The afternoon turned cool as evening began to descend, and Blake built a fire in the outdoor fire ring. Ben and Chloe passed the time planning what they would be for Halloween and roasting marshmallows, most of which fell into the fire.
After feeding Kate, Delaney asked Gab if she would like to hold the baby. While Ben favored Blake, little Kate looked just like her mother. Her head was covered with reddish gold silk the color of a sunset, and she was as fair as fresh, sweet cream. Looking down on the little bundle of girl, Gab felt a deep longing she knew was impossible. She would never fall in love again. When she’d given her heart to Justin, she hadn’t known she’d never get it back. How could she ever love another man when the only one she wanted, the one she couldn’t have, still owned her heart?
“She’s so beautiful.” Gab regarded Delaney and smiled. “You’re very fortunate.”
Delaney looked at her daughter. Her gaze drifted to Ben, then to Blake, and a dimple appeared in each cheek. “I know,” she said warmly, her eyes misting over.
Blake’s cell phone started to ring and he pulled it out of his pocked and looked at the screen.
“What’s up?” he said. After a few seconds he stood up and told the caller to hold on. He laid a hand on Delaney’s shoulder and told her he was going to take the call up at the house. He shot a glance in Gab’s direction, and she thought his expression seemed tight. Delaney watched him walk away, a slight frown creasing her brow.
“I wonder what that’s about,” Delaney remarked.
“I hope nothing’s wrong,” Gab said. “Do you want to go up? I’ll keep an eye on the children.”
Delaney waved a hand of dismissal. “It’s probably just one of his men calling about a problem on a job.”
“I hope it’s not a problem with my job,” Gab said, only half joking.
“Don’t worry. Blake told me your remodel was going well so far.”
They watched the fire and chatted about the kids. Ben and Chloe were in the same class, and both Delaney and Gabriella adored their teacher, Miss Katherine. She was young and energetic and had a wonderful way with the children.
“Delaney,” Gab said when there was a lull in the conversation. “I don’t know how to ask this, so I’ll just come out with it and hope it’s not too awkward for you.”
“What do you want to know?” Delaney asked, reaching over and taking Gab’s hand.
“It’s about Justin,” Gab said, and felt Delaney give her fingers a squeeze of encouragement. “I just…I just wonder about him. You know…how he is.” She met her friend’s gaze and tried for a smile. “I don’t even know if…what his baby—” She closed her eyes for a moment; just getting the words out was hard.
“A son,” Delaney said. “He had a son. And he’s doing about as well as can be expected.”
Gab’s head snapped up. Had something happened to him? Was something wrong with his son? Her heart clutched with dread.
“Please tell me he’s okay, and that nothing’s wrong with the baby.”
“The baby’s fine. I haven’t seen him yet, but he’s doing fine. Justin says he must look like Brin’s side.”
Gab searched her face. “And Justin, nothing happened to him, did it?”
Delaney pursed her lips, looking as if she might hold back. “Justin is…” She sighed and shook her head, looking sad. “Justin is—”
“Delaney!” Blake called from the kitchen door. “Can you come here a minute?”
“Excuse me,” Delaney said, standing up.
Gab wondered what was going on. She was worried Blake’s phone call might be about more than a problem with a job. When he’d said he was going to take the call up at the house, she hadn’t missed the glance he’d thrown her way. It made her wonder if the call was from his twin. Gab closed her eyes and offered up a silent prayer. Please don’t let there be anything wrong with him.
When she’d gotten up the courage to ask about Justin, Delaney had seemed reluctant to say anything, as if he wasn’t doing well. Justin was in DC for the weekend. Gab assumed he’d gone to spend time with his son. Was he staying with Brin? Had they begun working things out after all?
She brought a hand to her mouth and dragged in a deep, steadying breath. She had to find a way to get over the man. She’d been the one to end their relationship. He had asked her not to give up on them, to give him time to try to work through the situation, but she’d sent him away anyway and closed the door on a future together. When she’d run into him several weeks ago, they’d had nothing to say to each other. There had been no warmth in his eyes, no smile on his lips. He’d just looked at her, his expression a mask. He could have been studying a tree stump for all the emotion he’d shown, but what did she expect?
After about ten minutes, Gab started to wonder if everything was all right. She was considering going up to the house when she saw Delaney came back outside and start across the lawn.
“I’m sorry, Gab,” she said as she approached. She hurried over and reached for Kate. “Justin’s on his way over,” she said, looking apologetic.
Gab was momentarily paralyzed, as if someone had shot her with one of those stun guns. Then she jumped out her chair and grabbed her bag from the ground. She could feel her heart rate begin to race. She didn’t want to see him. She was dying to see him, but if she did, she knew she’d fall apart.
“I thought he was out of town,” she said almost accusingly, and immediately regretted her tone. Delaney was giving her a heads-up. She hadn’t expected Justin, either.
“He was. He came back early and just called Blake to say he was—”
“Chloe,” Gab called over to her daughter anxiously, worried she didn’t have much time before he would get there. “We need to leave, honey, right now.”
“But why?” Chloe started to protest.
Delaney touched Gab’s hand. “Why don’t you stay? You can’t avoid him forever and maybe—”
“No!” Gab shook her head forcefully. “I can’t. You…you don’t understand how hard it is. I…” She looked away. “Chloe, say goodbye to Ben. We have to leave now.”
Delaney bit her lip but didn’t try to dissuade her again from leaving.
“I’ll call you,” Gab promised, feeling like a bad cliché.
She didn’t begin to relax until she pulled into her own driveway twenty minutes later, and even then she looked in the rearview mirror to make sure there weren’t any headlights behind her. There weren’t, and mixed with her relief was something else…an undeniable feeling of disappointment.
JUSTIN JUMPED out of his car and bounded up to the house, anxious to tell Blake and Delaney the good news.
“We’re out back,” Blake called as he came around the side of the house. “I heard the car pull in.”
Justin jogged back down the steps and circled around.
“What the hell happened down there, Jus? I thought you were going to be in DC the whole weekend.”
“He’s not mine, Blake!” Justin could barely contain his newfound jubilation. “David isn’t my son.” He took his brother by the shoulders and gave him a shake. “He’s not mine. He’s Miller’s kid.”
“Back the hell up,” Blake said, shaking his head as if to clear it. “First off, how do you know he isn’t your son?”
“Right.” Justin licked his lips. “I just had a feeling something wasn’t right. You and Delaney put doubts in my head, but I thought it was just wishful thinking. And Brin had been so adamant, I thought there was no way she could be lying. When he was born, though, hard as I tried, I couldn’t find a single feature in David that resembled me.”
Justin looked across the yard and saw Delaney down by the fire pit with Ben and Kate, and he waved.
“I couldn’t stop wondering if you were right.” He glanced at his twin. “He’s got blond hair, Blake. White blond hair. It was enough to raise my doubts.”
“So what’d you do, get a paternity test?”
Justin nodded. “Actually I bought a DNA test at the drugst
ore.”
“What the—” Blake started.
“No.” Justin stopped him. “Really, you can buy a paternity test at the local drugstore now for thirty bucks. All I had to do was swab the inside of David’s cheek. I sent that with a sample from myself to a lab, and they analyzed the DNA and sent me the results.”
“How do you know they’re accurate?”
“I got the results yesterday. They said there was no chance I could be his father. That’s why I was in such a hurry to drive up to DC. I wanted to confront Brin to see what she had to say before I told anyone. If she still denied it, I planned on getting a court order for another test to be done by an authorized lab, but it turns out that won’t be necessary.”
“Did she know?” Blake asked. “I mean, did she deliberately lie to you, or did she really think he was yours?”
Justin snorted. “She knew,” he said with a sneer of contempt. “When I told her about the test, she tried to deny it at first, but when I said I was going to get a court order to establish paternity, she caved.”
Brin had turned his life into a living hell the last couple of months, but he wouldn’t try to get even or make her life difficult. He didn’t want to do anything that could end up hurting David. The boy may not be his son, but he was an innocent in all this, and it wasn’t his fault that his mother was a deceiving bitch.
“It’s Miller’s son. She conceded they’d been having an affair for several months before I found out. They’d both gone out of town for a conference one week, and Brin admitted they shared a hotel room. I had no reason to suspect anything, I mean, Christ, we were living together at the time. Unfortunately, she’d forgotten to pack her birth control pills and took a chance she wouldn’t get pregnant.”
“That was pretty stupid,” Blake said. “But why didn’t she go after Miller instead of you?”
“She tried. He basically told her if she caused any trouble, she could kiss her career goodbye. He’s married to a very wealthy woman from an extremely influential DC family. I’ve met her, and believe me, if she knew about his infidelities, she’d string him up by his balls.”
Blake put an arm around Justin’s shoulder. “I’m really sorry you had to go through all this. Hopefully, now you can put it behind you and get on with the rest of your life.”
Justin gave a weary laugh. He’d escaped Brin’s trap, but it would take more than that to truly make him happy. It would take Gabriella. And he was going to have to come up with some way to make her love him as deeply as he loved her. He had a couple of ideas in mind that might help pave the road, but in the end it was her heart he was after, and if he was lucky enough to get it, he’d sell his soul to keep it.
After Delaney put Ben and Kate to bed, she sat down with Blake and Justin and demanded to know what was going on. She was so happy for Justin she cried. Then she gave him a big hug and kissed him on the cheek.
“You have no idea how happy I am right now.” Delaney wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “It’s been torture having to watch you the last couple of months. To see the light fade from those beautiful amber eyes and—”
“Hey,” Blake said, frowning at Delaney. “What about my eyes?”
Delaney rolled hers and shook her head. “Okay, Mr. Whataboutme. You’ve got the same beautiful amber eyes he does.” She looked at him and when he grinned at her, she giggled.
“Did I ever tell you I think you’ve got the prettiest dimples I’ve ever seen?” Blake teased her.
“Yes, about a million times.” She looked at Justin and wiggled her brows.
Justin smiled. Someday, he thought…if he was lucky.
A short time later Justin told his brother he needed to talk to him in private. Blake pulled two beers out of the fridge, and they took a walk outside, down to the waterfront.
“Did you ever see a copy of the police report about Mom and Dad’s accident?” Justin twisted the cap off his bottle and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans. The accident had been something that had bothered him ever since he’d made the decision to get over it, to stop blaming Landfred and consider the possibility the man hadn’t caused it.
“No,” Blake said. “You?”
Justin shook his head.
“Why are you asking?”
“Gabriella said something a couple of months back that got me thinking about it. I’ve always assumed Landfred was drunk and ran into them.” Justin looked at Blake. “All these years I’ve held it against him, wishing it had been him instead of our folks.”
“Yeah, I know, I felt the same way.”
“Yeah.” Justin lifted the bottle to his lips and took a drink, tilting his head back and letting the brew run down his throat. “What if we were wrong?”
“We’re probably not. Everyone knew the guy was a drunk. I don’t think I ever saw him that he wasn’t.”
“I know, but what if we were. What if we just thought he was drunk all the time? What if there was something else wrong with the guy?”
“What are you trying to accomplish, Jus? You trying to find something to wrap up and give to Gabriella? Why don’t you just go out and talk to her?”
“It’s not that easy.” Justin raked his fingers through his hair. “There’s a lot between us. If it turned out we were wrong, that whatever happened was just an accident, nobody’s fault, it would help.”
“Let it go,” Blake said. “If you love that woman, nothing else matters. You find a way to deal with the demons.”
“I know,” he said. “And I have. But I’d still like to know the truth, and if it turns out her father wasn’t drunk at the time, I think it would mean a lot to her to know that. I want to find out for her as much as for myself.”
“Okay.” Blake took a pull on his beer. “Why don’t I talk to Jerry on Monday, see if he’ll ask his dad to dig us up a copy of the report.”
Justin tapped his bottle against Blake’s. “Thanks. I’ve got another favor to ask.” He rubbed his hand across his jaw and wondered if he was crazy for what he was thinking. “I’ve got this idea, but I need your help to make it work.”
“I’ve got a feeling I’m not going to like this,” Blake said, throwing him a frown.
Justin grinned. “Probably not, bro…probably not.”
Gabriella was carving a pumpkin on the front porch when Blake pulled up in his big black truck. She’d managed to get pulp all over her blouse, and there were currently several seeds sticking to her carving arm.
“Morning, sugar,” Blake said as he came up the steps and flashed a devastatingly charming grin.
She groaned mentally. What had God’s purpose been when he created the Morrison men? To invent drool?
“How are things going in there?” He hitched his head toward the house.
“Well, I’m no expert on home remodeling, but if creating a gaping hole in the back of my house was part of the plan, then I’d say we’re good.” She held her thumb up in the air and clicked her tongue.
“That’s what I like to hear.” He winked and then angled his head to study her handiwork.
“It’s a jack-o’-lantern, for Halloween,” she told him when he furrowed his brow.
He grimaced. “Oh.”
“Well,” she said defensively, studying her pumpkin’s face. One eye was twice the size of the other. They were too close together, and if she tried to make the other one any bigger, she’d end up with a cyclops—a big triangular—sort of—eyed cyclops. Its nose was almost nonexistent, and she’d carved the mouth too high up so she didn’t have room to amend that part of its visage, either.
The mouth was also crooked. She’d tried to get fancy and carve teeth, but most of them had broken off, which left only one tooth on the far right side of the mouth. The single tooth looked bizarre and out of place, and without giving it another thought, she lopped it off with one quick slice. It wasn’t much of an improvement.
“It’s my first time.”
Blake’s shoulders started to shake, and she fought back a smile of h
er own. It really did look kind of comical. She’d been hoping to surprise Chloe when she got home from school. She had thought they could put a candle in it and light it when it got dark out. They could still do that, but she wasn’t sure if it would make them laugh or if it would look so horrid it would be scary. She’d let Chloe decide, and now that she had some idea of what not to do, they could pick up a couple of more pumpkins and carve them together. Maybe they’d get one of the kits she’d seen at the drugstore to use as a guide.
Blake’s eyes were dancing with amusement and for the sake of her pride Gab said, “Don’t you have some missing walls or something to check on?”
He chuckled and walked into the house, leaving her to her maimed pumpkin face and her restless thoughts. She knew Blake would do a wonderful job on her house, but it would be so much easier to get through the process if he didn’t have to check on the progress so often. He reminded her too much of Justin. Everything about him was like Justin, and she’d felt the likeness more today than she ever had. If Blake had shown up in a business suit instead of his blue jeans and flannel shirt, she might have thought Justin had been the one standing on her porch teasing her instead of his twin.
Setting the pumpkin aside, Gab brushed the seeds off her arm and tried to wipe the worst of the pulp off her blouse. She folded everything up in the newspaper she had wisely put on her small porch table before she set about mangling the poor jack-o’-lantern.
Next, she returned a couple of phone calls to clients and then plugged in her laptop and started to work. Her back porch was gone, soon to be replaced by an expanded kitchen and a new back porch. Because she worried about getting in the way of the work crew, she had come out onto the front porch the last couple of days to work.
The rose bush that her father had planted had been carefully trimmed back and moved under the knowledgeable advice of Mary, who had supervised the process and whom Gab trusted implicitly with anything related to gardening. When the new back porch was completed, she would replant the rose to trail up over it the way her father had.
Letters to Gabriella Page 25