Valentine's Secret Child. Christine Rimmer
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raised her wineglass. “Here’s to you, Mitch.” He touched his glass to hers and they drank.
“Now,” he said, “about you…”
Something happened in her eyes. A certain…apprehensiveness. So. She had her secrets. He wanted to know them. Damned if he didn’t want to know everything about her, to learn all that had happened to her in the decade since he’d lost her.
She asked, “What about me?”
“Tell me everything.”
“Got ten years?”
“All right, all right. I guess I’ll have to settle for the condensed version.”
“Let’s see. Where to begin? I’m the director of the Sacramento County Family Crisis Center.”
“Sounds like an important job.”
“Well, the service the center provides is important, that’s for sure.”
“Nonprofit, right?”
She laughed. He’d pay millions for that, just to listen to that laugh on a regular basis. Say, daily—morning, noon and at least twenty times a night. “Spoken like a true capitalist,” she said.
“It wasn’t a criticism.”
“Well, good. And yes. We’re nonprofit. We offer family counseling and a children’s shelter for kids who need a place to go, temporarily, when there’s a big problem.” There was a proud gleam in her eyes.
“You believe in the work you do.”
“I do.”
“And you enjoy it.”
“Yes.” She ran a finger around the rim of her wineglass and slanted him a glance. “Mitch, I…” She seemed not to know how to finish.
He waited for her to go on. When she didn’t, he asked, “How’s your mom?”
She groaned and tipped her head back. “Oh, God. Now, there’s a story…” She leaned toward him. “You remember the famous Bravo Baby, kidnapped for a fortune in diamonds? The ransom was paid, but the baby was never returned to the parents.”
“Of course, I remember.” He reminded her, “You told me about him, back when we were together….”
“That’s right. I did, didn’t I? But ten years ago, nobody knew that the baby had lived, or who the kidnapper really was. I used to imagine I might be related to them, to that rich family named Bravo from Bel Air. I used to fantasize that I would go down there and knock on the door of their beautiful mansion. They’d know instantly that I was part of the family. They would want me to live with them, so I’d move into the mansion. I’d have a whole wing to myself….”
He couldn’t get enough of just looking at her. Her skin had a tempting glow. He ached to reach across the table and brush her cheek with the side of his hand. Would her eyes go soft, welcoming his touch?
He asked, “You always wanted that, didn’t you? A family of your own?”
“I did.”
Ten years ago, he’d wanted to be her family. He’d wanted to be all she’d ever need. He’d demanded to be the center of her world. And because of that, he’d lost her.
He said, “It was five or six years ago, wasn’t it, that they found out the Bravo Baby’s kidnapper had been his own uncle? I remember reading about it.” It was a major story, all over the wire services and the talk shows. The notorious Blake Bravo, who had previously been declared dead in an apartment fire, had stolen his own brother’s baby and lived for more than thirty years with no one knowing that he was very much alive the whole time. “He actually is dead now, right?”
“Yes. He’s dead.”
About then, Mitch realized where this story was headed. “Your own dad, the one you never met. His name was—”
“Blake. Yes. The Blake Bravo was my father. The Bravo Baby—all grown up now and living in Oklahoma City—is my cousin. And the famous Bravo Billionaire in his Bel Air mansion? He’s my cousin, too. I was related to my fantasy family the whole time. Also, as it turns out, Tanner and I have half siblings all over the country. Beyond being a kidnapper and other scary things, my father was a polygamist. He married a lot of women.
“He would marry them and get them pregnant and then abandon them. If he did return, it was only long enough to father yet another baby. Oh. And that reminds me. Tanner and I have a sister, too—a full sister. My mother had a third child neither of us ever knew about. My sister is a couple of years younger than me. Her name is Hayley. She’s married, with a new baby. Lives in Seattle.”
“Slow down a minute. You’re telling me that your mother had three kids and put them all in foster care….”
“And told each of us that us we were the only one. Yes.”
Mitch had met Lia Bravo a couple of times back in the day. A thin, quiet woman with a faraway look in her eye. “She never seemed strong, your mother.”
“She wasn’t. She had no education to speak of and she had trouble keeping a job. She couldn’t take care of us, and yet she would never agree to sign the papers so we could be adopted and maybe find new families for ourselves—and, as I said, she lied to us and never told us we had siblings. I don’t know what drove her to do the things she did. I’ll probably never know.”
“What drove her? Past tense?”
“She died last May. That’s how we found Hayley. We met her when we all just happened to show up in Mom’s hospital room at the same time.”
“Damn. That must have been quite a surprise.”
“Oh, yeah. I look back and realize it would have been the same with Tanner and me, that we probably wouldn’t have found each other until last year. We were lucky because Tanner vaguely remembered that there had been a baby when Mom put him in the system. Ten years ago, he had to practically blackmail her to get her to admit that yes, he did have a sister. One sister. She never did cop to Hayley’s existence. So another decade went by before we found her.”
He asked carefully, “You and Tanner are still close, then?”
“Very.” Her smooth brow creased. “You don’t still hate him, do you?”
Before he could answer, the waiter appeared. They took a few minutes to look at the menu and order.
Then they were alone again. And Kelly was watching him.
Time to face the music. From the moment he’d seen her the night before, standing there on the edge of that stage, he’d known he would find a way to be with her again—and that he would need to make amends.
He said, “I was way out of line. An idiot, ten years ago. Believe me, Kelly. I know that now. You heard me last night. It’s a major point in my book and my lectures that ultimatums just don’t work, but I made you choose between me and your newfound brother. All I can say is, I was eighteen and crazy in love with you and sure I would lose you—which, as it turned out, I did. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. It was stupid. And self-defeating. And wrong.”
Now her eyes were as soft as a summer sky. “So I left you—and then you lost your mom, too.”
“Pneumonia. At least it was quick. Sometimes I think she was relieved to go. She was never the same since we lost Deirdre—and my dad.” Deirdre had been two years his junior. She’d died at the age of nine, hit by a drunk driver while she rode her new bike home from a friend’s house down the street. His father couldn’t stand the loss of his adored daughter and deserted them soon after. His mom had done her best, but they couldn’t afford the house. She’d spent her remaining years in a cramped, single-wide trailer.
“Deirdre,” Kelly softly whispered. Her eyes welled with sudden