Although he knew he was being disloyal to his brother’s memory, he couldn’t help feeling proud that Max reminded him a bit of how he’d behaved as a boy. To be honest, he sometimes still acted that way. Just like the other night when he’d first encountered Eve in that Colorado cafe. If he’d been more observant that night, maybe two people would still be alive.
Two more regrets for him to add to the list. He’d made his share of mistakes in the past. In the two days since he’d been home he’d come to realize the worst one had been when he’d left home to join Firebrand. He’d thought Lainey loved him so much, she would wait for him no matter how long he was gone. She’d sure shown him how wrong he was.
With a sigh he pushed to his feet and carried his dishes to the sink. After rinsing them and putting them in the dishwasher, he turned to Casey who was in a deep conversation with Max about all the things she was going to show him at the training center. Ash smiled at the excitement on Max’s face. “If you two will excuse me,” he said, “I’ll go get my gear and bring it downstairs, then see if I can help Lainey.”
Casey nodded. “Go on. After Max gets through, we’re going in the den and tune in to one of the TV channels that’s doing highlights of the Tar Heels’s win in last night’s Sweet 16 game.”
Ash glanced at Max. “Do you like basketball?”
Max nodded. “Yeah, a lot. My gym teacher says I have a lot of promise. He’s working with me so I’ll make the middle school team in a few years.”
Ash shook his head and grinned. “I can’t believe you haven’t told me that. I played basketball when I was in school.”
“I know,” Max said. “I’ve seen pictures of you in your uniform.”
Ash studied Max for a moment and wondered what Richard would think about his son who seemed to be so much like the boy Ash had been when they were growing up. Richard had never cared for the guitar. He preferred listening to classical music while Ash couldn’t get enough rock and roll. Richard had thought sports a waste of time and preferred concentrating on his grades and his latest science project.
There was no getting around it. Max and Ash had more in common than he and Richard ever did.
“I think I’d like to catch that broadcast, too,” Ash said. “I’ll go get my bag and come back downstairs.”
“We’ll be in the den,” Casey said as he walked out of the room and headed for the staircase in the entry hall.
Taking the steps two at a time, he hurried upstairs to his old bedroom and grabbed the bag he hadn’t unpacked since coming home. He walked to the door and stopped to let his gaze drift over the space that had been his sanctuary when he was a boy growing up in this house. The furniture hadn’t been changed, but the posters of rock stars and movie action heroes that once had hung on the walls were gone.
In fact every personal item that belonged to him had been removed, probably at his father’s insistence when he left home for good. He closed his eyes for a moment and gritted his teeth at the memories of his father’s angry voice echoing off these walls as he berated Ash for all his failures. How many times had his father said he was never going to amount to anything?
He shook the thought from his head and reached out to open the door, but the sight of his old desk stopped him. He’d forgotten about the envelope William had brought him earlier containing something Richard wanted him to see.
Ash set the suitcase down and moved to the desk. He stood there for several seconds debating if he really wanted to know what Richard had said. If it was only a replay of his failures in life, he could do without the reminder. He got enough of that at night when he was trying to sleep.
But he couldn’t put it off any longer. If Richard had gone to all the trouble to give him some last message when he was in pain and dying, he owed it to his brother to see what it was. He eased the drawer open and pulled out the sealed manila envelope.
Clutching the envelope with both hands, he sat down on the bed and stared at the words written on the cover in a shaky handwriting. For My Brother Ash. He swallowed the bile in his throat as he imagined how much pain Richard must have been in when he wrote those words.
He took his index finger and traced over the letters of his name. Ash. Richard had been the first to call him that when their parents brought him home from the hospital. Richard, who’d been eight years old at the time, declared that Ashby, their mother’s maiden name, didn’t sound like a boy at all. Instead he should be called Ash, and the name stuck. He’d been Ash to everyone who knew him ever since.
He closed his eyes and tried to repress the old feelings, but they wouldn’t be denied. Richard, the brother he’d loved and looked up to all his life, and who had been the buffer between Ash and his father all those years. And then Richard, who he’d come to hate because he betrayed him by stealing the only woman he’d ever loved.
Maybe Richard had hoped to ease a guilty conscience at the end of his life by trying to set things straight between the two of them. If that had been his goal, it wouldn’t do him any good. Some things can’t be undone. In fact it had been the chance that he might someday be able to tell his brother how much he hated him that had helped Ash survive at times against all odds.
But he was putting off the inevitable. He had to read what was inside the envelope. He reached in and pulled out a three ring binder. Gritting his teeth, Ash opened the notebook. His eyes widened in surprise at the first page, a letter from Richard. It was dated a few weeks before his death. Ash took a deep breath and began to read.
Dear Ash,
By the time you read this, I will no longer be alive. In fact you may never see it because you may choose not to return to the home where we grew up. In case you do, I thought it important that you be made aware of some things.
I know you have hated me for years because you th
i
nk I betrayed you by taking Lainey as my wife. I think you know we both fell in love with her at the same time, but I never let myself forget that you were always the love of her life.
If you remember, when you came home after getting out of the Army, you couldn’t decide whether you wanted to join a special ops group called Firebrand or work with Dad and me. You finally made the decision to marry Lainey and work at DeHan Enterprises, but then you changed your mind and left to train with Firebrand at an undisclosed location in South America for fourteen months. Lainey felt abandoned and rejected.
I tried repeatedly to find out where you were, but I was told your whereabouts were classified. That’s when I knew that because I loved her I couldn’t desert her the way you had, and I stepped into the void you’d left in her life. My actions were as much for you as for her. I think you will understand when you read the other documents in this binder.
I’ve always loved you, Ash, and have been proud to call you my brother. Now I ask that you take care of Lainey and Max. And please forgive me for the hurt I know my actions caused you.
Your loving brother,
Richard
When he’d finished reading, Ash closed his eyes for a moment. He wanted to tear the letter from the notebook and rip it to pieces. Richard’s actions had hurt him alright.
It was true he and Lainey had fought that last day he was home. He’d tried to explain that he wasn’t cut out for working at his father’s business, that all he’d ever wanted was to be a soldier. She wouldn’t listen when he told her that they’d get married as soon as his fourteen months of training was over, but it was no use. He would never forget how she’d thrown her engagement ring at him and told him that if he left, she wouldn’t be waiting when he came back. He hadn’t believed her. As it turned out, he should have.
At the time he’d thought she would come around to his way of thinking, and he was sure they would make things right. Maybe they could have if his training hadn’t kept him isolated from the rest of world in a remote jungle for over a year. Even after all these years, every time he thought about the call he’d made when he was stateside again to let his family know he was back, he almost doubled over in pain. Richard and Lainey married. And the parents of a boy.
Ash glanced at the letter again and frowned. One sentence seemed to jump off the page at him, and he read it several times. My actions were as much for you as for her.
What did Richard mean? Why did he think Ash could ever find a reason to forgive him?
But there were other letters and documents. Maybe they explained what Richard meant.
Ash turned the page and stared in surprise at the letterhead on the next document, St. Claire Fertility Clinic. The date indicated the clinic’s communication had been sent two years after Lainey and Richard had been married. Ash’s heart began to pound as he read the words.
Dear Mr. DeHan,
This letter is being sent as a follow-up to the discussion we had in my office earlier in the week. I am sorry that the tests we’ve conducted over the past month have not produced the results you desired. However, our findings have led us to conclude that your infertility is the result of the damage your body suffered from the chemotherapy and radiation treatments you received in your teenage years.
I would encourage you not to give up hope. New medical procedures occur each day, and we don’t know what the future may hold for those who share your problem. In the meantime, I also suggest you have continued checkups with your oncologist several times a year to make sure you are in good health.
If my clinic can be of further help to you, please let us know.
Sincerely,
Dr. William
Overby
St. Claire Fertility Clinic
The words on the page began to wiggle as Ash stared open-mouthed at the letter. He blinked and took a deep breath. Still unable to believe what he’d read, he looked again at the letter’s date. Two years after Lainey and Richard were married. He frowned. But that couldn’t be right. Max was already born at that time.
Frowning, he turned the page and gasped at the copy of Max’s birth certificate. He’d been born at St. Claire hospital the May following Richard and Lainey’s marriage and his departure to join Firebrand.
Ash frowned and rubbed his hand over his forehead. This didn’t make sense. How could Lainey have gotten pregnant if Richard was sterile? Unless. . .A sick feeling started in the pit of his stomach at the realization that he’d never known when Max was born. He looked at the birth certificate again. May. Max had been born in May. For that to happen Lainey had to have gotten pregnant the summer before, long before she married Richard.
The truth hit him like a kick in the stomach. Lainey’s emotional state the night he left, her pale face, and the fact that she’d wanted to tell him something. It added up to one thing. She was pregnant, and the baby was his. Max was his son. Not Richard’s. And they had kept it from him. The thought niggled at his mind that the letter said Richard had tried to get in touch with him but couldn’t.
He shook the thought from his head. No, the fact remained that Max was his son, and they had no right to deprive him of that knowledge.
He jumped to his feet and hurled the binder across the room. It bounced off the wall, knocking two pictures to the floor. He stared at the shattered frames and glass that lay on top of the open folder, then raised his fists above his head. “No!” he roared. “No, no, no!”
The door to the room flew open and Lainey burst in. She stopped when she caught sight of him and stared in shocked surprise. “Ash, what’s wrong?”
For a moment he wanted to rush forward, wrap his fingers around her neck, and squeeze until she gasped for breath. How could she do this to him? He’d thought he’d had no one for the past ten years, and all the time he’d had a son. His son. Not Richard’s.
Well, now he knew. And he was going to do something about it.
He walked to where the binder lay, picked it up, and shook the glass from its cover. Then he took a menacing step toward her. Her eyes grew large with fear at what she must have seen in his face, and she backed away. She bumped into the door that stood ajar, and he grabbed her by the arm and kicked the door closed before she could escape.
He tightened his hold on her as he raised the binder and shook it in his face. “This is what’s wrong.”
Her confused gaze darted to his hand and back to his face. “Wh-what is th-that?”
“It’s a little present Richard left for me. William brought it to me this morning. It seems that Richard wanted to tell me a few things before he died. Like how much he’d always loved you, and how he’d married you because you needed someone.”
She nodded, and a tear formed in the corner of her eye. “That’s right.”
He ignored the fleeting thought that he didn’t want to hurt the mother of his child. But he’d been trained well for the past ten years. Complete your mission and don’t leave your wounded behind. Richard and Lainey hadn’t done that with him. They’d abandoned him and left him wounded as they lived their lives with his son.