Liam hadn’t moved a muscle from where he sat, but he’d been watching her intently from the moment he walked inside. “I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot the other day,” he said to her. “I gave your ring back to Patrick. I shouldn’t have shamed you out of it.” He glanced at her bare hand. “Where is it?”
She covered her hand. The decision to stop wearing her wedding ring was a deeply personal choice she refused to discuss with a stranger. But Liam probably wasn’t a stranger, and the prospect made her queasy. He looked so much like her father it was scary.
The silence lengthened as Patrick looked between her and Liam.
Finally, Liam spoke. “My mother confessed that Mick Malone brought me to her when I was three years old. That makes me your brother.”
The news was not entirely unexpected but still drove the breath from her lungs. “Oh,” she said.
It was such a puny word and couldn’t begin to encompass the whirlwind of emotions triggered inside. This rough, hard-eyed man with a bitter heart wasn’t who she’d imagined her brother would be.
She clasped her hands to stop them from trembling. She couldn’t assume anything, and they’d always had a plan to identify her brother should someone come forward to assume his identity. They’d never told the police or the newspapers. They needed to keep this tiny detail private so it could never be faked. It was time to use it.
“Take off your right shoe,” she said.
“What?”
“Your shoe. If you’re really my brother, I’ll be able to tell.”
She eyed his shoes. They were battered and worn at the heel, the leather so scuffed it was beginning to split. He didn’t lean over, merely used his left foot to nudge the right shoe off.
“And the sock,” she said.
He gingerly leaned over to insert a finger into the top of his sock and tug it off. His foot looked shockingly white compared to his bronzed face, but he was a man who worked in the sun and had the weathered skin to prove it. His foot looked as pale as her own.
She pushed a footstool toward him. “Put your foot up on the footstool, please.”
He did, and she knelt to examine the bottom of his foot. According to her father, he’d taken Willy to the river to teach him to swim shortly before the kidnapping. The boy had been running along the shoreline and stepped on an oyster shell that cut the bottom of his foot so deeply it required ten stitches.
She held a lantern close. A silvery scar ran along the arch of Liam’s foot. It was an old scar, about three inches long, and impossible to fake.
Should she be delighted or terrified? A tremor began deep inside, and she put the lantern on the floor for safety.
She couldn’t look at him. Tears blurred her eyes because her father had gone to his grave never learning that his son had survived. He had survived! Liam Malone was nothing like who they’d imagined Willy would grow up to become, but her father would have rejoiced no matter what.
“I wish my father could be here to see this.” She still couldn’t look at Liam. If she saw mockery or triumph in his face, she would snap.
“I wish so too.” Liam’s voice was a little rough but not unkind. “My own dad wasn’t someone I’d wish on anyone.”
She rose on legs that felt like water. What was she supposed to do now? Liam Malone wasn’t what she expected or wanted. She’d harbored an irrational dream all her life that her big brother might someday miraculously reappear, so why wasn’t she happier?
She must not let her emotions show. Too many conflicting feelings warred inside, clawing their way to the surface and beyond her control. It was cramped and stifling in here, too many eyes on her.
“Excuse me for a moment.” She rushed for the door to the garden, slamming it shut the moment she was outside. The night air was damp and humid, and she sucked in a deep breath, willing her heartbeat to slow.
Behind her, the door opened.
“Gwen?”
It was Patrick. The good-natured epitome of sainthood was probably ashamed and embarrassed by her. She didn’t want him seeing her like this.
“I’m alright. I just needed some air.”
Footsteps sounded as he drew up alongside her, staring out into the moonlit garden. “I understand this must be a shock for you. Perhaps not an entirely welcome one.”
There was no point in hiding; he could see right through to this small, unworthy part of her.
“I expected him to be different,” she whispered.
Patrick rested a hand on her shoulder, and it felt like strength and understanding flowed from his palm into her. She leaned her cheek against his hand for a moment before standing straight again.
“He’s not a bad man,” Patrick said. “I’ve seen much to admire in him. The two of you are very different, but people of good character can disagree and still be admirable.”
She nodded, knowing it was true, but a tangle of emotions still warred inside her. “It doesn’t seem fair. My parents suffered so much. I don’t understand why God put them through such suffering only to bring Willy back after they’re dead. It’s pointlessly cruel.”
Patrick’s face was carved with compassionate understanding. “I’ve had more time to come to terms with this than you,” he said. “What happened to your parents was a tragedy, but I think that sometimes the Lord sends us into the valley for a reason, even if we don’t understand why. Would your father have torn himself free of the bank and created the college were it not for the loss of his son? We’ll never know, but the Lord was with your father throughout all the sorrow and the pain. And good came out of it. Do you believe that, Mrs. K? Because I do. That’s the meaning of faith.”
Gwen bowed her head. The college wouldn’t have been formed but for what happened to Willy. Patrick’s mother and countless others had been saved because of the college, but what happened to her parents was still hard to accept.
And there were more challenges ahead. Liam was going to be trouble. Her father would have moved heaven and earth to bring William back into the fold of the family, but now it was her job, and it must begin tonight. She would give Liam the same welcome her father would have lavished on his long-lost son. It was the last gift she could give to the generous man who gave so much of himself to the world.
She reached for Patrick’s hand and kissed the back of it. Once again, he had come through for her in her moment of doubt. “I still think you would have been a good priest, Patrick.”
“It’s a good thing I’m not,” he said with a wink at her.
She swallowed hard and led the way back inside. Liam hadn’t moved from the wingback chair, and she took the seat opposite him. The fireplace hearth stretched between them, and Patrick sat on it, almost like a mediator between the two of them.
“Someone attacked you?” she asked, opening the awkward topic.
Liam nodded. “I think one of the Blackstones was behind it.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she snapped. “Our family spent a fortune looking for you. They wouldn’t do anything to harm you.”
Patrick set a calming hand on her knee. “I think it’s possible,” he said gently. “It seems to me your uncle and your grandfather both stand to lose a lot if William Blackstone shows up alive and well.”