AllFreeNovel
Share Us
In approximately thirty minutes.
Zoey and Murdoch had been cutting it incredibly close. But they were there now. And it was time.
This was the first actual set of siblings she could definitively say weregenuine. That she had found, anyway. She and Pen had been the last ones found. She and Pen had been the outsiders. Until Caine, anyway.
At least Zoey had always felt that way. Technically, Caine had been found before she and Pen, but he’d refused contact for a while after initial contact. He’d been hesitant to reunite, even though he had known he’d had an identical twin living just forty miles away.
It hadn’t been until he and Nikkie Jean had met that Caine and Rafe had been reunited. Zoey had heard the stories.
And she hated the pain that reunion had brought to two of the best men she had ever met. She wouldneverunderstand how their mother had just split identical twins up like that.
For profit. Nothing more.
Nikkie Jean and Jillian had both told her howtheyhad worked together—they’d been friends before Nikkie Jean and Caine had even met—to make it easier for the men they loved to build the relationship they had today.
That relationship had been stolen from them.
Zoey wasn’t fooling herself. These newfound siblings probably wouldn’t want anything from her or the rest of her crew. They’d probably not even want contact at all.
But…they deserved to know their history.
Where they had come from. As soon as Zoey figured it out.
“What are you expecting to happen?” Murdoch asked quietly as he pulled into a parking space in the two-story parking garage near the side of the inn she’d been to once before, for her friend Glenna’s wedding seven months ago.
It took her a moment to get her thoughts together. To put them into words, anyway. “Rejection. Disbelief. But Sydney has DNA, Murdoch. I’m not sure how she obtained it—I’m going to ask her when we get back home—but she said it’s conclusive.Thisguy isn’t my half brother. He’s my full brother. I’m more fully related to him than I am Pen. I’m still processing that. And I don’t know how or whyhehappened. I mean, why are we just finding record of him now? How much money did she make from selling him? Where did that money go? That’s all we really want. To understand. And I just want to know that any kids still out there, if any, are they safe? Because Pen and I weren’t. And that thought is driving me crazy.Weweren’t safe.”
“And maybe there are more ofyouout there? It’s a long shot, babe. She was already an older mother when she had Simon and Pen. Finding any younger…I just don’t see how it’s probable.” He turned off the engine, then flipped up the console between them. Zoey found herself being scooted across the bench seat.
His arms wrapped around her. He felt perfect, smelled perfect, and just…made her feel less alone. But…
“I think I need to do this alone.”
Because if she didn’t get the answers she needed, Zoey didn’t know what she would do next.
Hell, maybe she’d built too muchhopethat if she found someone out there, they would have all the answers to the questions she had never let herself ask as a child.
“Not going to happen. I’m not letting you near this bruiser without me with you. How can I adore you forever if something happens?”
“Nothing is going to happen that I can’t handle.
“Look, I get it. I know you’re used to facing the world alone, babe. But you don’t have to. You can trust me forever, Zoey Sofia. I promise you that, babe. I’m here, no matter what.”
Then the man just kissed her and scrambled her brains once again. He just had to stop doing that.
* * *
There wasno way in hell she was meeting more siblings without someone with her. Murdoch got hives just thinking about it. The possibility of rejection and anger was too damned high for him to be comfortable with that.
If she wouldn’t let him go in with her, he was going to insist her pal Charlotte did. Charlotte was small—if she hit five foot Murdoch would eat his favorite hat—but when it came to protecting her friends, that little demon wasfierce.She would be there for Zoey, of that he had no doubt.
He would just have to find Charlotte first. When Zoey was grabbing her bag from the rear seat of the truck, he texted the little Charlotte demon to have her meet them in the lobby.
They started to the entrance to the Talley Inn. He studied the place for a minute. It was a country inn. And that was exactly what it looked like. There were autumn flowers in the front. And a white picket fence lined the curved drive. Howromanticit looked.
It was sweet and quaint, and when this meeting was finished, he was just going to lure his woman to one of the rooms in this place and have his wicked way with her.
Show her that no matter what these siblings had to say, she wouldalwayshave him. No matter what.
