like he couldn’t wait for this to be through.
Well, neither could she.
And hold on a minute. The letter hadn’t actually said that this “crime” of Durand’s involved her, had it? So maybe this had nothing to do with her at all. She gulped. “I just don’t understand. Why am I here?”
Again, Kip Anders suggested, “If I might just finish...?”
“But it’s all wrong.”
Anders didn’t argue, he simply waited.
With a hard sigh, she gave in. “All right. Fine. Finish it, then.”
Anders granted her a nod. “Martin Durand writes, ‘The morning of the night you were born, Aislinn, George Bravo and his very pregnant wife, Marie, had driven out to Wild River from Valentine Bay to discuss the possibility of their investing in an expansion of our horse breeding and training operation.
“‘The investment never happened. But during George and Marie’s visit, there was a storm, a bad one. The roads were washed out. Marie went into labor—and so did our then-foreman’s wife, Paula Delaney.
“‘You see, Aislinn, I had cheated on my wife, Claudia, with Paula. I make no excuse for that. It was wrong. I did it anyway, with the classic result.’”
“What a complete SOB,” Aislinn cried. All eyes swung her way. “Sorry. Really.” She shot Anders a desperate glance. “And honestly, none of this can be true.” They all continued to stare at her. “All right.” She waved a hand. “Fine. Just go ahead.”
Anders read on, “‘When she realized she was pregnant, Paula had come to me. She swore that the baby was mine. She wanted to leave her husband and make a life with me and the child. I wanted none of that. I was happy with Claudia, for the most part. I loved my wife and I liked our life together—and Claudia owned Wild River.
“‘Jaxon, you were eight at the time. You’d been with us for four years by then. As I’ve explained to you many times, in honor of the long line of Winters who had owned and worked Wild River for generations, we had you keep your last name when we formally adopted you. But in all the ways that really count, you were our son. We were a family—you, Claudia and I. I told Paula no. I urged her to forget about me. Use your head, I said, stay with Lloyd where you belong. Paula wouldn’t listen. She said she loved me. I was sure there would be trouble, that she would come after me, demand a test that would prove her baby was mine. I would lose everything that mattered to me.
“‘I didn’t know what to do to get that woman to leave me alone. And then Marie Bravo showed up and went into labor at the same time Paula did. The perfect moment presented itself, both babies in makeshift cribs made of storage boxes, sharing the same room while Claudia, acting as emergency midwife, tended to the new mothers in rooms on either side.’”
Aislinn felt light-headed. Her stomach roiled.
Anders read on, each word painfully slow and clear. “‘I entered the babies’ room when no one was looking and discovered that the infants were similar in size, both with eyes of that same newborn blue. The hair color was different, one darker, one lighter. But there was so little of it on either tiny head, I dared to hope that no one would notice the difference. I saw my moment and I took it, switching the babies and their blankets, too.’”
Aislinn sat very still, her hands pressed to her churning stomach. She knew if she moved or even dared to breathe, she was going to be sick—just hack up her breakfast, spew it across the unblemished oval of the conference table.
It was all a lie. It had to be. Martin Durand couldn’t be her father. Her father was George Bravo, a good man, a loving husband and a doting dad, a man who made each of his sons and daughters feel wanted and secure.
She was a Bravo, born, bred and raised. Her parents had been deeply in love, wonderfully brave and adventurous—and more than a little bit foolish.
They’d had a passion for traveling the world, her mom and dad. They’d lost one son on a trip to Siberia. Finn, eight at the time, had simply vanished—kidnapped for ransom, they all assumed. But the ransom demand never came and Finn had not been seen or heard from again. And then her parents were lost, too, a few years later, on a romantic getaway to Thailand, where they were caught in a tsunami.
Her family had suffered. But they had gotten through it, together. Her oldest brother, Daniel, eighteen when their parents died, had won custody of all of them. He’d raised them the rest of the way, Aislinn and the six other remaining Bravo siblings. Their road hadn’t been smooth or easy, but they’d made it work. Together. And she loved them.
And they were hers, damn it. Her people. Not some unknown woman named Paula who’d cheated on her husband. Not crazy, bad-tempered old Martin Durand.
She wanted to scream at them—at Jaxon and Burt, at Erma and the lawyer. She wanted to shout at them, Stop this! Stop these lies! Stop right now!
But her voice had deserted her and her throat felt constricted, like brutal hands were squeezing it.
And Kip Anders just kept reading the lying words of Martin Durand.
“‘I left those babies, each in the wrong storage-box crib. I ran from that room and I didn’t look back—until later, of course, when it was too late, when I realized that if Paula did demand a paternity test, she would find out that not only was the baby not mine, it wasn’t hers or Lloyd’s, either. She would remember the night of the birth and the other woman’s child in the same room with her child. She would figure it out and I would be caught anyway, proved not only a cheater, but also a criminal.
“‘As it turned out, though, the crime I’d committed was completely unnecessary. Paula never came after me to take a father’s responsibility. Instead, she took my advice and let Lloyd think the child was his. And then a few months later, Lloyd got another job out of state and we hired Burt. I never saw Paula or Lloyd or the child who was really Marie Bravo’s daughter again.
“‘I told myself there was no harm done. Each woman had a baby—yes, all right, the wrong baby. But they didn’t know that, so what did it matter? Everyone was happy. I tried to forget.
“‘To Claudia, I was a faithful husband from then on. Twelve years later, when Claudia died, I missed her. I mourned her. She left everything to me with the understanding between us that it would all go to you, Jaxon, at my death. I steered clear of Valentine Bay and any chance I might see you, Aislinn, and know you as mine.
“‘But then you showed up at Wild River that summer, looking just like my mother, who had died before I ever set foot in Oregon. At first, I was certain you must somehow have found out who you were to me, that you’d come to make me pay for cheating on Claudia, for switching you with Marie Bravo’s child and then just walking away. I watched you, waiting, wondering how you planned to exact your revenge. But all I saw was a girl with my mother’s haunting dark eyes, a girl in love with Jaxon.’”
In love with Jaxon...
Aislinn stifled a groan.
Because, dear God in heaven, why?
Why that, too?
Martin Durand had no pity at all. He’d died determined to strip her of every last scrap of herself—to steal her identity, take away her family and then go blithely
