Switched At Birth

by Christine Rimmer

  He shrugged again. “It’s just weird, after all these years, thinking of Karin with anyone but Bud. Plus, I kind of feel like a creeper, spying on my sister.”

  She had to stifle a laugh. “Well, we had no idea we were butting in on anything. It might have turned out to be something we really needed to deal with.”

  “Right.”

  She reached up and put her hand against his warm, scruffy cheek. “So no harm done?”

  “Maddy,” he whispered, fond and gentle and full of desire. Happiness filled her.

  She pulled him down to her. They shared a slow, sweet kiss.

  “Let’s go on in,” he said when he lifted his head.

  Inside, they crept to their separate sleeping bags and settled in for what was left of the night. It took Madison a long time to fall back to sleep. She kept thinking of Karin, wondering what, actually, had been going on between Karin and Liam out there in the dark. And then she started considering how short life really was, how a person could have the love of her life and lose him in a heartbeat.

  How when love found you, you needed to reach for it—reach for it and hold on tight and make the most of every moment fate granted you.

  * * *

  The next afternoon, in the main house at Wild River Ranch, Aislinn led Madison up the stairs to the second floor.

  “It’s this one.” Aislinn stopped in the doorway to a small bedroom. Madison stopped beside her.

  Late afternoon sunlight poured in through the one window on the opposite wall. The room was painted a soothing dove gray. It had a double bed with a bright quilt, a rag rug and a dresser topped with a gorgeous Craftsman-style lamp. Colorful pictures decorated the walls.

  Aislinn explained, “Like a few of the other rooms in the house, it needed a generous dose of TLC. It was a dark room, depressing, you know? I brightened it up a little.”

  “It’s nice,” said Madison. “Cheerful.”

  “Thanks—so anyway, the story goes that Claudia, Martin Durand’s wife, acted as midwife that night. Your mom and mine each had one of the rooms to either side of this one. They gave birth within a few minutes of each other. Once we were born, Claudia put us in makeshift cribs made of dresser drawers on a bed in this room while she looked after the new mothers.”

  “I remember all this from Martin’s letter.” Madison stared at a beautiful wall hanging sewn with twining flowers that Aislinn had hung above the bed. “He wrote that it was storming that night, really bad, with power outages, flooded roads and no way for Marie and George Bravo to get home when she went into labor, let alone make it to the hospital in Astoria or Valentine Bay. Martin Durand snuck in and switched us.”

  Aislinn nodded. “Our blankets were identical and we were both about the same size. I had wisps of dark hair and you didn’t, but he switched us anyway, got away with it, and when he started to feel guilty, it was too late.”

  “He had no way to switch us back without someone finding out what he’d done.”

  Aislinn turned to her. “So. Here we are.” Her dark eyes gleamed with unshed tears.

  Madison felt an answering rush of emotion, filling her heart, blurring her vision. She reached out an arm and drew Aislinn to her side. They stared at the room together, arms around each other’s shoulders, for a long string of quiet seconds.

  Aislinn broke the silence. “Does it help any? Seeing the room where it happened?”

  Madison didn’t really know how to answer her. “I did want to see it...”

  “But?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say it helps, exactly. What does help is to know you a little. To see that you’re happy, that your life works for you.”

  Aislinn drew in a slow breath, as though gathering courage. “I admit, I’ve been wondering—how you are? If you like the way things have turned out for you?”

  “I’ve got no complaints. I got everything I ever wanted.”

  “But are you happy?” Aislinn anxiously scanned her face.

  “I’m not unhappy—and don’t look at me like that. I’m fine, honestly. I’m just ready for a change, that’s all.”

  Aislinn turned fully toward her and took both of her hands. “Anything I can do to help you make that change, just say the word.”

  “You are helping,” Madison said. “A lot. By reaching out, by inviting me here, to the place where we were born. By being the one who really understands what I’m going through.” She tugged on Aislinn’s hands. “Now come on, let’s go back downstairs before the guys start wondering why we’ve deserted them.”

  They found Sten and Jaxon in Jax’s study and they all four trekked out to the stables, where Madison and Sten met Burt, the ranch foreman, and his dog, Ace. Dinner was an excellent prime rib prepared by the housekeeper, Erma.

  After the meal they met Aislinn’s pet rabbits, who lived on the enclosed side porch of the ranch house. They went back inside for dessert and hung around until after ten.

  “You’re quiet,” Sten said as they were driving back to Valentine Bay.

  “Just thinking.” She leaned her head against the window with a sigh. “About Aislinn and Jax, how happy they seem together. I want that, you know? Love. Real love, with the right person...” She dared to sit up and look at him then. The dashboard lights cast his features into sharp relief. He was staring straight ahead, like the road might jump up and bite him if he dared to glance away. “Oops.” She tried to make a joke of it. “I have mentioned the dreaded L-word and I’ve only known you for a couple of weeks. Talk about awkward. So sorry. My bad.”

  It took him far too long to figure out how to reply. And when he did, he spoke grimly. “Madison, I’m crazy about you.”

  “Try to say it without clenching your teeth—and you know what? Let’s not do this, okay?”

  “Fine with me.” He never once took his gaze off the road.

  She leaned back and shut her eyes.

  He cued up some music and they listened to soft rock and power pop the rest of the way. At the cove, he parked his pickup in the side garage of the main house.

  “Thank you for taking me to the ranch,” she said. “I had a great time.” And she got out and left through the wide-open garage door, her heart aching with each beat. Really, it was kind of amazing how fast everything had gone to crap.

  But then she heard the garage door go down and his footsteps behind her. Her pulse pounded faster. Maybe he was planning for them to actually talk about what had just happened—about their feelings for each other and how they were getting closer and she wanted them to get closer still. It would be good to talk honestly about all this, right?

  Oh, but it didn’t feel good. She almost whirled on him and said something provoking.

  But she remembered last night, the sounds of Karin and Liam arguing outside, having no idea how far their voices carried.

  Better not to go there until they were indoors, at least.

  She led the way up the steps to the front door of the cottage, unlocked it and went in. He was right behind her. Dropping her purse on the narrow entry table, she kept going to the great room, where she flipped on a couple of lamps and then went and stood at the slider, staring out at the sliver of moon hanging high above the ocean.

  “Madison, come on.”

  She turned and faced him, though it hurt to look at him right now. Why did he have to be so gorgeous? Why did it seem like he just kept getting better-looking every time she saw him? She knew it was her heart doing that, seeing the beauty of him ever more clearly as she grew to love him.

  And no, she’d never been in love before. And she really hadn’t known him very long. She was pushing too fast, she got that. But she recognized it already, this love she had for him. She accepted it as real and right and true. In the space of two weeks, she’d come to love Sten Larson.

  Too bad he didn’t love her.

  He put up
both hands and then dropped them. “We just need to be realistic, okay? As I said in the truck, I’m gone on you. You’re like no other woman I’ve ever met before. And this feeling I have for you, it’s strong. But you really need to look inside yourself, deep down, to who you really are, to all you’ve accomplished so far in your life. You’ve got to know that you’re not going to give up being America’s Darling to settle down on the Oregon coast with a house-flipping shipbuilder any more than I’m going move to LA to live with a movie star.”

  She wanted to haul off and smack him a good one. “That’s just your fears talking, Sten.”

  “No, it’s...”

  She whipped up a hand. “I’m not finished.”

  He glared, but he gave it up. “Go ahead.”

  “Thank you, I will,” she said with quiet fury. “You’re wrong. All wrong. And just to be clear, I would never ask you to leave your family and the home that you love, so don’t get yourself all worked up on that score. On the other hand, if I were to move here, that would be my choice, not yours. If I were to move here permanently, it would be because that was what I wanted, what worked for me. And it wouldn’t just be as a home base, a place to come back to between movies. I’m talking about quitting acting, Sten, I really am.”

  He stared at her so bleakly. “You say all that now.”

  “Because it’s true.”

  “And just what would you do, if you quit acting?”

  “I have no idea. Yet. But I would find something that suits me. And I have great money managers. Frankly, if I don’t want to work, I never have to work again—and you and me? We could totally happen. But not if you won’t let us happen. Not if you close your mind and your heart to all that could be.”

  For a moment, he just stared at her. She almost started to hope he would say something positive. But no. “I just don’t get it.”

  She knew she shouldn’t ask. “What don’t you get?”

  “How can you possibly be so naive?”

  That capped it. “Okay, look. I should never have mentioned the word love. We’re not there yet.” Well, you’re not there, anyway. “And we may never be there. Right now, I don’t know what to say to you except that whatever that woman who hurt you did to you, I am not her. No way, no how—Oh. And one more thing. Good night, Sten.”

  Chapter Seven

  Karin dropped into the deck chair beside Sten.

  She tapped his shoulder with a tall cold one. Sten took it, had a long sip and stared at the new moon, thinking how lucky he was to have such a great sister.

  But then she had to go and ruin it by talking. “Don’t tell me you’re in the dog house with America’s Darling again.”

  “Fine. I won’t tell you.”

  Karin gave him a look, like he was just such a chucklehead. “Put yourself out of your misery. Go say you’re sorry.”

  “Drop it.”

  “Stennie, it’s time you learned to love again.” She said it so sweetly.

  And that made it hurt even more—enough that he opened his big mouth and said, “Yeah, well, it’s time you started taking your own advice.” The words got out before he made himself stop them.

  And Karin knew exactly what he meant by them—or at least, she suspected. She took a long pull off her ginger beer and then asked, “What are you getting at?”

  He tried to backpedal. “It’s not my business. Sorry.”

  “Just say it. Please.”

  And then he turned and looked at her and, well, he never had liked lying much. “Last night, when you got home...” He explained about hearing voices, and that he and Madison had gone outside to see what was up. “We saw you with Liam Bravo.”

  “Ugh.” She drank more fake beer. “It’s complicated.”

  Now that he’d gone and put his foot in it, he at least had to offer, “You want to talk about it?”

  “Um, no.”

  He felt relief that she wasn’t going to unburden herself to him, which probably made him a terrible brother. “Well, I’m ready to listen if you ever do.”

  “Thanks—but like I said, no. Liam did tell me, though, the real reason Madison’s here in town.” She leaned her head back and watched the wisps of clouds high above, like smoke trails in the dark sky. “She looks like the Bravos. I probably should have guessed—and don’t worry. I won’t say anything to anyone. I haven’t forgotten that she’s trying not to let the world know she’s here—and anyway, who would I tell?”

  They gazed out at the ocean together until he asked, “So where’s my quote from Scarlett O’Hara?”

  “Sorry.” She set her half-empty bottle on the little table between them and gathered her legs up onto the chair. “Scarlett’s got nothing worthwhile to say tonight.”

  * * *

  The next day, Madison stewed a little over whether or not to call Sten and ask him for a ride to Daniel’s house.

  Somehow, she kept herself from doing that. Really, she’d been using him as a car service and that just wasn’t right. Plus, they were now on the outs and she had no desire whatsoever to ask him for anything at the moment, anyway.

  She put on her dark wig, sunglasses and a big hat and called a cab to take her to the DNA party, making a stop at a drugstore downtown along the way. An unnecessary stop, probably.

  But so what? It was her life and her body and if she ever spoke to Sten again, she intended to be ready for anything that might happen.

  Was that wonky reasoning? Absolutely.

  She stopped at the drugstore anyway.

  No one in the store recognized her. She could have been invisible for all the attention the clerk and the few other customers gave her. And the cabbie? He never looked twice at her.

  All of which had her thinking she needed to get over herself.

  If somebody found her out, so what? She would just ask the person to please respect her privacy—and if they didn’t and a few paparazzi showed up in town, well, so be it. She’d been hounded by relentless photojournalists before and lived to tell about it.

  At Daniel’s, she stuffed her silly disguise in her giant tote and visited with her newfound family. She played Old MacDonald Lotto with the twins and kissed a really unsanitary-looking stuffed animal when Jake stuck the thing in her face. Keely let her hold the baby. Little Marie cooed and waved her tiny hands. She smelled like milk and clean cotton sheets dried in the sun—well, until she dumped a big load in her diaper, anyway.

  Keely laughed. “She’s so cute until she poops.”

  Madison handed the little girl to her mother and spent a few minutes getting to know the youngest of her new siblings, Grace. Everyone’s phones got a workout as they took a bunch of group shots.

  Harper asked about Brock Markovic, who’d been Madison’s leading man in more than one film. “Okay, Madison. It’s tacky, and you probably don’t want to hear it, but I just have to know. Are you and Brock a thing?”

  She thought of Sten, felt a painful twinge of longing in the vicinity of her heart. If only he were here with her, nobody would be asking about her and Brock. “Sorry to break it to you, Harper, but Brock and I are not a thing and never have been.”

  Hailey let out a moan. “We were so sure you two were crazy in love.”

  “Nope. He’s a great guy, and everyone says we have killer chemistry on-screen.”

  “Oh, yes, you do.” Harper made a show of fanning herself.

  “Yeah, well. In reality? Never gonna happen.”

  The DNA was collected without much fanfare by Percy and Great-Aunt Daffy. A simple swipe of the inside of the cheek and it was done.

  Percy had a kit for Madison and each of the Bravo siblings, including Aislinn, who already knew she was Martin Durand’s daughter. By testing against the other siblings, Aislinn could eliminate herself once and for all as a Bravo by blood, thus getting as close as possible to proving that Pau
la Delaney had been her biological mother.

  After the meal, Madison tried to get a little face time with her newly found brothers—starting with Liam. She found him charming and full of questions about her life in LA and the movie business. He didn’t talk much about himself, though, and he said zero about whatever was going on with him and Karin. Not that she really expected to learn anything about his private life. After all, they hardly knew each other and she was reasonably certain he had no clue what she and Sten had overheard the other night.

  Third-born Connor, who worked with Daniel at Valentine Logging, revealed a little more about himself than Liam had. Connor had been married, he said, to his best friend’s only sister. His ex-wife had left him to make it big in advertising in New York City.

  Madison was outraged on his behalf. “So you’re saying she just divorced you and left?”

  Connor’s expression turned sheepish. “Well, not exactly...”

  Madison figured it out about then, and accused, “You wouldn’t go.”

  “Why am I talking about this?” Connor was suddenly all about his empty glass. “I think I need another drink.”

  Madison moved on to Daniel and then chatted with Matt and his wife, Sabra. Later, she ended up sitting in the kitchen with Aislinn and Keely, drinking really tasty cinnamon tea and hearing great stories about what it was like growing up in Valentine Bay.

  By nine, the kids were in bed. Percy and Daffy and a few of the others had already left. Madison got out her phone to summon another cab.

  “Put that phone down,” ordered Aislinn. “Jax and I go right by Sweetheart Cove on the way back to the ranch. The truck is a crew cab, so there’s plenty of room.”

  Aislinn waited until they were on the road before she remarked way too casually, “I was surprised that Sten wasn’t with you today.”

  Madison almost lied and said he couldn’t make it. But already, she felt close to Aislinn. She trusted her—and Jaxon, too. And that lifted her spirits a little. She’d begun to create real relationships in Valentine Bay. “Not much fun to bring him with me when I’m not speaking to him.”

  Jax and Aislinn shared a glance. Madison watched them from the back seat, feeling suddenly envious—of their closeness, their intimate connection.