I licked my lips and stared out the window. “My entire life I’ve dreamed about you. Well, I didn’t know it was you, but a boy who played with me at a playground.” Then I laughed, remembering the hunt we’d been on. “And how we walked around looking to find you a new mommy.”
He grinned. “Yeah, I’ve thought about that first time a lot, wondering whatever happened to that woman Dad seemed to be taken with and her daughter. Now it makes more sense. The way I see it, Dad was chasing after our mother when she didn’t want to be caught.”
I huffed and crossed my hands over my chest. “Yeah, well, my pops couldn’t hold onto her either. Do you know where she is?”
Maxwell shook his head and maneuvered the car around a dead skunk on the road. “Never tried to look for her.”
“With your money and connections, I’d imagine it would be pretty easy for you.”
He glanced at me from the corner of his eyes but kept his focus on the road. “It would. Only problem, sugar, is that when a woman up and leaves her baby and then remarries, has a family for a decade, and up and leaves them too, she obviously doesn’t want to be a part of any of their lives or she wouldn’t have left. Sometimes people just don’t want to be found, or they wouldn’t have run away in the first place.
I rolled the logic around in my head as we drove up to his ranch. He definitely made sense, but the lingering feeling I had about the way Mom left, especially after recalling it in the dream last night, made me consider another alternative.
“Do you ever think that maybe she wanted someone to come running after her?”
Max turned off the truck, removed the Stetson, and ran his fingers through hair. “You know, I never thought of it like that. What do you think?” He turned sideways in the truck. We stared at one another for a few moments.
“I think our mother screwed up a lot. When someone is used to screwing up, a lot of times they don’t want that trouble to taint the only good things they have in their lives. Maybe she loved us more than we ever thought possible.”
Max closed his eyes and frowned. “If that’s the case, maybe we should at least look into it.”
“I agree.” Decision made. Max would use his resources, and we’d track down our mother. I had a few choice questions to ask her. Number one being why she never told us we had a brother.
* * *
The moment the limo door opened and my sister’s blond hair went flying in the breeze, I lost my ability to breathe. Madison Saunders, my baby sister, was a vision in cropped pants, wedge heals, and a simple tank. Maddy held out her purse, and Matt barely grasped it when she was off at a run toward me, arms as wide as her smile. I braced and waited for her weight to hit me. When it did, it was like a cloud of love had wrapped its arms around me and filled my entire being with joy.
Maddy squealed in my ear. Usually I’d spin her around and play the goofy big sister, but this time I held on so tight it would take a crowbar to break me away. The sense of fear that came with letting her go, not having her close, swarmed around me in a thick fog. The girl had always been my everything, and I knew as excited as I was to see her, there was the burden of information and truth weighing this visit down.
Easing out of my arms, Maddy frowned, cupped my face, and pressed her forehead to mine. “What’s the matter? Why are you sad?” She brushed the wetness from my cheeks, wiping away tears I didn’t know were there.
Clearing my throat, I took a slow breath. “Just missed you is all.” I attempted to pacify her.
Her eyelids narrowed into slits. “You’re not being honest with me. I don’t like it, but I’ll grill you when we’re alone.”
I half-laughed half-snorted. “Okay, baby girl. Let me look at you!” I held her at arm’s length, and she brightened like the sun peeking out on a cloudy day. “Most beautiful girl in all the world but…”
“Only when she smiles,” Matt chimed in. He tugged her waist, pulling her to his side and out of the comfort of my arms. He’d pay for that move.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s my line!”
He chuckled. “I know.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Maddy has told me that a million times! I can’t wait to hear her say it to our children one day.” He nuzzled noses with my sister, and I wanted to gag and hug him in equal parts.
A booming voice behind me cleared his throat or cursed. I wasn’t really sure.
“Maddy, there’s uh, some people I’d like you to meet.” Turning around, I found Maxwell holding his wife Cyndi. Isabel was jumping up and down the porch steps behind them lost in her own world, as was the way of most four-year-olds.
Max’s eyes were huge, his mouth open unattractively. Cyndi’s eyes also had that deer-in-the-headlights look, only she had a hand covering her open mouth. Neither of them said a word as I clutched Maddy’s hand and took her closer.
“Uh, guys, hello?” I waved my other hand in front of both of them, and they seemed to snap out of it at the same time.
“Jesus…” Max whispered.
Cyndi gasped a throaty, “Oh. my god.”
I turned to Maddy. “They’re usually not so weird, but this is Maxwell Cunningham and his wife, Cyndi. Guys, this is my baby sister, Madison Saunders, and her fiancé, Matt Rains.”
Maddy’s eyebrows rose as Max and Cyndi continued to stare. Maxwell’s eyes didn’t leave her face. It was as if he’d been stunned with a Taser, his mouth slightly ajar, his eyes bouncing around unusually slow.
Cyndi spoke first, but what she said wouldn’t make any sense to Maddy. “She looks… Jesus, she looks exactly like you.” The statement was made as if she had also been struck with the stun gun.
“It’s unreal,” Max finally said, his head tilting to the side.
Matt looped an arm around Maddy’s waist and tugged her back a step. “What’s going on here? You two look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
He said the exact words I was thinking myself. Though, it had to be strange seeing your sister for the first time, especially one that looked so similar to you. I clutched at my fingers as the two sized up my sister awkwardly. I worried that they’d spill the beans without even trying to before I had a chance to tell her myself. Finding out she had another sibling needed to come from me.
Eventually, Isabel pushed between her parents’ legs and looked up at the new guest. “Wow! You’re pretty like a princess.” Isabel patted Maddy on the leg. She bent down to one knee so the little girl could see her face-to-face. Both Maddy and I had always been good with kids, but Maddy had special kid-friendly powers. They were attracted to her like a teenager to his game system. The little girl grabbed hold of a lock of Maddy’s hair. Her little eyes went big. “Yellow like mine and my daddy’s!”
I looked at the little girl’s face and saw the similarity between Maddy and the little girl, and then looked up at Maxwell with new eyes. Their hair was the same golden blond. Even their skin tone and the shape of their faces matched. If anything, they actually looked like siblings, whereas Max and I had some minor similarities. Side by side, these two were eerily alike.
Maddy glanced at Max and smiled. That’s when it happened. Recognition. Not only did the sizzle of familiarity buzz in the air around our huddle, but seeing little Isabel’s face next to Maddy’s, their twin smiles exact matches of the other, I saw a third in Maxwell. It was like looking into a microscope and reading genetic code, only this was live and in living color. Physically, Maxwell, Maddy, and his daughter Isabel shared the same smile, but not with our mother or me. I had been told over and over that Meryl and I shared the same exact smile. I’d always thought Maddy had some of Pops’s features, but at that moment, I couldn’t remember a single time I’d compared the two and found them similar.
Maddy petted Isabel’s head. “And what’s your name?” she asked.
“Isabel, but also Bell, too.”
Maddy tapped Isabel’s nose. “Well, I think you’re the prettiest little girl I’ve ever seen, so if you think I look like a princess, that must make you the q
ueen!” She gasped and put her hand across her chest. Isabel giggled sweetly. “Maybe we can play some games while I’m here visiting, after I’ve gotten to know your mom and dad and spend some time with my sister. How does that sound?”
“So much fun!” she squealed and clapped her hands. Then like a shot in the night, she twirled around and ran up the stairs hollering, “I’ll get my crown!” as she clomped up each wooden step and slammed the screen door as she ran into the house.
Maddy chuckled and stood, putting out a hand. “Happy to meet friends of Mia’s. And thanks again for sending a plane and a limo. It’s the first time I’ve been in a limo!”She grinned.
Max shook his head as if he were shooing away flies. “The pleasure was all mine, sweetie. Come, come on in.” He held out a hand, leading the way up the porch. “Cyndi has a full spread of some of her best country dishes. Chicken fried steak, fried okra, homemade mac-n-cheese, and fresh baked pecan pie.”
Having spent the last two weeks eating Cyndi’s meals, my mouth started to water. “Seriously, her food is the best. Come on.”
“Lead the way,” Maddy responded.
I clasped hands with my sister and nudged her shoulder. “Thank you for coming. I missed you.”
Maddy leaned against my shoulder the way she had a hundred times before over the years. “Any chance I get to see you is one I have to jump on. Especially flying on a private jet!” She laughed. “Oh my God, you should have seen it. Matt and I were served champagne…on an airplane!” Her voice rose along with her excitement. “And they didn’t even check our IDs!” she whispered so only I’d hear what she said.
Sister secrets were commonplace between the two of us, only that was about to change. A pang hit my heart. Max was her sibling now too, and I had the huge, overwhelming responsibility of figuring out a way to tell her that.
It had only ever been Maddy, Pops, and me. The trio of lonely hearts whose wife and mother left them for God only knows what. Now I knew there was an entirely new part of us, a piece that had far reaching repercussions on who we were and what type of family we were going to be in the future. Even the addition of Matt had been something I hadn’t had a chance to get used to yet. I wondered if Maddy had even had that chance herself with her school load and all the recent changes to her life.
It was a lot for a young woman of only twenty to deal with. Her father in a coma, her sister gallivanting around the world as an escort, newly engaged, living with said fiancé, and now a brother comes into the mix. A sibling that she never knew she had. It was hard enough for me to wrap my head around it. I worried that it would be the tipping point for Mads. She was fragile in ways that I wasn’t. It was that part of her that made her special, though she often reminded me that she wasn’t a china doll and wouldn’t break every time bad news came her way. Only, it had been my job for the last fifteen years to protect her from all the shitty things life could throw her way. I still hadn’t figured out whether this was crummy news or not.
Thinking of Max and his family as another one of our problems made me feel like a cold-hearted bitch, but it was the God’s honest truth. We’d been dealt some pretty harsh realities over the past decade and a half, and this one was right up there with Jerry Springer-style bombs being dropped on us.
A brother. Worse, an older brother that we’d had before we were even born. Mom knew he existed and never once bothered to mention it to us. Hell, I’d met the boy twice. She had her chance to come clean and she’d chosen not to. Made me wonder if Pops had any idea. I dismissed that thought instantly. No, he must not have known. If he had, he would have told us. Family was too important to him, even if he had a funny way of showing it.
Then again, what about poor Max?. Mom had left him when he was barely a toddler. So young, he’d never remember her. Kind of like Maddy. She didn’t remember anything about our mom. Me, I remembered everything. Every last fucking detail. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. How dare she leave Max the way she did? Disappear to Vegas, have me, marry Pops, have Maddy, and then repeat her abandonment pattern with us? What was it about her kids that made it so easy to leave?
I looked at Maddy laughing at some joke Max was telling her, holding Matt’s hand on top of the dinner table. The light in her eyes as they twinkled with humor was ethereal and hard not to be taken with. Her smile, jeez, I wasn’t a poet, but I felt as though I could rock a few Shakespearian sonnets of my own over how just seeing it could turn any dark mood bright. I’d never in a million years forsake Maddy’s love and trust. Yet our mother did it not to just one, but to three children. And worse, she’d neglected us in a way that was more unforgivable by not telling us about each other. Max was thirty years old. I was twenty-five and Maddy was twenty. That was over two decades of sibling time we’d never get back.
As I sat and thought about all the holidays, birthdays, graduations, family gatherings we’d missed out on, a fiery rage started to build within me. A clawing, evil, snarling revenge monster grew in the pit of my belly. It took everything I had not to act on it. Meryl Colgrove-Saunders, my mother, had committed the worst sins a woman could.
Broken the hearts of two men, shattering their belief in love after her.
Abandoned her three children.
Denied her children the love of their siblings.
Watching Maddy and Max interact, thinking back to all the times she should have been there, made the monster in me growl and snap, ready to fight, maim, and harm. More than ever before, I wanted to find my mother. Needed to, in fact. This time she’d be held accountable for her actions, if not for the men she broke down, but for her children. I no longer felt bad for her. I felt bad for me, for Maddy, and for Maxwell. The three kids she abandoned.
Over the years, I’d often wondered why she left. What had I done to make it so bad? What could sweet little Maddy have done? What Pops must have done to make her leave us? Now that I knew she’d left Jackson and Maxwell waiting in the wind too, a deep-seated hatred spilled into every nerve and pore within my body.
“Mia, snap out of it.” Mads handed me a cold beer. “We’re toasting.”
“What should we toast to?” Max questioned, our gazes meeting across the table. His eyes were happy and sad at the same time, and I thought I’d probably looked like that for the last fifteen years.
“There’s nothing more important than the present. That’s why they call it a gift,” I said, and everyone held up their beers.
“I’ll drink to that,” Max said, his words clouded by emotions only Cyndi and I caught on to.
“To the future—may it be as awesome as today!” Maddy said, bliss coating her tone.
“To the future.”
May it be everything we ever dreamed of.
Chapter Ten
Dammit! For the fifth time, I attempted to call Wes. Nothing but voicemail. Unfortunately, I’d gotten a text the same day I found out about Maxwell being my real brother that Wes had to jet off on location. This time it was to a remote locale deep in the heart of Asia. Apparently, an actor on the set had been in a pretty severe car accident, which meant they needed to recast some of his parts on the battlefield. I figured that meant he’d be out of pocket for a while, but that didn’t stop me from trying to reach him every day for the last five days.
Not having Wes to bounce this new development off of hit me hard. I’d come to count on the man so much in such a short time. Maybe that was the way real love was. The couple leaned on each other to the point where no other source would do. Sure, I had Ginelle back in Vegas, but I wasn’t about to burden her with this yet. Besides, Maddy deserved to be told before my best friend. This affected her, and I still hadn’t figured out the best way to tell her that Maxwell was our half-brother. What I did do, though, was steal her hairbrush and request that Max have his people do the same DNA test. I wanted something with her name on it that verified he was indeed her sibling. Not that I didn’t believe it to be true. Hell, the more time I spent with the two of them, the more I felt lik
e the outsider.
Not only did they look alike, but the gestures, the way they tipped their heads while thinking, how they ran their fingers tirelessly through their hair for no other reason than to touch it. The easy and often way they both smiled. These two shared something that I couldn’t begin to grasp. I didn’t want to. Maddy had always been mine, and now I’d have to share her. Of course, Max was awesome.
He already treated me like his little sister, even though he deferred to me regarding Maddy. Thankfully, he respected the relationship and what I’d given up over the years and didn’t attempt to stomp on that. Only every day, he’d asked when we were going to tell her. We had two more days before she and Matt flew back and another couple before I headed back to Malibu. At this point, I wasn’t even sure Wes would be there. I didn’t even know how that would feel. To be in the big house alone. Sure, it was supposed to be my home now, but I hadn’t had enough time to make it feel like mine. Right now, it was where I hung my hat in between clients. Eventually, I’d make an imprint.
A knock sounded on my bedroom door.
“Come in.” I closed the journal I’d been writing my thoughts in and smiled when Max shuffled in. His frame was so large he almost filled the width, but what surprised me was the woman who followed him in. It was the attorney, Ree Cee Zayas. Damn, she looked chic too. Here I sat in a pair of yoga pants and a tank with bare feet, hair in a messy bun and no makeup while she entered rocking a red power suit with matching crimson lip stain. Her charcoal-black eyes seemed soft as she entered and placed her briefcase on the bed.
“Uh, what’s going on?” I looked from Max to Ree Cee.
“I have some startling information about the DNA test you and Mr. Cunningham requested on Ms. Madison Saunders.”
The way she said it sent a cold lick of fear zipping up my spine, straightening my posture painfully. “What, what is it? She’s okay, right?” I had no idea what a DNA test could show medically, if anything, but even the mere suggestion that it could be something “startling” made me grip the coverlet with both fists.
August: Calendar Girl Book 8 Page 10