Switched At Birth

by Christine Rimmer

  She let him do that, let him set the memory stick in her palm and fold her fingers around it.

  Was she dreaming? Her moorings to her life, her identity, her self—everything. It all felt torn loose and dangling.

  The oddest thought occurred to her. “So then, are you saying that we’re related, too, you and me?”

  “Yes. You and I are second cousins. Your grandfather and mine were brothers. The extended family is a large one.”

  When her mom died four years ago, she’d lost the last of her family—or so she’d believed at the time. “And you said that the family in Oregon is large, too?”

  “George and Marie Bravo had nine children.” He turned for the door.

  “Had?” she asked his retreating back.

  He paused in midstep and faced her again. “George and Marie were very fond of traveling. One of the children, Finn, was lost on a trip to Russia years ago. The family continues to search for him.”

  “And George and Marie Bravo, what are they like?”

  “I’m sorry, Madison, but two years after Finn disappeared, George and Marie died on another trip, that one to Thailand.”

  “Oh.” The word came out wobbly, more breath than sound, as a wave of sadness washed through her for the lost boy—and for George and Marie Bravo. If they actually were her birth parents, she would never know them now.

  “Listen.” A look of concern had creased Jonas’s brow. “How about if I stay until you’ve had a chance to check everything over?” He tipped his head at her white-knuckled fist and the memory stick she clutched in it.

  “No!” she replied much too sharply. She needed to be alone for this. She needed time to absorb it all and reject it—or to claim it in her heart, take it under her skin. “I, well, would you please thank Percy Valentine for me?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Would you explain that you’ve spoken with me and given me all the information he sent you?” Her mouth felt so dry. She swallowed and forged on. “I’m going to need some time...”

  Jonas Bravo understood. “You mean you want me to say that you’ll call him?”

  The weird, constricted feeling in her chest seemed to loosen a fraction. “Yes, please. Would you tell him that I’ll be in touch as soon as I’m ready?”

  “I’ll do that. Thanks for hearing me out. Percy will be looking forward to your call.”

  Chapter One

  A week after her life-changing visit from the Bravo Billionaire, Madison stood on the back deck of a cute shingled cottage on a pristine stretch of sand called Sweetheart Cove in Valentine Bay.

  The sky was endless and overcast. Gulls wheeled and soared above the blue Pacific, filling the air with their drawn-out, plaintive cries. She could smell salt spray and a hint of evergreen from the tall trees on the cliffs that loomed behind the cottage and sheltered the private stretch of beach that formed the cove.

  So far, she really liked it here, next to the ocean, on the Oregon coast. It was much cooler and wilder than in LA.

  No, she hadn’t reached out to Percy Valentine. But she would. Eventually. When she was ready.

  Which wasn’t quite yet.

  To lie low, that was her plan. If she stayed incognito, the tabloid reporters wouldn’t find her. She could have a little quiet time for herself while she worked up the nerve to reach out to the family she’d just learned she had.

  And yeah. She might not have outed herself to Percy Valentine yet, but she’d studied everything on that flash drive Jonas had given her. She’d seen all the pictures, read all the explanations.

  And now she believed.

  Her parents—whom she still loved with all her heart—were not her biological parents. She had five brothers, if you counted the one who’d vanished in Siberia years and years ago. Five brothers and four sisters, three by birth and also Aislinn Bravo Winter, the real Madison Delaney—or at least, she would have been if not for what Martin Durand had done.

  Everything seemed strange and new and scary. And it would probably only get more so. But she was coping. She was doing all right.

  Right now, in the interest of not being recognized, she wore a floppy, wide-brimmed straw hat and a terrific pair of Bvlgari Serpenti Gradient Square sunglasses—the black ones with the snake’s-head detail at the temples. It was just the kind of silly disguise she would never try in LA, the kind that wouldn’t fool anyone there for a second. But here in the Pacific Northwest, where no one expected to run into a movie star, dark glasses and a big hat did the job just fine.

  Yeah, okay. There was no one around who might recognize her, anyway. The beach was deserted and there were only the two houses in the cove—her cottage and the larger house next door.

  But so what if the hat and glasses were overkill? She wore them anyway, to be on the safe side and also because wearing disguises was fun. She felt like she could be anybody, some Valentine Bay local who’d rented a beach cottage just to stand out on her deck and stare at the waves lapping the sand, stare and smile and feel no pressure to do anything but simply be.

  Too bad about the Bluetooth device stuck in her ear and the grating voice of Myra Castle, her agent, talking too fast and too loud, as usual.

  “Dare to Dream,” shouted Myra. “Tell me you’ve had a chance to look over the script.”

  “Well, Myra, I just got here two days ago and—”

  “You need to decide on it and we need to lock it in. They want you, but they won’t wait forever.”

  “Myra, I finally have some time off and I’d really like to enjoy—”

  “Exactly. Wasted time. You can’t afford that. You’re not getting any younger. I know that’s a ridiculous thing to say to a twenty-seven-year-old woman, but that’s Hollywood. And you pay me to give it to you straight. If you don’t keep making the right choices, you’ll end up last year’s hot commodity. What about Devious Intentions?”

  “No. Really. I’m not ready to—”

  “Well, then get ready. I’ve discussed this with Rafe.” Rafe Zuma was Madison’s manager. “We agree, Rafe and I. It’s perfect for you, the exact right next step after Heartbeats and To the Top...” There was more. Lots more. Myra was a world-champion talker.

  Suppressing a sigh, Madison tuned her out.

  The cottage came with a nice pair of field glasses. Snatching them from a pretty cast-iron table as she went by, she strolled toward the back of the wraparound deck, interjecting the occasional “Um,” or “I understand,” whenever Myra paused for a breath or suddenly put a question mark at the end of a sentence. At the back corner, Madison leaned on the railing and traded her sunglasses for the binoculars.

  In the past two glorious, peaceful days, she’d had plenty of time to study the occupants of the other house. In residence were her hunky landlord, his wife, a pair of cute kids and an older guy who was most likely the landlord’s dad.

  She adjusted the binoculars, bringing the house next door into focus—the rear of the house, to be specific. In the last two days, Madison had been giving the field glasses quite a workout, mostly from her current vantage point.

  And no, she wasn’t bird-watching. She was observing the landlord, who had a workshop area back there under his house, a workshop with a wide, roll-up door. Right now, that door was up. On the concrete slab just beyond the open door, the landlord was busy measuring and sawing and hammering.

  Did she feel guilty for using his own binoculars to peep at him? Not really. Yeah, okay, it was invasive of his privacy, not to mention pretty juvenile, but what red-blooded, straight woman wouldn’t stare long and often at a guy who looked like that?

  He was tall and sinewy and beautiful, with thick brown hair that tended to curl in the moist Oregon air and just the right amount of beard scruff. He was also very handy with a large number of manly tools. He even wore an actual tool belt, wore it low on his hard hips.

 
; Right now, he had his shirt off, displaying a cornucopia of gorgeous, lean muscle, the kind a guy didn’t get at a gym. Lucky for him, he was married, or she just might consider asking hunky Mr. Fixit if he would do her a big favor and help her check off number one on her list of birthday goals.

  Madison snorted out a silly laugh just at the thought. As if she’d ever make a move on a stranger, even a single one. She could work a room like nobody’s business and she had no false modesty about her talent as an actress or her pretty face and nice body. In public and on set, she was supremely self-confident.

  But when it came to love and romance in Hollywood, who could blame a girl for being wary? Relationships imploded as fast as they began and it really was hard to know if a guy liked you for yourself or for what you could do for him. She didn’t need the potential heartache, so she’d more or less relinquished the field on the sex and romance front—relinquished it right out of the gate. She worked hard and constantly. She became casual friends with her costars. But as for love, well, she didn’t really have time for love, anyway.

  Or she hadn’t had time. Until this year.

  This year, no matter what, she was making time. Making time to make time.

  That brought another snort-laugh from her, which had Myra demanding in her ear, “What is so funny?”

  “Nothing, Myra. Absolutely noth...” The word died unfinished as a random gust of wind lifted her wide-brimmed hat right off her head. “Crap.”

  She made a grab for it. Too late. The hat sailed over the railing. She set down the binoculars—and knocked her dark glasses off the railing in the process. The sunglasses plopped to the sand below and the hat wheeled off toward the ocean, vanishing from sight.

  “Madison,” Myra badgered in her ear. “What is going on there?”

  Madison looked down to see how her favorite sunglasses were faring and found herself staring directly into the wide, wondering eyes of Mr. Fixit’s little girl, who had been playing with her brother between the two houses while Madison peeped at their dad.

  The little girl gasped. “Princess Eliza!” she cried and clapped her small hands with glee. “Princess Eliza, it’s you!” Princess Eliza was the central character in a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, “The Wild Swans.” Eight years ago, Madison, had played Eliza for Disney.

  And that little girl? She was the cutest thing ever, with a riot of curly dark brown hair only partly contained in two braids. She wore denim overalls and a pink T-shirt. A jumbo-sized neon-green Band-Aid took up serious real estate on her left forearm. She beamed up at Madison, who beamed right back, not even caring that she’d just been recognized.

  “Madison, you with me?” shouted Myra.

  “Myra, sorry. Gotta go. I’ll be in touch.” The agent was still talking as Madison ended the call.

  “I’m coming to see you!” The little girl waved madly. Madison waved back at her. “I’m coming right now!” And the child took off at a run.

  Laughing, Madison pulled the device from her ear and her phone from her pocket. She whirled and headed for the main deck again. Resetting the phone to silent page, she dropped both it and the Bluetooth receiver on the cast-iron table as she passed it.

  At the same time, the kid ran around to the steps on the other side of the deck and started up them. “I’m here, Eliza,” she called. “I’m here to see you!”

  “Coco, stop!” Her brother followed after her. “That’s not Eliza!” he shouted. “Eliza isn’t real.”

  “Oh, you just shut up, Benjamin Killigan.” The little girl paused in midstep and turned on her brother. “You don’t know nothing.”

  “Anything,” the boy corrected her. “And you know you’re not supposed to bother the tenant.”

  Coco whirled away from him and ran up the remaining steps. “Eliza!” She reached the deck and raced for Madison, arms outstretched, pigtails flying.

  Madison held out her arms. The little girl flew at her and landed, smack, against her middle.

  “I’m Colleen.” The child gazed up at her through shining blue eyes. “But everybody calls me Coco.”

  “Hello, Coco. My name is Madison.”

  “See?” crowed the boy as he skidded to a stop a few feet away from them. “She’s not Eliza.” He was a year or two older than Coco, with straight brown hair, serious brown eyes and a T-shirt with Stand back! I’m going to try science! printed on the front.

  Coco let go of Madison to turn and deal with her brother. “Is so.”

  “No, she’s not.”

  “Hold it,” said Madison. The children fell silent. Two sets of eyes turned on her expectantly. “You’re both right. I’m an actress who played the part of Eliza. So no, I’m not really Eliza, but yes, I am the one Coco remembers from The Wild Swans.”

  “Told you so,” Coco gloated.

  “All right, you two,” Hunky Mr. Fixit said from the top of the steps. He’d taken off his tool belt and put on a T-shirt. Darn it. “What did I tell you about bothering the tenant?”

  Benjamin seemed hurt. “Uncle Sten, I tried to stop her!”

  Uncle Sten. Interesting. So the hot guy next door might not be married, after all?

  Or maybe the kids were cousins and only the little girl was his.

  “She waved at me!” cried Coco.

  The hunk came toward them, his lace-up work boots eliminating the distance in four long strides. Up close, he had the same amazing blue eyes as Coco. “I’m Sten Larson.” He offered Madison his big, manly hand.

  “Madison.” His hand was warm, dusted very lightly with dark hair—and rough in all the right places.

  “I know who you are.” He was so good-looking, with all that messy hair and those lips that made a woman think of kisses—kisses that start out slow, but then grow hot and wonderfully deep. “But you don’t have to worry.”

  Her brain seemed to have gone off-line at his touch. “Um, worry? Why would I worry?”

  He smiled then, a wry and beautiful smile. “I just mean that I’m sworn to secrecy concerning everything about you. I’ve even signed an NDA.”

  “Ah,” she replied, the sound absurdly husky. “I can trust you then?” Was she flirting? She needed to cut that out. He could definitely be married.

  “I’m not going to say a word to anyone,” he vowed. “And neither are the kids. I’ll make sure of that.”

  She still held his hand. They just looked at each other. The look went on for several seconds. Eventually, it became downright awkward. They let go simultaneously. “Really, it’s no big deal,” she said, trying really hard to control her totally out-there reactions to everything about this guy. “I waved at Coco. She recognized me from a Disney movie I did a few years back and she came running up to meet me.”

  “Yes!” crowed Coco with glee. “Princess Eliza is my most favoritest princess. She saved her brothers so they didn’t have to be swans anymore. There were eleven of them, those brothers, and the wicked stepmother turned them all into swans and made them fly far, far away and Eliza had to—”

  “Coco, settle down.” A frown lowered the corners of Sten’s distractingly kissable mouth. He seemed super cautious, the way people always did after they had it drilled it into them that Madison wanted privacy and she was not to be disturbed or to have attention drawn to her in any way.

  “The beach is deserted,” Madison said, feeling embarrassed at the rules she herself always insisted on. “I don’t see a problem.”

  For several more endless seconds, he just looked at her. Really, he could do that forever, just stand there with those gorgeous eyes focused on her. She felt something lovely and magic with him, no doubt about it. It was absolutely delicious, that hot little spark of mutual attraction.

  And for once, she was actually imagining acting on it.

  At last.

  But he just kept frowning. He turned to the kids. “All right
you two, go on back to the house and check in with Grandpa.”

  Ben took Coco’s hand. The little girl allowed him to lead her to the stairs, but dug in her heels before following him down. Turning, she offered, “Eliza, you can come play with me at my house anytime!”

  I’ll be right there, Madison thought but didn’t say. It probably wouldn’t go over so well with Sten, who was watching her like he didn’t quite know what to make of her, the supposedly reclusive movie star who suddenly found his grade school-age niece—or daughter—fascinating. “Thanks.” She gave Coco a big smile.

  “Come on.” Ben pulled Coco on down the stairs.

  Sten took another step backward. “I’m really sorry about this. I’ll talk to the kids and their mom.” Their mom. So then neither of the children was his? “I’ll make sure they leave you alone and also that they understand not to tell people you’re in town.”

  “Coco and Ben can come visit me anytime.” The words were out of her mouth before she even realized she would say them—and now she had said them, she didn’t want to take them back. The two children were charming and sweet and why shouldn’t she get to know them a little?

  As for hunky Mr. Fixit, well, Madison had shared on-screen kisses with some of the best-looking men in the world. But there was something about this one, with his slightly scruffy haircut and those lean muscles he had from doing actual work. He was so...natural, so real.

  And definitely wary of her.

  And just possibly, married.

  She really needed to find out for sure if he was or he wasn’t. “Your kids are just too cute,” she said with a wide smile.

  He almost smiled back, one side of his mouth curling up reluctantly. “They’re my sister, Karin’s, kids.”

  She kept a straight face, though inside she was happy-dancing. “You all live together, right?”

  He nodded. “Bud, Karin’s husband, died in a fishing accident more than three years ago now.”