Reunited for the Holidays

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“Mom, you look upset.” Violet took her hand again and squeezed.

“The doctor said you aren’t supposed to be stressed.” Maddie frowned, taking her other hand. “Dad, what’s got her so worked up?”

Belle shook her head. See how the man made her crazy? He’d always stirred her up, messed with her normally logical mind and turned everything on end. It wasn’t that they were arguing, exactly. She laughed at herself. Some things never changed. “Fine, Brian, you go first.”

Across the table, the man arched one brow as if to ask if she was sure. She nodded, nerves prickling. This looked important to him. She wanted to be the one to tell the truth, the truth her children had been asking about for a long time. Brian hadn’t been there, he hadn’t been involved, but she wanted peace between them. Leave the arguments and the fighting in the past where it belonged. As if he could see all that in her eyes, he drew in a breath, straightened his spine and looked around the table at each child, now an adult, the sadness in his gaze strong enough to dilute the shining sun.

“Twenty-five years ago your mother and I divorced. We’d married young while we were still in high school, and this may come as a shock to you but we had to get married. That was my fault, and mine alone. This was before both Belle and I were Christians.”

Brian’s sincerity rumbled in deep, low notes. “I won’t lie to you, it was tough being married that young. We had school to finish, and then your mother chose to drop out when the boys were born. That wasn’t an easy sacrifice. I almost did, too, because juggling full-time work was too much, but your mother encouraged me to hang in there.”

“You had dreams, Brian.” It hurt to remember the young man he’d been, the integrity that had always been a part of him. Insisting he had to marry her, struggling as hard as he knew how to be a good husband to her and a proud father. Why did it hurt to remember the good as much as it did the bad? “You’d always wanted to be a doctor since you were a little boy.”

“Yes, but I didn’t want it to cost me my other dreams.” He swallowed hard, telling her something she’d never guessed. Maybe being a father and a husband had been dreams of his, too.

And not something he’d been forced into. Tears burned behind her eyes and she blinked hard, refusing to let them fall, refusing to let him see.

“But it was too much. We couldn’t make our marriage work. I’m sorry.” Brian’s baritone dipped. “Your mother and I tried as hard as we knew how. We both gave it everything we had. Everything.”

“We did.” The wrenching fights, the tears after, the knowledge that they were failing at the single most important job in their lives—as married parents of their beloved double set of twins. Stubborn tears filled her eyes, but she held Brian’s gaze through the blur of them. No way could she let him take the sole blame for this. “I was the one who asked you to leave, Brian. I was the one who quit on you. I just couldn’t take you so unhappy, and then it happened.”

“I know.” Although he was at the other end of the table, his compassion bridged the distance between them. “I thought the same thing. I always figured we’d find our way back to each other and then—”

“The Witness Protection Program.” The words tumbled off her tongue. “If I hadn’t left the doctor’s office at that exact moment, then we never would have left.”

“It’s not your fault, Belle. It’s the way things happened, that’s all.” Brian sounded as if he had no doubt. “I never blamed you for that. I admired you for having the strength and the guts to testify.”

“You d-did?” She hated how her voice wobbled, betraying her. Lord help her, because Brian’s opinion of her still mattered. She hadn’t realized how much.

“Uh, Mom,” Jack spoke, surprising her. She blinked, realizing she’d forgotten she and Brian were not alone, that they were being watched like leads in a Broadway play, their audience enthralled. “Did you say the Witness Protection Program?”

“Yes.” The words felt torn out of her. “That’s why we left your father, Maddie and Grayson behind. The three of us were taken into protective custody. We were never meant to meet again.”

Chapter Four

“You mean we were in witness protection all this time?”

“But why?”

“How did that happen?”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

The questions erupted all at once, echoing around the sunroom and bouncing off the glass ceiling, but the regal and lovely woman across the table held his attention like no other. Belle sat tall and strong, folded her slim hands and let the questions roll over her. Gratitude shone quietly in the dark depths of her unguarded eyes. For an instant he saw both the woman he’d loved—the young Isabella full of life and spirit—and this newer Belle, seasoned and confident. Both intrigued him. Both touched him.

“We were sworn not to tell.” He spoke above the chaos of questions from their children, his gaze never wavering from Belle’s.

The twins fell silent, although the room echoed with their frustrations and curiosity.

“It was the only way,” he assured them. “Your mother witnessed a murder. She had Violet in her arms and Jack in a stroller. They were all in terrible danger. The thought of anything happening to you two—”

He stopped before his voice could break and betray him, his walls went up and he shut down the emotion before it surfaced. Just like he always did, he realized. Force of habit and one habit he had to break.

He gritted his teeth, took down his defenses and felt the terror of that long-ago time. “All I could think about was that man or his fellow drug dealers coming to gun you down, little Laurel and Tanner and my Isabella.”

“Dad, that had to have been horrible to go through.” Grayson patted him on the shoulder, the beloved son he’d had the privilege to raise. “Not knowing if they would ever be safe.”

“That’s why I testified.” Belle appeared a little shell-shocked, perhaps she’d realized what he’d tried to tell her. Although they were divorced, at that time, he’d still thought of her as his Isabella. “Witness protection meant safety.”

“But what happened exactly?” Violet wanted to know.

“You and Jack had awful earaches—I’d been up all night walking the floor with both of you,” Belle answered. “Our pediatrician squeezed you into her schedule, and I was on my way to the car when I heard the shot. I turned toward the sound and there he was standing in the alley with a dead man at his feet.”

“You had to be terrified, Mom.” Maddie took her hand.

“Petrified. Literally, since I couldn’t move. For an instant, I couldn’t believe what I saw. I just stared at the man, the murderer. It was like something out of someone else’s life.” Belle’s gentle face twisted with agony. “Then he pointed the gun at me.”

“He tried to shoot you?” Jack bit out.

“He aimed, and all I could think about were my precious babies. I had to keep you safe.” Conviction rang in her soft voice. “I got us away from there as fast as I could, although how was a mystery. I shook so hard, I could hardly run. I dashed back into the doctor’s office, fearing all the while the murderer would follow us in and finish the job. That fear haunted me until the police arrived.”

“And from there it happened so fast.” Brian took over the story. “The marshals whisked the three of you away...we hardly had time to really say goodbye.”

“There were a lot of things I meant to say and couldn’t,” Belle confessed, as if they were the only two in the room. “I’m so sorry, Brian. I hope you know—”

“I know.” Solemn, understanding, the low notes in his words held the ring of truth. “It was a long time ago. We just weren’t meant to be.”

“Exactly.” It was a hard truth to face. A lifetime separated her from Brian. Their divorce was so very long ago, making them both different people now.

“I don’t understand.” Violet spoke up, ripping Belle out of her thoughts. She realized all five children watched her breathlessly.

“It’s a lot of information all at once.” Her palms went damp and she gave a little push away from the table. Why was she trembling? Because the whole truth wasn’t out there. She’d kept a piece of it back. Not wanting to talk about it, she gestured toward the food. “No one’s eating. Lupita’s feelings will be hurt. You know the pride she takes in her cooking.”

“So this was what you were keeping from us all along?” Jack’s handsome face compressed into hard lines. “Every time I asked about our father. Every time you refused. You could have told us the truth. All you had to do was to say we were in the Witness Protection Program.”

“You could have told us, Dad.” Maddie’s gentle chiding felt like the first tumble of an avalanche before it crashed down a mountain and destroyed everything.

What if the twins couldn’t understand? Belle worried. What if they blamed her?

They wouldn’t be wrong to do so. She steeled her spine, determined to face the consequences of her long-ago decisions. Consequences she knew would hurt if they ever came to light.

“Yeah, Dad, at least we would have known,” Grayson chimed in. “You let us believe Sharla was our real mother.”

“You were so young, too young to understand, don’t you see?” Brian stood up, towering above them. His dark hair tumbled over his forehead as he surveyed each child. “It was hard for me to look at you every day and realize your twin was out there somewhere in the world and not knowing where. I wanted to tell you, but Violet and Jack were witnesses, too, and safer with your mother if nobody knew. It was a decision we made out of love, you have to understand that.”

Thank you. Belle thought the words, and although she didn’t say them, she knew Brian heard them.

“We get it.” Jack spoke first. “But we aren’t children anymore, Mom. You could have told me all about this. Or do you think I wouldn’t have understood?”

“I was afraid you would try to find your father and your twin.” She squeezed Maddie’s hand and then Violet’s. Did the girls know how much she loved them? “I couldn’t risk your safety. When we moved back to Texas from Washington State, I figured we were all right as long as we kept the past buried.”

“But I unearthed it,” Maddie chimed in. “And I’m not sorry we found each other, Violet.”

“Me, either,” Violet seconded, sharing a look with her twin.

It did Belle’s heart good to see the girls together. And the boys—so responsible and capable and, when she glanced at Jack’s face, so gloomy. Yes, it was time to be fully honest. “In truth, I feared you might blame me for taking you away.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Carter spoke up. She loved that boy, too. She’d only known him a short time, but he’d already made a lasting impression on her heart. In many ways, he reminded her so much of his father. “You did what you had to do. Sometimes that’s the way life is. You made the best of a bad situation. You moved away from Dad. You kept everyone safe. It couldn’t have been easy to leave your kids behind.”

Yes, she definitely loved that boy. “It killed me. I’m so sorry, Maddie. Grayson. Having to leave you was the hardest thing I’d ever done.”

“Why didn’t you take us with you?” A muscle jumped along Grayson’s jawline. “You could have done it. You took two kids into witness protection. Two more wouldn’t have been difficult.”

“Yes, Mom. Why did you go without us?” A flash of pain misted Maddie’s eyes.

Belle’s undoing. Tears rose in a burning lump in her throat, and she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t answer because how could they understand? What if they turned away from her? What if she lost them again? She didn’t think she could take it.

“She left you behind because I loved you both so much,” Brian answered. “When our marriage failed, your mother knew how devastated I was, because she was just as devastated. I’d lost too much. I couldn’t bear to lose all of my children, as well. Your mother suggested this solution.” He breathed deeply. “That’s Belle, that’s who she is. You don’t blame her. If you have to be angry at someone, then you’re angry at me. Got it?”

“We got it, Dad.” Grayson’s answer resonated low and deep.

“Yes, Dad,” Maddie answered.

“No wonder you were always so sad, Mom.” Violet’s grip tightened around her fingers. “You tried to hide it, but sometimes at night when I’d get up to get a drink of water, I’d see you sitting alone in the shadows.”

“I hate it if I made it harder for you, Mom.” Jack’s apology sounded torn from him. “I wish I’d known. I never would have argued with you, you never would have fallen off the horse—”

“I should have trusted you with the truth, both of you.” She could see that now. “It was too dangerous, and it hurt too much to look at what I’d lost. Going forward and keeping the past where it belonged was safer.”

“And now look where that has brought us.” Brian’s words snared her attention. “Together again. Your mother’s right. Lupita went to a lot of trouble to pack this lunch, so we’d better enjoy it. Eat up. Don’t worry...everything is going to be all right. I’ll make sure of it.”

The surge of gratitude rippled through her. Brian was a man of his word, she knew. He’d do his best to make sure their children were safe. Somewhere out there was David Johnson, the man who’d threatened her in the courtroom, the man who had mercilessly committed murder in cold blood and could have killed Belle and maybe Jack and Violet, too.

Wherever he is, keep him away from my children, Lord, please. No matter what, keep them safe. She sent the silent prayer heavenward as the conversation turned to the latest news at the ranch—apparently the hired hand Emmett Potter and Lupita’s niece Carolyn were still dating. Belle smiled, glad to still be in the loop with things at home. After telling the truth, her children were still here, lovingly gathered around her and in no small part due to Brian. She owed him for that. Huge. Big-time. He really had grown into the man she’d always known he would be.

* * *

“Thanks, Doctor.” Brian glanced over his shoulder down the hall of Ranchland Manor, distracted by the echo of laughter from Belle’s room. Sounded like the kids were having a good time saying their goodbyes. He turned his attention back to Belle’s doctor. “I appreciate your time.”

“No problem. I’ll take your recommendation into consideration.” Doc Garth flipped through Belle’s chart. “I can’t say I haven’t been tempted. She’s one of the most motivated patients I’ve seen.”

“That’s Belle.” Wistfulness ached in his chest. The two of them weren’t meant to be—he knew that—but he respected her. He wanted to help her. “She may recover more completely at home. It’s not as if she’s lacking in people to care for her there.”