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by Maya Banks
Beau leaned back, cocking his head toward the ceiling, forcing his gaze from the clock and his frustration with how slowly time was passing. His eyes had just began to close when he heard the door to the waiting room open.
Bracing himself for disappointment—again—he surged to his feet, only this time the woman wearing scrubs called out Ari’s name. He strode across the room, but Gavin and Ginger were closer and they eagerly approached the nurse.
The nurse frowned when she saw many people gathered at the mention of Ari’s name.
“I’m sorry, but only immediate family is allowed back.”
Beau stood there, stunned. They weren’t going to let him back? What the fuck?
His fingers curled into tight fists at his sides, his desire to hit something—anything—a violent need boiling inside him. He was a simmering cauldron of fury, his impatience reaching its breaking point.
Before he could open his mouth to blast the nurse and dare her to keep him away from Ari, Gavin motioned to Beau with his hand, shocking him with his next words.
“Come on, son.”
Ginger smiled up at the nurse. “He’s her husband—our son-in-law.”
Beau wanted to drop to the floor and kiss his “mother-in-law’s” feet and he would have if he thought he could get back up. Embarrassing tears welled in his eyes at their unconditional acceptance of him. Was this what it was like to have parents who loved you? That behaved like real parents, or like they should?
He couldn’t even choke out his thanks as he walked through the open door behind them because he wouldn’t have been able to get the words past the knot in his throat. To his further surprise, Ginger curled her arm around his, walking beside him as the nurse led them down the hall to one of the rooms.
She gave him a little squeeze, almost as if she knew the weight of his emotions and the impact her words had on him. God, he wanted nothing more than to hug her.
The nurse hesitated at the door and Beau’s stomach tightened.
“She’s groggy from the pain medicine,” the nurse said. “But she’s comfortable for now. The doctor will be by in a few minutes to fully update you on her condition, but I knew you’d want to see her as soon as possible.”
“Damn right,” Beau said gruffly.
The nurse smiled. “Go in then. If she gets restless or agitated, push the nurse call button. Until a surgeon is consulted and a decision is made as to whether she requires surgery she needs to remain as still as possible because we haven’t set her leg yet.”
“Set?” Beau croaked. “As in it’s broken?”
Ginger swallowed hard and Gavin’s face went gray with worry.
“She sustained a femur fracture, but the fracture itself isn’t too serious. The force of the bullet’s entry dislocated her hip, and the orthopedic surgeon is being consulted to see whether the tear in the cartilage needs to be surgically repaired or if we can reset the dislocation and she’ll heal on her own.”
Beau winced. That sounded damn painful. But he nodded, only wanting her to get out of the way so he could see Ari. His heart thundered, his pulse loud in his ears when she finally moved, allowing them entrance inside. He pushed by quickly, in his haste going right by Ari’s parents, who were every bit as eager to see her as he was, he knew.
But they hadn’t been there when she’d been shot. When she’d taken a bullet meant for him. They hadn’t held her while her blood poured all over him and onto the floor in a scarlet wave. They hadn’t experienced the harrowing thought that she was . . . dead.
He breathed in, shaking the horrible memories from his head. And he went straight to Ari’s bedside, curling his hand around her limp one. The other hand had an IV attached and she was hooked to an assortment of other machines. His blood chilled because there was a crash cart next to her. Had she coded? Surely they would have been notified. Or had they merely feared and prepared for the worst given the condition she’d been in when she arrived?
His gaze raked hungrily over her, taking in every detail, watching each and every breath, the soft rise and fall of her chest. This time tears didn’t merely burn his eyes. They streaked down his cheeks, blurring his vision.
She was alive. It nearly brought him to his knees. The sheer gratitude that she was alive, breathing, that she would recover. And God willing, she’d recover with him every step of the way.
Her parents crowded in on the other side of her and her father leaned down to kiss her brow. Her mom carefully picked up the hand the IV was attached to, and in that moment, she was being touched by the three people who loved her most in the world.
“Beau?” Ari murmured, her voice cloudy with confusion. But thankfully no pain. At least it didn’t sound pained.
“Yes, honey, I’m here,” Beau said, wiping at his tears with his shoulder. Damn if he’d sob all over her like a child.
She licked her lips and then smacked them together as if ridding herself of a bad taste. But no, that wasn’t what she was doing at all.
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
Ah hell. She didn’t realize, in her drug-induced fog, that her parents were standing right there. But he wasn’t going to let that get in the way of complying with her wishes because it was what he wanted right now more than anything.
He leaned down, capturing her mouth gently with his. She sighed against his lips, and then he pulled away, though he’d love nothing more than to spend the next several hours simply touching and kissing her, reassuring himself that she was alive.
“Honey, there are two people here who want very much to see you,” Beau said, brushing her soft cheek with the crook of his finger.
Her brow scrunched up as she looked at him. She hadn’t even looked in her parents’ direction yet, but they didn’t seem bothered by that fact. Ginger was smiling through her tears, watching the interaction between Beau and her daughter. Her father wore a slight scowl, but that was to be expected. What self-respecting father ever liked the man his daughter hooked up with at first sight?
“Who? Where?” she asked in puzzlement.
“Here, baby.” Her mom finally spoke.
Ari’s head turned swiftly and she let out a small cry when she saw both her mother and her father there.
“You’re all right,” she breathed. “You’re not dead!”
Gavin frowned. “Why on earth would you think a thing like that?”
Knowing it would be difficult, not to mention tiring, for Ari to explain it all, Beau explained what Ari had seen—and assumed—himself.
“Oh baby, I’m so sorry,” Ginger said. “You didn’t fail us and I won’t have you saying so. You saved our lives. Because those men absolutely meant to kill us. They tried to kill us. But your power stopped them. And well, by the time they realized the barrier was gone, it was too late,” she added ruefully. “Your father was pretty pissed by then.”
Gavin’s face darkened. “That’s an understatement.”
Ginger laughed and Ari smiled and Beau went weak at the knees. Man did she have a beautiful smile. It lit up the entire room. Warmed his entire body.
Then Ari sobered, her expression somber and utterly serious.
“Mom, Dad, there’s something you should know.”
Knowing precisely what Ari wanted to tell them, Beau lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm.
“Would you rather I left you alone to speak to your parents?” he asked softly.
Something flickered in her eyes, and then she shook her head. “I’d like you to stay. That is if you want to. If you’d rather—”
He put his finger to her lips, shushing her. Then he followed it with a kiss. “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away. I’ll always want to stay, Ari. But if you wanted privacy I’d certainly grant it.”
Instead, she laced her fingers through his and turned nervously toward her parents.
“What is it, baby?” Ginger asked, her brow creased in concern.
Ari took a deep breath. “I know the truth. That you and Dad adopted me.”
THIRTY-NINE
HER parents wore mirroring expressions of alarm. Fear leaped into her mom’s eyes and her father actually paled. Ari lifted the hand with the IV attached to where her parents’ hands rested, one atop the other, on her bedrail. And she covered it with her own.
“How?”
It seemed the only word her mother was able to speak. She looked so shocked—so terrified—that Ari wondered if they feared rejection. Her anger. Disappointment? She would give them none of those.
The only thing she’d ever give them was her love. Well, plenty of other things too. Loyalty. Laughter. Grandchildren . . . ? She snuck a quick peek at Beau as she thought the last. She could just imagine little dark-haired boys who looked like their father. A blond angelic baby girl. Or perhaps even a daughter with her father’s dark hair. The possibilities were endless, and Ari wanted a big family. She just hoped Beau felt half of what she felt in return.
“It’s a complicated story,” Ari said with a sigh. “And I’ll tell you all the specific details sometime. The important thing is that I know.”
“We’re so sorry,” her father began, but Ari cut him off rapidly, not even wanting him to venture in that direction.
“The other important thing—really the only important thing—is that I love you both so much. And you are my parents—my family. Blood doesn’t make a family. Love does.”
The words, the sentiment or epiphany—whatever she wanted to consider it—had come to her in the worst of circumstances and now, giving voice to them, made it all the more real.
Tears spilled down her mom’s cheeks and her father turned his face away so she wouldn’t see the emotion churning in his eyes. But she had glimpsed it. Just before he turned away.
Beau’s hand tightened around hers in silent support. She waited for her parents to collect themselves before she said anything further. When they seemed more controlled, she continued.
“At first I was hurt—devastated,” she admitted. “The idea that I was unwanted, unloved, left on someone’s doorstep to die if no one came.”
She broke off. Despite being at peace with her past, a knot had still formed when speaking of her birth parents.
“Oh baby,” her mother whispered. “You are so very loved.”
Beau cleared his throat, clearly wanting to say something, but he seemed to battle whether to do so or not. Then he sighed and ran his free hand over his head, a signal of his agitation.
“Ari, the night you were taken from the safe room, when we all left the house to engage the threat against us . . . I tripped over a body. It was a man who’d been badly beaten. In fact I didn’t think he was even alive. But then he spoke and he made me promise to give his last words to you.”
Her eyes rounded with shock and her parents gave him a look of equal bewilderment.
“Me?” she asked, flabbergasted over Beau’s statement.
Beau took a deep breath and squeezed her hand, lacing and unlacing their fingers, hesitating a fraction of a second longer.
“He was your birth father.”
“What?”
“Oh my word,” her mother whispered.
Her father remained silent, his expression and features stoic. He’d frozen the moment Beau had dropped the words “birth father.” At least he hadn’t said father. Because that would have been an insult to the man who was her father in every way except blood.
“I have to back up a little,” Beau admitted. “He called me a few days before. Not long after you came to me for help. And he warned me. He told me what they’d done to your birth mother in order to glean information about who your adopted parents were.”
Ari’s hand broke free of her parents’ grasp and she brought it over her mouth as a gasp escaped.
“I won’t go into the details,” Beau said in disgust. “There’s no need. These people are—were—animals. But then I neither heard from him again, nor did I ever see him in person until that night. When I found him outside. And he made me swear that I would give you his message.”
“What was it?” Ari asked, her voice catching.
“That he loved you. That your birth mother loved you. And that when they discovered the true intentions of the surrogacy foundation who funded your birth mother’s pregnancy, they ran. They had several close calls, so after you were born they went to . . .”
He broke off and closed his eyes as if what he would say next hurt him more than it would her.
“They went to my father,” he said hoarsely. “Because he was an active donor/participant in the foundation, and they begged him to take you in and raise you. So you’d be safe.”
Her father closed his own eyes when Beau spoke the last and Ari frowned, realizing this hadn’t come as a surprise to him.
“My father,” he said, with bitter emphasis on the word, “refused and instead sent your birth parents to . . . them.”
Beau pointed at her parents as his words trailed off.
“I’m very glad that he did,” Ari said softly.
She reached up to touch Beau’s jaw, sliding her thumb over the hard cheekbone.
“I would hate to think of us as having been raised as siblings. That would put quite a kink in our relationship, don’t you think?”
And then she groaned.
“Oh my God. Forget I said that. I did not mean it that way.”
“Jesus,” her father muttered, reaching to cover his ears. “There’s only so much a father can take, Ari.”
Her mother was battling a smile and Beau looked baffled, almost as if he’d fully expected her to think he was repugnant because of the kind of man his father was.
“It would indeed put a kink in it,” her mother said with a completely straight face.
“Enough!” her father groaned.
Beau went tense again, and he was studying her father intently.
“There is one thing I’d like to know,” Beau said in a quiet tone.
Since it was obviously directed at her father, he nodded in Beau’s direction.
“You went to see my father the day before he died. Ari would have been around two years old then. Both my father and my mother died the next day. They were murdered.”
Ari gasped because surely . . . No, he couldn’t think . . . Did he think her father had anything to do with his parents’ death?
Her father met Beau’s gaze unblinkingly. “If you’re asking me if I had anything to do with their deaths, the answer is no. I did, however, go to see your father. I went to warn him.”
“About?” Beau prompted.
“About the fact that there were some very discreet inquiries into Franklin’s business dealings. Particularly those involving his funding of CAS—Creative Adoption Solutions. And let me answer your next question before you ask. No, I had no idea at the time that Franklin had anything to do with Ari appearing on my doorstep. There was a note left in her car carrier begging us to take her in and raise her as our own daughter. So we did. It wasn’t until Ari was several months old that we made the move to Houston. When Ari was a year old, Franklin came to see me. To tell me about his role in Ari becoming my daughter. And I’ll be straight with you, son. The son of a bitch tried to blackmail me.”
Beau flinched, but he didn’t look at all surprised by her father’s accusation.
“If he tried to blackmail you, then why would you later warn him?” Beau asked.
Her father signed. “Because he had you. And three other children. He had a family anyone would be proud to have and his children didn’t deserve to suffer because of his sins. I’m just grateful that whoever did the job didn’t also kill you and your brothers and sister.”
“So am I,” Beau murmured.
Ari squeezed Beau’s hand this time, offering him reassurance and comfort. She knew his father wasn’t Father of the Year material but she hadn’t realized just how loathsome he was.
The two men talked a bit further, but the pain was starting to come back, and she drifted, trying to get comfortable on the narrow h
ospital bed. The doctor still hadn’t come by, so she didn’t know if she required surgery or not.
The idea of having to be off her feet for so long was irritating. But at least she could use her powers to float food and drinks to her. Or maybe Beau would sign up for the role as her personal assistant. The idea had merit. She’d make a very exacting job description for him.
She was about to hit the nurse call button, realizing her pain was only getting stronger, when she heard her name being called. Shaking herself, she looked up to see Beau’s concerned face as well as her parents’.
“Do you need pain medicine, honey?” Beau asked gently.
She nodded.
Beau reached over for the controller that operated the TV as well as the call button and punched it. Her father leaned closer to Ari, placing his hand over her forehead and wiping up and over her hair in a soothing motion.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked gently.
She knew he wasn’t acting about her physical hurts. He was asking if she was okay emotionally after having so many bombs dropped on her in such a short period of time.
She was silent for a moment and then she glanced up at her parents, love for them welling deep, so deep.
“Do you think it’s stupid of me to grieve the deaths of two people I never knew?” she whispered.
Ginger lowered the bedrail and carefully slid onto the edge of the bed so she faced Ari.
“You’ve always had such a huge heart, Ari. I’d be more shocked if you didn’t feel at least some sadness for the deaths of the people who gave you life. I owe them a debt I could never have hoped to repay. The only thing they asked in return for the blessing they gave us was for us to love you as our own daughter, and baby, that’s the easiest promise I’ve ever had to keep. No promise was required because we fell in love with you the minute we laid eyes on you.