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“I work for Springside Wellness,” she said, confirming what Paul had already unearthed about her. The company was a wellness spa on Meeting Street that operated as both a yoga studio and alternative treatment space. A lot of mind, body, soul nonsense. “Ethan is a client.”
This confirmed what Paul had gleaned from his brother’s explanation about how he knew Lia. Still, Paul had a hard time picturing his brother doing yoga and reflexology. “What sort of a client?”
“I’m a massage therapist. He comes in once a week. I told him he should probably come in more often than that. The man is stressed.”
Her answer took Paul’s thoughts down an unexpected path. “Well, that’s just perfect.”
Only it wasn’t perfect at all. A picture of Lia giving Ethan a massage leaped to mind but he immediately suppressed it.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” she said, frowning. “And I don’t have time to find out. I have to be at work in an hour and it takes a while for me to get out of costume. Nice to meet you, Paul Watts.”
He quite pointedly didn’t echo the sentiment. “Just remember what I said about staying away from my grandfather.”
“I already said I would.”
With a graceful flutter of her fingers, she zipped through the building’s front door, leaving him alone on the sidewalk. Despite her ready agreement to keep her distance, his nerves continued to sizzle and pop. Logic told him he’d seen the last of Lia Marsh, but his instincts weren’t convinced.
Paul shot his brother a text before sliding behind the wheel, urging him to reiterate to Lia that Grady was off-limits. Thanks to this detour he was going to have to hustle to keep from being late for his charter flight.
Ethan’s terse reply highlighted the tension between the brothers that seemed to be escalating. The growing distance between them frustrated Paul, but he couldn’t figure out how to fix what he couldn’t wrap his head around.
Pushing Ethan and the problem of Lia Marsh to the back of his mind, Paul focused his attention on something concrete and within his control: the upcoming conference and what he hoped to get out of it.
* * *
As much as Ethan had thoroughly enjoyed seeing his brother utterly flummoxed by Lia in a Rapunzel costume, as soon as Paul headed off to dig into her background, Ethan’s satisfaction faded. Leave it to his brother to chase a tangent rather than deal with the real problem of their grandfather’s condition. In the same way, Ethan’s brother had neatly avoided dealing with Grady’s disappointment after Paul chose a career in law enforcement over joining Watts Shipping and eventually taking his place at the helm of the family business. Nor had Paul understood Ethan’s conflicted emotions at being the second choice to take up the reins.
While Ethan recognized that he was the best brother to head the family company, he wanted to secure the job based on his skills, not because Paul refused the position. Also, it wasn’t just his pride at issue. Ethan was adopted and in a city as preoccupied with lineage as Charleston, not knowing who his people were became a toxic substance eating away at his peace of mind.
Although no one had ever made him feel as if he didn’t belong, in every Watts family photo, Ethan’s dark brown hair and eyes made him stand out like a goose among swans. Not wishing to cause any of his family undue pain, he kept his feelings buried, but more and more lately they’d bubbled up and tainted his relationship with Paul.
He’d shared some of his angst with Lia. She was a good listener. Attentive. Nonjudgmental. Empathetic. Sure, she was a little quirky. But Ethan found her eccentricities charming. That Paul viewed them as suspect made Ethan all the more determined to defend her.
Clamping down on his disquiet, Ethan reentered his grandfather’s hospital room and noted that Grady’s eyes were open and sharp with dismay. Had he heard the brothers arguing in the hallway? Although Grady never shied away from confrontation, before the stroke, he’d confided to Ethan that he was troubled by his estrangement from Paul and also the growing tension between the brothers. Ethan knew Paul was equally frustrated with the rift, but none of them had taken any steps to overcome the years of distance.
“Sorry about earlier,” Ethan murmured, settling into the chair between Grady’s bed and the window. “You know how Paul can get.”
He didn’t expect Grady to answer. In the weeks following the stroke, Grady had made some progress with the paralysis. He still couldn’t walk or write, but he’d regained the ability to move his arm, leg and fingers. It wasn’t so much his body that had failed him, but his willingness to fight.
Grady’s lips worked, but he couldn’t form the words for what he wanted to express. For the first time in weeks this seemed to frustrate him.
“He worries about you,” Ethan continued. “Seeing Lia here was a bit of a shock.” He couldn’t suppress a grin. “Did you like her Rapunzel costume? The kids down on the pediatric floor really loved her.”
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Grady started to hum a toneless tune Ethan didn’t recognize. And then all at once he sang a word.
“Ava.”
Ethan was shocked that Grady had spoken—or rather sung—his daughter’s name. “You mean Lia,” he said, wondering how his grandfather could’ve confused his daughter for Lia. Blonde and green-eyed Ava Watts bore no resemblance to Lia, with her dark hair and hazel eyes. Then Ethan frowned. Had Lia ever come to visit as herself or was she always in costume? Maybe Grady thought she was blonde. And then there was the age difference. If Ava had lived, she’d be in her forties. Of course, the stroke had messed with the left side of Grady’s brain where logic and reason held court. Maybe he was actually mixed up.
Ava had been eighteen when she’d run away to New York City. The family had lost track of her shortly thereafter. And it wasn’t until five years after that that they found out she’d died, leaving behind an infant daughter. The child had been adopted, but they’d never been able to discover anything more because the files had been sealed.
“Ava...baby,” Grady clarified, singing the two words. How had he learned to do that?
“You think Lia is Ava’s daughter?” While Grady nodded as enthusiastically as his condition allowed, Ethan’s stunned brain slowly wrapped itself around this development. Grady was obviously grasping at thin air. With each year that passed he’d grown more obsessed with finding his missing granddaughter.
“Ava’s daughter is here?” Constance Watts asked from the doorway. “Where? How?”
