by Gina Wilkins
“Married,” he supplied for her.
She gulped. “Stop saying that.”
Joe lifted her left hand to his lips and nibbled a kiss on her knuckles. “Am I making you nervous, cara?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He sounded so smug—as if he knew it was just a matter of time until he wheedled the answer he wanted from her.
“Joe...”
He touched the tip of his tongue to her ring finger. “I’ll try to be patient, Brynn. But you know how D’Alessandros are when it comes to patience.”
She’d just gotten accustomed to the idea of dating him publicly. But marriage—she wasn’t nearly ready to consider that.
“What about Leonardo?” she blurted.
That made him lift his head. “Who?” he asked blankly.
Her cheeks went crimson. “You know...your great-aunt Luisa...the son she wants you to name after her father.”
Joe shook his head in exasperation. “Brynn, I love you. I want you to be my wife. Whatever we decide about children, we’ll make the decision that’s right for us. Not my aunt. Not my family. Not anyone else. Just us.”
He was so good at countering her arguments. Making her believe she mattered to him more than anything else. No one, except maybe Kelly, had ever made her feel that way before.
No one except Kelly had ever truly loved her before.
It was an incredibly seductive feeling. It almost made her believe that anything was possible.
“I...”
Whatever she might have said was interrupted by the chime of her doorbell. Brynn took advantage of the escape and hurried into the living room to answer the door.
Her heart, which had been racing from the encounter with Joe, nearly stopped when she identified her caller.
Ryan Walker was standing on her doorstep, a thick envelope in his hand. “Hello, Brynn. I have some news for you.”
“I can’t believe this.” It must have been the dozenth time Brynn had spoken those words in the twenty minutes since Ryan had confirmed that the young man Brynn’s mother had known as Danny Smith had indeed been Miles Daniel Walker. Ryan had even found a couple more photos of Miles and Connie Larkin cuddled together only days before the car accident, and a police report listing Connie as the sole survivor of the accident that had killed her boyfriend and two other young men.
The evidence was strong that Brynn was Miles’s daughter.
“I’m as certain as I can be without DNA testing—and we’ll arrange for that, if it will ease your mind. It isn’t necessary as far as I’m concerned.” Ryan smiled at her. “I’m completely ready to claim you as my niece.”
“Wow, Brynn. You have uncles.” Sitting in her wheelchair—having been awakened by the doorbell—Kelly looked almost as stunned as Brynn felt. “Aunts. And cousins.”
“Layla’s going to cry,” Joe predicted wryly. He sat next to Brynn on the couch, and he’d said little as Ryan had produced his evidence, after first asking Brynn if she minded onlookers. Brynn had insisted that Joe and Kelly stay for the news. She still wasn’t sure how Joe actually felt about the stunning revelation.
Ryan’s firm mouth slanted upward. “Layla always cries. That’s how we know when she’s happy.”
“When are you going to tell everyone, Brynn?” Kelly asked eagerly.
“I...don’t know.” The very thought made her knees weak.
“Why not now?” Ryan suggested. “Joe and Lauren and Taylor are at Michelle’s with the others, so all your aunts and uncles are gathered there except Lindsay and Grant. They’ve decided to order a truckload of pizzas—you know how they seize every opportunity to have a family party. This would be a great time.”
“I’m not sure I can tell them,” Brynn murmured, glancing instinctively at Joe. “What if they don’t believe me? What if they think I’m trying to con them or something? What if...?”
“They’ll believe Ryan,” Joe assured her. “And no one is going to think you’re trying to con them, Brynn. Give them more credit than that.”
“They’ll be delighted,” Ryan agreed. “Surely you’ve noticed that this family operates on the philosophy that there’s always room for more.”
Brynn swallowed, then stood and nodded. She supposed there would be no benefit to putting this off. “All right,” she said, looking a bit shyly at her uncle. “Let’s go tell them.”
Chapter Fifteen
Kelly had no intention of being left out of the grand announcement, of course. Joe wheeled her back to the main house, with Ryan hovering nearby if he needed assistance.
The spacious den was even more crowded now than it had been before, but there was still room for a few more. Joe parked Kelly’s chair in a convenient spot, where they watched as Ryan cleared his throat and signaled for everyone’s attention.
“Brynn and I have something we want to tell you,” he said, pulling Brynn to his side when she showed a tendency to want to hide behind him.
From Taylor’s smile, Joe assumed Ryan had already broken the news to his wife. Everyone else looked curious about what news Ryan shared with Tony and Michelle’s nanny.
Brynn looked at Ryan, obviously pleading for him to be the one to speak.
He nodded. “It’s about Miles,” he began, looking at Layla.
Layla, who’d been the primary caretaker for her younger siblings until they’d been separated when she was only ten, pressed a hand to her chest. “Miles? Our brother?”
Ryan nodded. “Yes. He...”
“Is he still alive?” Layla asked, leaping to a hopeful conclusion. “Were the reports of his death incorrect?”
“No, Layla,” Ryan answered gently. “Miles really did die in that car accident on his eighteenth birthday. What we didn’t know was that he wasn’t using his legal name at the time. He’d been introducing himself as Danny Smith—I really don’t know why, unless it was just to separate himself from his past, the way Joe and I did when we were teenagers.”
Tony frowned. “I never found that name in my research. Only a death certificate in the name of Miles Daniel Walker.”
“Which was still his legal name,” Ryan agreed. “But not the one he was using with his friends—or his girlfriend, Connie Larkin.”
“Larkin?” Michelle repeated, looking quickly at Brynn.
“Brynn’s mother,” Ryan elaborated. “She was actually in the accident with Miles. Connie was the only survivor.”
“What a strange coincidence.” Ryan’s sister-in-law, Lauren Walker, shook her head in amazement. “Brynn’s mother knew your brother.”
“I think there’s a bit more to the coincidence than that,” her husband murmured, studying his twin’s face.
“Yes.” Ryan cleared his throat. “Brynn was born less than seven months after that accident.”
The room went very still. Joe watched as Layla’s face suddenly drained of color. “Are you saying...?”
“Connie Larkin told Brynn that a boy named Danny Smith was her father. She said she was unknowingly pregnant by him the night of the accident. I have photographs of Connie and Miles together, looking very cozy.”
“Oh, my God.” Michelle covered her cheeks with her hands. “I hired my niece?”
Brynn spoke for the first time then, looking anxiously earnest. “I didn’t know, either. I swear, I had no idea. Shane was visiting me Monday evening and he saw a photograph of my parents. I told him how my father died, and he put all the clues together. He went to Ryan with his suspicions, and Ryan asked my permission to investigate.”
“Brynn didn’t know,” Ryan collaborated. “She was as stunned as the rest of us. She even volunteered to take a blood test. But I think we’ve already found the truth.”
Jared looked closely at his brother. “You really believe Brynn is Miles’s daughter?”
“Yeah. I really do. Stranger coincidences have happened,” Ryan added, smiling crookedly at his wife.
Apparently satisfied with Ryan’s certainty, Jared stepped in front of Brynn. “Welco
me to the family, Brynn,” he said, and pressed a gentle kiss on her cheek.
Layla burst into tears.
Mass pandemonium reigned for the next several minutes. Joe and Kelly stayed back out of the way as Brynn was mobbed by her newly discovered family. Tony and Michelle and their children—who didn’t quite understand what was going on but knew it was something nice. Layla, Kevin and Brittany. Jared, Cassie and Molly. Joe and Lauren Walker and young Casey. Ryan and Taylor and their twins.
Even Vinnie and Carla heartily welcomed Brynn to the Walker family, teasingly referring to her as their “niece-in-law.”
Joe glanced down at Kelly, catching a fleetingly wistful look on her face that might have been tinged with anxiety. He understood both emotions.
He couldn’t quite define his own feelings about the revelation that Brynn was a member of the Walker clan. While he knew he should be delighted that she’d been brought together with her family, he was aware of a selfish reluctance to share her with them.
He’d become more possessive of Brynn than he’d realized, apparently. Now all these other people had an emotional claim to her. And there was a part of him that didn’t like it.
He was a jerk.
Kelly was probably feeling much the same. way, he thought. He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Brynn will always think of you as her sister,” he murmured.
Kelly smiled up at him. “I know. I’m thrilled for Brynn, really. She has always wanted a family so desperately, no matter how often she tried to deny it. Now she has a big one.”
Joe nodded. He, too, was pleased that Brynn had found her family...but he still wanted to make her a part of his own. She had said she loved him. He wouldn’t give up now until she was legally a D’Alessandro, as well as a Walker.
Later that evening, Brynn sat next to Layla Samples on one of the comfortable sofas in Michelle’s den. Her hand was held snugly in Layla’s, who had hardly let go of Brynn since the grand announcement. The other adults were gathered around them, while Brittany supervised the younger children in another room.
“We’ve learned so little about Miles’s life after we were separated,” Layla said with a sigh. “I had so hoped he was happy.”
“From what my mother told me, he was always laughing and joking,” Brynn offered hesitantly. “He was impulsive and mischievous—which often got him into trouble—and my mother was afraid he had a drinking problem, but she seemed to believe he was happy. Especially when they were together...”
“A drinking problem.” Layla grimaced. “Poor Miles must have inherited our father’s weakness for alcohol.”
Brynn bit her lip and glanced at Joe, who’d said so little during the evening. She wondered what Layla would say if she knew how many flaws had come from Brynn’s mother’s side. What would the D’Alessandros think if they knew their youngest son wanted to marry the daughter of an alcoholic and a manic-depressive?
Michelle nodded, looking pensive. “I worried about that before Tony and I had children,” she confessed. “We decided to make it very clear to them that a tendency toward alcoholism runs in their family, and that they must always be very careful. We want them to understand that they have the power to choose whether to start down that path or not.”
“You have Joe and Ryan’s pretty, pale-blue eyes. And your father’s smile,” Layla murmured, still looking at Brynn. “Why didn’t I see that before?”
“You weren’t looking,” Ryan suggested.
“I’m so glad we found you.” Layla patted Brynn’s hand with both of hers. “Mother and Miles brought you to us—I just know they did. I feel it.”
“You don’t really think our mother’s spirit caused a terrible car accident, Layla,” Joe Walker objected.
She was undaunted by his cynicism. “Of course not. But she could have arranged for Joe and Michael to be there when it happened. And for Tony and Michelle to need a nanny at just the right time. And for Shane to see that photograph...”
Several of the others were laughing by the time she’d finished postulating, though their laughter was goodnatured and affectionate.
Brynn glanced across the room at Kelly, who was talking quietly with Taylor and Ryan. Kelly looked tired, Brynn thought. And she herself was suddenly exhausted. So much had happened that day—almost too much for her to take in all at once.
“We’d better go,” she said, gently disentangling her hand from Layla’s. “Kelly needs to rest.”
“Yes, of course she does. We’ve neglected her terribly tonight, haven’t we?” Layla asked penitently. “We’ll talk more later, Brynn.”
Brynn nodded and stood. “Kelly? Ready to go?”
“I’ll help you,” Joe said quickly, taking hold of the wheelchair before anyone else could offer. No one attempted to argue with him.
Brynn said good-night to everyone, accepted what seemed liked dozens of kisses on the cheek and finally made her escape with Joe and Kelly.
She was experiencing “family overload,” she decided. To go so abruptly from being alone to being a part of such a large group was a staggering experience. Almost overwhelming.
And now she had to deal with Joe.
Joe made sure Kelly was safely inside the guest house, then turned to Brynn. “I know you’ll need to help Kelly get ready for bed, so I won’t stay.”
“Walk Joe out to his car, Brynn,” Kelly ordered, her green eyes twinkling with mischief. “You can’t give him a proper good-night kiss with me here to watch.”
Brynn blushed. And then glared at Kelly. “I’m sure Joe can find his way to his car without me.”
“Kelly’s right,” Joe said, catching Brynn’s hand and pulling her toward the front door. “You should walk me out. I’m really looking forward to that proper good-night kiss.”
Brynn was still sputtering protests when he towed her outside. She heard Kelly laughing behind them.
“I really can’t stay out long,” she said when Joe closed the door, leaving them out in the warm summer night. “Kelly’s tired, and she can’t get ready for bed without help.”
“Are you going to be able to manage? It’ll be a couple of weeks before she’s getting around on her own. She’ll need a lot of help.”
“I can manage. She’ll be fine once I’ve got her into her chair each morning. I can check on her several times during the day. Michelle’s already offered to hire help, if we need it, though I hate for her to have to pay for both a nanny and a part-time nurse.”
“Don’t worry about that. Michelle can afford whatever help she needs. And you’re family now.”
There was that word again. Family. Brynn cleared her throat. “Anyway, I’m going to be very busy for the next few weeks, between taking care of Kelly and the children. I can’t neglect my responsibilities to any of them.”
“I get your hint, Brynn. You’re asking me to give you time and space. I promised to try to be patient, and I will. But don’t ask me to stay away completely. That’s more than I can give.”
And more than she could ask, Brynn thought. She didn’t want Joe to stay away completely... whatever her fears regarding him.
They reached his car and Joe turned to take her into his arms. “About that good-night kiss...”
He bent his head to cover her mouth with his. Brynn responded as she always did when Joe kissed her... with all her heart.
“One day,” he murmured a short while later, “your home will be with me. I won’t have to leave you at the end of the evening. But in the meantime, remember that I love you. That I will always love you, no matter how many more surprises lie ahead for us.”
“I love you, too,” she whispered, unable to hold the words inside. “But I can’t talk about the future tonight. Too much has happened today.”
“I understand. Or at least, I’m trying to. Good night, cara.”
He climbed into his car and started the engine. Brynn watched him as he drove away.
They both knew he would be back very soon—and that his patience was limited.
Joe’s patience lasted exactly two more weeks. He and Brynn had hardly seen each other during that time, between Brynn’s responsibilities and his own demanding career. Brynn knew he was growing frustrated with her, and she desperately missed being with him, but she needed that time apart from him to do a great deal of thinking about where their relationship was going—where she wanted it to go.
She still hadn’t reached any solid conclusions when he basically kidnapped her one Friday evening.
She had just left the children with their parents and had walked back into her own house to make dinner for Kelly. The smell of food—barbecue, she thought—hit her as soon as she entered the door. She blinked in surprise. Kelly was getting around amazingly well, but Brynn hadn’t thought her capable of preparing a meal yet.
Shane Walker appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Hi, Brynn. Don’t worry about cooking tonight. I brought barbecue for two. Kelly and I are going to chow down and then play Scrabble or something for a couple of hours.”
“You brought barbecue for two?” Brynn repeated, noting that she’d been excluded from his evening plans. “Er...”
Joe D’Alessandro stepped into the doorway behind Shane. His smile dared her to cause him any trouble. “You and I,” he said smoothly, “are going out for dinner.”
“We are?” Brynn placed her hands on her hips. “Funny, I don’t remember being asked if I wanted to go out to dinner.”
“Just shut up and go, Brynn,” Kelly called from the kitchen, her voice rich with laughter. “You need some time off, and we knew you wouldn’t take it unless you were forced to. So, we’re not giving you any choice. Go out and relax, let someone cook for you for a change.”
Brynn was still arguing when Joe hustled her out the door and into his car.
“You’re very pleased with yourself, aren’t you?” she asked him as he drove away from the estate, looking rather smug.
“A bit,” he admitted shamelessly. “I thought it was very clever of me to arrange this with Kelly and Shane without you finding out.”