Almost A Bravo

But her voice had deserted her and her throat felt constricted, like brutal hands were squeezing it.

And Kip Anders just kept reading the lying words of Martin Durand.

“‘I left those babies, each in the wrong storage-box crib. I ran from that room and I didn’t look back—until later, of course, when it was too late, when I realized that if Paula did demand a paternity test, she would find out that not only was the baby not mine, it wasn’t hers or Lloyd’s, either. She would remember the night of the birth and the other woman’s child in the same room with her child. She would figure it out and I would be caught anyway, proved not only a cheater, but also a criminal.

“‘As it turned out, though, the crime I’d committed was completely unnecessary. Paula never came after me to take a father’s responsibility. Instead, she took my advice and let Lloyd think the child was his. And then a few months later, Lloyd got another job out of state and we hired Burt. I never saw Paula or Lloyd or the child who was really Marie Bravo’s daughter again.

“‘I told myself there was no harm done. Each woman had a baby—yes, all right, the wrong baby. But they didn’t know that, so what did it matter? Everyone was happy. I tried to forget.

“‘To Claudia, I was a faithful husband from then on. Twelve years later, when Claudia died, I missed her. I mourned her. She left everything to me with the understanding between us that it would all go to you, Jaxon, at my death. I steered clear of Valentine Bay and any chance I might see you, Aislinn, and know you as mine.

“‘But then you showed up at Wild River that summer, looking just like my mother, who had died before I ever set foot in Oregon. At first, I was certain you must somehow have found out who you were to me, that you’d come to make me pay for cheating on Claudia, for switching you with Marie Bravo’s child and then just walking away. I watched you, waiting, wondering how you planned to exact your revenge. But all I saw was a girl with my mother’s haunting dark eyes, a girl in love with Jaxon.’”

In love with Jaxon...

Aislinn stifled a groan.

Because, dear God in heaven, why?

Why that, too?

Martin Durand had no pity at all. He’d died determined to strip her of every last scrap of herself—to steal her identity, take away her family and then go blithely on to out her most shameful secret, that she’d once fallen so hard for a married man, she’d had to run away to keep from throwing herself at him.

Aislinn closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at any of them, closed her eyes, braced her elbows on the table and pressed her hands to the crown of her head. Another groan tried to escape her. She swallowed it down.

Anders made a throat-clearing sound.

“Aislinn,” Jaxon asked cautiously, “are you all right? Do you need a break?”

She ground her teeth together and refused to open her eyes. “Finish, damn you all. Get it over with.”

For a moment, there was silence.

Then at last she heard papers rustling and Anders finally got on with it. “Ahem. Let’s see—ah. Here we go. ‘And then one day, Aislinn, you simply quit. You vanished without claiming your last paycheck, leaving nothing but a brief note for Jaxon citing some vague emergency. The months went by and I began to accept the truth that you were innocent. You knew nothing. I began to see that I would have to do what I could to make things right.

“‘I hired an investigator to find Paula and the missing child who should have been Marie Bravo’s daughter. The Delaneys had named the child Madison.’”

At the sound of that name, Aislinn dropped both hands off her head and slapped them, palms flat, onto the table, causing Erma to let out a small squeak of alarm.

Madison Delaney?

No. Uh-uh. Not the Madison Delaney. Pure coincidence, it had to be.

Anders went right on. “‘My investigator reported that ten years after the Delaney family left Wild River, Lloyd Delaney died. Paula and her daughter then moved to Los Angeles, where Madison pursued a career as an actress—to great success, as it turned out.’”

“This has to be a joke, right?” The question escaped Aislinn without any help from her conscious mind. “This is all a prank. I’m being punked. I’m actually supposed to believe that Martin Durand switched me with the baby who grew up to be Madison Delaney? Do you know who Madison Delaney is? She’s won an Oscar. She’s America’s darling.”

And, dear God, she looks way too much like my sisters.

How had she never noticed that before? Madison Delaney had big blue eyes, like all three of her sisters. And the cutest dimples when she smiled, like both Harper and Hailey. The actress had worn her hair in a variety of colors and styles, but she was naturally blond, wasn’t she? Like Aislinn’s sisters. And she had a nose that turned up ever so slightly at the tip, just like her youngest sister, Grace.

The others were openly staring at her now.

“What?” she demanded. “Don’t you even try to tell me you’ve never heard of Madison Delaney.”

“Of course we’ve heard of her,” said Jax. He spoke gently, as though talking to a crazy person—and maybe she was crazy. Maybe she’d completely lost her mind.

Kip Anders made a throat-clearing sound. “May I go on?”

“Please.” Aislinn poured on the sarcasm. “Be my guest.”

With a dignified nod, Anders continued, “‘The sad news, Aislinn, is that Paula Delaney died not long after that summer you worked at Wild River. I’m sorry you will never have an opportunity to get to know the woman who gave you life. I haven’t tried to contact Madison Delaney, just as I never told you the truth during my lifetime. I have no idea how everyone will take this news. I’m an old man now. Forgive me, but I can’t predict what the fallout from these particular revelations will be. And I don’t have the energy to find out. So, I’m leaving all that to you and the Bravo family. The investigator’s full report will be available to you immediately.’”

Coward, she thought. He’d left all the tough work for others to do. She wished he hadn’t died—so she could kill him herself.

Anders kept reading, “‘And as for you specifically, Aislinn, I’ve had my eye on you since the summer you came to work at Wild River. You haven’t married or gotten seriously involved with a man. I wanted to know if you still held out hope that Jaxon might be yours. That’s why I called you recently to remind you that Jaxon is free now. I heard the longing in your voice when you demanded that I never try to call you again.’”

It was too much. Of a ridiculousness beyond all insanity. Aislinn straightened and announced, “Come on. As if that crazy old man could tell anything from one phone call, a very brief phone call, a phone call that he openly admits ended with me demanding that he leave me alone.”

They all just stared at her—as they’d been staring at her almost from the moment Kip Anders began to read Durand’s last letter.

Another sound of pure misery escaped her. She ducked her head once more and laced her fingers on top of it. “Sorry. Go on. Just...get it over with, please.”

Kip Anders did just that. “‘After that phone call, I knew I had to leave you what you want most of all—a chance at a life with my adopted son.’”

“What the hell, Martin?” It was Jax, his voice a rough whisper.

Kip Anders didn’t even pause. “‘Aislinn, you and Jax are to marry within a week from the date of the reading of this letter. You are then to remain married for at least the next three months. After three months of marriage, you, Aislinn, will receive fifty thousand dollars from my estate. And, Jaxon, you will get the deed to Wild River and all the rest of it, as you should, as I always promised you and Claudia. Once the three months pass, it’s up to the two of you whether you choose to stay together or not.

“‘You must mutually agree to these terms and carry through with them. Aislinn, if you do not marry Jaxon and live as his wife for three full months, you will get nothing.’”

Nothing. She wanted to throw back her head and laugh.

As if fifty thousand dollars meant squat to her right now.

As if all the money in the world could ever stack up against what Martin Durand had just stolen from her—her pride, her family, her very identity.

Anders droned on, “‘Jaxon, if you refuse to marry Aislinn for three months, Wild River Ranch and everything on it will be sold at auction. You will get the proceeds from the sale as well as everything else that belonged to me, minus any other bequests mentioned in my will. Jaxon, you are the son of my heart, and it has been an honor to be a father to you. I want you to have Wild River, but if that doesn’t happen, you will at least have plenty of capital with which to start over. I realize that will be little consolation to you, as we both know very well that you love Wild River more than your life. But believe it or not, I am doing this for you—for both of you. I think you will make a good match, that you will be good for each other. So I am giving you the opportunity you otherwise never would have had. I wish you both love and happiness and a successful future together. With all my deepest affection and my highest regard, Martin Durand.’”

Dropping her hands from their ludicrous protective position over her head, Aislinn popped up straight in her chair. “That’s it? That’s all?”

Anders blinked behind his glasses. “The, erm, end of the letter, yes. But we have yet to cover several specific conditions and particulars that you’ll both need to—”

“Stop.” She shoved back the chair and leaped to her feet. “As if I care about your so-called conditions. As if I care about that old man’s money. As if I care about any of this crap. I am...not that person. Not somebody who was supposed to be named Madison Delaney. I’m Aislinn Bravo. I was born in Montedoro at the villa of Tristan Bouchard, Count of Della Torre. You ask my brothers. They were there, they remember. They...” She lost track of her words as her gaze skittered around the table. They all looked at her as though she’d lost her mind—all of them, Jax most of all.

She could read his thoughts in that look on his face. She’s a nutjob, his expression said, and I am so screwed...

She went ahead and put it right out there, right in his face. “You think I’m crazy.”

Jax jerked back. “No. No, I...”

That made her laugh, a bizarre, deranged sort of sound. “Hey, come on. Be honest, Jax. You think I’ve lost my ever-loving mind. And maybe I have. Because who wouldn’t go crazy, after all I’ve just heard?”

“Aislinn, really, nobody thinks you’re—”

“Oh, yes, you do. And to be perfectly honest, you might be right. I’ve come unhinged. This is all too much and I just can’t take any more. I mean, it’s simply not possible, that my family isn’t my family, that my birth mother and the real Aislinn Bravo moved to Los Angeles, where she became a superstar named Madison Delaney. That all I know to be true about myself and my life is really just a big, fat lie.”

The lawyer suggested mildly, “How about if we take a few minutes and—”

“How ’bout if we don’t?” Aislinn pinned the lawyer with a hard glare.

It was all so far beyond too much.

Jax tried once more, “Aislinn, if you would just—”

“No.” She cut him off cold as she snatched her purse off the chair. “Uh-uh. I need a minute. I need a thousand minutes. I need a lifetime out of this room.” She turned for the door.

“Aislinn, wait!” Jax called after her.

She kept walking, not once glancing back, grabbing the door handle, flinging it wide and escaping down the hallway that led to the waiting room.

As she flew by the front desk, the pretty receptionist jumped up. “Ms., er, are you all right?”

“Not really.”

“Is there something I can—?”

“Thanks, but no.” Aislinn shoved open the entry door and went through it.

Out on the sidewalk under a cool gray sky, she kept walking right into the street. A guy in a red Mustang squealed to a stop just in time to avoid running her down.

“Watch out, you idiot!” he yelled out the window.

She ignored him and kept going until she reached the opposite sidewalk, at which point she suddenly ran out of steam. Halting just past the stop sign, she found herself in front of a three-story building of light-colored brick with a sign that read BPOE on the side.

With no idea where to go next, she ducked into the alcove that sheltered the entry doors. For a moment, she froze and stared at her faint reflection in the glass of the door—a dark-haired woman in a polka-dot dress, someone she hardly recognized.

She shook herself. She couldn’t just stand here blocking the entrance.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she slid into the corner on the right side of the door and tried to decide what to do next.

Chapter Two

“Give me a few minutes,” Jax said to the others. “I’ll talk to her. I’ll bring her back.”

He went through the door she’d left open and strode down the hallway toward the waiting area.

This was like some nightmare, his worst nightmare. Wild River could be lost to him because Martin had done something really bad way back when—and then decided he needed to make his own brand of twisted amends after his death.

And the woman, Aislinn. She’d seemed completely destroyed by what she’d just learned. It had felt downright evil to sit there at that table, a witness to her suffering, as Anders read that showboat letter of Martin’s that said she wasn’t who she’d always believed herself to be.

Damn Martin. Damn him to hell and back. Jax had loved the old reprobate, but this was one long, rickety bridge too far.

And then again...

Well, Martin was Martin. He’d always made life interesting. Jax and his Aunt Claudia, both serious, down-to-earth and a little bit shy, had secretly reveled in the excitement Martin brought to their lives. They always tried to hold him back when he got some out-there idea he was itching to pursue. At the same time, they loved it. They were his audience and Martin was the star of their cobbled-together family of three.

If Martin were here now in the flesh, what would he say? Jax knew: I love you, son. I never wanted to hurt you. But we both know some men need a good kick in the pants to get out there and get what matters most—and who around here needs a good kick? Martin would grin. Look in a mirror, Jaxon, my boy.

Jax felt all turned around. Wild River was in jeopardy. He needed to consider every possibility.

Was the woman really what she seemed? Could this be her doing, somehow?

That bit about being in love with him. What was that, anyway? Had Martin simply lost it in his last days—or had Aislinn Bravo somehow gotten to him? Had she managed, secretly, to cozy up to a lonely old man and whisper in his ear?

But whisper what? I’m your daughter and you owe me. I’ll take Jaxon.

No. Wrong.

This wasn’t the woman’s fault. It couldn’t be. Even with a possible fifty K in the mix, it didn’t quite add up that she was in on this horror show.

No. On the surface at least, this was pure Martin—the drama of it, the insanity and the out-there, over-the-top solution of Jax and Martin’s secret daughter getting married and remaining so for three months in order that said secret daughter would get her chance at her heart’s desire: Jax himself.

Completely bonkers.

Still, he had to keep his eyes open. That Aislinn Bravo might be the bad guy in this didn’t seem possible. But as of now, anyway, he couldn’t be 100 percent certain of her innocence, either. He barely remembered her from that summer five years ago, and he had no way to be sure who she was deep down, at heart.

And whatever she’d done, whatever her possible part in this lunacy, he needed her on the same page with him now. Unless Anders could come up with some way to break the terms of Martin’s crazy-ass last will and testament, Jax was going to need her to be married to him for the next three months.

It was that, or lose Wild River.

And that could never happen. His family had owned Wild River for generations. The ranch was his future and his past. It was everything to him. He would never let it go.

He strode fast across the lobby and pushed through the double doors out onto Exchange Street, glancing left first, then right and seeing no sign of her. Had she vanished around the corner? Disappeared into a Lyft?

But then he looked straight ahead.

And there she was across the street, huddled in the doorway alcove of the Elks building, her arms wrapped around herself, her delicate shoulders hunched. She seemed to be studying the pretty white sandals on her narrow feet.

He waited for a delivery van to go by and then jogged across the street, slowing his steps when he reached the sidewalk in order not to startle her.

She must have sensed him coming. Her shining chin-length curls bounced as her head came up. He stopped six feet from her, close enough to talk, but not so close he crowded her.

“What do you want?” Her eyes were enormous, dark as black coffee, brimming with hurt and confusion.

If she’s acting, she ought to be in movies—just like the other one, Madison Delaney. “Come back inside with me. Hear the rest.”

A wild shudder went through her. “Oh, God. There’s more?”

“Just the details. You need to hear them. We both do.”

“No.” She shook her head, setting the curls bouncing again. “No, I don’t think I need that. I don’t think I can.”

A redhead approached pushing a stroller. Her freckle-faced little boy waved at Jax as he rolled by.

Jax stole a step closer to the woman in the alcove. “You don’t have to decide anything today.”

She scrunched her eyes shut and swiped her inky hair back from her forehead. “I mean it, Jax. I really don’t think I can.”

“Can, what?”

“Go back in there. I mean, is this really happening? I’m not me. And crazy old Martin Durand is my biological father?”

“I hear you.” Another step. She didn’t bolt. “It’s completely insane.”

She pinned him with a shining, furious look. “I hate him. You must hate him about now, too, huh?”

He answered her truthfully. “No. I loved him. I miss him.”

She made a tight, angry sound. “You still love him? After what you just heard in there?”

“Hey. I didn’t say he was an easy man to love. But he made every day an adventure. And he was always good to me in his way.”

She scoffed outright. “Oh, please. I saw how he was that summer I worked for you. He let you do all the work while he sat on the front porch in his ratty old bathrobe.”

“I like doing the work. And Martin used to work hard, too, back when I was growing up.” He watched her closely as he spoke. Did his voice seem to soothe her? Maybe. And at this point, he would try anything to keep her from taking off again. He went on talking. “When I was a boy, we worked together, Martin and me. Aunt Claudia was sick a lot. Martin taught me everything I know about ranching and horses. And then he sent me to college, though I didn’t want to go. He said I needed to get out and see what the world had to offer, said I had to be certain that Wild River was my choice, not just the only thing I knew. He also got it right about Judy—my ex-wife?”

She looked at him, wide-eyed. “What about her?”

“Martin said Judy would never be happy at Wild River, no matter that she promised me she would love ranch life. Judy didn’t love it and she kept after me to move with her to the Bay Area, where her family lived. Eventually, she divorced me and went back to San Francisco.”

And whoa. Talk about too much information—bringing up Judy, babbling out private stuff that no one needed to hear. Soothing this woman was one thing, but the verbal diarrhea needed to stop.

Aislinn, still huddled in the corner by the door, was watching him. And now that he really looked at her, he could see Martin in her—in the soft, full shape of her mouth, the elegant line of her nose.

He held out his hand. “Come back in, won’t you?”

She looked at his outstretched fingers, considering. But she didn’t take them. “I’m sorry,” she said, as he gave up and dropped his arm back to his side. “I can’t do it—can’t go back in there. Can’t do...any of it.”

Oh, yeah, she could. She had to do it. Impatience coiled like a snake inside him. But he refused to give in to it. Impatience wasn’t going to help him get through to her. “What’d I say a minute ago? You don’t have to decide right now.”

Those doe eyes stayed locked with his. “I’m scaring you. I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not scaring me,” he lied.

“Yes, I am. And I get it. You’d do anything, even marry a stranger, to keep the ranch you love.”

Damn straight, he thought but somehow managed not to blurt out. “Look. It’s three months. You live nearby, right?”

“In Valentine Bay.”

“A half-hour drive from Wild River. Just think about it. We get married. You live at the ranch, which isn’t that far from your job or whatever. Three months. And you’re fifty thousand dollars richer.”

She looked about to break down in tears. “It’s too much. I told you, I can’t—”

“Wait.” He put up both hands. “You’re right. Don’t decide now. Just come back inside. That’s all I’m asking.”

She drew herself up and said stiffly, “There’s something I have to say to you.”

“Go for it.”

“No matter what that crazy old fool thought, I am not in love with you.”

She wanted him to say he believed her? Not a problem. Whatever she wanted, he would damn well provide it. “I get that. I believe that. You’re not in love with me and you never have been.”

She frowned, as though judging his answer, turning his words over in her mind, weighing his sincerity. In the end, she nodded. “Good, then. I’m glad we have that cleared up, at least.”

A heavily inked couple in matching short-sleeved plaid shirts, bib overalls and Birkenstocks came toward him. He fell back toward the curb a little and nodded as they passed between him and the woman in the doorway.

When he stepped closer to Aislinn again, she was fiddling with the shoulder strap of her purse, all frustrated energy. And then she froze. Her soft mouth trembled. “I’m just having a little trouble processing, you know? I mean, if what that letter said is true, I’m not a Bravo. My sisters and brothers are not actually mine. At this moment, I have to tell you, I don’t even know who I am. And there’s a movie star living in Southern California who doesn’t know she’s got a whole family of amazing people she’s never even met. It’s all wrong. It can’t be true. I can’t even deal.”

“You’re getting way ahead of yourself.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it’s true. Sometimes in life you just need to do the next thing—which, right now, is to go back inside and hear the rest of what Kip has to tell us.”

She chewed on her plump lower lip—and the miracle happened. She nodded. “All right. But I’m likely to be late for work, so I need to call in first.”

“Do it.”

She got out her phone. He turned and went to wait by the stop sign, giving her privacy. A minute or two later, she came up beside him. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Ever the gentleman, Jax opened the door for her. Aislinn went through reluctantly.

The receptionist gave her a too-bright smile as they passed her desk. In the conference room, Burt glared at her and Erma nodded, giving away nothing.

Kip Anders said, “Aislinn. Excellent,” as though she’d done something wonderful. “Anyone care for more coffee or whatever?” When no one moved toward the credenza for a refill, he straightened his stack of papers. “All right, then, let’s continue.”