Their New-Found Family

by Rebecca Winters

  “Maybe he’s camped further downstream.”

  Tris squeezed her shoulder before they forged ahead, following the same route they’d taken before. In this section of the ravine the stream wound serpentine style through the large outcroppings of rocks where small pools were created.

  “Alain!” Tris shouted one more time.

  “Par ici, mon oncle!”

  The young voice they heard sounded heartrendingly familiar. Then Alain appeared around a rock carrying eight good-size trout on a stick in one hand, his fishing gear in the other. He was dirty and tired, but there was the unmistakable glow of pride on his face as he walked toward his uncle.

  Tris flashed her a look of joy mixed with some other emotions harder to decipher. She would think about that later. Right now all that mattered was Alain. He’d been found safe and well.

  Rachel hung back to watch their reunion. She knew Tris was bursting to hug his nephew. But the first thing he did was stop in front of the trophies and make a gesture of surprise, spreading his arms.

  “Oh la la, mon fils. C’est fantastique!” He took the stick from him and lifted it in the air. “Bravo! Merveilleux!” With one strong arm free, he gave his nephew a huge bear hug.

  A joyous laugh came out of Alain.

  She let them talk for a few minutes, then made an appearance, prepared to see Alain go back in his shell.

  “I never saw anyone catch that many fish before. If your uncle has a camera back at the chalet, we’ll get a picture to show your friends and grandparents.”

  His brows lifted. “Papa could catch this many.”

  “Well it’s obvious you’ve inherited his skill. If you keep this up, I wouldn’t be surprised if one day you’re such a famous fly fisherman, people from all over will come to you for advice. You can call it the Alain Monbrisson Method.”

  That brought a smile to his lips.

  Another smile lit Tris’s eyes. “I think we’ll have to stop by the office and show everyone. Guy thinks he’s a good fisherman.”

  “Maybe after that we could all go out to celebrate. What’s your favorite place in the world to eat, Alain?”

  He looked from her to Tris. “Could we go to McDonald’s?”

  Of course. How was it she hadn’t seen that coming?

  “McDonald’s it is,” Tris said with a straight face. “First however, let’s get these fish on ice. Where’s your camp?”

  “Near the bottom of the gorge.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  Tris flashed her a silent message of gratitude before starting down the path with his hand on Alain’s shoulder. She stayed far enough behind that they could have a private conversation. At some point Tris would ask his nephew to leave a note the next time he decided to go camping on his own.

  Before long they reached the chalet.

  When Simone saw them coming, she raced down the steps to hug Alain like she would a favorite grandson. She made such a fuss of him and his spectacular catch, he was beaming.

  Tris disappeared for a moment, then came back with a camera. He took enough pictures to fill half a scrapbook.

  With a promise to be extra careful, Simone carried the fish inside to put them on ice. Rachel followed her up the stairs to the kitchen, After she emptied the small backpack and thanked the housekeeper for the food, she hurried to the bedroom for a shower.

  “Rachel?” Alain whispered.

  She spun around in surprise. “What is it, honey?” The endearment came out naturally.

  “Did you tell Uncle Tris about the flies?”

  The flies?

  Oh. The flies.

  “What flies?”

  He stared at her for at least ten seconds. Then he darted her a little smile and left the room.

  Maybe it was too soon, but in her heart she believed Alain and Tris’s relationship had turned a corner for the better. That meant she and Natalie could go home to Concord today.

  Once she told Natalie everything, her daughter would understand. With the cooperation of Tris’s parents, they would head for Geneva while Tris took Alain to his office to show him off.

  CHAPTER NINE

  TRIS pulled the car to a stop at the side entrance of his parents’ house. He could see his mother pulling weeds in the garden. Alain climbed out first and ran over to her. Tris followed.

  How odd that his father’s car was gone. It surprised him. The plan had been that the whole family would go out to eat as soon as he and Alain got back from the office.

  He presumed Rachel was inside with Natalie, telling her about their harrowing experience, one that magically turned out to have a happy ending thanks to Rachel.

  “Grand-mere? We’re back!”

  She glanced around at Alain and got to her feet. Still wearing her gardening gloves, she hugged him. “What did Guy say when he saw all those fish?”

  “He couldn’t believe it. He thought I’d bought them at the poissonnerie.”

  She patted her hands against her legs and laughed.

  “I told him to come fishing with me next time and I’d prove that I caught them myself.”

  “Where’s everyone?” Tris asked quietly.

  “Your father took Natalie and her mother to Geneva. They wanted to see the school she attended. I don’t think they expected you back quite this soon. You know—once you’re there you’re inclined to talk business.”

  Everything his mother said made sense, yet he had the gut feeling something was wrong.

  “Can we go to McDonald’s now?”

  “Absolutely.” She hugged Alain again. “I’m hungry.”

  “Me, too,” he declared emphatically. “Aren’t you, Uncle Tris?”

  Up until five seconds ago Tris had been looking forward to everything he’d planned out for the rest of the day.

  “Since we don’t know how soon they’ll return, it makes no sense to put off lunch.” He and Alain had only been gone an hour.

  It was an hour’s drive to Geneva. According to his calculations, they couldn’t possibly be back for another hour and a half, not if they intended to visit the school.

  “Give me a minute to go inside and get my purse,” his mother said. “Then we’ll leave.” She hurried off.

  Again he got to the distinct impression she’d avoided looking at him. Alain walked to the car and got in the back seat to wait.

  Obeying blind instinct, Tris pulled out his cell phone to call his father. He cursed when all he got was his voice mail. In the next instant he saw his mother and intercepted her on the porch steps.

  “What’s going on, Maman?”

  She looked up at him with loving eyes. “I think you already know.” Her hands curled around his arm to prevent movement. “Before you react, I have to tell you we all had a long talk. I think Rachel did the right thing to take Natalie back to Concord.”

  “How could it be right?” he snarled, removing his arm from her grasp.

  “Rachel said she discussed setting up reasonable visitation with you last night.”

  “It wasn’t a discussion,” he said through tight lips.

  “Are you telling me she lied?”

  He bowed his head, attempting to tamp down his anger. “She mentioned it, but there was no agreement.”

  “She’s right, Tris. Alain is threatened by Natalie. I know you want everything to fit together perfectly all at once. It’s your nature, and it has worked for you in business.

  “But this situation is entirely different. Rachel has a very level head on her shoulders. She’s trying to do the best thing by you, Alain—and your daughter. If it helps, your daughter was amazingly mature about the decision to leave, and that’s all due to her remarkable mother.”

  To hear his mother say it, was remarkable.

  His eyes closed tightly. Rachel was so much more than he could explain in words. Since her arrival in Switzerland, he’d become a different man.

  “Uncle Tris? How come you’re taking so long?”

  “You see how he needs you?” h
is mother implored him.

  Yes he saw. But Tris had needs, too.

  Needs that had been buried when an accident wiped out his memory. Though those precious cells were gone forever, other brain cells had been busy storing new memories teeming with possibilities that sent his blood racing.

  “We’re coming.” He grasped his mother’s arm and helped her down the steps to the car.

  Forty-five minutes later they returned to the house. Alain had satisfied his appetite with fast food his grandparents normally disdained.

  No sooner did Tris shut off the motor and get out than he saw his father’s car coming in the driveway. He pulled up next to Tris and opened the car door.

  Their eyes met in silent acknowledgment that Rachel’s mission had been accomplished. By now the jet would have attained cruising speed. An emptiness stole through him so gut wrenching, he groaned.

  “Hey, where’s everybody?” Alain asked his grand-pere.

  Tris hadn’t thought his nephew would even notice.

  “Well—” His father got all the way out of the car and shut the door. “After we drove by Rachel’s old school, I took them to the plane.”

  “Plane—where did they go?”

  “Back to New Hampshire,” Tris answered for his parents.

  “Huh?” Alain spun around. He looked up at Tris in bewilderment.

  The last thing his nephew needed was to think he was responsible for this latest change in plans. As far as Tris was concerned, their leaving was Tris’s own personal crisis. One he needed to work through without alarming Alain.

  “Last night Rachel found out something important had happened at her work. She needed to get back to her job and her boyfriend. Natalie decided to go with her so she wouldn’t be alone. They’ll come again. Probably during their Thanksgiving Holiday in November.”

  Alain looked shocked. “But I thought they were going to stay a whole year.”

  “At the time it sounded like it might work, but things have a way of changing. Since they’re gone and I have the time off, why don’t you and I plan a little trip somewhere fun. We’ll talk about it on the way back to the house.”

  “Okay.”

  Tris eyed his parents one more time before getting in the car. Alain hugged them, then joined him. His nephew was unusually silent en route to Caux.

  “You must be thinking hard, mon gars. Have you come up with any ideas yet?”

  “No.”

  “What about London?”

  “I went there with Maman and Papa.”

  “How about Greece? We could go to one of the islands for a beach vacation.”

  Alain turned his head to look at him. “Is that what you want to do?”

  “Who doesn’t love the beach?” Tris came back.

  “But you don’t really want to go there.”

  “What makes you say that, Alain? As long as we’re together, I don’t care where we are.”

  By the time they’d arrived at the chalet, Tris had reached such a low point, he didn’t know where to turn.

  His nephew studied him intently. “Are you crying over me?”

  He blinked back the tears without giving Alain a verbal answer. Too many gut wrenching emotions were surfacing right and left.

  “Of course over you,” Tris answered finally in a gruff tone. “I don’t believe you have any idea of how much I love you. I got sick to my stomach when I couldn’t find you. How would you feel if I just disappeared and wasn’t in any of the places you searched?”

  “Awful,” Alain admitted. “I love you, too, Uncle Tris.” He reached over and hugged him so hard, he almost cut off his breathing. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I went fishing. I won’t ever do that again. I promise.”

  “I believe you. Now let’s forget it and just enjoy ourselves from now on. Do you want to play video games this afternoon? Maybe I can beat you this time.”

  With his head still resting against Tris’s arm he said, “Could I ask you another question?”

  “Anything.”

  “Do you think we could go to Concord for a vacation?”

  Tris’s thoughts reeled. Where had that come from? “You want to?”

  “I wish you’d taken me with you the first time, but you said you had to go alone.”

  Incroyable.

  If he was reading his nephew correctly, the greatest damage in this whole nightmare had been done by leaving his nephew behind.

  Of course! Alain had been the one to find the letter. He’d cracked the mystery. He’d been the person to suggest Tris could never love anyone else but Rachel. He’d assumed that he and Tris were a team, then Tris had done the unthinkable and had left Alain behind.

  “I should have taken you with me,” he confessed emotionally. “I’ll never leave you again.”

  “You love her, huh.”

  “Natalie’s my daughter. You’re my son now. I love both of you.”

  “I know that,” Alain exclaimed as if he’d always known it and couldn’t understand why Tris didn’t. “I’m talking about Rachel.”

  His nephew continually astounded him. “How do you know that?”

  “Because you look at her the way Papa used to look at Maman.”

  Was that right—

  Tris’s elation was off the charts. “Since you’re so observant, young man, then you’ve also noticed she has a boyfriend she couldn’t wait to get home to.”

  “You don’t have to worry about Steve.”

  He blinked. “How come?”

  “Natalie told me a secret.”

  When had that happened? What else didn’t he know that had gone on under his own roof?

  “If it’s a secret, then I’m not supposed to hear it.”

  “You’ll want to hear this. Her mom told her she could never love anyone the way she loved you.”

  Tris shook his head. “That was a long time ago. She said it in the heat of the moment.”

  “Why don’t you ask Rachel to marry you and find out?”

  His heart kicked so hard, the impact almost knocked him over. He stared incredulously at his nephew. “How would you feel about that?”

  “Fine.”

  Fine?

  “Do you want to know another secret?”

  “Forget what I said about secrets. I’m all ears.”

  “When you were in the chocolate factory, Rachel took me to the village to buy some hand-tied flies from an expert. I wouldn’t have been able to catch all those fish if she hadn’t thought of it. She bought me pizza and paid for everything, too.

  “She’s nice, Uncle Tris. And beautiful, too,” he added. “I can see why you loved her when you were on the ship.”

  After trying to catch his breath for the second time Tris said, “I’ve got an idea. Let’s go in the house and plan our strategy.”

  “Natalie? Are you and Kendra ready to go to Nana’s, honey? Steve will be here in a few minutes.”

  “Yup.”

  Yup. When Natalie started to talk in one word sentences, Rachel knew she was hurting.

  During the drive to Geneva yesterday, she’d put on a brave face in front of her grandfather. But once they’d boarded the private jet, she’d broken down sobbing.

  Rachel had stayed home with her today. They’d done the wash and a little cleaning. Before Kendra came over, they’d done a lot of talking.

  Natalie’s mind understood Alain’s fear of losing Tris. It was her heart that suffered over the separation from her father. He hadn’t phoned her yet, but it was only six-thirty in the evening.

  Since finding out they’d left the country, he’d probably spent every minute with Alain trying to make him feel more secure. Still, Rachel had no doubt he’d find time to touch base with Natalie before she went to bed. If he didn’t, Alain wasn’t going to be the only child in the Monbrisson household who was in unbearable pain.

  As for Rachel, she had her own private agony to sort out. If being with Steve tonight didn’t do anything to assuage it, then she would have to break it off w
ith him. He’d sounded too happy when she’d called him at work this morning and told him they’d come back earlier than planned.

  Feeling the way she did about Tris, she couldn’t imagine being able to love another man. Who would ever compare?

  But as her mother had told her on the phone earlier today, the years had a way of flying by. Before she knew it, Natalie would be grown up and married. If Rachel didn’t want to end up going through life alone, she owed it to her own happiness to try to make it work with Steve. In the event that didn’t pan out, then she needed to try again with someone else.

  Her mother was right.

  Rachel looked in the mirror one more time to apply lipstick and a touch of green eye shadow to highlight her eyes. After blow-drying her hair, she left it loose and falling from a side part.

  Steve had said to wear something dressy. In honor of tonight she’d chosen to wear her black dress with the square cut neck, simple yet chic. In taking extra care with her appearance, maybe it would infect her with a little excitement for an evening out with him. She hadn’t seen him in a week.

  When the doorbell rang, she found herself hoping the sight of him would stir her senses, or make her breath catch. Something—anything to prove she wasn’t indifferent to him.

  “I’ll get it, Mom!”

  “Thank you!”

  She slipped on her strappy black heels and reached for the matching evening bag.

  Halfway down the stairs she heard Natalie cry out, “Dad!”

  Rachel’s legs almost buckled. She clung to the banister. Tris was here?

  Voices drifted up the staircase. Natalie was making introductions. Unless Rachel’s hearing was faulty, she thought she heard Alain say hello to Kendra.

  The buzzer rang again.

  A second later, “Mom? It’s Steve!”

  No… This couldn’t be happening.

  “I—I’m coming, honey.”

  With a knot in her stomach, Rachel somehow managed to join the group congregated in her living room. She arrived in time to see the men shaking hands.

  Rachel had known this day was coming. But not this soon.

  Her gaze flew to Tris whose potent male physique looked impossibly elegant in a polo shirt and jeans. He flashed her an all encompassing glance, causing Steve to look around.