Susan Crosby - A Family, At Last

His driver’s license told a basic story. Name, Vaughn Ryder. Six-foot-one, 180 pounds. Lean and rangy, she thought. Brown hair, blue eyes. Thirty-eight years old. Organ donor.

“What else have you got?”

He held up a business card. Under his name was a list: ranch and farm contracts, conservation easements, estate planning, water and power rights. His address said Ryder Ranch, Red Valley, California, with a P.O. box, phone numbers and an email address. She couldn’t begin to imagine what a cowboy lawyer would want of Kyle, but she was curious enough to invite him in.

Karyn opened the door then stared for a few seconds. He was a cowboy all right, from his black hat down to his fancy stitched boots. A pristine white dress shirt with silver snaps was set off with a gorgeous bolo tie of silver and black. His black jeans were snug—

Definitely a man. And truly a cowboy, apparently, who matched his business card.

“Want to pat me down?” he asked, humor in his voice.

She struggled to look him in the eye. “What?”

“For weapons? I’d like to speak to you privately, and if you need to check me for weapons before you’ll invite me in, I’m okay with that.” He held his arms out, his briefcase dangling from one hand.

She took a couple of steps back and gestured him indoors, feeling heat in her face at being caught eyeing him. “You’ve been following me since I left Disneyland,” she stated, noting his graying temples and the intensity of his blue eyes as he swept off his hat.

“Guilty. Actually, I’ve been behind you since you first left here this morning.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to get a sense of your life. You shop a lot.”

She laughed at the wonder in his voice, and it felt good, breaking the tension. “It’s what I do for a living. I’m a personal shopper.”

“That pays enough to make a living?”

“Are you implying that I make money some other way?” Ice coated her words. “I assure you everything I do is aboveboard.”

“My apologies,” he said with sincerity. “I didn’t mean to imply that. Ignorance, that’s all. May we sit?”

She sat, forgiving him for not understanding her business, which encompassed much more than shopping. Her task list was even longer than those written on his business card.

“Why do you need a sense of my life?” she asked. “You said you’re here about my twin brother.”

“What I have to say involves you, but primarily Kyle, and he’s the one I’d like to speak to first. I’ve been hunting for him but haven’t come up with an address.”

“You can’t....” Karyn’s throat burned as memories assaulted her. Hot, painful tears pressed at her eyes with such suddenness and force she barely managed to get words out. “You can’t find him because he died, Mr. Ryder. He was killed in combat three years ago in Afghanistan.”

She sat there for a moment, trying to tamp down the emotions that were still raw and unfiltered, even after all this time, but especially hard at Christmas. When she couldn’t pull herself together, she hurried to her bedroom, shutting the door, leaning against it before falling on the bed, not caring that a stranger sat in her living room.

* * *

Vaughn stood automatically, then sank slowly into the chair when he realized she wasn’t coming right back. Kyle Lambert is dead. Relief swept through him first. His life had just gotten much easier. Then he recalled the fresh grief in Karyn’s eyes. He couldn’t imagine losing any of his five siblings. The pain would be overwhelming.

Of course, none of it mattered at all if Kyle turned out not to be the man Vaughn was seeking—or even the right Kyle Lambert. But seeing Karyn’s curly light brown hair was its own kind of validation.

Unable to sit still, Vaughn wandered the room. A table was stacked neatly with wrapped Christmas presents, a color-coded tag on each one, but otherwise her apartment wasn’t decorated for the holiday. On the wall were numerous paintings, mostly landscapes and floral themes. When he looked closer, he noticed Karyn Lambert’s signature in the corner.

There were no photographs of any kind, not of people or places or events, which he found odd. Most women displayed pictures.

After a while a door clicked open. Karyn came into the living room, her eyes still damp. She was an attractive woman, not Hollywood-slim but nicely curved, more girl next door. Her height was a mystery because she was wearing very high heels. He’d noted her sexy walk all day as he’d followed her.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I knew he was a marine, but I didn’t know he’d passed away. I should’ve waited for my private investigator to dig deeper when I was given Kyle’s name. He was out of the state on a job, and I was in a hurry to get results. I—I’m sincerely sorry for how I handled this.”

“Dig deeper for what, Mr. Ryder?” she asked.

“Vaughn, please. Ms. Lambert, I believe your brother may have fathered a child with Ginger Donohue six years ago.”

She dropped onto the sofa, her eyes wide. “Kyle has a child? A piece of him is still here?”

“It’s a possibility. Since we can’t do paternity testing with your brother, we can do relationship testing with you.”

“I’m an aunt? Please tell me about— What’s the child’s name?”

“Cassidy.” He pulled out his cell phone and brought up a photo.

“Oh.” Karyn ran her fingers over the screen, tears pooling in her eyes again. “She’s so beautiful.”

“Yes.”

“She kinda looks like Kyle.”

And you, he thought. “Does the name Ginger Donohue ring a bell, Ms. Lambert?”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand. Cassidy is six? Why would this woman wait so long to come forward?”

“Are you sure your brother didn’t know?” Vaughn asked.

“I’m positive. He would’ve been there for his daughter, no doubt about it.”

“I don’t know why Ginger didn’t tell Kyle, since obviously he was alive for the first three years of Cassidy’s life.”

“So, something changed. Is it money? I was the beneficiary of Kyle’s death benefits, and I haven’t spent much of it. It should go to his daughter—”

Vaughn stopped her with a gesture. “Ginger walked out of Cassidy’s life two years ago.”

Karyn leaned back abruptly, staring at him but her gaze not really connecting, then a slow dawning of excitement came over her.

“When do I get to pick her up?” She looked around her space. “I’ll need a bigger place. Near a park. I’ll have to check out schools.” She smiled and looked directly at Vaughn. “Where is she now? When do I get her?”

He ignored her bubble of happiness. He had to. “If the testing confirms she’s Kyle’s daughter, you’ll meet her, of course, and be part of her life. But, Ms. Lambert, she won’t be living with you. I’ve been her father since the day she was born. I’m not giving her up.”

Chapter Two

“You’ve been her...father?” Karyn shook her head, confused. “I don’t— Did you know she wasn’t yours?”

He nodded. “Ginger was pregnant when we met, but we didn’t get married until Cassidy was a month old. The birth certificate lists the father as unknown.” Vaughn walked to her front window and looked out. “I asked for years to adopt Cass, but Ginger put me off. Then she left. That’s why I started the search for the biological father. I want to legally make her mine.”

Karyn’s mind spun as shock piled atop shock. She hardly knew what to think, except that this woman, Ginger, must be the epitome of femininity to attract both Kyle, a regular guy, and this Vaughn, who was a cut above. Apparently neither man had seen her for her true self.

“We ran into a lot of dead ends because so many years had elapsed,” Vaughn said, his back still turned to Karyn. “An old roommate of Ginger’s provided the name Kyle Lambert as a possibility. After that it was a matter of connecting the dots, but I’m still not sure it’s your brother. We had a name. There are others of the same name and age around the country. Do you know if he lived in San Francisco seven years ago?”