Elephants and Ever-Afters [Dark Desires 5] (Siren Publishing Sensations)

by Suzy Shearer

  “We should think about eating something, Laura.”

  “I guess so.”

  She laid her head against his shoulder. “I wonder what Gino looks like?”

  “Not long to wait to find out, just relax.”

  Tobias helped her up and they both dressed. He ended up ordering a pizza then dragging her into what was now the library to sort books and put them on the shelves. By then Laura was almost jumping out of her skin.

  She had avoided finishing the library for the past month, all the books were unpacked and Laura had begun sorting them in a rough alphabetical order but hadn’t got any further. They were in huge messy piles in the middle of the room so this was a perfect opportunity. It would take her mind off tomorrow.

  Early the next morning, Tobias drove down to the local bakery and picked up bread rolls, bread for lunch, plus a few warm croissants for breakfast. He made Laura sit down and eat a croissant, have a cup of tea, and then they tidied up in preparation for the guests. By ten o’clock Saturday morning Laura was beside herself. Tobias had done his best to calm her down but she was so nervous and on edge.

  Laura told him so many thoughts were zooming in and out her mind.

  Would he like her?

  What if they hated each other?

  Was her mother still alive?

  Was the house tidy enough?

  Should she change into something dressy rather than jeans?

  With each question Tobias tried his hardest to reassure her and soothe her. When the doorbell finally rang, Laura just stood in the hallway unable to move with fear. Tobias gave her a hug and pushed her to the front door. He opened it and Laura saw the man before her.

  A man with aqua eyes, a man tall, handsome with dark brown hair. He opened his arms, tears running down his cheeks unashamedly and Laura flew into them sobbing.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Tobias moved to greet the smiling, attractive man standing behind the still-crying pair. He was quite tall, perhaps an inch taller than Gino, maybe six foot two with sandy blond hair and dark blue eyes.

  “Hi, I’m Toby,” Tobias said, holding out his hand.

  “Hello, Toby. I’m Adam, Gino’s partner.”

  “Welcome. Not sure when we’ll separate this pair so just push past and come inside.”

  Laura couldn’t speak, all she could think was ‘this is my brother. I have a brother’. Finally, the pair of them stopped crying long enough to speak. Gino reached out and took Adam’s hand then Laura’s.

  “My big sister. Oh, Laura, this is the most wonderful thing.”

  She could only stare at him in wonder. Tobias threw an arm around her shoulders and introduced himself to Gino. Laura realised she’d been sadly lacking in manners and managed to speak. “I’m so sorry. I should have introduced you.”

  “I should have as well.” Gino drew Adam closer. “This is my handsome Adam.”

  Laura’s eyes filled with tears again as she hugged him then kissed his cheek.

  “Let’s all sit down rather than stand here in the hall,” Tobias suggested, and they followed down the hall and through the kitchen to the undercover area outside.

  Adam and Gino sat on one of the many couches, and Laura took the one opposite with Tobias. Laura couldn’t take her eyes off the man who was her brother. She could see a little of herself, mainly the eyes, and recalling the photographs of her mother she imagined he looked like her, too.

  “I can’t believe after all this time I finally get to meet you. You’ve been this invisible sister all my life, I never thought we’d meet, never knew a name to search for you.” Gino sighed happily. “I bet you’ve got a hundred questions, I know I have.”

  “At least a hundred. But the most important, is our mother still alive?”

  Gino shook his head sadly.

  “She died eight years ago. I’m sure it was of a broken heart.”

  Laura held the back of her hand over her mouth, biting lightly on the skin, she didn’t want to start crying again. Tobias took her other hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

  “I wish I could tell you she was still alive, she would have given the world to see you.”

  “It seems I wasn’t destined to meet her or my father. He died a few months back just before we were going to meet.”

  “Oh, Laura I’m so sorry.”

  “But now I have you. At last I have a family.”

  “You do. Let me tell you what I know.”

  Gino told Laura the same thing as her father had written—her parents had been separated and her mother whisked overseas.

  “Our grandfather is a tyrant. Yes, he’s still alive, but I don’t see him and I don’t want to. Anyway, the family moved to Paris, my grandparents had relations there so they set up home on the outskirts. Mother hated them all, hated what they did to her. When she was nineteen she ran away. She changed her name and went to Italy. She was an excellent cook and got work in restaurants. She told me she intended to save enough money to come back to Australia and search for you. But then she met my father and married him.

  “She did love him, but not the way she loved your father, Laura. They were happy together. I was born a year after they married, I’m forty-eight. Anyway, as I said they were happy even if it was no great passion. My father was killed ten years ago, some stupid accident. He tripped and fell while he was jogging, hitting his head. He lapsed into a coma and never recovered. After that my mother seemed to just give up on life. The two men she’d loved were gone.”

  Laura had rested her head on Tobias’s shoulder, and she noticed Adam had his arm around Gino’s shoulders and had been rubbing the top of Gino’s arm. Gino glanced at him and smiled adoringly then continued the story.

  “I wanted her to come out here and live with us but she wouldn’t. I’d moved out here when I met Adam.”

  Adam smiled lovingly at Gino and said, “I went to Italy for a month’s holiday. The first week I was there I met Gino. It sounds corny, but it was love at first sight for us both. When it was time for me to leave I was heartbroken.”

  “So was I,” Gino added, and it was obvious from the look he gave Adam that the two were still deeply in love.

  “Anyway, I offered to move to Italy but Gino said he’d always wanted to come to Australia and live.”

  “I did, mainly because of Mum. She’d always talk about it. Anyway, we talked it over with my family and in the end Mum told me to follow my heart, so I did. Two months after Adam left I was able to move here. We’ve been here ever since. Had a few holidays back to see my parents when they were alive.”

  “How long have you been out here?”

  “Twenty-two years. I was able to get work easily. I’m an electrician, have my own business, plus I have dual citizenship—Italian from my dad and Australian from my mum.”

  “What about you, Adam? What sort of work do you do?” Tobias asked.

  “I’m a vet, have my own practice with two other vets. It’s a five-minute walk from where we live.”

  Laura had been thinking.

  “Gino, when I said I was Laura Keell you thought I was your cousin?”

  “That’s right. My cousin Richard’s surname is Keell.”

  “It isn’t a common surname, my adopted mother was Judy Keell.”

  “You’re right, it isn’t common. I’ll have to ask my uncle.” There was a moment’s silence, then he asked casually, “You said Judy?”

  “Yes.”

  Gino asked Laura about her father’s side of the family. It didn’t take long to tell him as she really didn’t have one until now. She explained her adopted mother didn’t seem to have any contact with anyone and her father had only just found her before he died.

  “Well, we can make up for lost time, now you have family.”

  “I do and I really want to be part of your life.”

  “So you will be. Once I was old enough my mother told me I had an older sister, she told me all about what happened to her and why she no longer had any contact with her
family. I was so angry on her behalf, still am. I contacted them when my mother died, figured it was the right thing to do.”

  He shook his head, his lips a tight line.

  Adam patted his thigh, he looked at Laura and Tobias saying, “We went back to Paris. Gino’s grandfather was so cold and distant. Didn’t seem to care that his only daughter, his only child, had died. He was all gushy over Gino, until he realised Gino and I were together. Shit wasn’t that a lovely conversation. We ended up walking out and that was the last time we contacted that side of the family.”

  Gino nodded and said earnestly, “Believe me, Laura, you do not want to know them. They are the most horrid people you could imagine. Anyway, our grandmother passed five years ago and grandfather is gaga.”

  Laura and Tobias both laughed at Gino’s description, he smiled over at her.

  “He actually is. I think karma has caught up with him. He’s in his late nineties, beats me how he’s lived this long, but anyway now he has dementia, diagnosed about three years back and now lives in some nursing facility in Paris. At least that’s what Richard told me. I talked to him still. He’s the only lovely one left. He’s nice, lives in Queensland now.” He looked at Adam for confirmation as he added, “He’s ninety-two?”

  Adam nodded.

  “Yep, extremely nice man, but very frail. We keep expecting a phone call, lives in a nursing home now. That’s what I thought you were ringing for yesterday when you said it was about family.”

  “So you have no other family then, Gino?”

  “Not until you rang yesterday. Now I have you as well as our cousin Richard.”

  “Do you have family, Adam?” Laura asked.

  “I have a sister, Rachel. She’s fifty-one, divorced for almost thirty years, but she has two married children and three grandchildren. I have a brother, too, but don’t see him or anyone else in my family.”

  He sounded so sad that Laura felt her heart go out to him.

  Softly, she asked, “Why?”

  “They don’t approve of my life choices. My parents asked me politely to leave when I told them I was gay. They said I wasn’t to bother coming back until I came to my senses. They seemed to think being gay was some sort of sickness, they just couldn’t accept it when I said I’d always been attracted to males. My younger brother was the same. Rachel’s different.”

  “She is,” Gino told them. “You’d like her, she’s lovely, we see her all the time. Have dinner together once a week. She lives near you—Rouse Hill.”

  Laura looked at Tobias who winked at her and said, “It’s near Kellyville. Remember, we drove through there a few weeks back?”

  “Oh right, I remember.”

  Tobias looked at the two men.

  “Laura has only been living here since September, she lived in Canberra all her life. Has no idea where anything is here.”

  Laura joined in the laughter, it felt so good to be sitting with family and loved ones. It was something she’d always dreamed of but never thought she’d have. Tobias kissed her cheek then stood.

  “I’ll get lunch started, you sit here and talk with your brother, sweetheart.”

  She looked up at Tobias trying to put all the love she felt for him in that look. He smiled down at her, touched her shoulder, then walked inside. Adam stood, saying he’d help and followed him inside.

  “Laura, now we’ve met I don’t want to lose contact,” Gino said earnestly.

  “Oh, neither do I, Gino, it would break my heart.”

  “Thank goodness. I’d invite you to our place for Christmas day, but the unit’s small and Rachel comes over after having breakfast with her kids.”

  “I understand.” Laura had a sudden thought. “I don’t suppose you’d all like to come here? Adam’s sister, too.”

  “Wow. I’d love to. Have to check with Adam, but I can’t see it being a problem.”

  “Toby’s dad is coming over. His daughter and her family are coming for lunch, and so is Julian, that’s Toby’s business partner and best friend. Julian’s parents are coming as well as Toby’s Uncle Peter and his wife.”

  “Only if you’re sure it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  “Gino, I’ve never had a proper Christmas. When I was a kid my mother didn’t really go in for it, then when I left home it didn’t seem like much fun when you’re single and alone.”

  She tried to hide a tear that had begun its journey down her cheek by casually rubbing a hand across her face, but Gino saw it. He got up and came around to sit beside her, taking her hand.

  “Don’t get upset, sis.”

  She gave him a watery grin.

  “I’m not. This will be my first real Christmas. I met Toby the day I discovered my father had just died, then everything changed. My whole world was turned on end. Everything was altered for the best and here I am. I have a loving man beside me, even though it’s only been a few months. I have a great friend in Julian, and now I have you and Adam. So these aren’t tears of sadness, instead they’re overwhelming happiness.”

  “How did you meet Toby?”

  That made Laura laugh. She recounted the story of Tobias slamming open the door and her almost falling down the stairs.

  “I kept saying he was like an elephant, calling him Tembo, that’s the Swahili word for elephant. Still, he wanted to see me again and I thought he was just worried I was going to sue so I refused. It all worked out in the end and we’ve been together ever since. I mean I know it’s kind of short to want to spend your life with someone, it’s been two months I think since we started going out but…”

  She shrugged.

  “I know what you mean. I fell for Adam the moment I saw him.”

  The rest of the day seemed like a blur to Laura, she couldn’t stop looking at Gino and somehow she knew he was the same. They often caught each other staring and would grin. When they left around eight she rested her head near Tobias’s shoulder as they stood on the front veranda watching the car pull away.

  “Happy?”

  “Unbelievably so. You have no idea what it feels like, to never have anyone to call family and now to find out I have a brother and he wants to stay in contact.”

  “I’m so pleased for you, my darling, so very glad it worked out so well.”

  “I can’t wait for Christmas day. For the very first time it will be like a real one with all family, and that includes your dad and you, because to me you are my family.”

  He hugged her and turned her to face him. He looked serious yet wary, and Laura wondered why.

  “You know I love you, but is it too soon to tell you just how much? How I never want to let you go?”

  Ecstatic, she shook her head, her heart jumping for joy.

  “No, because I love you just as much, too.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Hi, Laura, it’s Gino, your long-lost brother.”

  Laura smiled as a laughing Gino’s voice came over the hands-free mobile.

  “Hi, Gino.”

  “You home?”

  “No, Toby and I are out. We went to have lunch with his father. And are now just driving.”

  “I don’t suppose you’re near our house?”

  Laura shrugged, looked at Tobias who nodded, then said, “We’re in Ryde Gino.”

  “Any chance you could call in? I’ve just spoken with our cousin Richard.”

  “Sure thing, Gino. Give me the address and we’ll see you in about fifteen minutes.”

  As Gino recited his address, Laura punched it into the navigator.

  “Perfect, see you then.”

  Ten minutes later, Tobias parked the car in the visitor’s area and they walked up to the first floor apartment of Gino and Adam. Gino opened the door, hugged his sister, and shook hands with Tobias. Sally, their greyhound, came rushing in to greet the guests.

  “This is Sally. Adam will be here any minute, had Sunday morning surgery. He just rang and said he was leaving. Come in, have a drink. Tea? Coffee? Hard or soft? Relax and
sit please.”

  “I’ll have a coffee, please.”

  “Make mine a soft drink, Gino,” Tobias said as he sat down on the settee as Laura followed Gino out to the kitchen.

  “I can’t tell you how much I loved meeting you yesterday,” Laura told him rather earnestly.

  “Probably as much as I loved meeting you. It’s still kind of surreal, isn’t it?”

  She nodded as she replied, “Yep. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and discover it’s all some crazy dream.”

  They heard the front door open and close, then Adam’s voice. “I’m home! Hey, hi, Toby.”

  He shook hands with Tobias who said, “Hi, Adam, they’re in the kitchen.”

  Adam walked in, kissed Gino then kissed Laura’s cheek. He got a drink from the fridge and another for Toby when Gino asked. The coffees made, the three went into the living room and sat.

  “Well. My story and it’s a doozy. I rang my uncle and told him I’d met you. I asked if he knew anything. I said you and I were in the dark. So this is what he told me. Hang onto your hat’s folks. The family went to Paris as you know. So Richard’s father, Arthur, married my grandfather’s older sister, Judith. They had two kids—Richard and Judy. I might add, I never knew about Judy.”

  Astounded, Laura asked, “What? You don’t mean…?”

  “Yep, the very same. When you said your mother’s name was Judy Keell, I was suspicious. The surname Keell, as you mentioned, isn’t common, plus I knew Richard’s mother, my aunt, her name was Judith. Anyway, I rang Richard to find out.”

  “This is crazy, it keeps getting weirder.”

  Gino nodded.

  “Let me see if I’ve got this right. My grandfather’s sister married someone named Keell, they had two kids—one was Judy who adopted me and the other is Richard.”

  “That’s right. So you were actually adopted by your second cousin and Richard is also our second cousin.”

  She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “This is really nuts.”