In His Keeping (Slow Burn #2)(111)

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 . . .”