by Ivy Layne
I thrust the stack of files and the envelope at Aiden. He carefully took them and asked, "Where do I start?"
"Three of the folders are from when Aunt Anna was in the hospital with Gage, Vance and Annalise, and then Tate." Aiden opened the folders one by one and scanned their contents, nodding in agreement. "But the fourth," I went on, my voice shaking. "The fourth is from July of 1981. Before she married Uncle James. The hospital was in Virginia, not Atlanta. In the envelope . . . those look like adoption papers, Aiden. Is that what they are?"
Aiden turned the stiff manila envelope over in his hands.
"Did you open this? Or did you find it this way?"
He raised the ragged flap I'd torn a few minutes before and eased out the stack of papers.
"It was sealed. I opened it. But Aiden, all of this was in a new bin. Wouldn't this stuff have been put away years ago?"
His eyes flicking back and forth across the papers, absorbing every word, Aiden said absently, "There was a leak in the attic a few years ago. Must have been while you were in Texas for that internship after you graduated. Mrs. Williamson re-packed some of the damaged boxes in new bins. But none of us went through any of it."
We fell silent as Aiden reviewed each sheet of paper from the envelope. A stapled stack of legal size documents and something that looked like an official certificate, gilt gleaming from the border and a round seal in the corner.
I paced in front of his desk until he shot me a quelling glance over the papers. I sat, obedient for once, in one of the big leather chairs opposite Aiden's desk, wishing I hadn't drunk all of Aiden's whiskey.
That Macallan would've come in handy.
After what felt like hours, Aiden swept the papers back into a neat pile and slid them into the envelope, carefully sealing it shut. He lay his palms flat on the surface of his desk and let out a long breath.
"It looks like Aunt Anna gave birth to a baby boy July 6, 1981, and put him up for adoption. There's no information in that file on the family who adopted him or what his name might be. Or who the father is. I'm making two guesses—that Uncle James knew about this, or Anna never would've brought these papers to the house, and that he wasn't the father."
"So you didn't know?" I asked. It didn't seem like Aiden knew, but I had to be sure. He shook his head.
"Of course not. I may not tell you everything, Charlie, but I'd never keep a secret like this."
"But wasn't Aunt Anna already with Uncle James in July of 1981?" I asked, trying to piece the timeline together in my mind.
"It's hard to say. They all knew each other back then, Uncle James, Dad, Mom, Aunt Anna, William—hell, half of their friends were from college.
I know James and Anna knew each other, and they started dating some time around then because they got married a year later. But the only one who would know the exact timeline is William."
"We’re not going to talk to William about this, are we?" I asked.
I loved William. I called him Uncle William most of my childhood, even though he wasn't a relative, and he'd done his best since our parents had died to step in and speak for them the way he thought they would've wanted him to.
He loved us, and we loved him. Lately, though, we'd been clashing. I wasn't there, but I'd heard from Vance, Emily, and Jo that he'd been awful about Abigail when she first got together with Jacob.
I was dreading talking to him about Aiden firing me. I knew he'd say something archaic like, "Now you can focus on finding a husband," or something stupid like that.
William was all about proper behavior. He was on the board of the country club and expected all of us to behave in a manner befitting the Winters name.
He'd been disappointed a lot in the past fifteen years. I knew there was no way he would support our attempt to find an illegitimate child our aunt had given up for adoption.
"Talking to William would certainly clear things up," Aiden said. "But I think we need to have a family meeting and then bring the Sinclairs in. If anyone can find Anna's son, they can. Once we find him, we can decide what we want to do."
"Do you want me to stay quiet about this?" I asked.
"Not for long. Vance and Magnolia get home in a few days. I don't want to tell everyone else without them."
That made sense. A few more days wouldn't change anything. Still, this was huge. It felt weird to just sit on the information. We should be trying to find this mysterious missing Winters child.
"Okay," I reluctantly agreed. "We can wait."
"You look like you need a drink," Aiden said. "I'd offer you one, but someone seems to have absconded with my best whiskey."
"That's terrible," I said, trying not to smile. "What kind of fiend would do such a thing?"
"Are you still mad at me?" Aiden asked.
"I'm too busy to be mad at you," I said.
I wasn't ready to admit that I forgave him. He didn't deserve to be let off the hook that easily.
He stood up from behind his desk and said, "Did you find what you were looking for upstairs? Before this?" He gestured at the papers on his desk.
"I found enough." I'd lost interest in looking through any more of the bins.
Aiden rounded his desk and I stood. Slinging one arm around my shoulder, he tugged me into his side, dropping his head to kiss my hair.
"Come on, show me which one it is and I'll carry it down for you."
I rose up on my toes to kiss his cheek. "You're a pain in the ass, Aiden, but I love you."
I didn't forgive him. But it didn't matter. I loved him anyway and I always would.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHARLIE
I was distracted when I got home. I didn't like having a secret. It made me feel like I was lying to everyone I saw.
Evers could tell something was off, but he probably thought it had to do with the attack the night before and didn't push. He walked me through the security system, which seemed overly complicated. I was one woman, not Fort Knox.
If anything moved in my yard, lights would go on and the system would send an alert to my phone and Sinclair Security. If I hit the panic button, the police, the Sinclair team, and Lucas would know in an instant. And all the time, the cameras would be recording.
If anyone touched the windows or tried to break open the door, the wrath of hell would descend upon them in the form of a screeching alarm that rendered me temporarily deaf when Evers tested it.
I didn't like the idea that there were cameras inside my house, even though I trusted the team at Sinclair Security not to spy on me without reason. It just made me uneasy to know people could be watching anything I did.
After I'd convinced him I understood how to work the system, Evers left with a hug, a kiss on my cheek, and a warning to be careful.
He'd been relieved to find out that Aiden knew about the attack, but I was absolutely positive he'd be calling my brother anyway. Oh well. I was used to it. Aiden had probably called one of them the second I left the house, demanding to know all about the security system. And as soon as he pried Detective Brennan's name out of Evers, Brennan would get a call of his own.
I threw the clothes from the storage bin in the washing machine in the mudroom and tried to figure out what to do next. We'd finished with the mantle that morning, and I wasn't ready to tackle the paint on the rest of the trim until Lucas showed me the easier way to strip it.
I'd pulled all the rotten boards off the porch, and it was ready for the contractors to show up the next day to start putting it back together.
I was about to go upstairs to make notes for my meeting with the contractor in the morning when there was a knock on the kitchen door. I tried to ignore the giddy feeling in my chest at the thought of seeing Lucas.
It's just Lucas, I told myself. Nothing to get giddy over.
Ha.
If there were ever a man worth getting giddy over, Lucas Jackson was at the top of the list. But giddy was an emotion reserved for the heart. What we had going on was focused a little lower than that.
; I unlocked the door and turned the handle before I remembered the alarm. Holding up one finger to tell him I'd be right back, I went to the keypad in the hallway off the kitchen and stared at it for a second before punching the buttons to disarm the system.
The screen flashed green, indicating the alarm was off. Sweet. I was sure I'd eventually manage to set the thing off by accident, but not yet. I went back and finished opening the door, letting Lucas into the kitchen.
"You remembered to turn on the alarm," he said with approval. "A lot of people only turn them on when they're out, but you need to use it all the time."
"I know, I know," I said, interrupting him. "Evers gave me the lecture. Seriously, I don't want anyone getting in here and coming after me. I won't forget to use the alarm."
"What about the work on the house?" Lucas asked. "You're exposed while workmen are going in and out. Even if we vet everyone, they're not going to set the alarm every time they open and close the door."
"Then I'm just going to have to take a risk," I said, "because I'm not stopping work on the house."
Lucas crossed his arms over his chest, preparing to argue, and I rushed on. "Lucas, I can't. My contractor has me on his schedule. If I pause the job, he'll move his crews on to his next client and who knows when I'll get them back. I like this guy. He doesn't talk down to me and he does good work. He shows up when he says he's going to show up, and so far, every project has been completed almost on time. We don't even know that whoever came after me last night is going to come back."
"Is there any point in arguing with you about this?" Lucas asked.
He uncrossed his arms, letting them fall to his sides, hooking his thumbs in the pockets of his army green cargo pants. His T-shirt had been washed so many times it was a mottled gray, the fabric stretched tight over his biceps and across his chest.
Lucas was used to using his size to intimidate. I'll admit, with his eyes narrowed and all those muscles showing in stark relief, he was intimidating, even a little scary.
I wasn't afraid of Lucas. No, when he towered over me, looking pissed off and dangerous, all I wanted to do was touch him, to peel up that tight T-shirt and lick my way across the ridges of his abs. To unsnap his cargoes and shove them down over his lean hips and tight ass.
I shook my head, chasing off my lustful thoughts. It was the middle of the day, for God's sake.
What had we been talking about?
The side of Lucas's mouth quirked up in a half-smile and he said, "Are we going to fight or do you want me to fuck you?"
Well, if those were my only choices . . . no contest.
Lucas's smile grew into a full-blown grin. "I brought the equipment to start stripping the paint off that trim in the front hall, but if you'd rather fuck, we can do that instead."
I bit my lip in indecision. I really, really wanted to have sex with Lucas again. I couldn't imagine ever not wanting to have sex with Lucas.
I also wanted to get that paint off the trim, especially without using that smelly paint stripper. He laughed at the look on my face and said, "Or, we could work on the house for an hour, and then I'll fuck you."
He walked past me to the back door, pausing to drop a kiss on my lips before he disappeared onto the porch, reappearing a few seconds later with a cardboard box in his arms, a power cord spilling over the edge.
"Do you want to start in the front hall or the living room?"
I thought about it. It would be nice to have the front hall finished so when I walked in the door, I could see a clear sign of progress. On the other hand, we'd already started the mantle in the living room, so it felt like we should finish the rest.
"The living room," I said, making my choice.
Lucas led the way and set his box down in front of the mantle. Taking out the equipment, he lay it on the floor in a neat row.
"We're going to use this," he said, pointing to a rectangular metal box with a handle and a power cord, "to heat up the paint. Just hot enough so it bubbles up off the wood. Then we'll scrape it off and move on to the next section. It's still a pain in the ass, but it's much easier than using that paint stripper."
It didn't take long to work out a system, Lucas heating the paint and me coming behind him to scrape it off. The sight of raw wood emerging from beneath the paint scraper, inch after inch, thrilled me.
The house was shedding its past like an old skin, and I was making it happen. Well, I was part of making it happen. The first time I'd seen it, I'd known this place could be beautiful.
It could be a home, filled with warmth and love, despite its state of disrepair and neglect. A few feet of baseboard weren’t much, but it was one more step to bringing the home back to itself.
Maybe, in the process, I was bringing me back to myself, too. I must have been more quiet than I realized as we worked because Lucas sensed something was off.
"Did you have a fight with your brother when you went home?" he asked.
"No," I said slowly.
"Worried about what happened last night?"
I could take the easy way out and just say yes, but I wasn't really worried about the attack. If I hadn't had so much else on my mind, I probably would've been freaking out, but Lucas was right to sense my distraction.
I hadn't known him very long, but I got the sense he wouldn't bother to ask what I was thinking if he didn't really want to know. And if he really wanted to know, he wasn't going to take a vague answer.
"Can I trust you?" I asked.
Typically, Lucas's answer was honest, if not reassuring. "That depends. What do you want to trust me with?"
"A secret."
"About you? Or about someone else?"
"Both," I said. "I found something when I was at home. Aiden asked me not to tell anyone, but it's making me a little crazy. You're in the same line of work as Evers, right? You know how to keep your mouth shut."
Lucas laughed. "Yeah, I know how to keep my mouth shut. And I'll keep your secret. What's going on?"
I told him about the records I'd found, the adoption papers, the possibility that I had a cousin out there somewhere who didn't know he had a family.
When I was done, Lucas said, "You know, whoever he is, this guy might not want to be found. Or, he could already know who he is. He could already know who you are."
"What are you saying?" I asked, afraid I knew exactly what he was getting at.
"The pictures? Someone jumping you in your front yard? I know you want to swoop in and find this guy and bring him into the fold. You're imagining a joyous reunion, and maybe that's what's going to happen, but just because the lot of you Winters are nice people doesn't mean this guy is. You don't know who raised him or what his life has been like."
"But that's why we have to find him," I said. "What if he needs a family and he doesn't know we're here?"
Lucas shook his head at me and put down the heater, flicking it off. He sat back on his heels and said gently, "Princess, you lost a big chunk of your family at a young age. It's natural to want to fill in the gaps. Maybe this guy is a good guy. I hope to hell he is when you find him. I'm just saying, be careful."
His words left me deflated. Lucas was right, and I was being naïve. I absolutely did not want to believe that my long-lost cousin had anything to do with the pictures being delivered or whoever jumped me in my yard. That would be too depressing for words.
We fell silent again, working in harmony for another few feet of baseboard before I gave into my curiosity and said, "Will you tell me about the Raptors now?"
Lucas blew out a breath. "If you really want to know. It's not a pretty story."
"Tell me."
I wanted to know more about this man who had quickly become a part of my life. So much of him was a secret, and too many people knew who he was while I knew next to nothing.
"I left home at eighteen," he said. "My stepdad was an asshole. He married my mom when I was ten and Gunner was seven, and from what I could see, he didn't do a whole lot except drink beer and orde
r the rest of us around.
"I hated him, and he hated me. The second I could leave, I did. I joined the Army right out of high school. I stayed in touch with my brother and my mom, but I never went back. Dale was a Raptor, a foot soldier—no one important, but he loved that club.
"The only work I ever saw him do when I was growing up was running errands for the club. When he wasn't half-drunk on an easy chair in our trailer, he was at the clubhouse, kissing Raptor ass. He brought Gunner in when he was just a teenager. By the time my mom died, Gunner had worked his way up in the club."
"What does that mean, that he worked his way up in the club?" I asked. What I knew about biker clubs could fit on my thumbnail with space left over.
"The Raptors were into a lot of shit, mostly protection—helping drug dealers move their product from one place to another. They didn't deal themselves, but there were other things . . ."
Lucas gave me a long look, then shook his head and fell silent. When he spoke again, it was clear he wouldn't be explaining what 'other things' meant.
"Gunner was always a smart kid, less rebellious than I was. He thought Dale was an asshole too, but he played along and kept from getting his ass kicked."
"You didn't?" I asked. It wasn't hard to imagine a teenage Lucas mouthing off to his stepdad.
True to my vision, he said, "Never could keep my mouth shut. Which is funny because I loved the Army, and they don't appreciate smart asses. But it was different, because even at eighteen, I recognized the Army's authority. I chose them. Dale was just some dickhead who talked my mom into marrying him, and she was so tired from working two jobs, she didn't realize that he was going to be one more burden."
"I can't see you taking orders from anyone," I said.
"Neither could I," he admitted. "But I had to get out of that house. Out of that town. I was done with everyone looking at me, at Gunner, like we were trash.
"I played football in high school once I filled out. Could've gotten a scholarship. I wanted to go to college, but I was too angry. Restless. The Army seemed like a good compromise. I'd have opportunities, and I could work out some of my aggression without getting thrown in jail."