Dagr hadn’t thought he’d been that blunt, but… He clasped Bébhinn’s hand and brought it to rest on his thigh. “Yes.”
Patrick looked at his brother and their sons before breaking into a wide grin. “Dad would have liked you, Dagr, which means so do we.”
He was relieved. He didn’t have to have their approval, but he’d really wanted it. Bébhinn squeezed his hand before leaning over to whisper, “You did have a plan.”
He kissed her cheek softly while running the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. “Never doubt a Griffiths in love,” he said quietly back. As he sat straight again, Rowan watched them with tears in her eyes. He pretended not to notice, understanding that she wouldn’t appreciate having attention drawn to her while she was emotional.
“Watching you piss all over my niece like a dog in heat has been amazing, don’t get me wrong, but can we get to the good part?” River asked.
“Yeah,” Jonathan chuckled, “according to Mom, you might be my long-lost cousin.”
Dagr pulled his briefcase closer to his chair and dug out the folder that his dad had found. He’d said there didn’t seem to be much information on his birth mother.
“Dad warned me there wasn’t much. My grandmother kept bits of information from the hospital and notes from the adoption agency. There isn’t much, he said. I haven’t looked because Bébhinn wanted a grand reveal without me having any prior knowledge.”
He opened the folder and began reading aloud the notes from his grandmother. “The adoption wasn’t closed, which is odd, but the agent in charge of Dad’s case said the mother and her family didn’t wish to provide any information and never wanted to be contacted.”
“How sad,” Raven said solemnly.
Rowan dabbed her eyes before saying, “I can’t imagine the crushing weight the mother must have been under.”
“The family sounds like assholes. Good on your dad, Dagr, for getting out early,” River scoffed.
“Okay. So, Dad was born in a fancy birthing center in London,” Dagr said as he flipped through the scant notes and hospital papers. “It looks like a nurse told Gram that the mother was a young American on holiday who hooked up with a fisherman when the girl’s family traveled through Norway. The notes suggest the family had been in the middle of a European tour for their daughter’s fifteenth birthday.”
He flipped through more pages, reading the annotations and scribbled thoughts. “The nurse believed that the parents forced their daughter to give up Dad. They extended their holiday so that no one from the States would know she’d ever been pregnant.
“One note says that she had white hair. There is an asterisk with natural by it. The family was from Massachusetts.”
He looked up when the table became unusually still. “What?” he asked, unaware of what part had triggered their unease.
Bébhinn patted his arm. “It’s fine, babe. Keep looking.”
“Okay. Her father was in banking.” He dragged his finger down the remaining page, a lined notecard actually, that was partially stuck to the folder from age, and found… “Oh, her name was Helen.”Jesus.No way.
“No fucking way,” Bran said with absolutely no inflection to go along with his words.
“I knew it,” River said, slapping the table.
“I think you might want to ask your dad to do a DNA test, Dagr,” Rowan said softly.
fifty-two
BÉBHINN
“The name could be a coincidence,”Dagr said in a tight voice.
It was clear to Bébhinn that where the women were excited at the possibility, the men were quietly staring at one another. None of them was willing to admit their circle might be increasing in circumference.
“So that woman,” Patrick began, never calling his mother anything but Helen or that woman, “screwed some Viking fisherman during her posh European tour?”
“Possibly,” Bran said grimly. “Humoring this connection, she didn’t know Dad yet. Had they been together, our father would have raised your father as his own.”
“Your brother, you mean, sweetheart,” Raven gently corrected, making Bran wince.
“I’m thankful Hugh didn’t know.” When everyone looked shocked at Rowan’s pronouncement, she explained, “Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved to have another stepson.” Daniel and Jonathan, and even Bébhinn’s brothers, groaned at thereminder of how convoluted their family was. Bran and Patrick preferred Rowan’s familial description, sister-in-law.
“Dagr, I’m only glad that your father had a loving mother to raise him. Bran and Pat had that horrible woman, and my Hugh had to call her wife.”
