In His Keeping (Slow Burn #2)

Ari automatically shook her head in denial, her eyes going cloudy with hurt once more.

Ramie sent her a fierce look. “I was there, Ari. I felt everything they felt. I knew everything they knew. Do you doubt my powers? Do you think that somehow this would be the only instance in my entire life where I’m wrong?”

“Then why?” Ari choked out. “I don’t understand why.”

“Because the same people who are after you now were after you even then. And your parents were terrified. Always on the run. With your mother pregnant, it wasn’t as easy for them to hide. To disguise themselves. They were constantly looking over their shoulder, fearing the worst. And then you were born, and they loved you so very much. Thought you were a miracle. Something good and special in the midst of evil. They tried to keep you—wanted to keep you. But the people after you caught up to them. They escaped through sheer dumb luck and someone being in the right place at the right time. And that was when they knew they couldn’t continue like this. That it was no way to raise a child. That your life would be hell. You’d never have the things children need the most. Stability. A home. Security. To be able to go to school, have friends, play sports or take up ballet.”

Ramie paused, clearly exhausted by her ordeal, but she seemed determined to get through to Ari before she succumbed to the mental—and physical—toll it took on her.

“They wanted you to have all that. So they went to someone they thought would help them. Perhaps even take you in themselves. Caleb and Beau’s parents, Franklin and Missy Devereaux.”

Caleb and Beau flinched and Beau curled his hands into tight balls wondering at the staggering coincidence that he was tied to Ari and her family in more ways than just his love for her. Any doubt that the call from her “birth father” had been a hoax fell away as Ramie’s words hit him squarely in the chest.

Ramie sent Caleb and Beau a grimacing look of sorrow. “You may not want to hear this. Ari and I can continue in private.”

Beau surged forward, as did Caleb, standing from the couch. Whether intentional or not, the two brothers stood a mere foot apart, in solidarity.

Caleb spoke before Beau could muster a reply.

“There is nothing you can say about my father—or mother—that will shock either of us. We’re well acquainted with exactly who and what they are—and what they weren’t,” he said in an icy voice.

Beau merely nodded, unable to add anything more that Caleb hadn’t succinctly stated himself.

Ramie sighed and turned back to Ari. “Franklin complained to your birth father that he already had three brats and his stupid wife had gotten herself knocked up again—that they’d just discovered that fact a mere week earlier, and he couldn’t possibly take on another child when he could barely tolerate the three he had with a fourth now on the way.”

Even knowing what a complete bastard his father was, Beau couldn’t control the flinch of hearing his father’s words spoken baldly.

“It was then that he recommended Gavin Rochester, saying he was a business associate and as luck would have it, he and his wife were desperate to have a baby, but had thus far been unsuccessful. He even provided money and the use of his private jet so their movements wouldn’t be traceable.”

Ramie cupped Ari’s damp face in her palms, forcing Ari to look at her.

“Ari, I want you to listen to me. I need you to hear this.”

Ari blinked and then trained her unfocused stare at Ramie, blinking to clear away some of the obvious confusion.

“Your mother and father—your real mother and father—and by that I mean the people who raised you as your daughter, who loved you and protected you your entire life, didn’t know about any of what transpired between your birth parents and their pursuers nor did they have any idea of Franklin Devereaux’s involvement and the fact that he in effect sent you to them until two years after they adopted you.

“They answered a doorbell on a snowy Christmas night and found . . . you. A beautiful little angel girl. And a note. Begging them to take you in and raise you as their own. That they were unable to provide for you and that you would always be in danger. Gavin and Ginger loved you instantly. And so Gavin took you and his wife out of the country where he began a systematic paper trail that documented a pregnancy, your delivery in a foreign country and your subsequent return to the United States.

“He sold off everything he owned prior to you, except one oil company, here in Houston. And they moved here, to begin their lives with you. That is the truth and the only one that matters. You were loved. You were wanted. You matter.”

Ari slipped her arms around Ramie this time and fiercely hugged the other woman. “Thank you,” Ari whispered. “You can’t know what that means to me.”