she had been thinking of for so many years.

  “Well, then, let’s get going. You can follow me,” Matthew offered, pushing away from his desk.

  As they left the office, Matthew felt his heart pounding with a mixture of feelings he didn’t know how to sort out. An eagerness to see Cory after being apart and a bittersweet pleasure for what he was about to witness.

  “What is the matter with you, Cory?” Joyce asked as she came into the living room and saw Cory’s flushed face.

  “Matthew’s coming,” Cory called out just before she ducked into the bedroom. Running to her closet she riffled through the clothes. What should she wear?

  Not enough time to think about that, she had to get her hair decent.

  She ran across the hallway to the bathroom, pulled out her curling iron and plugged it in.

  “Goodness, girl, what’s gotten into you? I thought you weren’t going to see him anymore.”

  Joyce stood in the doorway of the bathroom, frowning as Cory pulled out hairbrushes, some hair spray and her meager supply of makeup.

  Cory looked up at her mother, fully aware of her disapproval. She stopped.

  “I love him, Mother.”

  “Even after what he did?” Joyce’s voice rang with disapproval.

  “He didn’t really do anything, now did he? It was Zeke who did everything.” As she spoke, it was as if everything about her and Matthew’s past and present realigned itself in her mind, in her life. “Even when they were defending him, it was Zeke who was chasing us, who was hounding you for visits. It was Zeke who did it all.”

  “They didn’t have to help.”

  “If they didn’t do it, someone else would have. And then who knows where we might have been?” Cory pulled the elastic out of her hair and began vigorously brushing her hair, anticipation and excitement making her awkward.

  Joyce pursed her lips in reproach, crossing her arms tightly across her chest. “So now he’s going to come here and sweep you off your feet, and you’re going to leave.”

  Cory stopped what she was doing and then, as realization dawned, she lowered the brush. Setting it on the counter, she took her mother in her arms. “Mom, please don’t think that. I haven’t left you yet. I wouldn’t leave you now.”

  Joyce held herself rigid, looking straight ahead.

  Cory rubbed her mother’s shoulders, her arms, as if trying to convince her with actions as well. “Mom, everything I’ve ever done has been for you. All the work, the decisions. Everything. Today, I want to think about me. Me and Matthew.” It sounded selfish, but she knew that she had to be firm. “I love him. And I know he loves me.”

  “You can say that? After what he did?”

  Cory shook her head. “I want to talk to him about that, but I think that what he did was because he was afraid.” She was aware that she perfectly echoed Kelsey’s words. “Not telling me about that second will didn’t change anything.”

  “But he was the one who thought you should take it. Even though you didn’t trust it.”

  “Matthew didn’t know about Zeke. Didn’t know what he was really like. He knows now.”

  “Just because you told him?” Joyce pulled back from her daughter, her expression pleading. “Please don’t fall for the same thing I did, Cory. Don’t let a man hurt you like Zeke hurt me. I know what love can do to a person. How it can blind you and make you unaware of anything else.”

  Cory looked at her mother and in that moment realized the chance she was taking.

  “Matthew told me he loves me, Mom.” Cory smiled at the memory. “And I guess, right now, I’m going to have to trust him. Because that’s what love is all about. It’s about taking chances.”

  Joyce sniffed lightly. Blinking her eyes, she faced her daughter as if recognizing that she wasn’t going to sway her. “Then I guess you’ll have to take them,” she said as she turned and left the room.

  Cory felt as if a support had been pulled away. It would have been so much easier to see Matthew again, knowing that her mother accepted her choice. A small niggling doubt wormed its way into her mind, but Cory dismissed it.

  Please, Lord, I need Your blessing on this, she prayed, I need to let go of my fears and doubts. I need to believe that Matthew loves me. She looked at herself in the mirror and quickly brushed her hair. She was ready, she thought, and went to the living room. Twenty minutes later she was looking out the window. Surely Matthew should have been here by now? She went to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee.

  The sharp peal of the doorbell made Cory jump.

  “I’ll get it,” she called out, fairly flying down the hallway. She swung around the door frame into the living room and skidded to a halt just before the front entrance. Taking a calming breath, fingers fluttering over her hair, she stepped into the entrance and opened the front door.

  Matthew stood framed in the opening, smiling a bemused smile. “Hi, there,” he said quietly.

  She felt as if she had to swallow to breathe. His voice, his face. So familiar to her. So dear. He had come.

  “Hi, yourself,” she said quietly, holding on to the edge of the door as if for support.

  “I missed you.” He lifted his hand, as if to touch her, then lowered it as he glanced behind him. Two strange men came up the walk and stopped on the stairs. Both tall. One with dark hair, dark eyes. He wore a denim jacket and blue jeans. The other had sandy-brown hair, hazel eyes. He wore a leather jacket over khaki pants. Not cops, that much she could tell.

  “What’s going on?” she whispered to Matthew, her heart beginning to pound with trepidation at the serious expressions on their faces. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Trust me, please.” Matthew bit his lip, as their eyes met. He seemed to be pleading for understanding, as he drew her outside, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder.

  “Cory, I’d like you to meet Jake and Simon Steele.” Cory glanced back at him, puzzled, then back at the two men who hovered, waiting.

  “They’re your brothers,” Matthew said, squeezing her shoulder gently.

  Cory looked first at the dark-haired man, then the other one, trying to understand. Her breath left her chest as their names registered on her benumbed brain.

  “Jake and Simon?” she whispered faintly, striving to understand, to accept. “My brothers?”

  The lighter-haired one nodded. “We’ve been looking for you for a while,” he said quietly. Then he took a step closer. “I’m Simon.”

  Cory glanced back at Matthew again, as if seeking approval.

  “They’re on the level, Cory.” He lowered his hand, his fingers trailing down her arm.

  Cory felt a wave of bewilderment flooding her senses
as she looked back at them.

  Yes, she could see in these tall, handsome men, traces of the younger brothers whose faces she knew by heart. In their faces she caught shifting glimpses of her mother and even herself.

  The brothers she had prayed for and dreamed about. The brothers she had always thought would come swooping into her life to rescue her from Matthew, who now stood protectively behind her. Matthew whom she loved so desperately.

  There was a dreamlike quality to the situation. No one moved as they took each other’s measure.

  “Cory, what’s going on?”

  Cory jumped as her mother spoke from the doorway behind Matthew.

  Cory looked behind her as Joyce stepped past Matthew to stand beside her, then she looked back at the two men. “Jake and Simon are here,” she said quietly, still unable to grasp the implications, the significance of what was happening.

  “Who…what…?” Joyce stammered.

  “Jake and Simon. Your sons,” Matthew said.

  Joyce, too, glanced at Matthew, then back at the men. Her hands slowly crept upward to cover her mouth, as she repeated their names, then was utterly still.

  It was as if they were frozen.

  Cory and Joyce facing the men named Jake and Simon and behind them, Matthew.

  Then Jake moved, taking Joyce’s hands in his. “Mom,” he said almost reverently.

  Joyce reached up and, as she had done just moments ago with Cory, touched his face, tracing the lines, her expression bemused.

  “Jake. My son.”

  Then she was enfolded gently in his arms as she started to cry.

  Cory felt her throat thicken with emotion, still unable to completely absorb the reality of the scene. Her brothers. Here. They were real. Not some figment of her imagination.

  Simon had taken her hand and was holding it, staring at her. “I have a sister,” he said, shaking his head. “I have a beautiful little sister.”

  Then she, too, was pulled close in a rough embrace.

  Simon pulled abruptly away, tapped Jake on the shoulder and then with a flurry of laughter and cries, Simon was hugging his mother and Jake held Cory.

  Finally Joyce pulled away, her hands bracketing Simon’s face as tears flowed freely down her own. “How did you find us? How did you know?”