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I sighed. We were both silent for a few minutes as I digested the information she’d just given me, and that her mother had included in her diary. After I’d pulled myself up a bit, she asked haltingly, “Is your father…good at drawing?” It appeared that her muscles tensed as she waited for me to answer.
“Yeah,” I said, the word a mix of breath and despair. I pulled myself up to a full sitting position but couldn’t manage to raise my slumped shoulders. “He’s really good,” I told her. “He used to draw funny little pictures and put them in our lunch boxes. They were always…” I let out a deep sigh. “Very good.”
“Oh,” she said, her mouth tugging downward. She took in a deep breath and then tapped on the journal still sitting next to her. “Did the sketch on the napkin remind you of his sketches?” Once again, she appeared to brace.
I shrugged. Before she’d told me what it was, I honestly hadn’t recognized anything about it. I certainly hadn’t thought of my father. But that didn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t his. “It’s hard to say. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen one of his sketches. They were just done for fun. And, he always used a ballpoint pen from our kitchen drawer.” I gestured to the journal. “The one you showed me is done in colored pencil. It has a different feel. But it might be due to the different mediums. Or maybe my memory isn’t great on that subject. I’d love to give you a definitive no, but the truth is, I can’t say for sure.”
“Would you be able to find one of his old drawings?”
“I didn’t keep any.” My eyes met hers. I didn’t want this to be true. I wanted to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this wasn’t true. And there was a way to do that. “Aurora…there’s a sure way to rule my father out.”
“A DNA test?” she guessed immediately. “I thought about that, but stealing someone’s DNA seems…unethical, especially considering I was hoping my father would accept me right off the bat. Looking around homes I’ve been invited into and gaining access to art that I’m going to return in the same condition I took it is one thing. Stealing bodily fluids is another.”
“Agreed. But we don’t need to use my father’s DNA,” I said. “We can use mine.”
She blinked. “Oh my God, you’re right.” She gave her head a minute shake. “I guess I didn’t think of that because I’d already dismissed the idea of DNA completely. And of course, finding out that you’re…you, was a…shock.” She looked sort of hopeful and also sort of nauseous and I watched her throat move as she swallowed. “If you’re my…brother…then a DNA test would show that. If we’re not, we can rule your father out immediately.”
“And if we are…” I swallowed too not knowing how to finish that thought.
“If we are,” she said, “we’ll get a partial lobotomy and have the surgeon remove the memory of that night in Mud Gulch from our brains.”
I stared but didn’t laugh as the visions of that night wound through my memory…the feel of her tight heat, the sweet and salty taste of her skin, the texture of her nipple on my tongue. I wanted to yell and laugh hysterically. How in the hell had I, of all people, wound up in this mess? I never rocked boats or conducted myself in a manner anyone could describe as improper. And now here I was lusting after a woman who might be my sister. I groaned and scrubbed a hand down my face.
“Too soon?” she asked.
“Much.” I huffed out a breath. I appreciated her attempt to lighten the mood, but I was far from ready for that.
“Let’s just take the test and go from there,” she suggested.
I sighed. “Okay. I’ll schedule a DNA test at the hospital.” There was nothing else we could do. At least for now.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Rory
I met Gage at the hospital the next day, late in the afternoon, and we each had our blood drawn. The lab told us it would be a week or so before we got the results back telling us whether or not we were related. The possibility for at least one answer should make me happy. An easier angle. A move forward. Either Gage’s father was also mine, or I could cross one of the men off my list of possibilities. So why did my stomach roil through the entire process like I might toss my cookies?
Please don’t be my brother.
I didn’t have any illusions that Gage and I might have hope of some future, casual or otherwise. But I really, really didn’t want to live with the knowledge that I’d had sexual relations with my relative. God. Just thinking about it in those blunt terms made me want to hurl again. Wouldn’t our shared DNA act like some repellent if we in fact did share the same father? Wouldn’t I know deep inside that biology didn’t favor our union?
Because damn if my libido didn’t kick into overdrive when he rolled his sleeve up to have his blood drawn and I caught a glimpse of his forearm. His forearm! It was so incredibly sexy.
Well. I guess I’d know soon enough if my biology wasn’t smart enough to notice I was admiring the forearm—and every other part—of a blood relation, or if Gage and I didn’t, in fact, share a family tree.
When we stepped out the sliding doors of the hospital, the sun was just beginning to lower in the sky. “What are you doing for the rest of the evening?” Gage asked as we walked to his car. He’d offered to pick me up and I’d agreed. Luckily, he’d been given a rental by the insurance company while the damage to his car was being repaired.
“Nothing much,” I said as I got in the passenger side. “Except I haven’t looked at the art Mrs. Ramsbottom gave me yet, and I have to do some research on the pieces I still need to return so I can do the semblance of an appraisal, in case any of those pieces really are worth something.”
He glanced at me as he started the engine, a hint of amusement in his expression. “You’re really doing appraisals for them? Based on what? Internet searches?”
I shrugged. “It’s all I have access to.”
“Why bother? They’ll never know.”
“That feels…very dishonest.” I turned toward him. “Listen, I know this whole thing is based on a fabrication, but I’m not trying to cheat these people, Gage. If I can give them some information on a few paintings they’ve had tucked away, and they find it mildly useful, then no damage done.”
“I suppose you’re right. Except if you end up turning their family upside down when you tell them their husband and father had an affair many years ago that produced you.”
