The Moment of Truth

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “Not insensitive, Josh. Just unaware,” Dana said, fresh tears in her eyes. But the hurt he’d seen there a minute ago was gone. “I know, not from what your mother told me but from what I’ve seen, that you are, as your mother said, singularly focused. And one of the most sensitive men I’ve ever known.”

  He dropped to one knee. “Dana Harris? Will you marry me?”

  The road was quiet as though everyone behind him had heard his question. As though they were all waiting.

  “Dana?”

  Getting down on her knees, she took his face between her hands and kissed him full on the mouth. Because that was reality.

  And then, when she’d tasted him, her world fell into place. “Yes, Josh Redmond, I will marry you.”

  Cheers broke out, and she heard the sound of voices as everyone started talking at once. L.G. barked.

  It was going to be complicated.

  They still had a lot of things to work out. A life in Shelter Valley that he didn’t want to leave just yet. A family in Richmond for him to meet. And a family in Boston who was going to love her.

  He had to take her to see Michelle. And soon there would be a new baby to help bring into the world....

  He couldn’t get enough of it—this life he and Dana were going to spend together.

  “Hey, Josh! Come on, man. Share a little!”

  “That’s Jon Swartz,” Dana said, and Josh remembered why the others were waiting.

  Once again, he’d been focused on himself.

  That wasn’t true. He’d been focused on what mattered more to him than anything. Dana. Their children. Their family.

  “Josh! Sorry, buddy, but she already agreed to marry you and...”

  Standing, Josh pulled Dana to her feet, but he didn’t let go of her hand when the other man threw his arms around her and hugged her as though he’d never let her go.

  * * *

  “JON?” CONFUSED, AND SLIGHTLY tangled up between Josh’s hold on her hand and Jon Swartz’s hug, Dana noticed that Jon’s friend Mark and Mark’s fiancée, Addy, were there, too. Behind them stood Lillie holding Abraham. She had tears in her eyes and a smile on her face.

  Beyond them, a little farther in the distance, she noticed Cassie Tate Montford with a man she’d never met before. Cassie’s husband? They were each holding a puppy in their arms and were standing with the sheriff, watching intently.

  “What’s going on?” Dana asked.

  “I was doing some research on Mark’s scholarship,” Addy spoke up. The night air was cool, and Dana felt chilled now that the sun had gone down. “Cassie said she mentioned him to you that first day you met, when she asked you about your all-expenses-paid scholarship....”

  She hadn’t realized that Cassie’s friend was Jon’s friend Mark, but she remembered the conversation.

  “I’m on one, too,” Jon said, with one arm still draped around her.

  She felt like shaking him off. They didn’t know each other well enough for that kind of familiarity.

  “Mark was certain that Nonnie had written to the scholarship committee on Mark’s behalf,” Addy continued.

  “My mom applied for it for me,” Dana said, because she believed it was true, and she couldn’t figure out why they’d all followed her out to the desert to talk about her scholarship.

  Surely this could have waited until Monday?

  Or at least until she and Josh got back into town?

  “No, she didn’t,” Addy said. “Your mother didn’t write to them and neither did Nonnie. I’ve suspected as much for a while, but just received a letter today, a confirmation....”

  “Which is why we were all coming to see you when we ran into Josh and found out you were missing,” Mark interrupted softly. Kindly. With a compassion in his eyes that calmed the sudden, irrational fear that had sprung up inside her.

  “She told Mark first, and then they came to find me,” Jon piped in.

  “You, Mark and Jon have something in common,” Addy was telling Dana. Everyone, including Josh, was watching her now. Scaring her. They all knew something.

  Even Josh.

  “What?” she asked. If it was bad, she didn’t want to know. Jon was smiling. But he was holding on to her, too, as if she might break or something.

  “No father,” Jon blurted.

  “Except that we do have a father.” Mark stepped forward, taking her other hand from Josh.

  “We do?” Dana asked, completely confused, and wishing Josh would take her in his arms again. And then, “Wait, I do? You’re talking about my birth father? You know who he is?”

  “We do,” Mark said again. “We know who your father is, Dana. You know Nonnie raised me. I don’t know if you knew that Jon grew up without either of his parents.”

  She shook her head, not sure what anything meant. Lillie had said something about Jon’s childhood, but...

  Mark stepped closer, leaning in so that his eyes, the kindness there, was all she saw. “The three of us have the same father, Dana. Our scholarships are from him. You’re our sister.”

  She felt as if she was frozen in a photo, could see it from a distance. “You and Jon are brothers?”

  The two men looked at each other and then, simultaneously, at her. “Yes.” Mark spoke for both of them.

  Dana fell against Josh, who was directly behind her.

  “Your father’s name is William Birmingham,” Addy said softly when Dana wasn’t sure she could hear much of anything. “He’s spent most of his life either drunk or in jail, and in between, he fathered three children across the country by three different women.”

  “Apparently he sobered up during his last stint in jail and started a dot com that matches former convicts up with jobs and support, charging a finder’s fee that’s paid only after the convict has been straight and on the job for a year,” Mark said quietly.

  “With all the years he spent in jail, he knew what it would take for a guy like him to get it right and found a way to give back to others.”

  “He’s quite a wealthy man,” Addy said, her voice less emotional than Jon’s or Mark’s, giving Dana something to focus on, a slim clutch of reality to cling to.

  “Somewhere along the way he tracked down the people he’d wronged in the past—without their knowledge—and found out about the three of us,” Mark added from beside Addy. “And that’s when he created the Shelter Valley Scholarships.”

  “There’s enough money in the fund to provide educations to students for the rest of our lifetimes as long as it’s invested right,” Addy told her.

  “Is he still alive?” Dana asked.

  “Yes, and now that he knows he’s been found out, he wants to meet all three of you.”

  Dana looked from one to the other of the men at her sides. To Lillie and Addy—and she started to cry again. Forcefully. Sobbing. The torrent that gushed forth was completely out of control.

  She had brothers. And soon-to-be sisters-in-law. And cousins. She had Josh, and she was having his baby.

  Her baby had grandparents who would welcome her.

  Her father wanted to meet her.

  She wasn’t the stepchild anymore.

  Arms were around her. Holding her up. Supporting her. So many arms. A circle of them.

  And she knew that whatever came next, whatever kind of man William Birmingham turned out to be, whether he loved her or not, she was not second-best.

  EPILOGUE

  IN THE KITCHEN, holding an expensive monogrammed pot holder to her face, Dana tried to control the tears that seemed to insist on sharing every single one of her days lately. It was one week before Christmas, one day before her wedding, and she had a houseful of people waiting to eat.

  It was absolutely not the time for a breakdown. Tears served no purpose. T
hey never had.

  She jumped as hands slid around the green silk dress she was wearing to cup the small mound of her belly from behind. Dropping the pot holder, she clutched the arms, holding them around her. “It’s okay to be overwhelmed, love.” Josh’s voice came from the crook of her neck and she tilted her head back to look at him.

  “I’m being an idiot, Josh,” she whispered. “I’ve been responsible for my own happiness for so long, I don’t know what to do with all of these people making me feel so loved.”

  “What have you always done?” he asked, kissing her neck in a way that had her thinking of something very different. And feeling emotions that were definitely not appropriate with a houseful of guests waiting on them. “When you were teaching me how to survive L.G., what did you always say? When you thought you could never have everything you always wanted, what did you tell yourself?”

  She smiled and pressed her lips to his. “One step at a time,” she said.

  Just as she’d hoped, her lips were enough to distract him completely and he had his tongue in her mouth before either of them had time for another thought.

  “Hey, buddy, I’ve given you my blessing to marry her, but that doesn’t mean I’m giving up getting to know her myself. I’ve got twenty-five years to make up for.”

  The voice came from behind them. Recognizing it, Dana jumped back and turned toward it, her face flaming. “Sorry, we were just, uh... Everything’s ready. I just had to get the rolls out of the oven.”

  “Food’s been on the table for five minutes,” William Birmingham said. “The others sent me in here to get you two.”

  “They actually sent me in here,” Josh piped up, and the sultry tone in his voice made her hot again.

  “And now they’ve sent me.” Daniel appeared in the archway leading from the dining room. “Actually, that’s not quite true. But this is the first chance I’ve had alone with the two of you—” he nodded toward Josh and William “—and this girl.” He came toward Dana, holding out a hand to her, which she took. “I loved her as my own from the day she was born,” he said, his voice breaking. “And then I let her down. I lost the right to be her father. Dana, girl, I want you to know that I will regret my actions for the rest of my life. I love you so much. It killed me to know you weren’t mine.”

  “But I am,” Dana said, swallowing against another onset of tears. “I always have been.”

  William stepped back. And Dana stepped forward. “There was a day when I needed a dad and didn’t really have either one of you,” she said, taking William’s hand, too. “And now I have you both. To me, that’s fate making everything perfect.”

  “Hey, you guys, we’re starving.” Jon appeared in the archway, dressed in his new black jeans. After much coercion, Jon had rented a tux for the triple wedding that was going to take place the next day at the Montford estate with Shelter Valley’s mayor, Becca Parsons, officiating.

  “What Jon means is that we’ve been asked to come see what’s keeping you all,” Mark said, coming to stand behind Jon.

  They’d had Thanksgiving together, the brother and sister and their significant others. At Dana and Josh’s new home with a houseful of students. And then the six had headed over to the Montfords’ for dessert.

  But this night was different. This night, their parents were joining them....

  “You need help, dear?” Barbara Redmond pushed past the two younger men and into the room. Without hesitating a beat, the society matron bent to the oven and, taking up the pot holders Dana had dropped, lifted the large tray of rolls out of the oven.

  “Let me help with those,” Susan Harris said, wiping the corner of her husband’s eye as she grabbed a basket and spread one of the beautifully monogrammed napkins along the bottom.

  She didn’t even seem to notice William, who had eyes only for his children. Dana knew, from a conversation she’d had with her mother, that she and William hadn’t even recognized each other when they’d met for the first time in more than twenty-five years the day before. Nor had there been any hint of a spark between them.

  Whatever had occurred the night that she’d been conceived, it hadn’t been about love. Comfort, maybe. Survival, certainly.

  And a sense of survival was the gift they’d given to her, their only daughter. A gift she would cherish and pass on to her own child.

  Or children, if the fates gave her and Josh their way.

  “What are you all doing to that soon-to-be daughter-in-law of mine?” J.P.’s voice boomed from the table. “She spent the time to prepare a meal we could have had catered—I think we all owe her the respect of letting her eat it. That’s my grandchild she’s feeding there.”

  Somehow, while Dana had spent a good bit of her life unable to attract the love of a father, she’d earned J.P.’s affection—and protection—right from the start.

  “Lillie said to tell you she’s changing Abraham and will be right down,” Addy said, pushing Nonnie’s chair up to the table.

  The old woman had yet to say a word to the man who’d knocked up her daughter and left her emotionally unable to handle the responsibility of raising a kid on her own. Mark’s mother had eventually been killed in a car accident after she got drunk and wrapped her car around a tree.

  Mark reached for the glass of ice sitting at Nonnie’s place at the table, and then for the pitcher of tea that was among the other pitchers waiting to be carried to the table. He poured, and turned.

  “That’s for your grandmother,” William said, letting go of Dana’s hand to reach for the tea.

  Mark held on to the glass. “I’ll take it to her,” William said, and after another pause, Mark handed it to him. Coming up behind Mark, Addy put her hands on his shoulders and rested her chin there.

  “I love you forever, Mark Heber, and can’t wait to be your wife.”

  The words were obviously meant for Mark alone, uttered privately in the midst of the cacophony, but Dana heard them.

  And so did Lillie, who joined them in the archway, Abraham on her hip. “You can’t wait,” Lillie said. “I don’t think I’ll be sleeping at all tonight.”

  “Illie, ’eep,” Abraham said, bouncing up and down on Lillie’s hip.

  “You’re a drunk and a loser, William Birmingham.”

  Everyone in the kitchen froze as Nonnie’s words rang loud and clear from the dining room.

  “And you’re nothing but a barmaid,” William said. “It’s what I always told you, and you know I’m right,” the man returned, at which Mark took a determined step forward. But stopped as the man who’d fathered him continued.

  “I loved her, Nonnie, even more than you did. I just couldn’t get her to stop drinking. To calm down. I followed her, you know, when she ran off that first time. I wanted to marry her. She never told me about the baby. She just told me she didn’t love me so I had to go make a life for myself.”

  “So you went and got yourself drunk and jailed.”

  “Yep, that about sums it up. I swear I didn’t know about Mark. Not until last year, when I came home to see you. To tell you I was in jail when I heard she’d lost her life. To see if there was anything I could do for you....”

  “You were the one.”

  “What one?”

  “The one my friend Mabel told me was asking ’round town about me. She didn’t recognize ya.”

  “No, she didn’t. And, yes, I was. And as soon as I saw that boy, my boy, working in a factory, I knew what I had to do. I started the scholarship for him. And then got to thinking about other women I’d bedded and left. All of ’em, every one of ’em was because I was missing Mark’s mama so much. She’s the only woman I ever loved.”

  Dana’s gaze shot to her mother, and to Daniel, whose hand she was still holding. The two of them had eyes only for each other.

  Dana’s mysterious father had
been between them for so long. William Birmingham took that evil specter away.

  “We gonna eat? I got a card game startin’ online in half an hour,” Nonnie said then. “Got ten dollars on it.” When William asked if it was too late to get in on it, she told him, “You sit down here next to me, boy. We got some serious talkin’ to do.”

  “I think William’s going to be staying with us tonight,” Mark said to Addy, and then glanced at Dana and Jon. “If that’s okay with you two.”

  “Fine with me.” Jon nodded.

  And it was fine with Dana, too. While she and Josh had the biggest house, their parents were already taking up the two spare bedrooms. And her sisters were flying in later that night; she and Josh would be driving into Phoenix to pick them up from the airport. They were going to be staying on inflatable mattresses in the nursery.

  Josh moved forward, making a circle of four, with the younger adults still in the kitchen. “I just want to thank you all for agreeing to the formal wedding,” he said, lowering his voice. “My folks really do mean the best....”

  “Hey, man, bring it on,” Jon said, grinning, when, in fact, he’d been the one who’d struggled the hardest to accept the trappings of a wealth he hadn’t earned on his own.

  Pulling Dana and Jon aside, Mark motioned toward the table. “The rest of you go on in. We’ll be there in a second.”

  She knew Josh would save her a seat beside him at the table. He and his mother, plus Susan and Daniel, filed out, baskets of rolls and drink pitchers in hand. When they’d left, Dana looked at the man who’d become so dear to her in such a short time.

  “The three of us, we’re new to being family, but let’s make a pact that it’s forever,” Mark said.

  “I’m in,” Jon agreed, nodding.

  “You two might think you have a choice,” Dana told them, wrapping an arm around each man. “But neither of you ever had a sister and I’m here to tell you that you’re never getting rid of me.”

  Glancing up, she saw Josh smiling at her. And as the three of them walked in to face their families together, Josh stood, the lights on the newly decorated Christmas tree reflecting off his suit as he reached out, pulling her into his side as he raised his glass in a toast.