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Not that Zander had any clue as to who that man might be. There had been no hint of a man in Zenia’s life when Zander had gone through her things. The spot for a father’s name on Violet’s birth certificate had been left blank. He’d tried talking to Zenia’s doctors, her friends, anybody that might have known something about the guy but Violet’s father had never been seen or heard of according to anyone that had known Zenia.
He was just another of a million mysteries that Zenia had left behind for Zander to try and solve.
He cursed under his breath, wishing that he could talk to his sister just one more time. He needed to ask her so many questions. He needed to know what the hell she had been thinking leavinghimwith sole custody of her daughter.
Zander didn’t even know if he liked kids. He’d never really been around any. Not since he was one himself. Back then he and Zenia had been bounced around every foster house and group home in the state and he certainly hadn’t liked any of the other kids they’d come across in those places.
Abandoned kids. Forgotten kids. The kids that nobody wanted. He and Zenia had been those kids until they aged out of the system and even now, as a grown man, he still had nothing and nobody that he was tied to. Nobody that would even care if he disappeared off the face of the earth which was exactly what he’d done once he realized that phone call about Zenia changed everything.
He shot another look into his rearview mirror. He would be damned before he let sweet little Violet become one of those kids. He did not consider himself father material. He certainly wasn’t ready for the responsibility of being a parent. But he would do everything in his power to ensure Violet was taken care of.
Hell, that was why they were in his Bronco, headed to a tiny blip of a town in the bayous of southern Louisiana.
Zenia had left behind paperwork, and lots of it. She’d been looking for their long-lost baby sister. According to all the files he had gone through, she’d been looking for years, seven to be exact, the same amount of time little Violet had been in the world. Was it just her motherly instincts driving her to locate family or had there been another reason? Another of the many questions Zander would never get an answer to.
Their younger sister had been an infant when their mother overdosed and they were all thrust into the system. He and Zenia had been older, already damaged and distrustful, but their little sister had been exactly what a couple wanted. A beautiful, unblemished baby they could raise as their own. She had been adopted mere months later and over the years when he thought of her it had only been to curse that she was the lucky one who managed to escape the system and not him.
Zander had written her off, all but forgotten about her. She’d been adopted. She’d gotten the family every kid in the system dreamed about and no doubt she had a good life somewhere and never gave a thought to the siblings she’d been separated from. He’d had real problems to worry about and where his little sister landed had never been one of them.
But Zenia had gone looking and from the information he’d put together in her apartment, it seemed as if she’d found her.
Zoey Leery was in a little town called Noir and that, coupled with a letter he’d found among Zenia’s things, addressed to him but never posted, Zenia had wanted them to get in touch with her together.
So that was what Zander planned to do.
As far as he was concerned, reuniting with Zoey had been Zenia’s dying wish. He had to do this. He had no choice. He had failed his older sister, more than once, but he wouldn’t fail at this.
He was going to find Zoey. He was going to tell her who he was and what had happened. He was going to see what kind of life Zoey had made for herself and if it was a good one, and God how he hoped it was a good one, he was going to give her Zenia’s daughter so that their niece could grow up in the kind of loving environment and home that he had never known and couldn’t give the girl.
That’s what Zenia would have wanted.
A sign flashed by in the darkness and Zander slowed the Bronco as the lights of what had to be the town of Noir appeared on the horizon. From the looks of it, the place was just as small as he’d been expecting. A little backwater town in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing but forests and swamps. It felt as if he’d driven to the end of the world he’d been behind the wheel so long and the lonesome little town coming into view sent a nervous jolt of anxiety down his spine almost as soon as he’d passed the sign that welcomed him to Noir, Louisiana.
He shook off the uncomfortable sensation and gripped the steering wheel tight. Of course he was nervous. He was about to see his baby sister for the first time in over twenty years.If he had a sudden sense of unease it was only because he was so close to the end of this journey and he didn’t know what he was going to find.
Zoey hadn’t been a baby in a very long time. She would be a grown woman now, an adult with a life here and maybe even a family of her own. It was possible her adoptive parents had never even told her she wasn’t biologically theirs. Even if they had, there was no guarantee they’d told her she had biological siblings out there somewhere or that she’d want to see him even if she did know. It wasn’t as if she’d ever come looking for them after all.
Zander cursed again as all the reasons this was a bad idea chose that moment to bombard him. He should have done his own research. He should have called. He definitely should not have packed up a traumatized seven-year-old girl and hauled her out to the middle of nowhere without even checking to make sure Zenia had found the right woman.
Dammit. He was an idiot. He had always been too damn impulsive. He got an idea in his head and once it was there nobody could change his mind or make him alter course. He’d taken one look at Zenia’s things, pieced the information together into the puzzle that best fit his own needs and taken action.
Was this really what Zenia wanted? Or was he just so desperate not to form any sort of bond that would tie him down that he’d grabbed onto the first hint of a solution? Had he actually dragged Violet to Louisiana to drop her off with yet another stranger just so he could wash his hands of the situation and go back to his aimless life free of the responsibility of raising a child?
“Fuck.” He smacked his palm against the steering wheel, hating himself for not knowing the right answers to his own questions.
“That’s a bad word.” A small voice drifted up from the backseat and Zander winced.
He glanced in the rear-view mirror again to find a sleepy-eyed Violet pushing herself upright enough to look out the window. She rubbed at her eyes and yawned. He turned his attention back to the road and cleared his throat.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Mom used to slip up and say it in front of me too.” Violet stretched, “where are we Uncle Zander?”
His heart did that strange new tightening thingit always did when his niece called him that. Uncle Zander. He could still hardly believe it was true, that he had a niece, and that she had so easily accepted him into her life and as her uncle. He had family again, someone who needed him, and emotion clogged his throat and made it hard to speak.
“Just coming into town now.” He glanced back at her, “You fell asleep before I could ask if you wanted dinner. That was hours ago. You must be hungry.”
“Nah, I’m fine.” She wiped at her eyes and looked out the window.
