Page 26 of Queen of Diamonds
“I’m dying to know how you found out you have brothers,” Madison said.
“It was a shock, believe me. After Mom died… our mother—”
“She’s dead?” Alex said, his voice cracking.
“Yes, a little over a year ago, when I was in college. A heart attack. No warning.” Her voice trembled, too.
Alex stood and walked out of the room, and she realized that this was the first time they were hearing that their mother had died. Madison hurried after Alex, and Kinsey glanced from Court to Nate. Lauren had put her hands over Court’s arm, and Taylor had her head on Nate’s shoulder.
There was pain in both men’s eyes, and although she was sorry for putting it there, she liked them all the more for mourning a mother they hadn’t seen in years, one who’d walked away from them. All the times she’d read the letter, she’d never once thought of how her mother had hurt her sons for leaving.
“I just needed a minute,” Alex said, walking back into the room with his arm around Madison’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about you all not knowing she was gone.”
“We knew it was a possibility, but we were hoping to find both of you,” Nate said, his gaze—full of love and concern—on Alex.
She cleared her throat. “I have to say it was really weird finding out that she had a life I never knew about. That I had brothers.” She told them about finding the letter in her mother’s Bible. “I thought you would like to read it, so I brought it with me.”
She retrieved the letter from her purse. When Nate held out his hand, she gave it to him. He studied both sides of the envelope, then lifted his eyes to hers. “You’ve read this often.”
“I have.”
He handed the letter to Taylor. “Read it out loud so we can all hear it.”
Kinsey leaned her head back against the sofa and closed her eyes as she listened to Taylor’s voice reading the letter she knew by heart. When Taylor reached the final words of the letter, Kinsey opened her eyes, unable to stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks. As she looked around at the people in the room, she saw that everyone had tears streaming from their eyes except for Nate and Court, who both had their eyes closed tight. What were they thinking?
“‘If you should decide to find your brothers, please tell them why I left. Tell them that I never stopped loving them. I only ask one thing of you, Kinsey. Be happy. I love you through eternity. Mom,’” Taylor said, then gently folded the letter and handed it back to her.
“Wow, that’s so sad,” Madison said.
Lauren brushed her fingers across her cheeks. “But in a way not. She saved Kinsey’s life. And she was right. Her sons grew up to be amazing men.” Her gaze slid over the brothers. “I don’t think you guys would disagree that she laid the groundwork for who you are today.”
“We searched all over Gainesville for the two of you,” Court said.
“Why Gainesville? We lived in Jacksonville.”
Nate leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Because that was the only clue we had. The man she referred to in her letter who helped her get away, she sent him a baby picture of you and the envelope was postmarked in Gainesville.”
“Then she either made a brief stop there before moving on to Jacksonville, or she simply mailed it from there so no one could trace her to Jacksonville, I guess.” There was so much her mother hadn’t told her, and Kinsey resented that a little. “Was your father… I’m sorry, I can’t even think of him as mine. Was he as awful as she said?”
“Worse,” Alex said. He stood, pulled off his shirt, then turned his back to her.
Kinsey gasped at seeing the scars on his back.
“Put your damn shirt back on,” Nate growled. “She doesn’t need to know about him.”
Alex eyed his brother as he slipped on his shirt. “Yes, she does. It’s the only way she’ll understand why our mother felt she had no choice but to leave. You know as well as I do, even better probably, that Mama’s options were limited to either doing what she did or staying with us and risking her baby. I for one don’t blame her.”
“I don’t either,” Court softly said. “Not anymore.”
Nate glanced at Taylor, and when she smiled at him, the hard lines around his mouth and eyes relaxed. Kinsey sensed that his wife was one of the few people who could calm him. She’d been subtly watching her brothers, and from the exchanged glances and touches, it was obvious all three were in love. She was both happy for them and envious.
They talked for hours, her brothers telling her about their lives and she about hers. The more time she spent with them and the more she learned about them, the more she liked them. She especially liked their wives.
When she started yawning, she said, “I think I’m going to call it a night.” Her brain was on overload and needed time to digest all she’d learned. She wondered how long it would take the idea of having an instant family to settle in.
Nate pulled his phone out. “Before you leave, what’s your phone number?”
Everyone grabbed their phones, and they all insisted that she put each of their numbers in hers. She left with six new family phone numbers and a promise to come over Saturday afternoon for a cookout. She’d also learned enough about her brothers not to be surprised when Alex followed her home to make sure she arrived safely.
She waved to him before entering her apartment, locking the door behind her. After kicking off her heels, she padded to the kitchen to get a glass of water. A chill snaked down her spine when she noticed her back door wasn’t closed tight. She always locked it behind her when she came in from the patio. Maybe she’d been careless this morning, but she could almost visualize herself testing the doorknob to make sure it was locked. She set the glass on the counter, backed out of the room, grabbed her purse, and then ran to her car.
Was she panicking over nothing? Probably. But she wasn’t one of those too-stupid-to-live women who crept through a dark house to see if an ax murderer lurked in the closet, just waiting to chop her into little pieces.
