The Bridesmaid's Gifts Page 18

  Sitting behind the wheel of the rental car, Ethan studied the windows of the house. It was early evening, not dark yet, so it was hard to tell if the lights were on inside. But Aislinn sensed that Kyle—or Mark, as he was known now—was home. Blissfully unaware that his life was about to change drastically.

  “This is nuts,” Ethan grumbled beneath his breath, sounding a little nervous.

  “Maybe,” she agreed. “But we have to do this.”

  He turned in the seat to look at her. “You’re asking me to take a huge step here. To risk making a complete fool of myself.”

  “I know.”

  His eyes grave, he murmured, “I wouldn’t have done this for anyone but you.”

  She let the meaning of that sink in. Ethan was telling her that he trusted her. And that hadn’t been an easy admission for him.

  “Thank you,” she said unsteadily.

  “Okay.” Dragging his gaze from hers, he reached for his door handle. “Let’s do this.”

  They walked side by side to the front door of the Georgian-style house. There they paused and looked at each other again. After a moment, Ethan held out his left hand. Swallowing hard, Aislinn put her right hand in his palm, feeling his fingers close around hers. And then he pushed the doorbell.

  The door opened a few moments later. Aislinn stared at the nice-looking man who stood just inside the house. There was a definite family resemblance, she noted, though Ethan and Joel looked more like each other. But she had no doubt he was their brother.

  “May I help you?” he asked, looking from Ethan to her and back again.

  “Dr. Mark Thomas?” Ethan asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Ethan Brannon. This is Aislinn Flaherty.”

  “Nice to meet you.” The way his voice rose a little at the end turned it into a question.

  Ethan glanced at Aislinn again, then, when she nodded slightly, looked back at the other man. “This is going to sound strange, I know, but I hope you’ll give us a chance to explain. There’s a, um…there’s a chance that you and I could be brothers.”

  Mark Thomas looked hard at Ethan for a moment and then he took a step backward. “I think you’d better come inside.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  At least he hadn’t thrown them out, Aislinn thought a half hour later, after she and Ethan had told Dr. Mark Thomas everything that had led them to him. To be honest, they’d made such a mess of it that she was rather surprised he hadn’t called the authorities.

  “So let me get this straight,” he repeated slowly, the first time he had spoken in a while. “You—” he looked at Aislinn “—are a little bit psychic. And you got the feeling that Ethan’s brother was kidnapped thirty years ago.”

  Trying not to grimace at the way he made it sound, she nodded.

  “And you—” Mark turned to Ethan “—aren’t sure you believe in psychics, but because you believe in Aislinn, you were willing to come with her here.”

  Ethan glanced at Aislinn. “Something like that.”

  Mark pushed a hand through his hair in a gesture that reminded Aislinn very strongly of Ethan. He exhaled gustily. “I assume you know how crazy that sounds.”

  Ethan put a hand on Aislinn’s knee. “We try not to use the C word,” he murmured.

  She and Ethan sat side by side on a couch, while Mark faced them from a mismatched chair nearby. It was the only furniture in the room. There wasn’t even a table. She got the impression that he had only recently moved into this house and hadn’t yet gotten around to buying furnishings.

  Focusing on his face, she said quietly, “You wouldn’t have heard us out if you hadn’t had some reason to think we could be telling the truth.”

  He shook his head slowly. “I can hardly believe I’m even entertaining the possibility, but there are a few things that make me wonder….”

  “Such as?” Ethan asked, leaning forward a little on the couch.

  Mark looked back at him steadily. “I can see a resemblance,” he admitted. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t.”

  “What else?”

  He drew a slightly unsteady breath and nodded toward the drawing and the envelope in Aislinn’s hands. “That.”

  “You know who drew this?” Aislinn asked.

  “I’m not sure about that. But I know who mailed it.”

  “Who?” Ethan demanded tensely.

  Mark spread his hands. “I did.”

  Cassandra sat in her chair by the window, letting the late-afternoon sunlight wash over her. Her hands were folded in her lap, resting on the soft package she held there.

  A slight smile played on her lips. The peacefulness she felt inside her was new, something she’d never known in her footloose, rebellious life. It felt good to finally make amends for some of the mistakes she had made. To repay some of the kindnesses that had been shown to her during the past few years.

  She had brought a family back together. Something she had never been able to accomplish with her own. That had been as much her fault as anyone else’s, she admitted now.

  But she was most satisfied with the knowledge that Aislinn now had someone to believe in her. To accept her in a way that Cassandra herself had never been fully accepted. Someone dependable enough and strong enough to stay beside her, so she would never feel abandoned again.

  Maybe if Cassandra had found someone like that in her youth…

  But, no. It was too late for regrets now. She’d lived her life on her own terms, and despite the people she had hurt along the way, she knew there was no other path she could have taken. She was who she was. Who she had chosen to be. Maybe someday Aislinn would understand why it had had to be that way.

  Understand…and perhaps someday forgive.

  “My mother’s name was Carmen Thomas,” Mark said into the stunned silence that followed his announcement. “She told me my father was a soldier who died overseas. She said she had no family of her own and had never been accepted by his family. I never tried to find any of my father’s family because I didn’t want anything to do with people who had treated my mother badly. She raised me on her own in a little town in southern Georgia. Sometimes she worked two jobs at a time to support me.”

  He swallowed, his throat working with the force of it. “She was very shy. Didn’t socialize much. I was pretty much her whole world. She made sure I had everything I needed. Most of what I wanted, though there wasn’t a lot of extra money for luxuries. She made sure I made good grades in school, had friends and extracurricular activities to keep me out of trouble. She always wanted me to become a doctor.”

  “And you did,” Aislinn murmured.

  He nodded. “I went to medical school on loans that I’ve only recently finished paying back.”

  Again it was Aislinn who spoke, while Ethan digested what Mark was saying. “She must have been proud of you.”

  “She didn’t live to see it,” Mark answered dully. “She died the summer after I graduated from college. A car accident.”

  The irony of that didn’t escape any of them.

  “I’m sorry,” Aislinn told him. “You must have felt very much alone.”

  He nodded, seeming to appreciate that she understood. “Now you’re telling me that she wasn’t my mother at all. That she stole me from a loving family, faked her own death—and mine—and lived out the remainder of her life in hiding with me.”

  “That has to be a hard thing to hear.”

  “That’s an understatement,” he said on a long exhale. “I’m still not sure I believe it. Nothing about the shy, gentle woman who raised me would lead me to believe she was capable of doing something like that.”

  “I wouldn’t believe a couple of strangers who showed up with a story like that, either,” Ethan agreed. “My first thought would be that they were trying to pull some sort of scam on me. I’d demand proof. To be honest, I’m only now starting to believe you might really be Kyle. And before we go any further with this—before we tell anyone else—I think we should g
et that proof.”

  “DNA testing, you mean.”

  Ethan nodded. “I’ll give blood. Cheek swabs. Whatever it requires.”

  “So will I,” Mark said.

  But Aislinn thought she detected a note of resignation in his voice, as if he had already predicted the results of that testing. And his heart was aching despite the brave face he was putting on for them.

  “I still don’t understand about this drawing,” Ethan said with a frown. “You said you mailed it?”

  Drawing his attention back to the present, Mark nodded. “I’m an internist with a specialty in gerontology,” he explained. “The care facility where I’ve been practicing is filled with very wealthy people who expect regular, personalized care and can afford to pay for it. I’ve been paid well enough there to help me pay off my loans, though I’m planning to join a family-practice clinic in a few weeks.”

  He went on to tell them about a particularly intriguing patient there, a woman who never had visitors, whose past was a mystery to the entire staff but who had enough money to make their questions discreetly disappear.

  “She…sees things,” he added. “I don’t know how, but she’s told me things she couldn’t possibly have known. I tried not to think about it much, but I’ve always wondered about her. Anyway, a few days ago she asked me to mail an envelope for her, and I agreed. I didn’t know what was in it, but I recognize it as the one you’re holding. I remembered that it was addressed to someone in Arkansas and that she declined to put a return address on it.”

  “What’s her name?” Aislinn asked, holding her breath.

  He hesitated. “I’m not supposed to discuss details like that. Privacy is one of the primary rules of the facility. Not to mention the law when it comes to doctor-patient confidentiality.”

  “I’d say the circumstances warrant some leeway,” Ethan muttered.

  “Her name is Cassandra Jamison,” Mark revealed after another hesitation.

  It didn’t mean anything to either of them. But Aislinn had a feeling that it should. “How old is she?”

  Mark stood abruptly. “I think you should ask her these things yourself. I’ll take you to her and ask if she’ll talk to you.”

  Aislinn knew that Mark had quite a few questions he wanted to ask her himself. His life as he had known it had just been turned upside down—and he wanted some answers.

  Aislinn followed Mark and Ethan down the impeccably decorated hallways of the care facility, watching as various staff members nodded at Mark, showing little surprise at his unscheduled visit. She suspected that he had spent many hours with his patients here, that he was a dedicated doctor who took his work very seriously. It was just something she had sensed about him.

  She couldn’t help noticing how much he resembled Ethan. Their coloring. Their build. The way they walked. They would have their DNA tests, but as far as she was concerned, the answer was obvious.

  Nerves gripped her as they neared the room in which the mysterious Cassandra lived. Something told her that this woman was as important to her as she was to Ethan and Mark.

  A nurse flagged Mark down as he turned a corner. “Dr. Thomas,” she said in surprise. “I was just about to call you. Have you already heard about Mrs. Jamison?”

  Mark spun on one heel, while both Aislinn and Ethan went very still. The truth flooded Aislinn’s mind even before the nurse explained in response to Mark’s question. “She passed away a few hours ago. Dr. Marvin said it was her heart. She just…slipped away, sitting in her chair by the window.”

  It was at that moment that Aislinn realized who the woman who had called herself Cassandra had been.

  She must have made a sound. Ethan wrapped an arm around her shoulders, while Mark talked quietly with the nurse, asking questions in medical terms Aislinn didn’t completely understand. It didn’t matter, she thought as she leaned into Ethan’s strength. The end results were the same. Cassandra was gone.

  Mark turned back to Aislinn and Ethan, his eyes as tormented as Aislinn’s heart. “I don’t…this was unexpected,” he said, and she heard the self-blame in his voice. “She refused to go the hospital for tests, and I couldn’t force her, of course, but I would have tried if I’d had any idea….”

  “This wasn’t your fault,” Aislinn said firmly, stepping away from Ethan to rest a hand on Mark’s arm. “She didn’t want you to do anything.”

  He squeezed the back of his neck with one hand, unable to accept her exoneration yet.

  “Is there any way we can go into her room?” she asked him, knowing he would have to come to terms with this in his own way—just as she would.

  He nodded. “I’ll take you in. Let me get the key.”

  She didn’t know what strings he had to pull to accomplish that, but he was back a short while later, the key in his hand.

  The first thing they saw when they entered the room was the package on the dresser. It was wrapped in brown paper and had two words written in large letters on top. Staring at her own name, Aislinn put a hand to her throat.

  Mark was the first to move, picking up the package and staring down at it. “I think I know what this is,” he said, turning to hand it to Aislinn. “But maybe there are some answers inside, as well.”

  “Open it,” Ethan urged when Aislinn hesitated.

  Moistening her lips, she peeled the paper away to reveal a beautiful emerald-green sweater, hand-knitted in a luxuriously soft yarn. Mark nodded as if in confirmation of his guess as to the contents.

  She would ask him later how he had known, but her attention was drawn then to another white envelope. This one had been enclosed with the sweater. Her name was printed on the outside in the same handwriting that had been on the one that had held the drawing she’d received in the mail.

  Ethan and Mark stood nearby while Aislinn sank into a chair to draw out the three handwritten pages that had been enclosed in the envelope. They both waited while she began to read. She took her time about it, the moments ticking silently into minutes, but neither of them tried to rush her. They knew she would fill them in when she finished.

  Her hands were amazingly steady when she refolded the letter, though Ethan and Mark’s images swam through tears when she looked up at them. Ethan moved immediately to her side, setting a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “I will be.”

  “Was she…?”

  She nodded again. “She was my mother.”

  This time it was Mark who had to sit down, as if his knees had suddenly given out on him. He perched on the end of the bed while he absorbed this latest stunning revelation. “I don’t understand any of this,” he muttered.

  “I know what you mean,” his brother said, remaining close to Aislinn. “I’ve been feeling just the way you look for the past month.”

  Aislinn drew a deep breath. She kept her eyes on Mark as she began to speak, afraid that looking at Ethan just then would tip her over the edge of her self-control. “I’ll tell you about my mother later, but let’s just say she was a free spirit who changed her identity as often as some people swap cars. I never knew her. I was raised by my grandfather and my great-aunt.”

  He nodded to encourage her to continue.

  “According to this letter, she did a big favor for a woman thirty years ago. She regretted it soon afterward, but she didn’t know how to atone for her mistake, so she put it behind her, along with quite a few other bad choices she had made during the years. And then she met you, and when she realized who you were, she saw a chance to make things right.”

  “Your mother was the one who picked Carmen and Kyle up on the side of that road thirty years ago?” Ethan asked in dismay, leaping to the obvious conclusion.

  Aislinn nodded. “She was pretty vague about it in the letter, but apparently Carmen convinced her that Kyle was her son and that they were running from an abusive spouse. I don’t know how they met exactly, but they hadn’t known each other very long, apparently. They planned the whole thing in a bar. My m
other said she spent a lot of time in bars back then, using the alcohol people bought for her to dull her senses and mask her pain. Carmen must have bought her a lot of drinks.”

  “She believed that story about the abusive spouse?” Ethan asked.

  “She chose to believe it.” Aislinn was able to fill in some of the blanks on her own, from the messages she got while holding the pages. Messages that hadn’t been put into writing. “It seemed like a great adventure to her, and she liked the idea of herself as a rescuing heroine. She helped Carmen push her car off the side of the road and she drove her away. They drove for three days, until Carmen asked her to leave her and the baby on their own. Apparently Carmen had squirreled away enough money to set up housekeeping in a small town and begin a new life.

  “By that time, Mother knew something was wrong about the story she’d been told, but she was too absorbed with her own problems to stay around and try to find out. She said she told herself that Carmen was probably just taking you away from your father. A custody-battle thing. That was easier for her to justify than the truth.”

  “She knew she had helped to kidnap a child, but she did nothing about it?” Mark shook his head slowly. “That just doesn’t fit at all with the image of the woman I thought I knew here.”

  “I told you—she was very good at reinventing herself. Maybe the woman you knew wouldn’t have done anything like that. I think she tried to tell my grandfather what she’d done once, but they never communicated well. He misunderstood when she talked about a little boy she had abandoned. I guess she thought she was finally setting things right by sending me the drawing.”

  “But how?”

  “Some things are better left unasked,” Ethan advised glumly. “They defy explanation.”

  Aislinn couldn’t smile. Clearing her throat, she said, “I’ll let you read the letter for yourself, Mark, but she said to tell you she was sorry. She said the same to me, actually. She said she knows it will be difficult for all of us to come to terms with the past in regard to her, but she predicted we’ll all find happiness as a result of her intercession. She sounded rather pleased with herself. Maybe she was picturing herself as the heroine again.”