Lost and Found (27 page)

Her words squeezed at her heart, and
it hurt. She’d never hurt this bad. “Why wouldn’t you want to see
me? You gave me away.”

Regan’s shoulders rose and then
dropped. “I did. I needed to.” She looked around. “Can we sit? I
really need to tell you all of this. I won’t feel right if you
leave and don’t have the answers you came for. Besides, there
hasn’t been a day in twenty-five years I haven’t thought about you.
I’d like to have a few moments.”

Darcy didn’t know what to do with
that. If she’d thought about her, why didn’t she come for
her?

Regan sat down on the couch, so Darcy
took the chair.

Regan took a deep breath. “I don’t
even know where to begin.” She looked down at her hands and then up
at Darcy and smiled. “First of all, you’re beautiful. You’re more
beautiful than I ever could have imagined.”

Darcy bit down on her lip. “Thank
you.”

“
I’m glad I got to spend
some time with you before all this. I enjoyed your company
immensely. Ed is lucky to have you.”

“
I don’t think he feels
that way.”

“
We’ll see. Don’t give up
on him yet.” Regan adjusted on the couch. “His name was Alexander
Hamilton.”

Darcy just looked at her and then
eased back in her chair when she realized that was the name of her
birth father. At that moment, she felt dizzy. This was really
happening. She hadn’t prepared herself for the moment when she
would actually get the information she’d craved.

Regan wiped her brow with the back of
her hand. “I killed him nineteen years ago.”

Darcy reminded herself to breathe.
That certainly wasn’t what she’d expected. But then Ed’s story,
about the man Regan had once been involved with, entered her
mind.

“
In the
theater?”

This time, Regan’s eyes shot open
wide. “Yes. How did you know that?”

“
Ed said something about a
man you’d been involved with before you met Zach. He told me the
man had beaten you nearly to death and then came back. He said that
you shot him.”

Regan nodded. “I forget how much they
know. I don’t know if he ever knew about the baby—you.”

“
He beat you. My dad said I
was born in trauma. He thought it was an accident. He said they
were told my mother died, and that I was six weeks early and fought
for my life.”

Regan rubbed her hands together. This
was obviously making her nervous, perhaps it even pained
her.

Darcy was uncomfortable, and she
genuinely felt sorry for Regan. But she had to know.

“
We were engaged. I met him
when I’d moved to L.A. and then we moved to Hawaii. I was so in
love with him. He was rich and charismatic. I had the most enormous
engagement ring and a beautiful wardrobe.” She stopped for a moment
to collect herself. “He was happy about you. Excited. We had a
nursery, and he’d bought little outfits. But he was lying to me the
whole time. One day he came home and he told me that he’d married
someone else.”

“
Married someone
else?”

Regan nodded. “Yes. She was a wealthy
woman and that was very important to him. I was just the daughter
of immigrants.”

“
That’s
terrible.”

“
He couldn’t afford to have
me—us—in his life. So he set out to kill me. And you.”

The tears came then. Darcy couldn’t
stop them, and she didn’t want to.

Regan stood and paced the small room.
“I knew I had to give you up to save you. Curtis told him I had
died in the attack, and Alexander fled the country. It was stupid.
We should have had him locked up, but at the time…” she stopped and
looked at Darcy, “all I cared about was you.”

“
Me?” Darcy got to her
feet. “If all you cared about was me, why did you give me away? Why
did you turn your back on me?”

“
I didn’t turn my back on
you. I gave you away so he couldn’t find you. They told him you
were dead, too. There was no reason for him to ever go looking for
you and hurt you. You had a good family, and you were
safe.”

There was no argument for that. She
certainly did have a good family and never in her life had she felt
threatened.

Regan wiped at her eyes. She was
crying now, hard. “I loved you so much. Giving you away was the
hardest thing I ever did. Having you back hurts so much, you can’t
imagine.”

There was a sinking feeling in the pit
of her stomach, and the ache in her heart was different. “I never
meant you any pain. I had no idea, not one, that you might have
been the person I was looking for.” There was no way she was going
to tell her that she had actually thought perhaps her husband had
been her father. No good could come out of that.

“
I didn’t say it was a pain
I wouldn’t endure.” Regan walked toward her. “You’re here, in my
life. It would hurt even worse to know I knew you and that you
walked away.”

“
I don’t belong
here.”

Regan took her hand and turned it so
that the tattoo showed. “You do.” She pulled Darcy into her arms
and held her.

Darcy wanted to be strong and just
stand there, but she couldn’t. A deep, hard sob broke free. She
wrapped her arms around Regan and held her tight.

“
Darcy, you are my
daughter. I don’t ever want to lose you again. I won’t. I didn’t
want to lose you the first time. I don’t want to do it
again.”

She wanted to speak. She did. But the
words were buried in her throat.

Regan pulled back and wiped the tears
from Darcy’s face. “Ed will come around. He will.”

Darcy only nodded. She wasn’t
sure.

“
I want you to stay in
Nashville. I think we need each other.”

Darcy nodded again. She
didn’t want to leave. She wanted to be Regan’s daughter. She
did
belong to the family
she loved so much.

“
Spencer and Tyler are a
bit confused right now. Zach took them home, and they’re having a
very long talk.”

“
I never thought about all
this when I went looking for you.”

“
How could you ever have
imagined.”

“
They’re going to hate
me.”

“
They liked you just fine.
You’ll be even more important to them.”

The moment sunk in. “I have
brothers.”

Regan laughed through her tears. “They
are amazing boys. Amazing.”

“
Now I know why I was so
comfortable around them.”

“
And why you all have the
same eyes.” The voice came from the door.

Both Darcy and Regan turned to see Ed
standing there. His hair was mussed, and his shirt untucked. He
almost looked like he’d been in a fight.

The pain in Darcy’s chest deepened as
she looked at him. She loved him so much, but how could they
possibly ever go back to the way they were?

“
I’m going to head home and
see if I can help the boys through this.” She kissed Darcy’s cheek.
“I’ve missed you so much. I think, if you’ll have me, I’d like to
take over where your mother left off. And she did a wonderful job,
by the way.”

Darcy sucked in a breath. “I’d like
that.”

“
Come by for dinner
tomorrow. Spend some time with the boys. You’ll all need to heal
over this. And you should do it together. You’re blood.”

They were. Oh, she had brothers. Her
head spun and she thought she might even pass out, but it was
exactly what she’d wanted.

Regan pulled her in for one more
embrace and then turned to Ed.

She walked toward the door and stopped
in front of him. “None of this is easy. On you, on her, or on any
of us. Decisions were made twenty-five years ago, and now we have
to face this.”

Ed wasn’t looking at her. He was
looking at the floor.

Regan lifted his chin until he looked
at her. “She is my daughter, and I love her very much. Eduardo, I
love you, too. Look past the tear that I caused and listen with
your heart.”

She patted his cheek and walked out,
leaving two very hurt people alone to work out their
differences.

Ed stood at the door, and Darcy stood
across the room. Neither of them spoke for what seemed like
eternity. He was too mad, too hurt, too confused to even form
words.

“
If you’re just going to
stand there and breathe, maybe you should go,” Darcy said to
finally break the silence.

“
Maybe you should just let
me breathe. I’ve gone through a lot of hell in the past two hours
over you.”

“
You? You’ve gone through
hell? My whole world just fell in on me.”

“
You got what you
wanted.”

“
I didn’t want to lose you
in the process.”

Ed raked his sore fingers through his
hair. “You don’t want me. Not now.”

Darcy threw her hands in the air. “I
said I didn’t want to know. I stopped searching. I came clean with
everything I ever knew and all the things I did. I didn’t bring
this on. You did.”

Guilt rolled in his stomach and made
him sick. “Christian did it. He asked Curtis to look at the
file.”

“
You’re blaming
him?”

He took a defiant step toward her and
stopped. “I’m telling you what he did.” He retreated back. “I
didn’t stop him though. I was curious.”

“
I have very mixed emotions
about this. I got what I’d wanted. And I couldn’t have asked to
have found out that a better person gave me away. Her reasons were
very valid.”

“
I know.”

“
You have to believe me. I
had no idea.”

“
I know.”

She narrowed her stare on him. “What
happened to you? You look like hell.”

Ed felt like hell, too. “I punched my
brother.”

“
You what?”

He tucked his hands into his pockets
as if to hide the marks. “He came at you. I didn’t like how he
handled the situation.”

“
Oh, for your information,
Eduardo Keller, your reaction wasn’t stellar.”

“
I wasn’t ready for
that.”

“
And you think I
was?”

He dropped his shoulders.
“No.”

“
Why are you here?” She
turned and picked up a box and stacked it on another. “Because I
have things to do if you’re just going to stand there. I need to
move.”

“
You’re not
moving.”

She stood straight and put her hands
on her hips. “Did he punch you back? You have a bruise on your
cheek.”

Ed touched his face and winced.
“Yeah.”

“
Good. You both deserve
it.”

She was right. They’d both acted like
jerks. But really, who was prepared for that? But he had to
remember, she hadn’t been prepared for it either.

“
This wasn’t probably a
very good birthday, was it?”

“
Oh, I don’t know,” she
said as she plopped down on the couch. “This morning I was wildly
in love. I had cake and balloons. I had a lovely dinner at your
folks’ house. Even for a brief, oh, five minutes, I was engaged
with a beautiful ring. So most of the day was good. I did meet my
mother. I suppose that should make up for it all.”

“
Darcy, I’m sorry. I should
have stopped him.”

“
You had no idea.” The
anger had gone out of her fight, and her words were
soft.

Ed laughed. “You’re my
cousin.”

“
Only by
association.”

“
Darcy, I was
joking.”

He walked around to stand in front of
her.

“
I was an ass. I want you
to forgive me.”

“
I don’t know if I can. You
don’t trust me.”

Ed knelt down in front of her. “I’ve
been set straight.”

She let out a snort of a laugh.
“Really? In just two hours you’ve decided you’re fine with
this?”

“
My grandmother, with a
cane, can be very persuasive.”

She covered her mouth and chuckled
behind her hand. “Did she hit you, too?”

Ed took her hands in his. “In my
thirty-five years as a Keller, I have never heard my family scream
and yell. Tonight I did. And they were all screaming and yelling at
me.”

“
I’m sorry.”

“
Darcy, they all love you.
What Regan—your mother—went through was terrifying for them all.
She did the best thing for you, and she has paid the ultimate price
for it. I had no right to treat you the way I did.”

Darcy reached up and touched his sore
cheek. “You don’t hate me?”

“
I couldn’t hate you. I’ve
never loved anyone as I’ve loved you.”

“
What are we going to do
about all this? I’m here to stay. I’m part of this family
now.”

He turned her arm over and looked down
at her tattoo. He raised it to his lips and brushed a kiss over the
words. “You were always a part of it. Darcy, I can’t let you go. I
never should have said all those nasty things to you.”