The Prodigal Cousin

But her image of Eliza left no room for such a mistake, and shock blunted her good intentions. “I can’t…I can’t believe you, of all people—”

“He’s my son.” Despair filled her mother’s voice instead of joy.

To Molly, Eliza had been the fairy godmother who’d spirited her out of life’s wreckage. Eliza Calvert had abandoned a child? Never.

A hint of distaste must have shown on Molly’s face, but she’d been an abandoned child herself. She couldn’t contain her feelings or stop herself from showing them.

Even as her mother pushed back from her, Molly found restraint. Whatever Eliza had done, Molly owed her for the only happiness she’d ever known. She had to let her mother explain.

Eliza’s cold hands felt devoid of life. Molly chafed them, dropping to her knees. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“You looked as if you hated me.”

Molly swallowed tears. “I’m scared.” Who knew what came next?

“I didn’t want to give him up. He’s my child—just as you are. But I didn’t know how to give him a life. Please understand.”

“I do.” She couldn’t imagine being able to make the same decision, but this was her turn to give back a little of the support she counted on from her mom. “But why are you sad? I’d give anything to have a second chance with the child I lost.”

Hope entered her mother’s eyes as Molly fought the innate dread of what Sam’s prodigal homecoming meant for her. He was her mom’s real son, born of her body. Her natural child, as Molly never could be. And he’d brought her Tamsin and Nina. Molly would never give her parents grandchildren.

“Can you forgive me this easily?” With a quiver in her voice, Eliza sounded as frightened as Molly had ever been. “Or are you turning yourself into the family protector again?”

“Do you know what I owe you?” Molly continued rubbing her mom’s hands. “I carry my past like a lead weight. I’ll never have anything to forgive you for.”

Her mother’s astonishment surprised Molly. “I don’t want you to forgive me because of some imaginary debt,” Eliza said. “And I thought we didn’t worry about your past anymore.”

Molly shrugged. “I don’t talk about it because you want me to forget, but some of my decisions don’t seem forgivable.”

“Is that how you see me?”

She shook her head, loyalty adding emphasis to her denial. The somewhat terrifying news that Sam belonged to her mom didn’t make Eliza any less of a good and loving mother. “What happened?” Molly asked.

“I wish your father had waited for an explanation.” She pulled one hand free to cover her mouth. Over her fingers and her wedding ring, her eyes looked blacker than ever.

“Last night Sam’s eyes reminded me of yours.” Molly patted her mother’s other hand and let her go. “Don’t worry, Mom. Dad’s probably stunned.”

“I have to tell you—he walked out on me.”

The room began a slow whirl. It was the one possibility she couldn’t bear. “No.” She searched in frightening darkness for comforting words. “You know Dad. He has to deliberate, but he loves you. He’ll walk right back in, ready to listen.”

Tears glittered in her mother’s eyes, brighter than the burnished gold of her wedding band. “A woman who can hold such harmful grudges against herself shouldn’t be able to believe the best of someone else.”

“I haven’t lived with you and Dad for seventeen years without getting to know you.”

“You can’t say that about me now.”

“I am surprised.” She pictured Sam, tall and lean and dark. The widowed father of two children. No one’s idea of a brand-new son. “What does he want? Why did he come?” Then she remembered what he’d said about his wife and parents. “He’s worried about Tamsin and Nina,” she said. “He wants us to be their family.”

Her mother scooted the small chair back and stood. “How did you guess?”

Molly returned to gathering balloon detritus. “I’d feel the same.” She shuddered, thinking of Tamsin and Nina being alone as she had been until Eliza Calvert had discovered the truth about her. “Was he adopted at birth?”

“Yes. I agreed not to get in touch with his family and I never learned their names.” Her mother plucked a ragged blue strip of balloon off the floor and passed it to Molly with an absent smile. “Can you be his sister? I think he needs us, Molly. He needs our normality.”

His sister? The idea repelled her. “I’m twenty-five—too old for a brother.” She’d never think of Sam as a brother.

“I don’t see why.”

Then Eliza hadn’t taken a good look at Sam last night. Molly gnawed the inside of her lower lip. She hadn’t noticed Sam for his fraternal qualities, and she couldn’t look at him that way now. Not even for her mom. “I’ll do my part.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.” Her mother knelt to pull a tangle of balloon bits from under a group of four desks pushed together. “You want to hold back, but our new family won’t work unless you accept him and the girls.”

“I don’t even have to think about accepting them.” She’d welcome Jack the Ripper if her mother asked her to. “But one big happy family? Sam, as a brother, seems odd to me.”

Eliza curved her hands around Molly’s wrists. “I need you to try. You are his sister now.”

Desperation in her mother’s tone and fingers made Molly smile without responding to her demands. “What about Dad?”

“I don’t know.” Eliza sank onto one of the desks. “He said he doesn’t know me, and I got the feeling he might not want to.”

“After he understands, he’ll bend over backward.” Molly dropped the balloon bits into the garbage can. “He already learned to love me because of you. He knows how this works.”

“Are you crazy?” Eliza snorted, the only unladylike sound she’d ever made, and Molly couldn’t help laughing. Her mom took Molly’s shoulders in her hands. “No one learned to love you. Your father and I couldn’t love you more if we’d brought you home from the hospital the day you were born, as I wish I could have done with both my children.”

Staring into her mother’s eyes, Molly longed to believe, without doubt, just once in her life. Words were so easy to say. Bonnie, who’d abandoned her in every way a human being could abandon her child, had said words like that. But now, as then, words weren’t enough.

Molly’s inability to trust gave her sympathy for her adoptive father. A firm defender of justice, he might not know how to stop feeling betrayed.

But she hugged her mom. “Why don’t we ask the girls and Sam to come apple-picking this weekend?” Honestly, it was the last thing she wanted. Apple-picking at Gran’s was her favorite family gathering, and she was childishly unwilling to share.

Her dad and Zach always fired up the deep fryer for apple fritters. Her mom and Aunt Beth and Grandpa led the smaller children in a pagan march of gratitude among the fruit-laden trees. Best of all, everyone shouted gossip and news between the heavy branches and then ate potluck lunch until they slumped to the ground, overfull of good food and family feeling.

Three more pickers would lose themselves among the teeming Calverts. Sam and Tamsin and Nina couldn’t ask for a less stressful introduction to their new family.

Eliza’s grateful tears made Molly both proud and guilty. Her mom hugged her again—a quick squeeze that reminded Molly that Sam might have a place in her mother’s heart, but she owned a corner already.

“Thanks, honey. I knew I could count on you.”

Smiling hurt, but for her mom’s sake Molly had to welcome Sam into her territory.

“DAD, I think Mr. Calvert’s leaving.”

As Tamsin opened the door, Sam looked up, and the ball he and Nina had been tossing hit him in the knees. Nina collapsed in giggles.

“Why do you say that?”

“I was reading on a bench in the square, and I saw him pack his car and drive off.”

Sam stared at her. First, she hadn’t asked if she could leave the Dogwood. Second, she should have told him about Patrick before he’d driven away. Last, Sam had managed to ruin Eliza’s marriage, the last thing he’d meant to do. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this. He’s really gone?” Sam asked.

“Yeah.”

“Have you seen Eliza?”

“No. I was surprised she wasn’t with him.”

“Where’s Mr. Patrick going?” Nina asked.

“I don’t know, sweetie. Tamsin, why didn’t you tell me when you saw him packing?”

“I’m not his keeper.” Tamsin looked blank.

Annoying, but she was right. Keeping up with Patrick Calvert after her own father had ruined the man’s life wasn’t her responsibility. “Will you look after Nina?”

“If I don’t have to drink fake tea with that lizard and Judy.”

“Ooh, tea.” Nina danced toward her sister. “Let’s play tea party. I’ll go get everyone.”

“Yeah,” Tamsin said, meaning the opposite. She scooped the ball off the ground and tossed it at her sister. “Let’s play with this.”

“Nina, play catch with Tamsin, or maybe try out the swings over in the side yard.” Sam withstood a wave of guilt. He couldn’t take back the truth now, but he hadn’t meant to hurt Eliza or her family. A vision of Molly flashed in his mind. His guilt doubled. “I won’t be gone long, Tamsin. I just want to find Eliza.”

“All right, but she may want to be alone.”

Naturally, his daughter considered him to be the most inept human being ever called upon to offer comfort. He’d done her little good over the past year and a half.

He punched a small, silver bell on the reception desk. No one came. He called Eliza’s name. Tapping the scarred, polished wood, he waited a minute or so.

Finally, he circled the desk and opened the door behind it. The dark hall was empty. He’d almost hoped Eliza would be hiding there, reluctant to talk.

“Eliza?” The hall emptied into the wide kitchen, which didn’t feel half as welcoming without his birth mother and his daughters there. And Molly, but he could hardly bear to think of what he’d done to her.

Molly might try to look hard, but she hadn’t been able to conceal her tenderness with Nina or her concern for Tamsin last night.

He turned toward the stairs. Somewhere up there lay his birth mother’s room, but he had no right to climb those stairs uninvited.

He’d caused the havoc in this home, and he should try to fix it if he could. Forcing himself up the stairs, he wondered what to say if he found Eliza.

He knocked on the first two doors. Silence met him.

At the third door, he knocked again and Eliza immediately opened it.

“He’s my son. I have nothing else to say, Pat—” She backed up, her eyes red from crying. She pushed her fingers beneath each eye and looked away. “Oh. I thought you were my husband.”

“He left you?”

“Wouldn’t you if you found out your wife had lied to you the whole time you’d known her?”

“What do you mean?”

“I never told him about you.”

He understood. Fiona had lied at first. She’d thought he wouldn’t want to date her if he knew about the condition that had prompted so many prospective parents to leave her at the orphanage. But he’d fallen in love with her.

He managed a hesitant smile. “I’d forgive her once she explained.”

Eliza turned, covering her eyes again. “I’m sorry. This isn’t your problem.”

“It is. I came hoping Tamsin and Nina might be part of a family, but if I’ve already ruined yours, I’ll leave.”

“You won’t.” Eliza turned. “Now that I know about you, you aren’t going anywhere and you aren’t taking my granddaughters.” He must have looked startled, because she laughed at his expression. “I don’t make the same mistake twice, Sam.”

“I have a conscience.”

“So do I.”

Her conscience made his decision harder. “I don’t want to stay because you feel you should make up for the past.” He straightened. “I had a good life.”

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