Chapter 2

Kendall stiffened and blanched. Zach’s expression, as usual, was unreadable. A shocked silence fell over the room, broken only by the soft, rhythmic sound of Spike sucking on his pacifier in his sleep. No one spoke for what seemed an eternity.

“Your father…” Zach finally started, breaking the silence.

“Was Michael Cambias,” Leah finished quietly, looking him in the eye. “Your brother, if I’m not mistaken.”

Kendall and Zach looked at each other, not knowing what to say or what to do. Michael Cambias was a name that was not often mentioned in Pine Valley, and never with fondness or joy. Michael was an evil monster who left nothing but destruction in his wake. Nothing, that is, but the one good thing for which he was responsible: his and Kendall’s sister, Bianca’s, sweet, beautiful daughter, Miranda Montgomery. Even that, though, had been tainted with the foulest stench possible, for Miranda was a product of rape, a vile, ugly act that had taken place several years ago when Michael, blind with hatred and out for vengeance on the Kane women, had forced himself on a young, unprotected Bianca during a raging thunderstorm one July night.

Zach answered evenly. “Michael. He was my brother, yes, although, as you can see, I no longer claim the Cambias name. How do you know he was your father?”

“I have a copy of my birth certificate. Here, look for yourself.” She fumbled through her bag and removed a folded document. Handing it to Zach, she watched and waited while he and Kendall studied it before handing it back to her. “The records were sealed until I turned 18, but I was able to access them after that. My mother, my birth mother, that is, named him as the father.”

“Excuse me for a minute,” he said. Kendall had sunk into the chair Zach had occupied only moments before. Her hand was gripping the arm of the chair and twisting, as if she was trying to break a piece of it off. “I’ll be right back,” he whispered to her, taking the baby and leaving the room. He returned shortly without Spike. “Rachel’s watching him,” he said. He took up his position behind Kendall, his hands trying to calm her, kneading her shoulders gently. “Why don’t you tell us what you know,” he said to Leah.

She took a deep breath and began. “I didn’t find out I was adopted until I was a teenager. My parents never seemed to think I needed to know. But I knew, anyway. It was as if I’d always known somehow, as if I didn’t belong there, as if my home was somewhere else and my true family was out there, just waiting for me to be returned to them.” Her eyes dropped and she blushed. “I know that sounds really weird…”

“Like a stolen princess…,” Kendall said faintly, almost to herself.

“Yeah, like that.” Leah looked at her, wondering where that had come from, and continued. “When I did finally find out that I was adopted, my parents wanted me to have nothing to do with finding my birth family. They wouldn’t talk about them, answer my questions, or let me access my birth records. But when I turned 18, they had no say over it anymore and I petitioned to have my records unsealed. I got the birth certificate and some medical information about my mother, but that was about it.

“I held on to what I had for a long time, just trying to decide what to do with the information. I wanted to meet my family, but I was scared, afraid they wouldn’t want me. I finally got up the nerve and started with my mother’s family.”

“Who is your birth mother?” Zach asked, trying to get a handle on what she was telling them.

“Was. She’s dead. Her name was Grace Walsh. She worked for Cambias Industries. She was a secretary or receptionist or something. That’s where she met my—Michael. Apparently they started going out but something separated them, because by the time I was born, he was out of the picture. I don’t know what happened between them. My mother must have given me up for adoption since she couldn’t raise me on her own.”

“When was that?” Zach asked. Alexander Cambias Jr. had “died,” becoming Zach Slater, with the help of his brother, in the mid-1980s. Zach wondered if he had been around at the time Michael was allegedly going out with this Grace.

“I was born in April 1986, which means they were dating sometime in the summer of 1985. Grace was pretty young—only 17—when I was born.”

“Michael would have been about the same age,” Zach said quietly. He went to the bar and poured himself a drink—Scotch, a double—and tossed it down. He spread his arms, placing both hands on the edge of the bar, still holding his glass, and dropped his head, his mind drifting back more than twenty years to the last time he had seen his brother. Michael had been in boarding school at the time and Alexander Cambias, Jr., wanting to escape his father’s tyranny, had gone to visit him, seeking Michael’s help in faking his own death. If Leah’s story were true, this would all have taken place the summer after Zach left. Shaking away the memory, he took a deep breath and exhaled, finally turning back, ready to hear more.

“So, when you met Grace’s family, what happened?”

“They wanted nothing to do with me. When I told them who I was, they only said, ‘Grace is dead. Leave us alone,’ and slammed the door in my face. I tried calling a couple of times but they only hung up on me. For whatever reason—maybe I bring back bad memories, or they are trying to bury something, or they are just heartless, cruel people. I never got the chance to find out.”

Kendall said nothing, her eyes staring off into the distance. She looked as if she was not really listening, but she was taking in every word, and her resentment was growing. It had taken a long time, but she had finally been able to forget the pain evoked by the man’s name: the pain of being used, conspired against, lied to, and abused; the pain her sister and her mother had gone through at his hands. She had finally found happiness and peace in her family, Zach and Spike, Erica and Bianca, and she was moving forward with life, a life that had started anew only a few short months ago. There would be no more looking back once this trial was done, she had vowed, and now, here was this person, dredging up the ghosts of Cambias from the past, ghosts that would haunt both herself and her husband, ghosts that she wanted her son to have no part of.

She stood, and when she spoke, her voice was cold. “You only have a dead woman’s word that Mi—that man—was your father. She could have put anyone’s name on that birth certificate, yet she chose the boss’s son, the Cambias heir. There are lots of reasons she could have done that, and only one of them is that she thought he was your father.” Kendall’s was angry and determined. She had failed to protect Bianca after what that monster had done to her; she would protect her family from him now, even if it was only his memory, if it was the last thing she did. “How dare you? Do you know what you are saying? Do you know who you are talking about? ” Kendall’s eyes were piercing and she clenched her hands to keep them from trembling. “What is it that you want from us? From my husband?”

“Kendall.” Zach’s voice was calm and even. She sank back into the chair.

There was silence. “Look,” Leah said at last. “I don’t want to intrude on your lives. I’m not looking for a new family to take me in and accept me as one of them. My experience with the Walsh’s taught me that that is just a pipe dream. All I want is some answers and I’ll leave you alone. I promise.”

“What kind of answers?” Zach asked.

“Mr. Slater, I did my research before coming here. I know a bit about how my father—Michael—died, why he died. I don’t want to bring up old memories for you. I just want to know for sure that he is my father. I don’t know why it’s important to me, but it is. Just to give me some sort of closure or completeness. Can you understand that?”

Kendall understood, but she wasn’t about to admit it.

“Just a simple DNA test, that’s all. Just to prove who I am. I don’t want the Cambias name or the Cambias money; I just want to know for myself, for my own peace of mind.”

Neither Zach nor Kendall answered her. The silence grew more awkward. “Look, I’ll be around for a week or so, and then I’ll be heading back home. I’m staying at the Pine Cone Motel if you decide to go along with it and want to reach me, and here’s my home address if you want to contact me later. I’m in college and classes start in a few weeks, so I’ll be going back for that. And like I said, I don’t want anything else from you. Nothing but peace of mind.”

“Don’t be so sure that knowing the truth will bring you peace of mind,” Zach cautioned. “Some things are better left as they are.” His eyes met Leah’s again and tried to tell her not to pursue this line of inquiry. It would only lead to pain: either Michael was not her father and she would be left without a family, or he was her father and she would be left with something far worse than no family: the Cambias legacy. Either way, there was no way for her to win.

“Thank you for not slamming the door in my face, anyway,” she said, rising. “It was nice meeting you both. And your adorable son. Thank you for your time.” Leah hurried to the door and closed it quietly behind her before either Zach or Kendall realized she was leaving.

Zach knelt before his still ashen wife. “Are you okay?” he asked taking her hands in his. Kendall’s history with Michael was deep and dark, and Zach knew all too well the memories Leah’s revelation would have opened up within her.

But Kendall nodded and whispered, “I’m fine. It was a shock, that’s all. How about you? Are you okay? He was your brother, after all.” Zach lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them while he thought about how to answer her question.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I have so many mixed feelings about Michael—who he was, who he became, what he did for me, what he did to you and Bianca. The Michael I knew and the one you knew…it’s hard to put those things into neat little compartments. And this adds a whole new layer to it all. I don’t really know what I feel.”

“How dare she bring him up? How dare she use that name to get whatever it is she wants from us—from you. You don’t believe her, do you?” Kendall asked.

Zach shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s possible, even plausible. But I do know one thing. I’m going to make sure her story checks out before I do anything else.”

**********

“I’m gonna find you—I know where you’re hiding,” the rasping whisper taunted, moving toward him. Peeking through the leaves, the boy saw his pursuer moving stealthily closer and closer to his hiding place where he cowered under the bush, heart racing, trying to still his breathing so as not to make a sound. He had been in his cramped position long enough for his foot to have fallen asleep, and he wiggled his toes inside his shoe to wake it back up. Peering through the branches again, he tried to gauge the perfect time to make a run for it.

Without taking his eyes off his pursuer, the boy grappled on the ground for a small rock, a stick, a pebble, anything to use as a distraction. His trembling fingers closed around a golf ball-sized rock and he reached back and hurled it as far away from him as he could. The hunter stopped and turned in the direction of the sound of the rock falling into the bushes a dozen yards away, and moved off after his quarry. When the boy judged that the other one had moved far enough away, he crept around the far side of the bush, slowly stood up, and started running as fast as he could across the open field. With a start, the pursuer turned and shouted, taking off after him. Faster and faster the boy ran, almost within reach of safety, when his foot started tingling, coming back to life, as the blood started flowing into it again. He looked over his shoulder. “Run, Alex, run!” he urged himself on. “You can make it!” he thought triumphantly, lunging toward safety, when his foot hit a bump and he tumbled, in slow motion, fell and rolled on the grass as his pursuer, a boy smaller than himself, fell on top of him and rolled with him.

“Gotcha, Alex!” the younger boy’s delighted voice rang out.

Alex wrapped his arms around his little brother. “Yeah, you got me this time, Mikey. But if I hadn’t tripped…”

The two boys, constant companions, rolled on the ground, wrestling in play, laughing and carefree until a man’s booming voice called across the grounds. “Alexander! Alexander Cambias Jr., where are you? It’s time to go. The driver is waiting for us.”

They looked at each other and their smiles suddenly disappeared.

“It’s father,” Mikey whispered. “He doesn’t sound happy.”

“He never sounds happy. Don’t worry. It’ll be alright.” Alexander Cambias Sr. strode purposefully across the lawn to his two boys and stood towering before them, hands on his hips.

“Alexander,” he scolded, “what have you been doing? You were supposed to be waiting for me so we can leave for Cambias and here you are…playing? Look at you—you’re filthy! I can’t take you to the office looking like that. You have five minutes. Go change.”

“Dad, do I have to go? Mike and I were—”

Alexander Sr. put his hand on his eldest son’s shoulder and looked down at him. “Alexander, you are going to be running Cambias one of these days, and you have to start learning how sooner or later. It might as well be now. There’s a board meeting in less than an hour, and I want you to be part of it, see how I handle the board of directors. You will learn a lot just from watching me. So get going, and hurry up.”

“What about Mikey? Can’t he come, too?”

“Michael is not going to run Cambias; you are. He can stay here and get dirty if he wants. I don’t care.”

“But who will play with him when I’m gone?”

Alexander, who had started to walk away, looked as if he wasn’t going to bother answering, but he said brusquely, “Cook will be here.”

Michael piped up “Cook’s no fun. She doesn’t play. All she does is say, ‘Hush, be quiet,’ and do work. I want Alex to stay with me.”

Alexander turned on his youngest son. “I will decide who goes where and who does what in this household. Alexander is coming with me. You are staying here.” He turned to Alex and repeated, “Five minutes. Don’t keep me waiting.” Without waiting for an answer, Alexander Cambias Sr. marched back across the yard and slipped into the waiting car.

“Sorry, Mikey. I don’t want to go. I’d rather stay here with you. But I have to.” Alex looked wistfully back into the garden where they had been playing a few short minutes ago. “When I get home…then we can play more. Okay?”

“Okay,” Mike answered.

A few minutes later, a newly cleaned and freshly dressed Alex, ensconced in the back of the car with his father, turned and looked out the window, waving good-bye to his brother, who got smaller and smaller as the car pulled away, until, at last, he was gone.

**********

“Zach? Are you alright?” Kendall’s words and her cool hand on his face woke her husband from his sleep.

“Huh? What is it?” he asked groggily. She was sitting on the side of the bed next to him, having just returned from Spike’s 3:00 A.M. feeding.

“You were tossing and turning, and look at you, you’re flushed and warm.” Even in the moonlight she could see that. “What were you dreaming about?”

Zach willed himself awake. Images flashed through his head, but they were nothing he wanted to remember. He looked at his wife. Bathed in moonlight like she was, she looked beautiful. This was his life, his reality, not the other.

“Nothing. I don’t remember,” he said. “Come back to bed.” He pulled his wife into his arms and snuggled down into the tangled pillows and blankets with her. Yawning, she curled herself into him and soon drifted off to sleep, smiling contentedly. Zach, however, couldn’t sleep, and spent much of the rest of the night staring beyond her, out into space, trying not to think.

Chapter 12

Late Saturday morning, Kendall rolled over and sleepily reached for her husband. Hmm. Opening one eye and then the other, she pouted, seeing that he was not there. She was debating whether or not to get up and go look for him or just go take a shower, when the door opened. Zach entered carrying a tray of juice, croissants, and fruit.

“My hero,” she sighed at the sight of him. She was glad to see he was not fully dressed either, having just thrown on some sweats and a pullover for the trip downstairs. That was the drawback to having a live-in housekeeper and nanny—Kendall couldn’t watch her ravishingly sexy husband walk around the house naked anymore. She made a mental note to remember to give the help weekends off.

“Good morning,” he purred, leaning down to kiss her. “Hungry?”

Her eyes traveled up and down his body. She smiled and licked her lips. “Starved. What’s for breakfast?”

He set the tray down on the nightstand and slid into bed next to her. “First course or second course?” he murmured, teasing, in her ear.

Kendall ran her hands up and down his chest. “First and second,” she whispered back as their lips met again. Breaking away a few moments later, Kendall looked at him, all seriousness returning to her face and said, “Thank you.”

“Thank you? For what? Breakfast?” He sounded surprised. “It was nothing. You’ll notice I didn’t even cook anything.”

She laced her fingers in his and lifted his hand to her cheek. “No. Thank you for talking to me last night, for telling me what was on your mind. I need you to do that.” Running his finger along the side of her face, he gazed into her eyes. His heart thumped heavily just looking at her, so vulnerable, soft and beautiful.

Last night. She had gotten him to open up again, something that had never come easily to him and he doubted if it ever would. But she made it easier, and even when he told her the things he had been keeping inside, wanting to save her the worry or pain, she didn’t freak out. In fact, just the opposite. She became calmer, more reasonable. He wasn’t sure that this was the Kendall he had fallen in love with a year ago, but she was the Kendall he had needed last night and it only made him love her more, if that were possible.

“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?” he asked as she snuggled into his arms.

“Yes we are,” she answered dreamily. Then she looked straight at him. “Why?”

“The one thing you need from me more than anything is the one thing that’s hardest for me to give, and the one thing I need from you—trust—is the hardest for you to give. And yet, we make it work.”

“Mostly,” Kendall added with a smile. They were both silent again, holding each other. After a few minutes Kendall slowly spoke. “Zach, we need to decide what to do about Spike.”

“We don’t have to do anything. Things can stay just as they are,” he assured her.

“They could, but sooner or later we’ll have to know. I need to know what to tell my son, and it’s not fair to anyone, especially Ryan.” She paused and sighed. “Things always have a way of coming out, anyway.”

“To tell the truth, I’m amazed at how calm you are about all of it. I half expected you to be doing that crazy thing that you do.” His eyes twinkled as he spoke.

She smiled. “Well, you missed most of it yesterday. Josh was the lucky recipient of that honor this time.”

“I’m sorry I missed that. And remind me to thank Josh again next time I see him. Kendall, whatever you decide, I’m behind you. I trust your judgment and I’ll support any decision you make, no matter where it leads.” She snuggled closer to him and was silent again.

A few moments later, she sat up, her eyes wide. “Oh my God, Zach, I forgot. What about Leah? What was the result of the DNA test?”

“With all that was going on yesterday, I never even looked,” he admitted. He got up and retrieved the envelope from his jacket pocket where he had left it yesterday, brought it back and sat on the edge of the bed facing her. They looked at each other. “Are you ready?” he asked. “Will you be okay if she’s…? “

She nodded. “Your niece? Yes. His daughter? I’ll deal with that. Either way, I’ll be okay. What about you?”

He thought for a moment. “I’ve been getting used to a lot of new things in the past year, including a whole new definition of what family is. If I can handle Erica being part of my family…”

“…then you can handle anything, can’t you?” she finished with a smile.

“Exactly,” he laughed, but it was almost a nervous laugh.

Kendall sensed his emotions. “You want it to be positive, don’t you?”

“In a way, yes. I do.”

“So you can make it up to your brother.” It wasn’t a question, but he was silent while he thought about how to answer.

“I didn’t come back for him in time, but I can be here for his daughter. So, yeah. It’s for Michael, too.”

“No, not for him. I meant for yourself. You need to make it up to him so you can be free of him.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps.” Kendall sighed. It would never be easy for Zach to admit what he needed.

He slit the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of paper. Opening it, he bypassed the medical jargon, tables and data. His eyes quickly skimmed to the bottom and read the conclusion printed there. Without a word and without changing his expression, he handed the paper to Kendall. She, too, skipped the percentages and numbers and read the bottom line. Twice. Then she looked at Zach and said, “Congratulations. You have a niece.”

He reached out a single finger and held her chin. “Can you handle that?”

“I’m okay,” she said and smiled a genuine smile. “I, of all people, should understand what it’s like to want to know your birth family. And it’s not her fault who her father is. Anyway, she’s going home tomorrow, isn’t she?”

Zach didn’t answer that question. Instead he went to his nightstand and removed another envelope from the drawer. “There’s something else I need to show you.”

**********

“Does Leah know?” Kendall handed back the report she had just finished reading, the report Zach had held onto for the last two days, not sharing with Kendall because it would just bring back more of her anger and pain, nor with Leah because it would only deepen the sting of finding out her father was, indeed, all those things she had been hearing lately.

“No.”

“You need to tell her.”

“I know,” he sighed. “She suspects already and, as you said, things have a way of coming out. We couldn’t keep Erica’s secret about Josh…”

“…or yours about Spike,” Kendall chided gently. Zach had the grace to blush. “How do you know she suspects?”

“Well,” Zach said, chiding Kendall right back. “It seems that someone told her about Bianca.”

But in spite of the way the truth had come out, Kendall wasn’t sorry that it had. “She would have found out sooner or later. Or she would have always wondered if it were true. At least now she’ll know the truth and be able to deal with it.”

“Yes, well, she got to wondering if perhaps that wasn’t the first time Michael had done such a thing. The last time I saw her, she was definitely considering the possibility that Michael had…”

“You can say it. Raped.”

“…raped Grace,” Zach finished.

“And Alexander covered it up.”

“It wasn’t the first time.” Zach said, remembering when his father had covered up the results of his own youthful indiscretion and had kept it from him. In this case, however, charges had been filed but the case never went to court. Although it had all been sealed in Michael’s juvenile record and destroyed when he came of age, the evidence was still out there for anyone who knew where to look, and Zach’s men knew where to look. Soon after her baby’s birth, Grace had been shuffled off to another office, a handsome settlement paid, and everything hushed up. “She deserves to know, and she’s going to have questions. She shouldn’t have all this thrown at her as she’s leaving town and have to go back to LA and deal with it all on her own.”

“I agree.”

“You what?” It wasn’t the response he was expecting.

“Zach, I’m not heartless, just protective and cautious. I know, better than anyone, how she’s going to feel. Her adoptive family isn’t going to help her, her birth family doesn’t even want to acknowledge that she exists, and now I know why. You’re the only other family she has.”

“I want to ask her to stay in Pine Valley for a while.”

“I had a feeling you might say that. She may not want to.”

“That’s her choice then. I want to offer. Will you be okay with that?”

Kendall took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t have much choice, do I? You don’t really get to choose family. I’ll do it, for you. And I’ll accept her as your family—”

“Our family,” he corrected her.

“Our family.” Kendall’s tone was serious and that little fire burned in her eyes again. “But I’m going to be watching her like a hawk, because if she does anything—anything—to hurt you or Spike or her intentions turn out to be anything other than what she has said from the beginning, all bets are off. Got that?” She poked her finger at his chest for emphasis as she spoke those last words.

Zach smiled at her ferocity. This was the Kendall he had fallen in love with—her capacity to love beyond reason, her loyalty, her determination. So what if that also carried with it a little crazy-making? That was a quality that only endeared her to him more.

He plucked a grape from the bunch on the tray and held it out to her. “Hungry?”

“Starved, remember?” She eyed the grape and then her husband. “And that looks good, but that wasn’t what I meant.” She grabbed his shirt with both fists and pulled him close. Her face brushed against his as her lips found his ear. “We have to do things right. In order. You’re the first course.”

“Mmmm,” he growled, sliding back into the bed and kissing her deeply, pausing only long enough to correct her. “First and second.”

**********

The Pine Cone Motel was as dingy and run-down as ever, but it was the cleanest place in town to stay if you were on a budget—and didn’t mind using the term “clean” lightly. Zach and Kendall stood at the door to room 12, her bright blue dress and expensive stilettos and his tailored charcoal suit incongruous with the squalor of their surroundings. Zach was about to knock again with the door cracked open.

Leah tentatively stepped back to let them enter. “Mr. and Mrs. Slater. Come in.” The look on her face was uncertain. She wasn’t sure why they were there or what they wanted. After her run-in with Kendal at the courthouse, she knew that anything could happen, and now that Zach had the results of the DNA test, she was nervously awaiting his reaction to suddenly having a niece thrust upon him.

“Looks like you’re getting ready to leave,” Zach said, noticing the open suitcase on the bed. Being a man of few words, it was not like him to waste any on the obvious, but it seemed as good a place as any to start.

“I have an early flight,” she explained, fingers fidgeting with the blouse she had picked up off the bed and was folding and refolding, just to occupy her hands. She lifted her chin proudly. “I’m a person of my word. I got what I came for and there’s no real reason to stick around now, is there?” She wasn’t bitter, wasn’t challenging, just resigned to the fact that her quest was over and she was not sure where to go from here. She planned on leaving with her dignity intact, although she was not sure now what difference it had made, in the scheme of things, to know the truth.

“Look, Leah,” Kendall started, getting straight to the point. “The other day…I was pretty harsh and thoughtless. What I said about your father…well, it just wasn’t one of my better moments and I…”

Leah shook her head, cutting Kendall off. “No, don’t. I don’t blame you for what happened.” She paused, looked down, and took a deep breath before speaking again. “I guess I had a chip on my shoulder that day. I had just realized who you were—I mean, that you were Kendall Hart, the same Kendall who…” Her voice faltered. How do you say, “The same Kendall who pretended to marry my father and be pregnant with his child to get your hands on his companies”? And Leah was pretty sure by now, after what she had learned in just her short week in Pine Valley, that there were two sides to the story, but this didn’t seem like the time to bring it up. “You were trying to be nice and I didn’t make it easy for you. I’m the one who should be apologizing, Mrs. Slater. I’m sorry—”

“Kendall,” Kendall interrupted. Leah looked at her questioningly, not sure what she meant. “Mrs. Slater seems a bit formal for family.” Leah looked from Kendall to Zach, who nodded and gave her a small but welcoming smile. Tears welled up in her eyes, but this time they were tears of relief and happiness.

“Really?” she whispered, letting the word sink in. “’Family’?” She sat down on the end of the bed in disbelief. The DNA test had proven what she had known it would, but she had not expected to hear from the Slaters again, unless it was to tell her to leave town and never try to contact them again. And when they showed up at her door, that was what she was bracing herself for. “You mean…?”

Zach stood next to her and put his hand tentatively on her shoulder. “I know an uncle isn’t quite the same as finding a father and a mother,” he began, “but if we’re good enough for you…” He didn’t say anymore because the tears that had welled up in Leah’s eyes had started pouring over her lids and down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to wipe them away. But it did no good because at that moment she stood up uncertainly, not quite sure what to do, and without quite realizing how they got that way, all of a sudden she found herself being held in a comforting hug. Her tears began anew. It had been a long time since she had been held by anyone calling themselves “family” and even though he was essentially a stranger, Leah clung to him, feeling, at least for the moment, that she was home.