Invidious Betrayal (26 page)

Ian noted that Francis, was serious, but gentle, always trying to calm his grandchildren and keep the peace between Francois Jr. and his sister, Alexis, who continuously poked fun at each other while they ate.
They’re my mother’s brother and sister
, he thought.
My aunt and uncle
. Ian tried to process all of the unfamiliar emotions he was experiencing. He couldn’t figure them out. But they were good feelings. Great feelings.

He thought about what he’d learned so far about his mother’s family. The Morels had raised four children. Noemi, Francois Jr., Alexis, and Felipe were their kids from eldest to youngest. Felipe, the Morel’s youngest, had died a few years ago while protecting a friend at a bar. That tidbit of information was whispered to him by Alexis, who sat to his left. Her comment garnered a warning glance from Emile, his grandmother.
My grandmother!
–that will take some getting used to but Ian definitely welcomed it. He’d also found out that Francois and Roxanne had a fifteen-year-old son named Tanner who was away visiting with friends.

“Why didn’t you come to my birthday party?” Mandy’s sweet voice interrupted his thoughts. She’d been looking at him for a while with curiosity, a frown on her cute little face, instead of eating her dessert.

Ian couldn’t think of a thing to tell his little cousin and was relieved when Roxanne intervened.

“All right girls,” Roxanne said, standing. “The grownups need to talk, and you guys need a bath.”

Mandy immediately lost interest in getting an answer from him. “We’re taking a shower here? I can stay the night?” she squealed.

“Only if you promise not to paint the cat again.” Mr. Morel smiled as he sipped his coffee.

Oh
, Ian thought, that makes sense—a cat…it must be somewhere in the house. Hearing its tiny heartbeat had confused Ian at first, mixing with the rhythmic beats of the small person growing inside Aria. He’d repressed his mind’s processing of all those new heartbeats and other sounds a few hours ago, but he could still hear them in the background of his new awareness.

“We promise,” the two girls sang in unison.

Aria stood to help clear the table with Alexis and Mrs. Morel, but her eyes lit up when she heard the girls’ excitement about taking a bath. “Can I help?” she asked Roxanne.

“Sure,” Roxanne said, lifting Mandy in her arms.

Aria smiled. Ian watched as she began to move in that direction but then stopped and turned to him. What happened next made Ian almost choke on his drink. Aria gave him the most precious look, as if she was asking for his permission
.
Ian smiled and her face lit up brighter. The warm feeling that began in his stomach and spread through his body took him by surprise. As Ian dealt with more new-found feelings, Aria followed Roxanne and the two girls toward the stairs with a noticeable bounce in her step.

As the four made their way upstairs, Ian heard Selene, who’d been virtually quiet the whole evening, say proudly “I can bathe myself, Aunt Roxy.”

“Well we’re just going to help a little.” Roxanne laughed.

When the dishes were cleared and everyone had finished their desert and coffee, Mr. Morel moved to living room. Everyone got up from the table and followed, and so did Ian.
They are all used to this
, Ian thought as he watched each one of them go into the living room and sit with a familiarity that tugged at his heart. Ian had never felt that level of comfort with his family. Michael and Alexis went straight to a large white sofa while Francois Jr. sat on the white loveseat that faced the sofa. Mr. Morel eased down in one of the two gray high-back chairs between the sofa and loveseat.

“You can sit by me,” Mrs. Morel gave Ian a wide smile. She grabbed his hand and pulled him to the sofa. He sat on the end closest to her while she sat in the other high-back chair, beside her husband.

Mr. Morel looked at Ian and took a deep breath. His face was hard to read, but Ian did see love and concern, and...was that a bit of guilt? Mr. Morel cleared his throat. “We have some questions if you feel up to answering them.” He seemed to force the words out.

Ian nodded thoughtfully; he’d known this moment was coming. He would give them all of the answers he could.

“The fact that you’re sitting here means my daughter is…dead.” Mr. Morel choked on the last word. Ian didn’t deny it, so Mr. Morel visibly struggled to continue while an anguished Francois Jr. had to cross the room to hold his sobbing mother. Alexis had sucked in a surprised breath, but she was otherwise silent as Michael rubbed her back.

“Noemi said she would die before she ever darkened my doorstep again. I had assumed that her declaration extended to her children as well,” Mr. Morel almost whispered. A look of defeat covered his suddenly aged face, but he held his emotions under control.

No one spoke for a while as the family absorbed the news. “When…?” Mrs. Morel finally asked through her sobbing.

Ian lowered his head. He knew two things would happen when he made the decision to come here. One was that he would have to tell them the truth about why he and Aria were here. Two, he would tell them what had happened to his mother. So with a heavy heart, he decided to tell them his shame–and he was prepared to receive their hate for causing his mother’s death. He could only hope they would be willing to help Aria and keep her safe until he figured out how to bring an end to their troubles.

“She died giving birth to me…twenty-one years ago,” he answered. His tone was hollow and guarded. He flinched as he met Mrs. Morel’s pained look.

Mrs. Morel gasped, then placed her hand over his. “Oh dear, you never got to meet her.”

Surprised by her response, Ian looked around and was shocked to see each of them giving him a genuine look of understanding and sadness. They were sad,
for him
. “No, ma’am.” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion.

“So why did you take so long to find us?” Alexis asked, her face screwed up like she was going to cry. Her question came out more like a whine because she was unable to hold back her tears at Ian’s painful admission. At that moment, Roxanne and Aria came down the stairs and joined them, both of them looking around at everyone as if they sensed the tension in the room.

Aria was about to sit on the floor, but Alexis moved over some, giving her space to sit next to her. Roxanne sat on the loveseat, now empty because Francois was getting his parents a drink. When Francois returned he had drinks for all of them. Aria and Ian declined the wine and each took a bottle of water. Francois then quietly filled Roxanne in on what she’d missed.

I can do this
. Ian rubbed his hands together, then flattened them on his thighs before running them over his knees. He wasn’t used to the barrage of emotions he was feeling in this situation. “My brother and father rarely talk to me about her, so I had to find things out for myself. I wanted to know what she was like, so I made finding out about her my hobby. I found a copy of my parent’s marriage license and on it her maiden name was Moore but I couldn’t find anything about her under that name. I knew my parents met in college. They didn’t have much in her electronic file, but I was able to get the girl in the records department to let me look at her original paper file which surprisingly hadn’t been destroyed.”

Ian looked at Mrs. Morel. “On her freshman year application she’d listed you as an emergency contact. So I searched for anything I could find about Emile Morel. After a lengthy search I finally found a mention of you in a newspaper here. It was some kind of human interest piece that listed you and all your children. Only, it said that you had a daughter named Noemi Morel, not Noemi Moore. I figure that they were one and the same.”

“You have a brother, and he and your father kept the memory of your mother to themselves?” Mr. Morel’s voice was filled with disbelief, his brows furrowed and his lips thinned.

“Yes, sir. I have an older brother, Richard. My parents adopted him before they conceived me.” Then he added, “He and my father took her death very hard.”

“I’ll say”—Alexis snorted—“to the point where they kept her own son from ever knowing anything about her.”

“Alexis, don’t pass judgment. Ian’s here now, and we should be grateful.” Mr. Morel looked at his wife, who was still visibly upset from the news of her daughter’s death. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, then stood. “I’m going to take Emile up to bed.” He looked at Ian. “If you follow us up, I’ll show you your room.” Everyone stood except Mrs. Morel.

“Goodnight, Ian,” Roxanne said, as she walked over and hugged him. “I’m glad you decided to find us.”

“I’m happy you’re here, nephew. Whenever you’re ready, we’ll tell you everything that we know about your mother.” Francois embraced him,
like an uncle should
.

Michael and Alexis said emotional goodbyes as well, but Alexis held him longer than anyone else had. Other than Mrs. Morel, she seemed the most upset. Each of them embraced Aria as well and said goodnight. Mr. Morel helped his wife up—each member of the family had said something encouraging to her before taking their leave.

Ian noticed that no one bothered to lock the door when they left. Considering what he and Aria just went through, that bothered him. “Mr. Morel,” he called out.

His grandfather stopped near the stairs and looked over his shoulder. “Ian, I’m your grandfather. You can call me Poppa like everyone else, but if that makes you uncomfortable you can just call me Francis or Frank.”

Ian tried the names out in his head, but none of them sounded right. “How about Pop Morel?” At that Mr. Morel smiled and nodded his consent. Then Ian continued, “I didn’t just come here to meet you all. I don’t feel comfortable staying here unless I tell you my purpose in coming.”

“All right,” Mr. Morel said, helping his grieving wife up the bottom step, “let me get Emile to bed and show Aria your room, then you and I can have a talk.”

Ian nodded. As Aria turned to him, he wanted to hug her, but he refrained. Only, she must have been thinking the same thing because she hugged him tight before following Pop Morel up the stairs.

Sitting alone, Ian went over what he needed to say. He couldn’t stay here another minute, let alone a night, without letting his grandfather know that they were running from danger.

When Pop Morel returned, he sat quietly while Ian told him that while he had always planned to come to them, he had sought them out now because he needed their help. He left out what he could of Aria’s assault but he basically laid everything out the way it happened.

Pop Morel didn’t say anything when Ian finished so Ian filled the silence. “I don’t want to bring trouble to your doorstep, but I couldn’t think of anywhere else to take her.”

“You don’t have to explain your reasons for wanting to be with family when things go bad. It’s what family is for. We’ll do what we have to do to protect you both.”

Ian shook his head. “I would never have come here if I thought they could find us. I took my mother’s file from the college years ago. You can believe me when I tell you that it was the only place she listed the name Morel. I doubt anyone who would want to hurt Aria would have a clue about this place.”

“Then there are no worries.” His grandfather set back, but kept their eyes locked. “With that settled, I have to ask you if there’s something more going on between you and Aria now, other than your desire to keep her safe.”

Ian sighed. “She told me she was pregnant the day my uncle’s men attacked her home. We’ve only been together the one time and my mind should be strictly on protecting her and the baby, but I just can’t stop thinking about us as more. She has no reason to want me in her life, and the more I think of what brought us together…she couldn’t. I guess I should be grateful that she doesn’t want me dead or locked away somewhere.”

“Son, maybe you can’t see it, but the way that young lady looks at you… She could have sat anywhere when she came into this room, but she moved to sit near you. When I showed her the room you’ll be sleeping in, she could have asked for a separate room, but you know what she asked me?” Pop Morel chuckled. “Well, you’ll see when you get upstairs.”

Ian wondered what Aria could have asked and he was anxious to find out, but he wanted to really make sure that them staying in the Morel home was all right. “About the room,” he began, “we could stay at a hotel in town or something. I have over nine thousand dollars in cash left, so money isn’t a problem right now. Our arrival here was sudden and totally unexpected, and I don’t want to put you out or anything.”

“Don’t be silly. Ian, you’re my grandson. This will always be your home. Your mother and I rarely saw things the same. She left here because of my stubbornness, changing her name and erasing us from her life forever. After a few years of not hearing from her and when our searching had dried up with nothing, I lost hope of ever seeing her again. Then you showed up today. I may not have my little girl, but you are a piece of her, and I’ll not turn you away.” Pop got to his feet with a determined look on his face. “Now, I need to get upstairs to your grandmother.”

“Pop Morel,”—Ian stood—“I didn’t know my mother, so I can’t claim to know what she was thinking, but I know she must have cared a lot for you because one of the few things I was told was that she was adamant about my name. My full name is Ian François Howl.”

Pop Morel stared at Ian with a glazed-over look for several heartbeats, then patted Ian on the shoulder as he choked back a sob. “Well, isn’t that something?” Then he smiled.