Page 97 of The Lost Book of First Loves

“I don’t understand. Did your mother know my father somehow? That’s impossible, though. He died long before you were born.”

“I think the question you need to ask is not if, but how didyourmother know my father? Our father.”

She stared at the stack of notebooks on the table, unable to process the shocking suggestion.

“Carson?”

Alison nodded. “The mystery person also shared a substantial amount of DNA with the account I already knew belonged to my dad. And also to the account of my grandmother Loretta.”

“You’re... you’re trying to tell me that Carson Wells is myfather? That’s impossible. My father was Jimmy Connelly, asoldier who was killed while fighting for his country. He was a hero!”

She had carried around a picture of him after her mother died, when she moved to Cape Sanctuary to her foster home with Stella.

None of this made any sense. She remembered again how much her mother had loved to read all of Carson’s books and had a signed copy of his first one.

“I’m very sorry to break it to you like this,” Ali said, her voice low. “But I don’t know how else I could have told you. I... I wanted to find the right time and nothing ever felt ideal. I applied for an internship with Move Inc in hopes of maybe getting to know you a little before springing the news on you completely out of the blue. That obviously didn’t work out well.”

“Except it did put you in the right place at the right time to save June’s life,” Beckett pointed out.

June stared at both of them, struck by the weird confluence of events that had brought Alison to her office at exactly the right moment.

“This can’t be happening. I... If Carson was my father, why wouldn’t my mother tell me?”

“I don’t know,” Ali admitted. “How long had she and your... Jimmy Connelly been married when your mother had you?”

“Three years. They married when she was eighteen and she had me when she was twenty-one. Only a few years younger than Carson would have been.”

“Adult relationships are messy,” Beck said. “Maybe it was simply easier to explain to a child that her husband was your father and that he died.”

“Maybe she had planned to tell you at some point, but she died before she had the chance,” Ali suggested.

She couldn’t contemplate Elizabeth Connelly keeping this vast of a secret from her. They had been so close, sharing everything.

“This is... This is all too much.”

“I know,” Ali whispered, her chin wobbling again with her distress. “I’m sorry. It was a huge shock to me, too, believe me. I have wanted to tell you for a long time. I was going to tell you the day you terminated my internship but...”

“But then I had a cardiac arrest.”

“Yes. And you’ve been recovering from it since then and it never seemed like the right time to spring something so major and earthshaking on you.”

She didn’t know how to process everything. She couldn’t believe it. Not without proof. She couldn’t imagine any reason Ali might lie about something as serious and life-changing as her paternity, but June didn’t accept anything, in business or in life, without some kind of verification.

“I’m sorry. I do believe you received the test results you say you did. But that’s not enough for me. I will need more evidence.”

“I assumed as much. I have a couple of DNA tests ready to submit to an independent lab. I almost took a swab from you while you were still out of it in the hospital, but that didn’t seem right.”

“It wouldn’t have been,” Beck said, his voice stern.

“I didn’t do it,” Alison protested. “I onlythoughtabout doing it. But by then I had worked with you long enough to know you would insist on being involved every step of the way in obtaining further proof.”

She looked across the table at this woman who claimed to be her half sister. A half sister! She couldn’t take it in.

For some strange reason, she felt the sting of tears.

Since coming to Wyoming, June had come to consider Ali a dear friend. Yet somehow, she had been keeping this monumental secret from her this entire time.

“Are you saying you think I’m a control freak?”

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